“You had no means of knowing they were on to me. It was my own fault for thinking I could get away with the Lady Entwistle disguise. You warned me not to try that on, Truffler, but I just wouldn’t listen, would I?”
“No…” he agreed, slightly cheered by her redistribution of blame. “Look, is there anything else you need me to do – apart from what we’ve talked about?”
Mrs Pargeter was thoughtful for a moment before she replied, “No, no, there’s something else I need doing, but… sewing up the case against Blunt and Clickety Clark is more urgent. You get on with that.”
“OK. What was the other thing needs doing? You might as well tell me.”
“Just I think I ought to have another word with Fossilface O’Donahue. Job he done on Gary turned out for the good, as it happened, but that was pure chance. Fossilface is still a bit of a loose cannon out there. I think I ought to try to stop his programme of ‘restitooshun’.”
“Well, it’s soon going to come to a natural end, innit? Not many people left he needs to pay back, are there?”
“No, I suppose not. Still feel I should have a word with him, though. Who does he still need to make ‘restitooshun’ to, as a matter of interest?”
“Well, he’s done you… me – blast his eyes!… Keyhole Crabbe… Hedgeclipper… now Gary… I guess there’s only Concrete Jacket left, of the ones I know about. And he can’t touch Concrete while he’s in the nick, can he?”
“He touched Keyhole while he was in the nick, didn’t he?”
“Hm. You may have a point.”
“Truffler, tell me… in what way did Fossilface do the dirty on Concrete? Just so’s we know what we may be up against.”
“Worse thing he ever done to Concrete was… he didn’t call the police.”
“What do you mean?”
“Concrete was working on this complicated job. It was an art theft. Couple of paintings from a gallery in Cork Street. One was a Rembrandt, I seem to remember. Concrete’d got it worked out. Soon as he broke in, the gallery’s alarm’d sound in the local nick. Boys in blue’d set off to get him, but just when they’re near, Fossilface O’Donahue, who’s got this radio set that cuts in on their frequency, is meant to ring through, say it was a false alarm, and could they go off to deal with an environmentalists’ riot outside the Brazilian Embassy? Would’ve worked a treat… only Fossilface never made the call.”
“Ah.”
“Concrete was away from his missus four years after that.”
“Oh dear.”
“Mind you, what kind of ‘restitooshun’ Fossilface O’Donahue would plan for that… I just cannot begin to imagine.”
“No. Anyway, don’t you worry about that, Truffler. You just concentrate on what we discussed. I’ll have a go at contacting Fossilface. Talk soon – OK? Bye.”
She returned the handset to its cradle, and took a long sip from her drink.
“Truffler getting on all right then, is he?” called Gary from the front.
“He’s fine. Just sorting out the loose ends of the case. Checking whether there was anyone else involved apart from Clickety Clark and Blunt.” With a triumphant grin, Mrs Pargeter turned to Tammy. “Truffler’s going to build up a nice little dossier – all the details, all the evidence – which is guaranteed to get those two villains put away for a very long time…” She took the other woman’s hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “And then we’ll get Concrete off the hook.”
Tammy Jacket smiled her wordless gratitude.
♦
No one would have suspected that the elegant white-haired lady who stepped out of a Rolls-Royce in a street near Victoria Station had, only an hour and a half earlier, been driving a cultivator/tractor through a series of hedges. She looked exactly like someone whose sole business of the day had been a visit to a solicitor. She looked as decorous and correct as the shining brass plate on the door outside which the Rolls-Royce had parked. The plate read: Nigel Merriman – Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths.
“Sure you don’t want me to hang around?” asked Gary, as he closed the car door behind her.
“No, you go and see if Truffler needs any help.” Mrs Pargeter leant through the open back window to kiss Tammy Jacket tenderly on the cheek. “You’ll be fine, love. Take care now.” Then she turned back to Gary. “And one of your drivers will get Tammy home safely?”
The woman in the back of the car looked at her with some alarm. “It’s all right, I promise,” Mrs Pargeter reassured her. “Those two won’t come troubling you again.”
“It’s not just that,” said Tammy. “It’s the thought of going back to all the horrible mess, and seeing all my lovely things smashed and –”
“No worries,” Mrs Pargeter laid a hand on her arm. “I’ve had the place tidied up for you. Looks just like new – well, nearly.”
“Oh, Mrs Pargeter…” was all that Tammy Jacket could say. She was almost weeping with gratitude.
“Who you get to do the clean-up?” asked Gary, in a whisper.
“Guy called Meredith the Mop. Found his name in my late husband’s address book. Apparently he’s very good at tidying up after things.”
“I’ll say! He did that mop-up operation after the Crouch End Pizza House incident. Lovely job he done. Got all the burn-marks off the bar counter, filled in the bullet-holes in the walls, and nobody could imagine how he managed to get all the blood out of the table cloths. I tell you, it was –”
The chauffeur caught the expression in the violet-blue eyes that were trained on his, and decided that he’d probably said enough.
“Gary,” Mrs Pargeter intoned glacially, “I have no idea what on earth you’re talking about.” Then she leant once again in through the car window. “Chin up, Tammy. You just go home and wait for Concrete. Won’t be long now till he’s home, I promise you that.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Thirty-Three
Mrs Pargeter’s eyes sparkled as she rounded off her exposition of the case. There was something very satisfying about having all the details sorted out, all the loose ends neatly tied up. Opposite her sat Nigel Merriman, formal and impassive, giving no reaction to her revelations, but occasionally scribbling a note on the legal pad in front of him.
At the conclusion of her narrative, he asked, “And you say Mr Mason’ll be able to prove all this?”
She grinned confidently. “Oh yes, Truffler’s sorting out the evidence even as we speak. And he’s good at that sort of stuff. It’ll be rock solid, don’t you worry.”
“Hm. And you’re sure it was just the two of them…” he looked down at his pad, and fastidiously pronounced the unfamiliar names, “… Clickety Clark and Blunt… who organized the whole thing? You don’t think that someone else may have been organizing them?”
“I don’t think there was anyone else, but Truffler’s checking that out, too. Don’t worry, Nigel. There’s easily enough to get Concrete Jacket off now, isn’t there?”
Nigel Merriman’s face took on the expression of professional caution that goes with the job, but he couldn’t help agreeing. “Oh, certainly. I don’t see how the authorities could possibly keep hold of my client if all this were to be made public. No, you’ve done extremely well, Mrs Pargeter.”
“Thank you,” she said modestly.
There was a knock at the door behind her. “Come in,” said the solicitor automatically and then continued addressing Mrs Pargeter. “You seem to have sorted out the whole thing with admirable efficiency. In fact, there’s really only one detail in the case you got wrong.”