“True.” She sighed glumly, took a swig of Chardonnay, and sank back into the limousine’s plush upholstery. “Oh well, maybe we can get some more stuff from Tammy.”
♦
The Jackets lived outside Basildon in a large modern house on which everything had been lavished but taste. The house was full of ‘features’ – windows of different shapes glazed in different styles and colours, walls of exposed brick, walls draped in hessian, walls covered in flock, vinyl and panelling. Interior doors ranged from studded monastic oak to chest-high Western saloon. Artex whirled, carpets swirled, and cocktail trolleys proliferated. There was a lot of wrought-iron, gilt and onyx; coloured glass figurines decorated every surface.
For a moment Mrs Pargeter wondered whether the discordant styles simply reflected their owner’s light fingers. Had Concrete knocked off one item from every job he did and combined them all in his home? Or was his house a kind of living catalogue, round which prospective clients could be conducted to select their own fittings from the wide range on display?
But both explanations seemed at odds with the pride demonstrated by Tammy Jacket as she showed her guests round the place. No, the style was not accidental. This was actually how the Jackets wanted their house to look.
There was another clue to this in Tammy’s dress sense. She wore gilt leggings, and shoes encrusted with diamante. Her jumper was adorned with those random scraps of silver leather, bits of gilded chain and irrelevant tassels that denote purchase in a boutique for people with more money than taste. A spectrum of glittery eye-shadows vied for attention on the crow’s feet around her lids, and the lacquered superstructure of her hair was the colour of a reproduction copper kettle. Tammy Jacket was of a piece with her environment.
But despite her brassy appearance, there was an engaging innocence about the woman. Though He had perhaps been a little parsimonious when He allocated her quota of intelligence, God had more than made up for it by lavish rations of charm. It was impossible not to warm to Tammy Jacket.
The three of them – Tammy, Truffler and Mrs Pargeter – sat on a three-piece suite, whose colours screamed at the carpet. The carpet screamed back at the suite, and both joined forces to scream at their owner’s clothes.
“Cheers,” said Tammy Jacket cosily, and each of them raised a gold-patterned glass, filled with a dayglo drink on whose surface bright paper umbrellas wallowed in an archipelago of fruit.
“So you saw Willie Cass quite recently?” asked Mrs Pargeter, after a surprisingly rewarding sip from her glass.
Tammy nodded. “Oh yes. He come round here. Month or so back. Sunday lunchtime it was. I remember ‘cause it was Concrete’s fifty-fifth birthday. We was giving this big party, lots of friends and that – and then Willie Cass appeared. No manners – he never did have any. I mean, what kind of person comes round to your house Sunday lunchtime when you’re giving a party what he hasn’t been invited to?”
“The kind of person who wants a lot of witnesses to see them turn up?” Truffler suggested.
“Oh, I never thought of that,” said Tammy.
“And how did Willie behave when he was here?” asked Mrs Pargeter.
“Dreadful. Way out of order. He was drunk, I reckon. Must’ve been. Kept saying he wanted money from Concrete – or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Didn’t say exactly, but it wasn’t a trip to Euro-disney.”
“No.” Mrs Pargeter looked thoughtful. “I think you’re right, Truffler. Sounds like a heavy set-up for a very public row. How did it end, Tammy?”
“Well, eventually we just had to turn him out. Fortunately, wasn’t a problem. Lot of Concrete’s, er, business associates was here, so they dealt with it.”
“But Concrete himself wasn’t violent to Willie?”
“No, no, Mrs Pargeter. Concrete’s not a violent man,” said Tammy Jacket with the sublime confidence of a trusting wife.
“Not violent, perhaps…” Mrs Pargeter probed, “… but he still kept a gun here? I understand the gun that killed Willie Cass has been identified as belonging to your husband.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Six
If Mrs Pargeter had been hoping that her question would produce a reaction of guilt, she was disappointed. Tammy’s shrug dismissed it as an irrelevance. “Yeah, the gun was here, but that was from way back. Kind of thing you forget you’ve still got. You know, like the other day, I was in the loft and I come across a baby buggy. Got to be twenty years since we last needed that, but, you know, you don’t think about things when you’re not using them.”
Truffler looked sceptical. “And you’re saying that’s how it was with the gun?”
There was no doubting the innocence of Tammy’s reply. “Quite honestly, it was only when the police asked, I remembered we’d still got it.”
“Except you hadn’t still got it,” Mrs Pargeter pointed out.
“No. Right. Well, it’d been nicked, hadn’t it?”
“But you’ve no idea when it was nicked?”
“Sorry, Truffler.” Tammy looked contrite. “When the police asked, I told them where we kept it, but when we looked, it wasn’t there.”
Mrs Pargeter and the detective exchanged glances. The openness of Tammy Jacket’s naivety was of the kind that could give wrong signals to a suspicious policeman. Her artless statements of truth could sound like impudent defiance, and all too easily do a disservice to her husband’s cause.
Mrs Pargeter cleared her throat. “Going back to Willie Cass…”
“Mm?”
“He didn’t say why he wanted money from Concrete? Didn’t say what kind of hold he might have over your husband? Didn’t give any inkling of what it was about?”
Tammy Jacket shook her head. “No. But if it was something wonky, it must’ve gone back a long way, ‘cause Concrete’s been straight since… well, since after your husband died, Mrs Pargeter.” There was a pause. “I never actually met your husband, but from all accounts –”
The paragon’s widow, unequal at that moment to another tribute, moved the conversation quickly on. “Yes, yes, he was.” She fixed her violet-blue eyes sternly on Tammy’s hazel ones. “But you’re sure that since then Concrete hasn’t been involved in anything he shouldn’t have been?”
“No, no,” the loyal wife insisted instinctively. Then honesty prevailed. “Well…”
Mrs Pargeter was immediately alert. “What?”
“Well…” Tammy confessed with reluctance, “he did sometimes do jobs for cash and forget the VAT – the VAT man’s after him for that, actually – but then, I mean, that goes with the territory. He’s a builder, after all, isn’t he?”
Mrs Pargeter relaxed. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“And a very good builder at that,” Truffler Mason endorsed. “Job Concrete done on that tunnel between Spud-U-Like and the Midland Bank in Milton Keynes – magic. Wonderful feat of engineering – Brunei wouldn’t’ve been ashamed of that one. Don’t you agree, Mrs Pargeter?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Truffler,” his employer replied frostily.
Truffler covered his uncharacteristic lapse as best he could. “No, no, of course not.”
Tammy Jacket added to her husband’s glowing testimonials. “Concrete was even asked to do work abroad, you know, he was that good.”
“Oh yes?” The casual nature of Mrs Pargeter’s response belied her alertness.
Tammy reached to a brass and onyx magazine rack beside her chair and pulled out a glossy folder, which she opened to extract an equally glossy prospectus. On the cover was a photograph of a lavish sun-drenched villa standing at the centre of a secluded beach. Deep blue sea and lighter blue sky framed the perfect setting. The builder’s wife could not restrain her pride as she handed the prospectus across. “Couple of years back he done this,” she announced.