something Latin masters have spent many generations trying to din into their charges: a question expecting the answer Yes. Though in fact ‘demanding’ might be a more accurate description.
“And what if I don’t want it done?” asked the driver, a mournful, long-faced man in a brown suit.
The youth flexed his threatening biceps and loomed over the Maxi as if he could crush it like a cigarette packet. “Well,” he replied softly. “I think you might regret that decision, guv. I’m sure you wouldn’t like –”
But suddenly, as he recognized the driver, his whole attitude and body language changed. The beefy frame seemed to shrink into a posture of conciliation – even supplication – as he mouthed the name, ‘Truffler’.
“Right. I’ve been looking for you.” The tall man leant across to open the passenger door. “Get in, Seb.”
“But I –”
“Get in,” Truffler repeated in a voice that eliminated the option of refusal. The boy called Seb looked across at his fellow extortioner, shrugged helplessly and got into the Maxi’s passenger seat. At that moment the lights changed to green and the car lurched forward.
After a few minutes of silence, Truffler asked, “How’s your dad?”
“All right,” the boy replied, his South London rasp giving way to the rounded vowels of a public school education.
“He’s a good lad, Stan,” said Truffler. “You keeping in touch with him, are you, Seb?”
“Oh yes. Saw him at Visiting on Sunday.”
“Last time
“I’m not in trouble with the law,” Seb protested, perhaps a little too vehemently.
The older man’s tired eyes flicked across at him. “So what’s with all this windscreen-cleaning business then?”
“That’s not illegal… exactly.” But the boy’s colour and hesitation showed he wasn’t even convincing himself.
Truffler pursed his lips and drove on towards his office.
¦
When she brought the coffee in, Bronwen looked with undisguised admiration at Seb’s physique. “You know,” she mused, to no one in particular, “I often think the answer to my problems might be a toyboy…”
Seb grinned, but Truffler came back at her in a tone which, by his normally gentle standards, was harsh. “Yeah? And I sometimes think the answer to your problems might be getting that filing finished.”
She pouted and looked round the office with mock despair. Certainly the prospect of filing the debris that covered every surface there was a daunting one.
“You know I don’t mean in here,” said Truffler. “This lot
And it was, according to his system. The shoeboxes of papers he had gone through with Mrs Pargeter still lay piled over other layers on his desk, and the rest of the room looked as if a bomb had gone off in a paper factory. But to Truffler it all made sense. He could put his hand on any document he required within seconds.
“I meant,” he went on sourly, “get on with the filing out in your office.”
With another pout, and a little wiggle of her bottom for Seb’s benefit, Bronwen flounced out of the office, closing the door behind her with unnecessary force.
Seb followed her progress with a smirk, but Truffler quickly brought him back to the matter in hand. “You were saying about your dad having had this offer.”
The boy picked up his coffee and took a sip. “It wasn’t exactly an offer. More like… an investment opportunity.”
“And it come to him in the nick?”
“That’s right.”
“Cause he’s… what?… three years in now, is he?”
“Two and a half. Into a seven-year stretch. Mind you, with good behaviour and –”
“Yes, sure, sure.” Truffler nodded impatiently. “So what was this ‘investment opportunity’?”
“Well,” said Seb in his best Captain of School accent, “my father, like a lot of people in the nick, he suffers financially.”
“Right.”
“I mean, obviously he’s got a bit stashed away… stuff that wasn’t recovered from the last job. It’s a tidy sum, but, you know, with inflation and what-have-you…” The boy shook his head gloomily, “… well, seven years on it’s not going to be worth that much.”
“He hasn’t got it on deposit or…?”
Seb drew his lips tight across his teeth as he explained, “Only in a manner of speaking. And you don’t get much interest from a deposit that’s six foot under Epping Forest.”
“Ah,” said Truffler, understanding. “No. No, you don’t.”
“Anyway,” the boy continued, “the old man’ll be pretty close to retirement, really when he comes out… and he’ll have lost a lot of his contacts, so even if he did want to get back into the business, he might find it tough… and, well, there’s no way he’s going to keep my mother in the style that she’s become accustomed to on a state pension… so it’s no surprise he was interested when he heard about this way of making his money work for him while he’s inside.”
“Do you know the details of what it was, this investment plan?” asked Truffler urgently.
But Seb shook his head. “No. I do know it involved Mum taking out a second mortgage on the house.”
“Oh?”
“Needed to raise fifty grand,” the boy explained. “That’s the stake.” Answering the alarm in Truffler’s eyes, he went on, “It’s no problem. All be paid off again when dad gets out and reclaims the Epping Forest stash. And in the meantime that fifty grand will’ve doubled? Trebled? Who can say?”
Truffler looked sceptical. In his line of business he had come across too many investment opportunities guaranteed to double or treble the stake of the poor sucker who put his money into them. “But you don’t know what the actual investment was?” he asked. Seb shook his head. “Or how Stan got to hear about it?”
The boy brightened. “Oh yes. I do know that. It was through a bloke who was in the nick with the old man.”
“What was the bloke’s name?”
“Blunt. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Oh yes,” said Truffler, slowly nodding his head. “That certainly means something to me.”
? Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ?
Eighteen
Mrs Pargeter’s wardrobe was both extensive and expensive. It very firmly reflected her character. Not for her were the muted fondant colours patronized by senior members of the British Royal Family. Not for her the subtle beiges and fawns which some women of ample proportions favour as a means to anonymity, to draw attention away from their bulk.
Mrs Pargeter had never attempted to hide her dimensions. She knew that such a task was hopeless, anyway, and that apparent success at it could only be self-delusion; but, apart from that, she had never felt the need to disguise her outline. Rather she gloried in it. Mrs Pargeter had always felt herself to be the right size for the person she was – and certainly the late Mr Pargeter had never had any complaints.
He had always been a lavish provider – and even, in some cases, purchaser – of clothes for his wife. He knew her style exactly, and on his varied travels would always be on the lookout for the bold silks and cottons that so flattered her generous curves.
Since his death, Mrs Pargeter had had to do all her own shopping, but so distinct was her sartorial identity that she never had any problems making decisions about what to buy. A dress or a suit was either right for her or wrong. Trousers and hats were never right for her. Nor were tights; Mrs Pargeter always wore silk stockings. Her underwear, even though her husband was no longer around to appreciate it, remained frivolously exotic. And the right shoes for, Mrs Pargeter always had surprisingly high heels, which gave a pleasing tension to her well-turned calves and ankles.
