“Well, I’ll wait to hear from you.” Mrs Pargeter stepped towards the limousine. Clickety Clark moved forward to open the back door for her.
“Yes, Lady Entwistle, fine.” He moved his head closer to hers as she was about to get inside. “And, with regard to the other matter… the, er, ‘investment opportunity’, I’ll have to make a few enquiries, but hopefully, by the time We meet up to look at the contacts, I’ll be able to fill you in a bit more on that.”
“You couldn’t fill me in a little bit more now, could you?” she asked hopefully. “Just tell me what sort of area of investment we’re talking about?”
The photographer shook his head. “At the appropriate time,” he said with a wink.
Mrs Pargeter resigned herself to not getting more information at that stage. She wasn’t too upset. Her Lady Entwistle act had definitely engaged Clickety Clark’s interest in her as a potential investor. He was hooked.
She got into the limousine and he closed the door after her. “Right you are,” she said imperiously.
The uniformed chauffeur put the vehicle into gear. “Very good, milady,” said Gary, who, needless to say, was in on the deception.
Lady Entwistle gave the photographer a regal wave as the limousine slid forward. Her last view of Clickety Clark was of a lined face almost bisected by a sycophantic smile.
The minute she was out of sight, however, the smile dropped sharply from his lips and a hard shrewd light came into his eye. Mrs Pargeter was too far away to see him nod to the driver of a parked blue Jaguar on the other side of the road.
The man’s dark glasses turned up from the paper he was pretending to read, and he caught the photographer’s eye. Clickety Clark gave a little jerk of his head towards the departing limousine. The driver nodded and started the engine. His car began to follow Gary’s.
Mrs Pargeter was unsuspicious of surveillance, so she did not look round to see who was driving the Jaguar a few cars behind. She probably wouldn’t have recognized the man in his dark glasses, anyway.
Had he taken them off, though, she might have been able to identify a face she had seen twice – once in a photograph on Truffler Mason’s desk, and once on the screen of Ricky Van Hoeg’s computer.
The man was Blunt.
? Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ?
Twenty-Two
Truffler Mason’s car was like an extension of his clothes. Indeed, if any automobile manufacturer had tried to design a vehicle which breathed the image of tired sports jacket, crumpled beige trousers and black Gas Board Inspector shoes, they would undoubtedly have come up with a dented brown Maxi. As a symbol of the post-war decline of the British motor industry, the car had about it an air of failure, which exactly matched Truffler’s own aura of defeatism.
In fact, of course, the detective was considerably more positive and cheerful than he appeared. At that detail the comparison between man and car ceased. The Maxi did not possess a secret, more attractive, persona.
It was four o’clock in the morning. The Maxi was parked in a dark lay-by on a country road a few miles out of Bedford. The meagre moonlight outlined two figures in the front. Truffler sat in the driving seat. Beside him was Keyhole Crabbe. Both held plastic cups. Truffler’s contained coffee; Keyhole was just replenishing his with whisky. He proffered the half-bottle towards the detective.
“Sure you won’t?”
Truffler shook his large head decisively. “No, no. Driving. Wouldn’t do any good for me to get stopped – particularly with you on board.”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t do you a lot of good either, come to that. What with you being kind of ‘absent without leave’, as it were.”
“True.”
The detective took a thoughtful sip of coffee before continuing his debriefing. “So you reckon there’s a lot of them in the same position?” he asked eventually.
“Certainly four in my nick. I’ve been asking around. And, by coincidence – or possibly not by coincidence – they’re all blokes who’ve got a stash hidden away somewhere.”
“And all blokes who’ve been offered some ‘investment opportunity’ while they’re inside?”
“Right. And in each case it was Blunt who made the offer.”
“Yes…” Truffler nodded ruminatively. “He’s on a permanent tour of Her Majesty’s prisons, old Blunt, isn’t he? Short stretches here, there and everywhere.”
“Hm.”
“But I really can’t cast him in the part of the geezer who thought up the scam – if it is a scam. He hasn’t got the braincells for that kind of work. He’s just muscle. Got to be someone else behind him.”
“Right. ‘Course, the other thing all these blokes I’ve talked to in the nick have in common is that in each case their wife or girlfriend or whoever’s managed to raise fifty grand for their stake.”
“But none of them’ll tell you what the money’s for?”
“No. I’ve tried all my favourite methods of winkling it out – usually very effective they are too – but this time no dice. It’s all very secret… like they was almost embarrassed about it.”
Truffler grimaced ruefully. “The perfect con.”
“Howdja mean?”
“One of the many wise things the late Mr Pargeter told me was that the best cons’re always the ones where the people who’ve got conned are too ashamed to own up to what they done.” Keyhole Crabbe nodded agreement to this truism, as Truffler Mason went on, “Anything else your four got in common?”
The prisoner thought about his answer for a moment. “Just that they’re all in for longish stretches. None be out for another three years, anyway.”
Truffler rubbed his chin. The rasp of bristles was unnaturally loud in the silent car. “I wonder…”
A new recollection came to Keyhole. “One other thing too…”
“What’s that?”
“Couple of them mentioned that their old ladies’ve been abroad while they been inside.”
Truffler was instantly alert. “What, off with boyfriends you reckon? Doing naughties? Having it off with randy geezers who’re lining themselves up for broken legs – or worse – when the husbands get out?”
Keyhole Crabbe quickly dampened such tabloid speculation. “No, no. Nothing like that. No Roger the Lodgers involved. The husbands knew all about these trips, seemed pleased about them even.”
“But surely…”
The prisoner opened his hands wide in apology. “All I got, Truffler. Not another dickie bird. Sorry. I’ll go on probing, of course, but, like I say, they keep clamming up on me.”
“Hm.” Truffler knew his informant too well to push for more. If Keyhole Crabbe said that was all he’d got, then that was all he’d got. “Well, can’t thank you enough. Mrs Pargeter’ll be really grateful to you.”
“Least I could do for her,” Keyhole shrugged.
“I’ll follow up through my contacts in a few other nicks,” said Truffler. “See if it’s happening anywhere else.” He turned the key in the ignition, and the Maxi shuddered into asthmatic, apathetic life. “Right then, Keyhole… better get you back inside, eh?”
“Yeah.”
The car moved tentatively out of the lay-by in the direction of Bedford Prison. After a moment of silence, Keyhole Crabbe said, “On the other hand…”
“What’s that?”
“Think perhaps I should pay a call on the old lady.”
“Oh, right.”
“If it’s not out your way… not holding you up?”
“No problem.”
“It’s not for me, you understand,” Keyhole confided, “but Mrs Crabbe… well, she does like her conjugal visits.”
