Mrs Pargeter looked dubious. “Truffler, could you make that a five-year-old child? We are dealing with the police here, after all.”
Truffler Mason nodded and continued typing.
? Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ?
Thirty-Six
The Rolls-Royce, once again gleaming and free of its wedding encumbrances, was parked on a double yellow line directly outside Bow Street Police Station. Gary drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Hedgeclipper Clinton sat tensely forward in the back seat. Even Erasmus seemed subdued. Only Mrs Pargeter was serenely relaxed, leaning back against the car’s luxurious upholstery with a vodka Campari in her hand.
“He’s been in there a long time,” Gary murmured after a silence. “You don’t think they’ve nicked him, do you?”
“What on earth could they nick him for?” asked Mrs Pargeter reasonably. “Truffler’s got no form, no previous convictions, and what he’s doing at the moment is certainly not illegal. It’s the act of a public-spirited, law-abiding citizen. The police should fall over themselves to welcome people like that. Save them a lot of effort if every member of the public started doing their job for them.”
“Hm.” Gary didn’t look entirely convinced. “I don’t know. I still don’t like it. Going voluntarily into a police station… well, doesn’t feel natural. Looks to me like asking for trouble.”
“That attitude,” said Mrs Pargeter with some asperity, “is a hangover from your past, young Gary. And it’s something you should very definitely have grown out of by now.”
“Yes, all right,” he mumbled truculently.
“Truffler’s too canny to say the wrong thing, anyway. Isn’t he?” said Hedgeclipper Clinton, without complete conviction.
“Of course he is. Honestly, what’s got into you two? You’re behaving like a pair of teenage girls at their first dance. Truffler had to see to it personally that the dossier got into the hands of the right person, and that’s what he’s doing. There won’t be any problem.”
At that moment a familiar tall figure emerged from the doors of the police station and walked in a leisurely fashion towards the Rolls-Royce.
“See?” said Mrs Pargeter.
Gary started the engine as Truffler settled into the back seat between Hedgeclipper Clinton and his employer. “They took it all right?” she asked.
“No problem,” Truffler replied.
“And you’re sure they’ll act on it straight away?”
“Oh yes. They’re raring to go. I should think a squad car’s arriving at Nigel Merriman’s office even as we speak.”
He sounded so confident, Mrs Pargeter couldn’t help asking, “What did you say?”
Truffler gave a wolfish grin. “I told them it was three certain arrests, couple of percentage points up on the local clear-up rate, and a good chance of an OBE for the officer in charge.”
“Lovely, Truffler.”
“But they can’t’ve just let you walk out. Didn’t they demand you give them a contact number?” asked Hedgeclipper Clinton, still uneasy.
“Course they did.”
“So did you give them one?”
“Course I did.”
Mrs Pargeter smiled in pleasant anticipation. “And who will they get through to if they ring it, Truffler?”
“London Zoo, Mrs P. Then they can have a chat with some of Erasmus’s relatives, can’t they?”
Mrs Pargeter chuckled as the Rolls-Royce drove off into the night.
? Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ?
Thirty-Seven
The following day, Truffler Mason had a piece of good news. The manager of the betting shop beneath his office told him that a lot of papers had been found stuffed into a skip in their back yard. On inspection, these turned out to be all the detective’s tatty old records, complete to the last scribbled bus ticket.
Truffler was ecstatic. True, some of the precious dust on his papers had been dislodged in their removal, but he felt confident that that would be replaced in time. Even after such a few days, the gleam had already gone from his new office furniture, and the surfaces were beginning to get comfortably cluttered with shreds of paper, newspaper clippings and encrusted coffee cups.
Truffler decided, however, that he would not entirely reject Fossilface O’Donahue’s misplaced generosity. Though the detective himself would never change his old methods of finding information, after the scare of believing he’d lost the lot he could recognize the value of having his irreplaceable archive backed up on computer.
To that end he dispatched Bronwen off on a month’s computer course. As a matter of fact, his motives for doing this were not unmixed. While he certainly did want to get his archive computerized, he could also see the advantages of having his secretary out of the office until she’d calmed down a little after the courtroom encounter with her latest ex-husband.
In fact, as things turned out, Truffler didn’t gain much from his actions. On the course Bronwen met another man who, by the time she came back to the office, she was clearly lining up to be her next husband.
Truffler Mason resigned himself to the prospect of history repeating itself again… and again… and again…
¦
At Mrs Pargeter’s plot, it was as if nothing had changed. True, Willie Cass’s body was no longer lying at the bottom of the embryo wine cellar, nor was there any vestige left on the site of the police investigations. All their tapes and canvas screens, cars and caravans, had gone. The foundations of the house once again marked out their bald relief map, rendered rather desolate by the thin rain that fell unremittingly.
But the weather couldn’t dampen Mrs Pargeter’s spirits. Now she was back standing on her plot, all the excitement of what was going to happen there once again caught hold of her. Her high heels picked their way almost skittishly through the mud and caked cement dust.
She turned triumphantly to Concrete Jacket, whose gumboots moved along more sedately behind her. “It’s going to be great, isn’t it?”
“Certainly is, Mrs P.”
“And everything all right over at your place?”
“You bet.”
“Tammy got her home back just like she wants it?”
“Even better.” He grinned. “Thing is, all that destruction they done was kind of a blessing in disguise. Give me the opportunity to do the place over, even better. Whole new lot of features I’ve put in.”
With great control, Mrs Pargeter managed to stop herself from wincing at the thought of what new decorative extravagances Concrete might have perpetrated.
“Glad to hear it. So…” she continued, tactfully casual, “… with those three villains inside and you cleared of everything, freed without a stain on your character, and your own house all sorted out to Tammy’s satisfaction… there’s nothing to stop you getting on here now, is there, Concrete?”
He grinned magnanimously. “Not a thing, Mrs Pargeter. Have you settled into the house by Christmas, no problem.”
They were now once again standing by what would in time be the wine cellar. It was loosely boarded over, as it had been on their previous visit. Mrs Pargeter looked down and grinned wryly. “Hope we haven’t got any more nasty surprises in there, Concrete.”
