Mrs. Pargeter's Plot (5 page)

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 – Brunel 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.

Mrs Pargeter was properly impressed. She turned the pages to reveal more of the villa's exclusive and exotic features. The presentation of the details was very lavish and upmarket.

‘Concrete designed the villa himself, and all,' said Tammy proudly.

‘Very nice.'

Mrs Pargeter passed the brochure across to Truffler, who scrutinized it for a moment before asking, ‘Where is it then? One of the Costas?'

‘Nah. Lot more exotic than that. Brazil.'

‘Blimey. Ronnie Biggs country. I didn't know Concrete was such a jet-setter.'

‘Oh yes. Trouble was,' Tammy went on, drawing a glossy photograph out of the folder, ‘he only done the one. They must've got local builders to do the rest.'

She handed the photograph across. It depicted the same beach, but the villa Concrete had built was now at the centre of a large development. Other identical villas in well-separated plots covered the waterfront.

‘Still,' Tammy reassured herself, ‘I suppose Concrete got paid all right for what he done. Mustn't grumble.'

She smiled with her customary placid good humour, and Mrs Pargeter commented, ‘I can't help noticing, Tammy – I mean, given the fact that your husband's just been arrested for murder, and appears not to have an alibi or anything – you seem remarkably calm about the whole business.'

Tammy shrugged ingenuously. ‘Yeah. Well, no point in worrying, is there?'

‘Why not?'

‘Concrete didn't do it . . .'

‘No-o,' Mrs Pargeter agreed cautiously. ‘We all know that, but I'm not—'

‘. . . so that means he'll get off, dunnit?' the builder's wife concluded with a cheerful grin.

Mrs Pargeter and Truffler Mason exchanged looks, wondering where Tammy Jacket had spent the last fifty years, and both wishing they could share her unshakeable belief in the efficiency of British justice.

Back at Greene's Hotel and before getting the lift, Mrs Pargeter thought she should check that her room had been cleaned of extraneous banana. The girl at Reception told her that Mr Clinton was in his office. And no, she said in some embarrassment, it wouldn't quite be convenient for him to come out at that precise moment. Would, Mrs Pargeter asked, there be any objection to her going into his office to talk to him there? The girl seemed confused by the question, but cautiously concluded that she couldn't really see any objection, no.

A tap on the office door prompted no reaction, though from inside Mrs Pargeter could hear sounds of Hedgeclipper Clinton's voice speaking softly, intimately. Was it possible that he had a lover in there? The idea seemed too incongruous to be allowed credence. She had no idea what Hedgeclipper Clinton did for a sex life, but Mrs Pargeter felt certain that he would always keep business and pleasure firmly separate. Around his hotel, the manager behaved with a ritual decorum which by comparison would have made the average Catholic archbishop at Mass look slovenly.

So she pushed the door open, and was immediately confronted by the object of Hedgeclipper Clinton's affections. On the polished oak desk in front of him, circled by fruit peel and nutshells, sat Erasmus.

The hotel manager was feeding the marmoset grapes with his bare hands, oblivious to the streaks that the creature gleefully smeared on to the black sleeves of his morning coat. And, as he proffered the fruit, Hedgeclipper Clinton murmured blissfully, ‘There's a lovely boy, there's a lovely boy. Who's Daddy's lovely boy then?'

‘“Daddy's”?' echoed Mrs Pargeter, as the door closed behind her. ‘Are you proposing to reverse Darwin's theory, Hedgeclipper?'

The marmoset cocked a wary little old man's eye towards her, and the hotel manager turned guiltily, like a schoolboy surprised with a cigarette. ‘Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs Pargeter. You rather caught me on the hop, I'm afraid. I was just trying to rehabilitate this poor creature. I'm afraid he has been rather traumatized by his recent experiences.'

‘Has he?' She looked sceptically at the monkey. It returned her gaze with defiance, then looked away. It could recognize someone who wasn't going to be seduced by its winsome charm. ‘Poor little mite,' she said drily.

‘They are very sensitive creatures, you know,' Hedgeclipper argued. ‘Very highly strung. My uncle told me the original Erasmus had a maid whose only job was to look after him twenty-four hours a day.'

Mrs Pargeter looked at the hotel manager curiously. ‘Funny, I wouldn't have thought you were the kind of person to have grown up with maids.'

He coloured. ‘Well, no, as I say, this was my uncle . . . one of my uncles. I had a lot of uncles. Ours was a . . . well, quite widely extended family. And I'm afraid it has to be said that my father, and my father's side of the family . . . were an entire flock of black sheep.'

‘Ah.' Mrs Pargeter looked balefully at the monkey. ‘I thought you were going to get rid of that thing. Have you rung the zoo yet?'

‘Well, erm, no.' Hedgeclipper Clinton rubbed his hands in awkward apology. ‘The fact is, I have heard from people that, er, well, that zoos often haven't got room for unwanted pets.'

‘Are you saying you haven't rung them?'

‘Erm, well, not exactly
rung,
no. There's such a problem with abandoned pets, you know. Don't forget that slogan, “A dog is for life, not just for Christmas.”'

‘That is not a dog,' said Mrs Pargeter evenly. ‘That is a monkey. What's more, it's not a pet – or at least it's not my pet. It is just something that was foisted on to me, left in my sitting room by a person or persons unknown.'

‘So you're saying you don't want to keep it?'

‘That, Hedgeclipper, is exactly what I'm saying. Read my lips.'

‘Now I wouldn't want you to be hasty, Mrs Pargeter. It is a fact that monkeys can be trained to do many useful tasks. I mean, they have the advantage of being able to get into buildings through entrances that are too small for human beings. It is possible that in the course of one of your investigations you might find it helpful to have the assistance of—'

‘For heaven's sake, Hedgeclipper, I am not Tarzan! Not even Jane. And I have never felt the lack of a monkey to help me in anything I have wanted to do!'

‘No . . . No . . . Fine . . .' He tried another tack. ‘Erm, of course, monkeys can also become very affectionate and loyal pets, you know.'

‘I'm not even going to argue that point – though I do rather doubt the truth of it, actually. But let me tell you that since the death of the late Mr Pargeter I have survived remarkably well without emotional encumbrances in my life, and I don't propose to change that situation now – certainly not for the sake of a monkey!'

‘Ah.' For a moment, the hotel manager seemed about to counter with another argument, but the vigour of Mrs Pargeter's tone persuaded him against the wisdom of this. ‘Well, right.' He was silent for a moment as he prepared the best order for his next sentence. ‘But I take it that means, Mrs Pargeter, that you would have no objection to
my
keeping Erasmus . . .?'

‘You! Hedgeclipper, for heaven's sake! What on earth do you want with a monkey?'

He bridled, and looked at her with some dignity. ‘I have always had a great affinity with the species. The fact is that my immediate family – the family in which I grew up – was . . . well, I believe the vogue word for it nowadays would be “dysfunctional”. My father was . . . away a lot, and my mother took advantage of his absences to . . . entertain rather a lot of other gentleman friends . . . “uncles” she called them, so far as I was concerned. It was very confusing for a young lad. Quite honestly, every day when I bunked off from school, I didn't know who I'd be coming home to.

‘But there was one fixed point of stability in all this confusion. One of my “uncles”, you see . . .'

‘He stayed around and really looked after you, did he?' Mrs Pargeter gently prompted.

‘No,' Hedgeclipper replied, resentful of the interruption. ‘He only stayed around one night so far as I recall. And spouted all this nonsense about being very rich, and having a house full of maids and other servants. Probably all lies. But he did bring something with him . . .'

‘A monkey?'

Again the hotel manager looked a little sour at having his narrative hurried. ‘Yes, it was a monkey. A monkey called Erasmus. Not a marmoset like this one, as it happens. It was a red-backed squirrel monkey, but a creature of very rare sensitivity. We . . .' He gulped. ‘A relationship developed between us . . . boy and monkey . . . a close bond, one could say.' Emotion threatened the evenness of his voice. ‘Erasmus was the nearest I ever had to a parent, Mrs Pargeter. When he died, I went into decline for nearly two years.'

‘How did that decline manifest itself?' she asked, all solicitude.

‘Robbery with violence mostly,' he replied.

‘Oh, I am sorry.'

‘And a bit of GBH. I got very wild, I'm afraid. It was round that period that I was given the nickname “Hedgeclipper” for . . . well, for obvious reasons.'

Mrs Pargeter seized on the cue. ‘Yes, I've often wondered why exactly you were called –'

He chuckled. ‘Use your imagination.'

She knitted her brow, but her imagination remained, as it always had before when this subject arose, not quite equal to the task it had been set. ‘Could you be a bit more specific, Hedgeclipper?'

But he wanted to move on. His lapse into sentimentality had perhaps been unmanly. In a brusque, businesslike voice, he said, ‘So, if you have no objection, I intend to keep this Erasmus as a pet . . . and, er, confidant.'

‘What, here in the hotel?'

He looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, see how we go. There is an empty suite on the first floor. He could have that.'

‘Yes . . . You don't think other guests might object . . . I mean, to the sort of things he gets up to?'

‘He won't get up to anything he shouldn't. A little darling like this hasn't got an antisocial bone in his body.'

‘Really?'

Hedgeclipper Clinton's face took on a stern expression of political correctness. ‘Mrs Pargeter, you're in serious danger of sounding like one of those people who's prejudiced against monkeys.'

‘Well, there's a surprise.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I bloody am.'

Nigel Merriman's office off Victoria Street was neat and tidy without being lavish. The serried rows of files, the neatly aligned telephones, fax and word processor, the discreetly groomed and unobtrusive secretary, all bore witness to the meticulousness of their owner's mind. It was the office of any efficient solicitor. There was no suggestion that Nigel Merriman had ever specialized in anything other than the legitimate business of his profession.

And indeed he hadn't. The late Mr Pargeter, when considering lawyers, would have been appalled at the idea of employing a bent one. He had always had a great respect for the British legal system, and the particular quality of it that he admired was its elasticity. The point of having a lawyer on your side was not so that that lawyer could bend or change the law, but rather that he could find in existing legal precedent justification for more or less any action that was required.

The fact that the late Mr Pargeter's unavoidable absences from the marital home had been as few and as brief as they had was a testament to his principle of only employing the most skilful and highly qualified legal assistance. He had even at times engaged the services of the most eminent lawyer in the land, Arnold Justiman. So it went without saying that Nigel Merriman, as one of the late Mr Pargeter's protégés, had been trained to the highest level possible. He was extremely good at his job.