by Simon Brett
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 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 o
ne 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.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Seven
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 proteges, had been trained to the highest level possible. He was extremely good at his job.
But his professional skills had not proved equal to the task of getting much more information out of Concrete Jacket. “Of course I asked him,” the solicitor confided to Mrs Pargeter, “but my client denies there’s anything anyone would want to blackmail him about.”
She put down her tea cup on Nigel Merriman’s desk and sighed in exasperation. “But if Willie Cass appeared at his house in front of lots of witnesses demanding a payoff, Concrete must realize –”
“I know, I know. I have made all those points to him, but he still says there’s nothing. Presumably he’s afraid that, by admitting Willie Cass did have a reason to blackmail him, he’s going to make himself look even guiltier.”
Mrs Pargeter nodded. “That could be the reason. It’s also possible that he’s afraid of implicating other people.”
The solicitor nodded slowly, taking in the new idea. “I hadn’t thought of that, Mrs Pargeter.”
She sighed again. “If only we could get someone to talk to him…”
This, however, was perceived as a slight on Nigel Merriman’s professionalism. “I have talked to him,” he said. “We’ve known each other a long time. I like to think there’s a good basis of trust between us. But, even so, he won’t tell me anything.”
“Hm. Presumably the police aren’t that worried what the blackmail threat was about. It’s enough for them that a lot of people saw Willie Cass threatening Concrete and demanding money from him.”
“Yes. As is usually the case, so long as the police get a conviction, they’re not that bothered about the detail. I’m afraid, Mrs Pargeter, it does look as if my client has been – as he himself might put it – very thoroughly stitched up.”
The solicitor spoke these words as if they put an end to the matter, but Mrs Pargeter was not so easily daunted. “Well then,” she said with a sweet smile, “it’s up to us to unpick the stitches, isn’t it, Nigel?”
The solicitor coloured at the intimate use of his Christian name. But he rather liked it.
♦
Unpicking stitches from Concrete Jacket didn’t prove easy. Mrs Pargeter arranged to visit him in Wandsworth Prison that afternoon, and deployed her full armoury of blandishment, cajolery and importunity. Unusually, however, these potent weapons were on this occasion without effect. Concrete was pleased to see her, was polite and amiable, but gave nothing. Whenever direct questions about Willie Cass’s murder arose, he clammed up.
Eventually, in exasperation, Mrs Pargeter exclaimed, “But don’t you realize – if you don’t do anything to save yourself, you’re going to get sent down for a great many years.”
“If that’s the way it’s gotta be,” the builder responded doggedly, “then that’s the way it’s gotta be.”
“But what about Tammy? What about the kids? What kind of a future are they going to have if you’re put away for life?”
His face betrayed how much her words hurt, but he still didn’t change his position. Concrete Jacket stayed silent.
A less positive personality would have been cast down by this lack of reaction. Mrs Pargeter, however, had always regarded a setback simply as a stimulus to renewed endeavour.
♦
Maybe Hedgeclipper Clinton might know some way to get through to Concrete, Mrs Pargeter thought, as she arrived back at Greene’s Hotel early that evening. Though she had never been privy to any detail of the varied projects undertaken by the late Mr Pargeter, she was aware that many of her husband’s former colleagues had at times worked together. And that there had been amongst them a network of camaraderie, which might offer some recollected clue to the builder’s secretive behaviour.
There was no one on Reception. As she had done the previous day, Mrs Pargeter crossed the foyer and knocked on the door of Hedgeclipper Clinton’s office. Once again there was no response, and on this occasion she could hear through the door no murmured endearments, nor any chattering from Erasmus.
She felt an unaccountable dread as she turned the doorhandle, and the sight inside the office justified her premonition. The room had been ransacked – not systematically as if someone had been searching for something, but randomly as if some huge beast had been – literally – throwing its weight about.
Computers and telephones had be
en smashed, a wall-safe pulled bodily from its setting, light fittings ripped from the ceiling, and the furniture reduced to matchwood. Only two chairs had survived the onslaught, and on these, strapped with nylon cords, their mouths shut off by carpet tape, sat the hotel manager and one of his receptionists.
Mrs Pargeter rushed across to free the prisoners. Ladies first. With an apologetic shrug for the inevitable pain, she ripped the tape off the girl’s mouth, then attacked the ropes that held her.
“What happened?” she demanded, but the girl was hysterical and could not form an answer. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll just get Mr Clinton free, and we’ll find you a nice hot, sweet cup of tea,” Mrs Pargeter said soothingly.
The girl nodded through her tears, as Mrs Pargeter performed the same rough surgery on the tape across the manager’s mouth.
Hedgeclipper was a lot more vocal than his underling. “He took Erasmus!” he screamed in fury. “The bastard took Erasmus!”
“Don’t fret. I’m sure the monkey won’t come to any harm,” Mrs Pargeter reassured meaninglessly. “Now you just hold still while I get these knots undone.”
By the time the manager was free, the receptionist had recovered sufficiently to make a practical suggestion. “Shall I go and phone the police?” she asked through the final spasm of her sobs.
Mrs Pargeter looked sharply across to check Hedgeclipper Clinton’s reaction. Her own attitude to the police was one of great respect and admiration, but she knew there were certain occasions when it was simply not worth adding to their already excessive workload.
Hedgeclipper’s reaction revealed that this was one of those occasions. “No,” he said judiciously. “I think we might be better advised to keep this quiet. We do have to think of our guests. The presence in the hotel of a crowd of noisy policemen would be bound to disturb the more sensitive amongst them.”
