Mrs. Pargeter's Plot Read Online Free

thing, Mrs P. We’ll get Concrete off the hook, no problem.’
    â€˜I hope so,’ said Mrs Pargeter, rising to leave. ‘Otherwise I’m never going to get my house finished.’
    â€˜You, er . . . wouldn’t think of using another builder?’
    She looked affronted. ‘No, Truffler. I do have my standards of loyalty, you know.’
    â€˜Yes, of course you do. Sorry.’ Truffler once again uncoiled himself from his chair to see her to the door. ‘Oh, one point. Where do I contact you? You renting a place at the moment or what?’
    â€˜I’m at Greene’s Hotel for the foreseeable.’
    â€˜Hedgeclipper Clinton’s place?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜I hope he’s looking after you properly.’
    â€˜I’m being spoilt rotten.’
    â€˜Great. You deserve it.’
    As soon as the door opened, they were aware of the continuing Welsh saga of masculine perfidy. ‘. . . and then, to cap it all, I get home yesterday and there’s a message on the answerphone from him, asking if I could take two of his suits to the dry cleaners. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick them up and pay for them when I get back from Mauritius,” he says. The bloody nerve! Well, I took them somewhere, you’d better believe it – but it wasn’t the dry cleaners. No, I put them in a couple of half-empty bags of organic fertilizer and took them down the municipal tip with all the rubbish I cleared from the back garden. Let him pick them up from there when he gets “back from Mauritius”. Honestly, you’d never believe that this was the man who . . .’
    Bronwen was completely oblivious of their presence. Truffler gave an apologetic shrug as he saw his guest through the outer door.
    â€˜Does she ever do any work?’ asked Mrs Pargeter curiously.
    The detective looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, I’m sure she will get back to working properly soon. She’s a bit upset at the moment, what with the divorce and that, so, you know, I don’t want to press it.’
    Mrs Pargeter shook her head. ‘You’re too soft. Remember, you’re running a business here, Truffler, and the recession’s still not completely bottomed out.’
    He hung his head sheepishly. ‘Nah, you’re right.’ Although Bronwen was far too preoccupied with her own grievances to be listening, he lowered his voice. ‘Thing is with her, apart from anything else, we haven’t got any of the right work going, so there’s not that much she could be doing at the moment. When we get one of her speciality cases, she’ll be on to it like a terrier, work her little socks off, no one can touch her.’
    â€˜What are her speciality cases?’
    â€˜Matrimonial.’
    â€˜Ah, that would figure.’
    â€˜Worth her weight in gold, Bronwen is, when we’ve got some poor little wife suspects her husband’s doing naughties. Do you know, she once staked out a motel for a whole month, twenty-four hours a day, and produced this great dossier of all the times the man in question went in and out. Every single detail, lovely piece of work it was.’
    â€˜So then she presented the wife with evidence of adultery, did she?’
    Truffler coloured. ‘Well, no. Trouble is, the wife hadn’t told her the husband actually
worked
at the motel as a chef, but I merely mention it to show how hard-working Bronwen can be when she’s got the right sort of case.’
    â€˜Fine,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘You’ve convinced me. Cheerio, Truffler. Be in touch.’
    â€˜. . . and if I could have threaded barbed wire into his boxer shorts, I would’ve!’ were the last Welsh words she heard as the door closed behind her.
    Downstairs Gary was perched on a stool watching the horses getting into the stalls for 4.00 at Lingfield. Rising to his feet as Mrs Pargeter approached, he