Mrs Pargeter 02; Mrs, Presumed Dead

∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧

Twenty

Mrs Pargeter was glad of her mink when the limousine dropped her back at Smithy’s Loam. Winter had decided to make an entrance and the cold stung her cheeks as she walked to her front door. The disquiet that had been building inside her for some days was now hardening into a more positive anxiety. Soon she would have to take action.

Of course, she had taken some action already. Truffler Mason had been set in motion, and would be painstakingly working through his system trying to trace Rod and Theresa Cotton.

One of them, Mrs Pargeter reckoned, he was in with a good chance of finding.

Making contact with the other, though, she was beginning to fear might be more difficult.

She shuddered, then pulled herself together and made a phone call to Bedford.

♦

The second cars of Smithy’s Loam were fairly reliable indicators of the presence or absence of their owners. If the second car was in the drive, the relevant wife was usually in. Though occasional forays on foot were made to the Shopping Parade or for walks on the golf course, most expeditions from the close were motorised.

The Range Rover was parked outside ‘High Bushes’, so Mrs Pargeter felt safe in assuming that Fiona Burchfield-Brown was in. Once again she felt a surge of irritation at the sight of the car. It was so typical of everything she had heard about Alexander Burchfield-Brown. He’d have to have a Range Rover round here, she thought, need the four-wheel drive to negotiate the notorious slopes of Sainsbury’s car park.

Still, it wasn’t the moment for spleen. It was time to check whether Theresa Cotton’s first bearded visitor had indeed been Brother Brian.

Mrs Pargeter put her mink coat back on and picked up the booklets she had been given at the Church of Utter Simplicity.

♦

Fiona Burchfield-Brown ushered her willingly enough into her kitchen. The chaos was not quite so great as it had been before the dinner party, but there was still a sense of a losing battle against the encroachments of mess. The Labrador was still spread over more than its fair share of the floor. Newspaper was scattered over the table, and silver plates and cutlery lay about, in various stages of being cleaned.

“Alexander’s family silver,” Fiona indicated helplessly. “Coffee?”

Mrs Pargeter accepted the offer, sat down comfortably at the table and produced the pretext for her visit. Had Fiona got the name of a good gardener locally? She had known the excuse would come in useful some time.

Fiona couldn’t be very helpful. They did most of their gardening themselves. Alexander insisted. He said it was different if you had a proper estate; then of course you had staff. Otherwise he thought paying for a gardener was a ridiculous extravagance when Fiona was at home most of the time and could easily do the routine stuff. He mowed the lawns and did any digging that was required at the weekends.

“Oh?” said Mrs Pargeter ingenuously. “I’d really put you down as ‘gardener’ people. You know, I’d have thought people who have jacuzzis put in would be just the sort to…”

“Oh, yes, absolutely.” Fiona smiled weakly. “I’m not sure that we are jacuzzi people, actually. Do you know, those wretched little men who’re supposed to be putting the thing in still haven’t turned up. Alexander’s furious. He says I’m to ring them every morning and bawl them out. Then, if they haven’t arrived by the end of the week, I’m to cancel the order.”

Typical man, Mrs Pargeter reflected, running off to the safety of his office and the protection of his secretary, and leaving his wife to make all the nasty phone calls. At least she had been more fortunate. The late Mr Pargeter had ensured that the course of her life had never been sullied by unpleasantness; he had taken care of all that kind of thing himself.

Yes, the more she heard about Alexander Burchfield-Brown, the less she liked him. Clearly, there was plenty of money around, but he seemed very disinclined to spend any of it on help for his wife around the house, preferring, it seemed, to leave all the chores to her incompetence.

“So, with regard to gardeners,” Fiona went on apologetically, “I’m afraid I can’t be much help. You could have a look in the newsagent’s window down on the Parade. They have cards in there for that kind of thing.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Fiona. That’s a really good idea.”

There was a slight lull in the conversation. Mrs Pargeter knew the moment had come to turn to the real purpose of her visit.

“Fiona, you know I was asking you the other day about when Theresa left Smithy’s Loam…”

“Mmm?” Fiona was absorbed in trying to get the polish out of the indentations of engraving on a silver plate.

“And you know you said that two bearded men came to visit her that day…”

“Uhuh.”

Time for a little lie. “Well, would you believe, I’ve had another call from that man who was asking about exactly when Theresa left.”

“Oh really? Goodness, he sounds a bit of a nosy parker, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, almost like a jealous husband…” No harm in trawling for a little more information while she had the chance.

Fiona laughed. “Oh, I hardly think that would be appropriate with the Cottons. Not that way round, anyway.”

Mrs Pargeter was straight on to it. “What do you mean?”

Fiona Burchfield-Brown quickly covered over the lapse. “Nothing, nothing. So what did this chap want to know?” she asked, adroitly redirecting the conversation.

“He was asking about these two men who visited Theresa that day. Now that really does sound like a jealous husband, doesn’t it?”

But Fiona wasn’t going to be caught the same way twice. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think Alexander’s capable of jealousy. Sometimes I wonder if he’d even notice if I was up to anything.”

“Ever tempted…?” asked Mrs Pargeter mischievously.

“Huh. Chance’d be a fine thing.” But it wasn’t said with any meaning. It was just conventional banter. There was at the heart of Fiona Burchfield-Brown a kind of hopelessness, a lack of confidence that simply wouldn’t believe that any man could ever show any interest in her. No, she had long since reconciled herself to always being with Alexander – and all that that entailed.

“Anyway, this man was asking about Theresa’s visitors…” Time for another little lie. “…and I found this booklet thing around the house with a photograph of a bearded man in it, and I wondered whether you might have a look at it and see if you recognise him…?”

“Oh, sure.” Fiona Burchfield-Brown wiped her hand against her face as she had on their previous encounter. This time the streak she left was of silver polish rather than chicken grease. She looked at the proffered booklet.

“Yes. I’d say that was him. Pretty well certainly. I mean, he hadn’t got that robe thingummy on.”

“Dressed in scruffy clothes, you said…?”

“Yes, and sort of out of date. Patterned shirt, jeans with a bit of a flare, trainers…”

It sounded as though it had been Brother Brian. The clothes would fit in with the Church of Utter Simplicity’s ostentatious unworldliness.

“Well, thank you. That’s a great help, Fiona. And now if this bloke rings again, I’ll be able to tell him. And finally get him off my back, I hope.”

“Good luck. I jolly well hope you do.”

♦

It really did feel cold as Mrs Pargeter left Fiona’s front door. She clutched the Church of Utter Simplicity booklets to her ample mink-clad bosom to ward off the chill.

Jane Watson, Mrs Nervy the Neurotic, was walking briskly along the pavement from ‘Hibiscus’. At the gate of ‘High Bushes’ their paths crossed.

Mrs Pargeter was determined to make contact with the one Smithy’s Loam wife she had not yet met. “Good morning,” she said cheerily.

Jane Watson jumped as if a gun had been fired behind her ear. She flashed a furtive look at Mrs Pargeter.

What happened then was very odd. The expression of shock in Jane Watson’s eyes changed in a second to a look of sheer, blind panic. Without saying a word, she turned her head sharply away and rushed off down the road so fast she was almost running.

The incident made Mrs Pargeter all the more determined to make contact with the frightened woman. There was something very odd going on there. Something that required explanation.