shape her reply. ‘It’s just I’ve heard Jenny’s name mentioned round Brotherton Hall… you know the place I mean?’
The contemptuous nod showed exactly what Tom O’Brien thought of health spas — and the kind of people who frequented them.
‘I’ve heard rumours,’ Mrs Pargeter went on, ‘that Jenny may even have booked in there for a while.’
The interest faded from the boy’s eyes. ‘Well, they’re crap rumours then. Even assuming Jenny would ever want to go to a place like that… And she wouldn’t! Just because she’s at Cambridge, don’t imagine she’s some bone-headed upper-class snob. Jenny’s got her head firmly screwed on — she’s not a class traitor like some of those social-climbing girls you meet at…’ He realized he was getting off the subject. ‘What I’m saying is there’s no way she could have afforded to go to somewhere like Brotherton Hall. That was Jenny’s problem, for God’s sake — she didn’t have any money.’
‘But, just imagining for a moment that she somehow found the money
…’
‘If she’d found any money, there’s a million other things she would have spent it on.’
‘Or if someone had given her the stay at a health spa as a present
…’
The thought he might have a rival brought a haunted look into Tom’s eyes. ‘Who?’ he demanded. ‘Do you know there was someone?’
‘No, no, I’m just imagining. But what I really want to know is — would Jenny have had any reason to go to a health spa?’
The boy looked confused by the question.
‘What Mrs Pargeter means,’ Truffler elucidated, ‘is — was Jenny fat?’
‘Oh. No. Well, not particularly.’ A distant hunger of recollection softened his words. ‘She was… well rounded and…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Certainly not thin, anyway.’
Mrs Pargeter tried to force from her mind the skeletal body she had seen on the trolley at Brotherton Hall. ‘And she never expressed a desire to go to a health spa?’
‘No, no, of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t have dared.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because she knew I’d disapprove of poncy places like that.’
‘And she wouldn’t have done anything that you disapproved of?’
The question was casual, but Tom O’Brien was instantly aware of its subtext. ‘And I don’t mean because I was a chauvinist, Mrs Pargeter. Jenny and I talked a lot, about everything. We thought alike about the really important things.’
‘And what would you say are the really important things?’
There was no hesitation about his reply. The issues were ones he had thought through in great detail and about which he was passionate. ‘The environment, obviously. That’s the most important item on the world’s agenda. If we don’t get that sorted out, then it’s all over for humankind. We’ve got to make people think differently. So long as their dominant motive remains profit and money-making, nothing’s going to get any better. There’ll be more poison pumped into the atmosphere, more forests cut down, more animal species sacrificed in the cause of consumerist experimentation. We’ve got to change the world whilst we still have a world left to change!’
Mrs Pargeter, though never an activist herself for any cause, could respect such fervour in others. And there was no doubting the boy’s sincerity.
‘So, in order to change the world, do you reckon you can use any methods?’
‘Of course you can.’
‘ Any methods? I mean, even violence and terrorism?’
Tom O’Brien’s lips set in a hard line. ‘ Particularly violence and terrorism.’
‘You think the end justifies the means?’
‘It must do! If you stop and think of the violence that man’s committed against the natural world, then a bit of necessary violence against man to restore the balance… well, it’s a small price to pay.’
‘And what kind of violence are you talking about? Sabotage? Bombings?’
‘Yes.’
‘Killing people?’
‘Oh yes. When it’s necessary,’ Tom O’Brien replied with the quiet righteousness of the fanatic.
Chapter Fourteen
The boy’s pale blue eyes suddenly darted sideways. Hope and yearning glowed in his face.
Mrs Pargeter followed his gaze through the cafe’s steamed-up window to the street outside. Three girls passed by, tantalizingly slowly. Their strutting movements and the shortness of their skirts identified them as practitioners of the art for which King’s Cross has become famous.
The hope had gone from Tom O’Brien’s face as he looked back. Odd, was Mrs Pargeter’s initial thought; why should a boy as good-looking as Tom waste his time gazing at prostitutes? Then light dawned.
‘Going back to Jenny…’ she began delicately. ‘I want to know more about her.’
The interrogation was interrupted by the arrival of her steaming mound of All-Day Breakfast, swimming in enough fat to light the average Anglo-Saxon mead-hall for a decade. Mrs Pargeter looked at the plate with relish, sliced off a triangle of fried bread, which she loaded with tomato and beans and ate, before repeating, ‘Yes, I want to know more about Jenny…’
Tom O’Brien looked truculent and suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Because we’re both trying to find her. If we pool our information, the chances of succeeding’ll be that much better.’
He thought about this for a moment, before deciding in favour of co-operation. ‘OK. What do you want to know?’
‘You haven’t seen her since the last week of last term?’
‘No.’
‘But you didn’t have a row about anything just before she left?’
‘Certainly not. We were very close.’
‘No arguments at all?’
‘No. Not what you’d call arguments.’
‘What would you call them then?’ asked Truffler bluntly. Mrs Pargeter took the opportunity of his interposition to load up and despatch another triangle of fried bread.
‘Well…’ Tom considered Truffler’s question. ‘Well, I suppose you’d call them disagreements. Disagreements about priorities.’
Mrs Pargeter continued her softer approach. ‘What kind of priorities?’
‘Money, mostly. How we should spend any money we’d got. Not that we had any, of course.’
‘In what way did you disagree about that?’
‘Well, I thought we should devote anything we had to the cause.. ’
‘The environment?’
He nodded, but Mrs Pargeter had to prompt him to continue. ‘And what did Jenny want to spend the money on?’
‘She was… sort of…’ He swallowed before the shamefaced confession. ‘Deep down Jenny’s a very conventional person, and I suppose, because she’s grown up with her parents always being hard-up and that, she’s a great believer in…’ He could hardly bring himself to shape the alien word. ‘ Saving.’
‘Ah. What did she want to save for?’
‘Oh…’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Sort of… you know… traditional things…’
‘Like… getting married?’ Mrs Pargeter suggested lightly.
His blush told her that she had scored a direct hit. ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she said.
