Mrs Pargeter 02; Mrs, Presumed Dead

come to that.”

Brother Michael gave a smile of predatory sympathy. “I understand. Those who live solely by the values of this world all eventually find them to be inadequate. What is the value of money in the face of the ultimate reality, which is death? Oh, a rich man may pay for medical care that can extend his life long beyond that of a poor man, but no man yet has been rich enough to postpone death for ever.”

“No. I know that. And I suppose, as my own death gets nearer…”

Brother Michael did not offer the token contesting of this statement which most people would have provided.

“…as my own death gets nearer, I think more about that kind of thing. You know, where are my real values…? What is life really about…?”

“And why are you here…?” Brother Michael supplied.

Mrs Pargeter thought it would be just as well if she didn’t give a truthful answer to that one. “Exactly. And sometimes, you know, I wish I could just shed all the trappings of wealth and concentrate on things that really matter.”

Brother Michael made an awkwardly expansive gesture. “That is what we are here for. The Church of Utter Simplicity was formed for those who feel the needs you describe.”

“Yes, how was the Church actually formed?” asked Mrs Pargeter, thus condemning herself to a full twenty minutes of the history of the movement.

It had been, as she had suspected, founded in the Sixties, and in Brother Michael’s exposition, along with the biblical overtones, were references to ‘doing one’s own thing with God’, ‘letting God into one’s own space’ and ‘joining hands in the peace and love of God’.

It was another example of how the carefree, non-materialism of the Sixties has been channelled into the hard-nosed businesses of the Eighties. The unfettered world of rock music developed, through price-cutting record outlets, into a multi-million-pound leisure industry. The woolly principles of the ecology movement were groomed into companies making ‘natural’ cosmetic products. And the Church of Utter Simplicity channelled the drifting spirit of Woodstock into the discipline of organised religion.

All these organisations were doing the same thing, playing on the guilt of those people who had grown up through the values of the Sixties and now felt embarrassed by their middle-class materialism. And all of them demonstrated the eternal history of business – that the urge to make money is a permanent force, which will adapt itself to whatever happens to be current at any given moment.

When Brother Michael reached the end of – or at least a paragraph-break in – his peroration, Mrs Pargeter asked innocently, “And how is it all funded?”

He was not embarrassed by the question. Clearly it was one he had been faced with and dealt with on numerous occasions. However, the vehemence with which he answered suggested that he might be anticipating disagreement.

“Well, of course, we do sell some produce from the estate, but the majority of our income comes from voluntary contributions.”

“Oh? And how are those voluntary contributions made?”

“Novices who join the Church make over much of their wealth to us.”

He responded immediately to her raised eyebrow. This, too, was an objection he had encountered before. “When I say ‘make over to us’, of course I do not mean that it’s made over to any individual. The money goes into the charitable trust set up to run the Church.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It would hardly be appropriate,” he joked heavily, “for the novices to give up all their worldly goods simply so that the leaders of the Church could live the life of Reilly.”

“No. No, it wouldn’t.” Mrs Pargeter paused. She wondered whether it was the moment to change tack. After all, the last thing she wanted was to become a novice of the Church of Utter Simplicity. She was only there in an investigative capacity. “As it happens,” she continued casually, “I heard about the Church through a friend.”

“Oh?” The priest – or whatever he called himself…probably just ‘Brother’, Mrs Pargeter reflected – was instantly alert, anticipating trouble.

“Yes, a friend called Theresa Cotton.”

At the name the black eyebrows drew together into one bristling line, like a particularly noxious caterpillar.

Mrs Pargeter wondered for a moment whether she had overstepped the mark, but it soon became clear that Brother Michael’s anger was directed not at her but at her supposed friend.

“Theresa Cotton is not, I am afraid, a name that is heard with great enthusiasm within these walls. She misled us into believing that she would be joining us as a novice.”

“Sister Camilla.”

“That is correct. She was – ” The eyebrows grew even bushier as a new thought struck him. “Was it you? Were you the one who rang up asking for her?”

No point in denial. “Yes, it was me.”

But this did not divert his anger from Theresa either. “She left us in the lurch. We had made plans for her joining the Church. We had set up her Becoming Ceremony…”

“Yes, she mentioned that. I didn’t quite understand what she meant.”

“Before you can be a part of the Church,” he explained with limited patience, “you have to become a member of the Church.”

“And once you are a member of the Church, what do you do then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, having become, what do you do after that? Do you just be?”

“Yes. From then on you are.”

“Oh.” Mrs Pargeter nodded wisely, as if that explained everything. “Erm, one thing that did interest me,” she continued, “was something Theresa said about how one prepared oneself for entry to the Church.”

“Yes?” The question was guarded. He became very self-protective each time Theresa Cotton’s name was mentioned.

“She said something about having to clear one’s mind of resentments and grudges…”

“That is certainly what we recommend. It is ideal that one should come to one’s Becoming Ceremony with a mind receptive to God, a mind uncluttered by worldly thoughts and aggravations.”

“Yes, of course. And what,” she asked cautiously, “would be the best way of getting oneself into that state of mind?”

“We always recommend direct confrontation.”

“With whom? I mean who do you confront?”

“Anyone towards whom you feel guilt or resentment.”

“Oh, I see. You sort of talk to them and get it off your chest…”

“That is correct. Since you are leaving that part of the world behind, it is important to clear any bad feeling that there may be between you and any of your fellow creatures.”

“Oh, yes, right. I’m all in favour of that. And when would you recommend doing this…you know, the clearing the air business…?”

“It is best that it should be done as near to the time of joining the Church as possible. Otherwise old wounds could be reopened and the resentments could grow rather than diminish.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose they could,” Mrs Pargeter agreed thoughtfully.

What Brother Michael had said confirmed the information in Theresa Cotton’s letter. Immediately before her disappearance she had engineered a series of ‘confrontations’ with people against whom she harboured resentments.

Or who harboured resentments against her, perhaps…?

Mrs Pargeter suddenly recalled Fiona Burchfield-Brown saying that Theresa had come to see her at about six o’clock on the Monday evening before she vanished. How many other people in Smithy’s Loam had received similar visits? And what had been the subjects of the conversations during those visits?

Mrs Pargeter would make it her business to get answers to those questions.