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
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.
? Mrs, Presumed Dead ?
Twenty-One
Mrs Pargeter sat in the back of the chauffeur-driven limousine on the way to Bedford and tried to still the growing anxiety within her. She was not a woman prone to panic. Her temperament was naturally equable, and the years of her marriage to the late Mr Pargeter, a marriage whose excitements might have aggravated any tendency towards nervousness in some wives, had in her case simply taught her the values of patience and control. Though, of course, she had had her anxious moments when her husband was away on particularly important business trips, she had always disciplined herself into keeping the nature of the risks he undertook in proportion.
But the anxiety she was now feeling about Theresa Cotton continued to grow, in spite of the rigid constraints of logic she imposed on it.
The former resident of her house had not left it in the conventional way, of that Mrs Pargeter felt increasingly certain. Theresa Cotton had set up an elaborate subterfuge about her departure, she had devised a scenario specifically to mislead her neighbours, but that scenario had not been followed. Something had happened to change her plans.
And Mrs Pargeter didn’t think that that something had been a simple change of mind. No, her conjectures were more ominous.
One of these conjectures, though, could be checked out comparatively easily.
Which was why she was travelling to Bedford.
¦
“Oh, do come in. He’s just upstairs changing.”
The woman at the door was modest, but comfortable-looking. So was the house she ushered Mrs Pargeter into.
“We moved up here when he started. You know, ten years is a long time. Thought it’d be easier if we were on the spot.”
“Of course. How much longer has he got to go?”
“Another five. Just half-way. Mind you, could be a lot less with good behaviour. And his behaviour’s been perfect. So I’m hoping we’ll see him out in a year…eighteen months.”
“Good. I do hope so.”
“Come through into the sitting-room. Don’t mind Baby, will you?”
Mrs Pargeter went into the room indicated. It was full of the evidence of a young family. A cheerfully cooing, drooling baby rocked itself back and forth in a sprung chair. A boy of three and an eighteen-month-old of indeterminate sex were on the floor, absorbed in some elaborate game with toy cars and cereal boxes, and hardly looked up at the newcomer.
“Do take a seat, please.” Mrs Crabbe smiled expansively at her visitor. “Would you like a cup of tea? Or coffee? Whichever you like.”
“Coffee’d be lovely.”
