you won’t succeed, Mrs Pargeter – or whatever your real name is! Theresa Cotton didn’t succeed, either. She came round, trying to take me back, but I was too strong for her! And I’ll be too strong for you, too!”
She certainly was strong. Her fingers were biting like metal into Mrs Pargeter’s flesh. They were hands that would have had no difficulty in strangling someone.
Mrs Pargeter felt a tremor of fear. “I must go,” she blurted out.
“Yes,” Jane Watson hissed. “You shouldn’t have come in the first place!”
With a final vindictive squeeze, she released her grip. Mrs Pargeter scuttled out of the sitting-room towards the front door.
Jane Watson’s words followed her. “And I hope now you won’t try to come again! Theresa Cotton came to see me – yes, in answer to your question, she
Mrs Pargeter snatched open the front door, and burst out, breathless, into the relative calm of Smithy’s Loam.
That woman, she thought, is mad.
? Mrs, Presumed Dead ?
Twenty-Eight
The phone was ringing as Mrs Pargeter entered the front door. She snatched it up and instantly recognised Truffler Mason’s funereal tones.
“Listen, I’ve found him.” Never had such exciting news been imparted in such an unexcited way. He sounded like a tiler giving an estimate for a roof repair.
“Rod? Where is he? Can I make contact with him?”
“Yes, you
“You don’t make it sound very attractive.”
“It isn’t very attractive. Do you really need to see him?”
She had no hesitation in saying ‘Yes’. Mrs Pargeter was now very determined that Theresa Cotton’s murderer should be unmasked, and though of course she had great respect for the abilities of the police, she rather wondered whether they would be able to do it on their own. They didn’t have the same kind of network of contacts as Truffler Mason; it might take them a very long time to trace the missing man.
And, though Mrs Pargeter was by no means committed to the prevalent view that Rod Cotton had killed his wife, she knew that no investigation into the murder would be complete without an interview with the absent husband.
Truffler did not try to dissuade her. The late Mr Pargeter, shortly before his death, had instructed the investigator to give any help his widow might require, and Truffler owed far too much to the late Mr Pargeter to dream of disobeying those orders in the smallest particular.
He arranged with Mrs Pargeter where they should meet early the next morning. “Oh, and don’t dress too posh,” he cautioned.
“What, not a mink or anything like that?”
“No. Goodness, no. Keep it simple. Don’t want to be conspicuous.”
“All right. If you say so. Anything special I should bring?”
“Some cash wouldn’t be a bad idea. And a couple of half-bottles of whisky might come in,” Truffler Mason concluded lugubriously.
¦
Their rendezvous was outside the Embankment Underground station, but Mrs Pargeter did not travel there by Tube. She was a bit old, she considered, to be traipsing around by public transport so early in the morning. So, mindful of the late Mr Pargeter’s constant advice that small economies only suited small minds, she had Gary’s limousine deliver her.
But, with Truffler Mason’s admonition about being inconspicuous freshly in her mind, she arranged for the car to deposit her outside the Sherlock Holmes pub in Northumberland Street, and walked down to the station.
She had dressed with care – and indeed with some difficulty. Her wardrobe did not boast a great many ‘inconspicuous’ garments. The late Mr Pargeter, during his lifetime, had always encouraged her to wear bright colours. Her beautiful complexion, he constantly maintained, could cope with them, and he liked to see her looking bright and cheerful in every sense when he returned from a business trip. So most of her dresses were in jubilantly coloured silks; her coats were selected from a small armoury of minks; and the ensembles were habitually complemented by a tasteful garnish of large jewellery.
For her encounter with Rod Cotton, she had, with some regret, relinquished all jewellery. She wore beige fur- lined boots, which not only kept out the chill rising from the pavements, but also concealed her silk stockings (she could never bring herself to wear any other kind). And she had foregone even her most humble and domestic mink, in favour of an old Burberry raincoat.
She missed the reassurance of the fur as she stepped briskly towards the Underground station. It was getting very wintry now. The edges of the pavements, not yet trodden away by early commuters, bore a salt-like crust of frost. As she passed their noisome cardboard fortresses under the railway arches, she felt a surge of pity for the newspaper-swaddled dossers who lay asleep on the cold pavements of London.
Truffler Mason was waiting for her. She had never seen him before in the flesh, but had no difficulty in knowing who he was. His great height and the long, sagging lines of his face – almost as if he had been made of candle-wax and melted – fitted perfectly with the doleful voice.
“Play it whatever way you want,” he said. “I’ll come with you and talk to him if you need support.”
“I think I’ll probably be better off on my own,” said Mrs Pargeter with delicate tact. “Don’t want to frighten him off or anything.”
“OK, up to you. I’ll stay in sight, though, just in case you need any help.”
“Why should I need any help?” she asked innocently.
“Don’t know how he’s going to react to being approached, do you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Nor how the others are going to react.”
“Others?”
“Yes.”
“What others?”
“Well, there are quite a lot of them, aren’t there?”
“Quite a lot of who?” Mrs Pargeter looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, Truffler, I’m not really with you…”
He pointed gloomily across the road. “Look, over there. That’s where he is.”
Mrs Pargeter followed the line of his finger, and saw the row of human jetsam she had passed only moments before. “You mean, the dossers…? Rod Cotton is over there…with the dossers…?”
Truffler Mason nodded. “Fourth one from the right.”
“Good heavens,” said Mrs Pargeter.
¦
The smell, a compound of old sweat, urine and stale alcohol, grew almost insupportably strong as she approached the line of padded bodies. The one that Truffler Mason, now protectively watching her from the other side of the road, had pointed out, lay on top of three opened-out cardboard boxes. Under its coverlet of newspapers, the body was wrapped in an old greatcoat, once navy blue, but now faded to grey. From inside this, more newspaper, extra protection against the cold, spilled out. Stiffly-matted hair straying from under a woollen hat was all that could be seen of the head; its face was pushed into a pillow of a grubby padded carrier-bag.
The odorous cocoon gave no signs of life.
With caution, Mrs Pargeter reached forward an elegantly booted foot and touched one of the stained trainers that emerged from the bottom of the greatcoat.
There was no reaction.
She tried again, this time giving the body’s foot a firmer shove.
The third time, it worked. The pile of rags and newspaper twitched alive with remarkable speed. Suddenly it
