“Oh, thank you so much.” Again Mrs Pargeter turned to go, and again stopped. “I’m sorry, there’s one other thing, Fiona. This really is the last one, I promise. Then I’ll leave you to get on with things.”
“No problem,” said Fiona. No, Mrs Pargeter’s questions weren’t a problem; compared to the problem of getting this dinner party together, everything else paled into insignificance.
“I just wondered if you knew the name of the removal firm that Theresa used. I’ve a feeling they may have taken some light fittings that were meant to be left, and I want to check with them.”
Well, it was only a small lie. The late Mr Pargeter wouldn’t have minded that. He had always been a pragmatist; he didn’t object to lies on principle, only when they were likely to lead to further lies and complications of consistency.
“Yes, I remember,” said Fiona helpfully. “Couldn’t forget it, really, seeing that dirty great lorry opposite for the best part of a day. They were called Littlehaven’s.”
“Ah.”
“I remember thinking it was an unusual name. Didn’t recognise it. Certainly not one of the local firms. But I suppose she wouldn’t necessarily use a firm from down here if she was moving up North.”
No, she wouldn’t, thought Mrs Pargeter. Not if she
The hall was dominated by a large coatstand with a mirror, from whose hooks an assembly of Barbour coats, tweed caps and green quilted jerkins hung. In the umbrella-rack at the bottom stood a shooting-stick, a few golf clubs and a riding crop. As Fiona had promised, there was a pad of paper on a low table by the telephone. Mrs Pargeter had to turn back several pages before she came to the scrawled address.
“Elm Trees, Bascombe Lane, Dunnington, North Yorkshire.”
At least Theresa Cotton’s lies had been consistent.
? Mrs, Presumed Dead ?
Nine
It was after half-past five when Mrs Pargeter crossed from the misnamed ‘High Bushes’ to ‘Acapulco’ and, since the next stage of her investigation required another trip to the library, there was nothing more she could do that day. So she happily resigned herself to a nice dinner and an early night.
The nice dinner was poached salmon trout, followed by profiteroles. After her peregrinations of the last few years, Mrs Pargeter found it a great pleasure to have her own kitchen to cook in again. She had never had inhibitions about preparing full meals when she was on her own; she did not subscribe to the boiled egg and cottage cheese conspiracy. The late Mr Pargeter, the nature of whose work sometimes prevented him from being with her in the evenings, had always encouraged her to eat properly.
With the meal she drank a rather good bottle of Sancerre. That was another pleasure of the new house, having a permanent home for the excellent cellar the late Mr Pargeter had assembled.
When she had tidied up the meal, Mrs Pargeter drank a little Armagnac and retired early to bed to sleep the dreamless sleep of the innocent.
¦
The same helpful librarian directed her next morning to the complete set of Yellow Pages and, after consulting the ‘Removals and Storage’ section of some dozen volumes, Mrs Pargeter found the name she was looking for.
Littlehaven’s were based near Worcester. Certainly a long way from the Surrey of Smithy’s Loam. And not a logical step in the direction of Dunnington in North Yorkshire, even if that address had not already been discredited.
Mrs Pargeter took down the address and phone number of the firm, and walked back to her new home.
There was more activity on the Shopping Parade on a Saturday morning than during the week. Volvo, Peugeot and Mercedes estates were backed up to the shops, the great maws of their hatchbacks gaping to consume the cartons of food, the cases of wine, the boxes of electronic gadgetry, the pots of paint, the ready-to-assemble furniture and all the other credit-card booty of their owners. Whatever troubles the area might have, lack of money (or at least lack of credit) was not among them.
At the end of the Parade, Mrs Pargeter noted, with a wry smile, the run-down coffee shop, which was under threat of translation into an Indian restaurant. From Mrs Pargeter’s point of view the proposed change seemed an excellent idea. Nothing she liked better than a good hot curry, and to have a takeaway within fifty yards of her house sounded an ideal arrangement. Her fellow-residents, though, she had gathered, might not share that view.
In Smithy’s Loam the husbands’ cars glistened outside the houses. A moustached man who was presumably Carole Temple’s husband Gregory, the commodity broker, was outside ‘Cromarty’ in a designer tracksuit cleaning his BMW. He gave no acknowledgement to Mrs Pargeter as she walked up her garden path. And when, a few minutes later, a grey-haired man who must have been Nigel Sprake emerged from ‘Haymakers’ and slung a golf bag into the back of his Renault 25, Mr Temple gave him no more than a cursory nod.
The realisation came to Mrs Pargeter of how safe Theresa Cotton had been when she gave her neighbours a false address. However much the residents of Smithy’s Loam might gush over each other at a coffee morning, there was no real contact there. Someone who left the area was instantly blanked out from the screens of the others’ selfishness. There was no danger of any of them ever trying to make contact with Theresa again.
Without much expectation of success, Mrs Pargeter punched up the Littlehaven’s number. There was no one in the office over the weekend, but if she cared to leave a message on the ansaphone…She didn’t bother. What she wanted to find out would require a more delicate approach than a recorded message.
Never mind, she would continue her enquiries on the Monday.
She pottered around the house for the rest of the morning, and prepared herself a herb omelette for lunch. On the occasions when she looked through her net curtains, Smithy’s Loam proved, in accordance with her expectations, to be as quiet at weekends as it was during the week. A few of the cars left and returned with full family loads, but for most of the morning the loop of road and pavement remained empty. The children, if out of doors, would be playing in their back gardens; no one would be so ‘common’ as to allow them to play in the street. Anyway, wouldn’t it be dreadful if childish feet scarred the baize-like smoothness of the green central reservation?
Mrs Pargeter was glad she had planned a treat for herself that weekend. It had been a hard week. She deserved a little pampering.
Promptly at three o’clock, the limousine arrived for her. By then she was dressed in another of her bright silk print dresses and wearing a considerable array of jewellery. The mink coat draped over her shoulders was longer than the one she had been wearing on the day of her arrival. An exotic evening dress was packed in the neat overnight case the chauffeur carried down to the limousine.
Just as she was getting into the car, the sour commodity broker emerged from the front door of ‘Cromarty’, carrying electric hedge clippers with which to scrape another unnecessary millimetre off his perfect front hedge. Mrs Pargeter was gratified to see that he gave her an involuntary look of impressed surprise.
On the way up to London she chattered amiably to the chauffeur, asking tenderly after his geographically extended family. She always used the same man, whose name was Gary. He had been employed on numerous occasions by the late Mr Pargeter, but after his patron’s death had adapted to a slower style of driving. When he started his own business, he had offered to ferry Mrs Pargeter wherever she wished to go free of charge, in recognition of all that her husband had done for his career, but she always insisted on paying him. Like her late husband, Mrs Pargeter was a great believer in the encouragement of free enterprise.
The chauffeur delivered her to the Savoy, where she checked into her room and changed into a beautifully cut rich lilac evening dress. She dined early in the hotel, and went by taxi to see a new musical which had received extravagantly favourable notices. Back at the hotel she had half a bottle of champagne in her room.
She woke too late the next morning to bother about breakfast, but made up for it with a huge traditional English lunch.
On the dot of three-thirty the limousine arrived to take her back to Smithy’s Loam.
It had been a very restful weekend. Among the many things for which she had to be grateful to the late Mr Pargeter was the way he had taught her to enjoy treats.
