by Simon Brett
“That was when he was sent up North?”
“Yes, Mrs Pargeter.”
“Please call me Melita.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Mrs Pargeter was by now accustomed to the slight hesitancy she heard in Fiona Burchfield-Brown’s voice. Everyone seemed to have the same reaction to her name. Though granted the licence to use ‘Melita’, few people took advantage of it. For most she seemed to remain ‘Mrs Pargeter’. And that state of affairs suited her well. Her Christian name retained its exclusivity, a bond between her and the late Mr Pargeter.
“Did you know the Cottons well?” she hazarded.
Sue Curle shook her head. “Not really. Well, in the way you do know people with whom you have nothing in common but geography.” Realising this might sound a little dismissive of present company, she covered it quickly. “I mean, obviously one does have friends locally, but the Cottons…well, we weren’t particularly close. They were perfectly amiable…You know, we’d help each other out, water each other’s plants when we went on holiday, that kind of thing…And, of course, one was always happy to, you know, pass the time of day…”
As these words were spoken, it struck Mrs Pargeter how little ‘passing the time of day’ she had so far witnessed in Smithy’s Loam. The six houses seemed hermetically sealed units, their occupants completely self-sufficient. Oh yes, they’d come out for a social event like that morning’s, but there was a kind of strain in the air. In spite of the proximity of the houses, nothing about Smithy’s Loam gave any sense of community.
Of course, the atmosphere might be different at the weekends, when husbands and children were about, but somehow Mrs Pargeter doubted it.
She turned to Fiona Burchfield-Brown. “Did you know them well?”
“The Cottons? No, not really. I mean, one made overtures. But Theresa tended to…well, keep herself to herself.”
That tendency seemed to be an essential qualification for life in Smithy’s Loam. In some ways, Mrs Pargeter reflected, that would suit her well. Not in every way, though.
Sue Curle summed it up. “No, the Cottons were the standard issue Yuppie couple. Well, perhaps a bit too old to be proper Yuppies, but Rod had all the Yuppie values.”
“Do you mean by that that Theresa didn’t?”
“No. Not particularly. I assume she thought as he did. I don’t know, she never talked about that kind of thing. As Fiona said, she kept herself to herself. At least, they never appeared to disagree. And they had no children to complicate things. Nice standard happily married little couple.”
The bitterness in the voice prompted no more than a quizzical eyebrow from Mrs Pargeter, but that was quite sufficient cue for Sue Curle. Like a scab waiting to be picked, the subject of her own marriage was not to be avoided.
“And no, in answer to your unspoken question, I am not part of such an ideal unit. I am in the throes of a particularly ugly divorce.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. At least not sorry for me emotionally. I’m delighted to get shot of the bastard. You can be sorry for me because the whole process takes so long and is so bloody exhausting, if you like.”
Vivvi Sprake’s doorbell rang and their hostess went off to answer it, as Fiona Burchfield-Brown leapt in to shift the conversation away from Sue’s divorce. With a slight air of upper-class condescension, she said, “I think you’ll find us a friendly enough lot around here, Mrs Pargeter.”
Mrs Pargeter assessed the claim, and decided that so far the evidence did not support it.
“You know, I mean, we are all prepared to help each other out if something’s important.”
“Yes, like this new Indian restaurant proposal,” said Sue Curle, pouncing on an object of dissatisfaction other than her husband. “Have you heard, Mrs Pargeter, that coffee shop right on the corner of the Parade’s for sale, and someone’s applying for planning permission to turn it into an Indian restaurant?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m still very new to the area.”
“Well, I think we must all get together and see that it doesn’t happen,” said Sue Curle darkly.
“Yes,” Fiona Burchfield-Brown agreed. “Alexander was going to write a letter to –”
“We needn’t involve the bloody men!” Sue Curle snapped. “We women can set up our own protest group.”
“Well, maybe…” Fiona, realising that the conversation was reverting to male shortcomings, turned again firmly to Mrs Pargeter. “Anyway, as I say, if you’ve got any sort of problem, you can always ask any of us.”
“Oh, thank you.” But she thought she might be a bit careful which problems she did ask about.
The door from the hall opened, and Vivvi Sprake ushered in Miss Bored the Belgian’s Daughter. The au pair was dressed in an expensive-looking leather jacket. Sue Curle looked up at her with annoyance.
“What is it?”
“I am sorry, Mrs Curle,” the girl replied, though there was no hint of apology in her tone. “They call from the office. Some crisis.”
If part of the intention of the girl’s stay in England was for her to learn the language, that part was not being fulfilled. Not a single vowel avoided mangling. And her accent suggested that Mrs Pargeter’s Happy Families shorthand had got the nationality wrong. The singsong intonation was not Belgian. More Scandinavian. Norwegian, perhaps…?
“Oh, sod it. I told them I couldn’t be in till this afternoon.” But, even as she spoke, Sue Curle was picking up her handbag and rising to leave. “All right, Kirsten, you get back to the kids. You shouldn’t have left them.”
“But it was just for a few –”
“You shouldn’t have left them,” her employer repeated firmly.
Kirsten slunk sulkily from the room. Sue Curle said it had been a great pleasure to meet Mrs Pargeter, that she looked forward to doing so again soon, and followed the au pair out.
Mrs Pargeter saw them pass separately in front of Vivvi’s picture window. On the other side of Smithy’s Loam, Mrs Nervy the Neurotic had just come out of the drive of ‘Hibiscus’. She made no gesture of acknowledgement to Sue or Kirsten, but walked briskly along, looking neither to right nor left.
She must have been invited, thought Mrs Pargeter. And if she’s only just going out now she must have been free to come. Or was there some feud amongst the residents of Smithy’s Loam?
Vivvi Sprake, who had materialised beside her, followed Mrs Pargeter’s eyeline and confirmed her conjecture. “Jane Watson, that is. The missing guest. I did invite her. Said she couldn’t come. Just that, didn’t even bother to make up an excuse. Huh, stuck-up bitch.”
And yet Mrs Pargeter wondered if the description was fair. It was true, the way the woman strode ahead could look as if she was acting from arrogance. But the expression on her face belied that interpretation.
To Mrs Pargeter’s eyes, it looked more as if Jane Watson was motivated by fear.
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Seven
Mrs Pargeter put her feet up after lunch. It had been a tiring week. Not every day you move house. And, she thought as she looked fondly round the sitting-room she had now imprinted with her personality, I’ve achieved quite a lot. Certainly earned a little snooze in my own armchair.
The yielding upholstery and high back felt comfortingly familiar. After all the alien furniture of hotels and rented rooms, it was good to be among her own things.
The telephone woke her and for a second she wondered where she was. Then she reached for the receiver and read out the unfamiliar number.
“Could I speak to Mrs Cotton, please?”
It was a man’s voice. Oldish, sixties perhaps, and with a slight fruitiness. The voice of a man used to speaking in public.
“I’m sorry. Mrs Cotton has moved.”
“Ah, she’s actually gone, has she?”
“Yes,” Mrs Pargeter replied, slightly bewildered. “She moved out Monday evening.”
“I know that was when she was intending to go, but I tho
ught perhaps her plans might have changed.”
“Not so far as I know.”
“It’s just, I was expecting to see her and…Look, never mind.”
He sounded as if he was about to end the conversation, so Mrs Pargeter interposed hastily, “I do have her new address, if that would help.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be any use to me, would it?” said the man rudely. “Goodbye.” And he put the phone down.
Mrs Pargeter was fully awake now. She stayed in her favourite armchair for a few moments, deep in thought.
There was something odd. Why should the man have been so dismissive of the offered address? Was he only interested in Theresa Cotton while she lived in Smithy’s Loam?
But no, that couldn’t be it. He knew that she had been proposing to leave on the Monday evening. And he had implied that she had arranged to meet him and then not turned up.
The situation gave Mrs Pargeter a strange but not wholly unfamiliar feeling, a compound of disquiet and of…yes, of excitement.
She picked up the telephone again and had another try at Directory Enquiries. Maybe the person she had spoken to on the Wednesday night had simply been inefficient. Maybe the paperwork of the Cottons’ new telephone number had not percolated through the system.
Directory Enquiries answered. She gave exactly the same information as she had done on the previous occasion.
And got exactly the same reply. There was no one called Cotton with a telephone at the address she mentioned.
She stayed in her armchair for another moment’s thought after she had put the phone down. Then she made up her mind and went into the hall to put on her fur coat.
♦
The original brochure for Smithy’s Loam did not mention, among its glowing list of the area’s amenities, that the development was near to an excellent public library. But then that would not have been regarded as particularly important by the kind of people who were likely to buy that kind of property. When she had first visited ‘Acapulco’ to inspect the property, Mrs Pargeter had seen no evidence of any books anywhere.
To her, however, books were extremely important, and one of her first tasks on arrival had been to get herself issued with library tickets and stock up with her first week’s reading.
But that afternoon her concern was with the reference section of the library, and this she found to be just as well stocked as the lending part. She explained the subject of her research to a most helpful librarian and was quickly directed towards the relevant maps, gazetteers and guide books.
It didn’t take long to have her growing suspicion confirmed. She double-checked, cross-referencing different maps. Then checked again in a variety of indexes.
But the facts were incontrovertible. In the small town of Dunnington in North Yorkshire there was no road called Bascombe Lane.
And if the road didn’t exist, then it couldn’t contain a house called ‘Elm Trees’.
In other words, Theresa Cotton had given a false address for her new home.
She had deliberately planned to go missing.
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Eight
Mrs Pargeter called in at ‘High Bushes’ on the way home. After she had rung the bell, she looked down the extremely sane paving to the wrought-iron gate set in a neat low wall. There was not a bush, high, low or of any other description, in sight. Either the original high bushes had since been cut down, or else the person who named the house had had a sense of humour.
Fiona Burchfield-Brown came to the door, and the look of surprise on her face suggested, as Mrs Pargeter had suspected, that neighbourly calls were not common in Smithy’s Loam.
Fiona, well-brought-up girl that she was, recovered quickly and invited her caller in.
“Well, just for a moment, thank you. It’s getting chilly, these late afternoons, isn’t it?”
Fiona Burchfield-Brown agreed that it was, as she ushered Mrs Pargeter into the kitchen. Hoped she didn’t mind it being the kitchen, but they were giving a dinner party that evening. No, Mrs Pargeter didn’t mind. She promised she wouldn’t be long.
It’s not fair to judge anyone on what their kitchen looks like when they’re preparing a dinner party, but Fiona’s did seem to be particular untidy. The sink was piled high with crockery, and on every available surface utensils were spread about under a fine dusting of flour. In the middle of the floor a large, sloppy Labrador spread itself as only a Labrador can.
Fiona made the mandatory offer of tea or coffee, but was clearly relieved when Mrs Pargeter, unwilling to compound the chaos, refused both. Returning to a slightly charred chicken carcase from which she proceeded inexpertly to remove the meat, Fiona asked what she could do to help her new neighbour.
Mrs Pargeter had decided there was no need to share her suspicions. Remembering the late Mr Pargeter’s precept that one should always endeavour to tell the truth and nothing but the truth (though not necessarily the whole truth), she explained that she had had a phone call from someone asking exactly when Theresa Cotton had left Smithy’s Loam. “And I didn’t know exactly, Fiona, but I know you said you’d been watching out for your jacuzzi people all week, so I thought you might have noticed.”
Fiona Burchfield-Brown wrinkled her brow and then wiped it, leaving a little smear of chicken grease above her right eye. “Well, I think it was Monday evening. I’m sure it was. Theresa came round sort of sixish…to…well, you know, to say goodbye, that sort of thing, and then, um, well, I saw the car drive off about…I don’t know, seven, quarter past…But then it was back ten minutes later, and shortly after that, I suppose about half-past, it went off for good.”
“And was Theresa alone when she left?”
“I don’t think so. Well, put it this way, a man arrived shortly before she went and I didn’t see him leave any other way, so I suppose he must have been in the car with her.”
“Couldn’t she have been driving him somewhere when she went off for the short trip at quarter past seven?”
“No. I think maybe he was driving the car that time. I’m not sure. It came out of the garage and drove off, then it came back ten minutes later, back into the garage, and the man came out of the garage and went to the front door again.”
“And Theresa let him in?”
“I suppose so.”
“So presumably she hadn’t been in the car with him that time?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“You didn’t see him get in the car the second time?”
“No, but then I wouldn’t have done. The car was in the garage, so they’d have gone through from the house to get into it.”
“But didn’t one of them get out of the car to close the garage door?”
Fiona stopped her dissection, Sabatier knife poised in midair. “Do you know, I don’t think they did. That’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, when you’re leaving somewhere for good, you’d surely make a point of locking up properly, wouldn’t you?”
“Well…” Mrs Pargeter shrugged casually. Then, unwilling to encourage thoughts of strangeness, she moved on quickly. “You didn’t actually see that they were both in the car, did you?”
“No. I mean, it was after dark. I just saw the headlights go by. Couldn’t really see inside. But they must have gone together, mustn’t they?”
Not necessarily, thought Mrs Pargeter, and then asked with an air of innocence, “The man wasn’t Rod, was he?”
“Good Lord, no. I mean, I’ve hardly seen Rod since he got transferred up North, but he couldn’t have changed that much. This man who came looked pretty scruffy. Wearing some sort of overall and a woolly hat, I seem to recall. And he had a beard. I mean, Rod would never have had a beard. He was a really fussy dresser, you know, the complete executive.”
“Oh, well…” said Mrs Pargeter, playing for time, wondering which tack to move on to next.
But fortunately Fiona, unprompted, filled the silence with more information. “I remember thinking at the time it was a coincidence Theresa s
hould have two bearded men visit her the same day.”
“Two…?” Mrs Pargeter echoed diffidently.
“Yes. The other one came early afternoon, while it was still light.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t the same man?”
“Oh, quite sure. The afternoon one was much taller. And thinner. No, I could see him quite clearly.”
“Did he arrive in a car?”
“No. Walked. He arrived about…half-past two, I suppose, rang the doorbell, Theresa let him in, and then he was there…I should think about half an hour.”
“And was he smartly dressed?”
“No, he was scruffy, too. Really old clothes. You know, old to the point of being out of fashion.”
“Ah.” Mrs Pargeter stood up. Didn’t want to appear too inquisitive. “Well, look, thank you very much. If the gentleman rings back, I’ll be able to give him chapter and verse of Theresa Cotton’s departure.”
“Yes.” Fiona started to rub her greasy hands on an equally greasy tea towel. “Let me –”
“Please, don’t worry. I’ll see myself out.”
“Oh, well, if you’re sure. I am a bit up to my ears…”
Fiona looked around the kitchen in a kind of despair tinged with panic. How on earth would she ever get a Cordon Bleu meal together and get the place tidied up and change before her guests arrived?
“Oh, one thing…” Mrs Pargeter hovered in the doorway. “The man who rang also asked for Theresa’s new address. And I couldn’t find the piece of paper that I’d scribbled it down on. I don’t suppose, by any chance…?”
“Yes, she did give it to me. Let me think. I remember, I asked for it just as she was leaving. And she told me and I scribbled it on the pad on the telephone. It’s in the hall. You’ll see it as you go out.”
“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.