Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh

by Simon Brett

  This regime ensured that everyone went to bed in a proper state of humble inadequacy, determined to spend even more time and money at Brotherton Hall.

  Mrs Pargeter’s day was different in almost every particular. After a Full English Breakfast (including Black Pudding), she returned to the Allergy Room’ for lunch (Salmon Steaks, blissfully garnished with gooseberry sauce and of course rosti, Charlotte Malakov aux Fraises, enhanced by a good bottle of Sancerre) and dinner (Faisan au Vin de Porto, garnished with prunes and of course rosti, Meringue Glacée, a very decent Barolo, and some more of the princely Armagnac). Gaston Lenoir (formerly ‘Nitty’ Wilson) was simply ecstatic to have someone to show off to.

  But Mrs Pargeter did not totally neglect the facilities offered by Brotherton Hall. She read a lot of magazines and dozed in the solarium. She spent a very relaxing time in the jacuzzi and after that had a massage, having first checked firmly that no Sargasso Seaweed (or Brotherton Hall Pondweed) was going to be involved in the process. Her enquiries were rewarded by a deliciously benign pummelling from a large masseur whose initial training had been as a baker.

  For both it was a delightful experience. Mrs Pargeter felt herself transported to new heights of physical well-being; while for the masseur the kneading of her warm, abundant, scented flesh piquantly brought back the early days of his apprenticeship.

  Though Mrs Pargeter and Kim Thurrock spent their days so differently, it would be a hard call to say which one enjoyed herself more.

  The one mildly discordant note in Mrs Pargeter’s day was struck by her visit to the Brotherton Hall doctor for the medical ratification of her ‘Special Treatment’ status.

  It was not that Dr Potter made any demur about granting her sick-note – his actions were as unimpeded by ethical considerations as Ankle-Deep Arkwright had suggested they would be – it was just that Mrs Pargeter did not care for him very much.

  In spite of his fussily dapper suit, the doctor’s appearance did not inspire confidence. The thin skin of his face was stretched tight over prominent cheekbones and a surprisingly small nose; it looked completely smooth, but when he grimaced – which is what he did instead of smiling – it broke up into a tracery of tiny parallel lines.

  There was something slightly out of true about the set of his eyes, which was accentuated by the deepness of their colour, an indefinable muddy hue like the deep silt of an estuary.

  And his hair was obviously dyed, to that over-hearty chestnut which is apparently the only brown available to greying men. Though she had been happy to let her own hair settle to its natural white, Mrs Pargeter had nothing against the principle of hair-colouring, but she thought it looked better on women than men. It was still the case that while women might use hair colour as an exotic fashion accessory, men almost always aspired to a natural look; and it was therefore somehow disappointing when they failed to achieve this effect as totally as Dr Potter had done.

  There was also something strange about the man’s proportions. He looked short when sitting down; but Mrs Pargeter was surprised how much taller than her he was when he rose to his feet.

  Nor was there anything comforting about his manner. Though, given the reason for her visit to his surgery, Mrs Pargeter had not been expecting the full bedside empathy, she had hoped for a little more effort at charm. Being nice to people, however, was evidently low on Dr Potter’s priorities. He signed the required documentation for her, but did not waste any energy on smiles or pleasantries.

  Mrs Pargeter quickly decided that the appointment of such an unprepossessing doctor was another part of Ankle-Deep Arkwright’s marketing strategy. The proprietor knew that his guests came to Brotherton Hall primarily to fuel the hatred they felt for their bodies. Surrounding them with perfectly proportioned female staff and offering the services of an unsympathetic medical adviser could only help in their process of willing self-abasement.

  Also on that first day, Mrs Pargeter met the ‘wonderful’ Sue Fisher. Whom she found almost as unappealing as Dr Potter.

  The goddess of Mind Over Fatty Matter had not come to Brotherton Hall solely to deliver her lecture of the previous evening. She had done that simply because she was there and could not resist the prospect of motivating yet more sales of Mind Over Fatty Matter products.

  The real reason for her presence was that Brotherton Hall had received the inestimable honour of featuring as background to her latest Mind Over Fatty Matter video.

  How much bargaining had preceded this arrangement, and what kind of deal Ankle-Deep Arkwright had eventually struck to attain it could not be known, but there was no doubt that the negotiations had been tough. The secret of Sue Fisher’s success lay not in her invention of the Mind Over Fatty Matter regime, but in her skilful promotion and marketing of it. She was fully aware of the value of a casual camera panning across the name of any health spa on one of her videos, and had undoubtedly ensured that Brotherton Hall paid appropriately – or, more likely, excessively – for the privilege.

  But the way she queened it over the filming showed she had no doubt of who was the senior partner in any deal with Ankle-Deep Arkwright. Just as her regime had eliminated every milligram of unnecessary fat from her body, so she had excluded from her conversation all unnecessary words – like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

  But this did not seem to diminish her standing in the eyes of the infatuated Brotherton Hall guests, who watched the making of the video as if they had ringside seats at the Second Coming.

  Mrs Pargeter witnessed only a little of the action, as she passed the gym on her way from the ‘Allergy Room’ to the solarium for an after-lunch doze. The space was full of perfectly formed women, dressed in identical Mind Over Fatty Matter leotards, leggings, and, presumably, exercise bras. The participants had been shipped in for the occasion; the suggestion, tentatively offered at question-time after her lecture of the previous night, that Sue Fisher might include some of the current Brotherton Hall guests in her video, had been slapped down with instant and humiliating contempt.

  In the middle of these perfect fat-free bodies was the most perfect of the lot, the one that belonged to Sue Fisher herself. When casting for her videos she followed the bridesmaid selection process of a canny bride, and always chose bodies which, though they looked perfect by average standards, were fractionally inferior to her own. This, and the contrastingly vivid design of her own Mind Over Fatty Matter leotard, leggings and exercise bra, left no doubt where the focus of attention should be.

  As Mrs Pargeter passed, the goddess was taking the other bodies – and from the way she treated them that was patently how she thought of them – through their paces in an aerobic routine. Though they had been schooled to the precision of a Broadway chorus line, Sue Fisher could still find grounds for criticism on every run. She singled out individuals in the line-up with great spite and relish; she bawled out the cameraman, the lighting man, the PA, Ankle-Deep Arkwright, and anyone else who got within her range.

  And yet no one answered her back. No one was even mildly perturbed by her spoilt-child behaviour. And the health spa guests seemed to feel especially blessed to be allowed to witness it.

  Mrs Pargeter reflected, not for the first time, that there is within the human psyche an infinite yearning for humiliation. Without which, of course, there would be no call for places like Brotherton Hall – and no television game-shows either.

  That particular yearning, however, had no place in Mrs Pargeter’s psyche, so she did not linger to watch more of Sue Fisher’s bad manners. She moved on to the solarium to enjoy the next stage of her nice day.

  And it really was a nice day, a day whose tranquillity was only occasionally ruffled by the recollection of the anguished young woman’s voice Mrs Pargeter had heard at five o’clock that morning.

  Chapter Six

  The niceness of her day ended at ten past nine in the evening. At that time all of the other guests were locked into the obsessive self-recrimination of the Nine O’Clock Weigh-In. Mrs Parg
eter was the only one at liberty on the corridors of Brotherton Hall, floating peaceably along, full of Faisan au Vin de Porto and Meringue Glacée and Barolo and Armagnac.

  So she was the only one to see two burly uniformed ambulance men wheeling a trolley out of a room on the third floor.

  Mrs Pargeter was just coming up the stairs to the second landing and caught a glimpse of the men above through the struts of the banisters. She froze while they negotiated the trolley through the door.

  One ambulance man stopped and looked round. ‘Be easier to get her down if there was a lift,’ he growled. ‘You notice a lift?’

  His colleague shook his head and gestured down the corridor. ‘Be along that way if there is one. Let’s have a butcher’s.’

  They both started off, moving away from the stairs. Then the first one was stopped by a sudden thought. ‘Should we just leave the trolley here?’

  ‘Not going to make a lot of difference to her, is it?’

  ‘I don’t mean that. Suppose someone saw her or . . .?’

  ‘We still got twenty minutes. Said so long as we get her out and on the way by nine-thirty, we’d have no problems.’

  Reassured, the two ambulance men turned the corner of the corridor and moved out of sight.

  Mrs Pargeter, the fumes of Barolo and Armagnac instantly flushed out of her brain, hurried up the last two stairs and approached the trolley.

  The body was covered by a sheet. After a quick glance to check for the ambulance men, Mrs Pargeter flicked it back.

  At first sight, she thought she saw a child’s face, but closer inspection showed it to be older. A girl in her late teens, early twenties, it was hard to say. The hair was so patchy and uneven on the scalp.

  And the face was so thin. So very thin, its skin waxy and white, stretched over the bones like greaseproof paper.

  The deep-socketed eyes were open, frozen in an expression of terror.

  And a hand, fleshless as a chicken’s foot, reached up to the neck, as if still trying to ward off some horrifying assailant.

  The girl was undoubtedly dead.

  But so thin. So horribly thin.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Anorexia,’ said Ankle-Deep Arkwright. ‘Anorexia nervosa.’ Mrs Pargeter made no response, so he went on, ‘It’s an illness when adolescent girls deliberately stop eating and—’

  ‘I know what it is.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, that’s what the hospital says it was. It’s quite common, apparently.’

  ‘Not common for people actually to die of it.’

  ‘Happens.’

  He shrugged. She could sense he was ill at ease. He kept getting up and moving round his little office behind the main Reception at Brotherton Hall, and his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

  Also he’d tried to get out of the meeting. She’d searched him out before breakfast on the Tuesday morning and asked about the body, but he’d been evasive. Pleading pressures of other business, he’d said he couldn’t talk about it then; but if she came to his office at half-past eleven, he’d be free for a short while.

  This was unlike the Ankle-Deep Arkwright Mrs Pargeter remembered – indeed, it was unlike the Ankle-Deep Arkwright she had seen up until that moment at Brotherton Hall. His outgoing helpfulness had vanished; he seemed shifty, preoccupied, almost afraid.

  ‘Look, Ank . . .’ she’d said, always believing in the direct approach, ‘is there something funny going on here?’

  He’d jumped like a cat attacked by a water-pistol. ‘Funny? No, why should there be? I’m just busy, that’s all. Look, we’ll talk at half-past eleven. Everything’ll be a lot clearer then.’

  Though whether everything would be a lot clearer for her or for him, Ankle-Deep Arkwright didn’t say.

  Now that the eleven-thirty meeting had arrived, however, he didn’t seem any more relaxed or forthcoming.

  ‘But, Ank,’ Mrs Pargeter persisted, ‘why on earth didn’t Dr Potter spot what was wrong with the girl?’

  ‘’Cause he didn’t see her till after she was dead. Then of course he knew what was wrong instantly. Said he knew the hospital would come up with the same diagnosis.’

  ‘So did Dr Potter sign the death certificate?’

  ‘No. He said it would be more ethical for the hospital to do that.’

  Why this sudden concern with ethics, Mrs Pargeter wondered, as Ankle-Deep Arkwright went on, ‘Look, the kid only arrived yesterday. She would have weighed in and that this morning; then obviously someone would’ve seen there was something wrong and called Dr Potter. She just didn’t give us the chance.’

  ‘But why was she allowed to check in in that condition?’

  ‘We didn’t know she was in that condition!’ Ankle-Deep Arkwright replied testily. ‘Look, someone makes a reservation on the phone, you accept it in good faith. You don’t say, “Oh, by the way, you aren’t by any chance about to die of anorexia nervosa, are you?” You just don’t do that, do you, Mrs P.?’ he concluded on a note of pleading.

  She wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily. ‘Surely whoever checked her in at Reception must’ve thought she looked odd?’

  He gave another of his shifty shrugs. ‘If a girl arrives in a big baggy coat, and she’s got a hat on so you can’t see her hair’s falling out . . . come on, who’s to notice. It’s not our business to be nosy.’ His voice took on a note of piety. ‘Here at Brotherton Hall we pride ourselves on respecting our guests’ privacy, you know.’

  Mrs Pargeter snorted. ‘There’s a difference between respecting your guests’ privacy and letting them die for lack of medical attention.’

  He was angry now. ‘Look, I told you – the girl only arrived yesterday!’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Mrs Pargeter asked gently. She could not remove from her memory the words she had heard at five o’clock the previous morning; nor could she help feeling they were linked to the girl’s death.

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure!’

  ‘So who checked her in yesterday?’

  He was momentarily confused. ‘Well, I can’t remember who was on duty . . . There are rosters and things that we could have a look at . . . Oh, just a minute, though . . . Yes, it was Lindy Galton. Lindy Galton was on Reception four to eight yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Oh well, I could check it out with her then,’ said Mrs Pargeter casually.

  ‘You could, yes. But not today. Lindy’s day off.’

  ‘That’s a pity . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ But he didn’t seem to think it was as much of a pity as she did.

  ‘. . . because Kim and me’re off tomorrow.’

  He shrugged in satisfied helplessness, then changed tack and tried an appeal for sympathy. ‘Look, you must realize, Mrs P., that this, er . . . incident is extremely embarrassing. I mean, particularly embarrassing given the nature of the business I’m running here. A death from anorexia at a health spa – just think what kind of a meal the tabloids could make of that one.’

  Mrs Pargeter did not give an inch, and stayed silent.

  ‘Surprising, I suppose, that it doesn’t happen more often,’ Ankle-Deep Arkwright floundered on. ‘Presumably for an anorexic girl, there is a kind of logic about it. You’re obsessed with losing weight, so you book into a health spa to lose more.’

  ‘I’m not sure that that’s how it’d work. Anorexics rarely draw attention to their condition. It’s something very private for them, something whose existence a lot of them won’t even admit.’

  ‘Well . . . Well . . .’ He looked lost. ‘Clearly in this case the girl’s mind worked differently. Listen, Mrs P.’ – pleading had now been replaced by begging – ‘it’s very important that we keep what’s happened to ourselves. I mean, it could be absolutely disastrous for business if—’

  Mrs Pargeter cut through all this. ‘What’s the girl’s name?’

  ‘Jenny Hargreaves. Well, that was the name on the things I found in her room. I went up there this morning to check the place out.’ He hastily remembered
something else. ‘And Jenny Hargreaves was of course what she registered under, so I can only assume it was her real name.’

  ‘You’re positive it was only yesterday that she did register?’

  ‘Of course I am! Really, Mrs P. – don’t you trust me or something?’ He thought better of giving her time to answer the question. ‘I can show you the records. Our registration system is all computerized.’

  He went through to the reception area and returned almost immediately with a couple of sheets torn off a computer print-out. These he thrust towards her. ‘Look, Mrs P., there you are – Jenny Hargreaves checked in at six-forty yesterday evening.’

  The details were undeniably printed out. ‘Why is the credit-card reference blank?’ asked Mrs Pargeter.

  There was an infinitesimal pause before Ankle-Deep Arkwright replied, ‘Not everyone pays by credit card. We accept cheques – or even old-fashioned cash,’ he added with an unsuccessful attempt at humour.

  ‘Hmm . . .’ Mrs Pargeter still looked at the print-out in front of her. ‘Her address is a college in Cambridge.’

  ‘So . . .?’

  ‘I’d’ve thought Brotherton Hall was rather an expensive place for a student, wouldn’t you?’

  Once again, Ankle-Deep Arkwright just shrugged.

  ‘Mason de Vere Detective Agency.’

  The voice was terminally lugubrious and immediately recognizable.

  ‘Truffler. It’s Mrs Pargeter.’

  ‘Oh, how wonderful to hear you,’ he said, in the tones of a man who’d just received a ransom demand for his only daughter. Truffler Mason’s manner had been gloomy back in his days of working for the late Mr Pargeter, and when, following his beloved boss’s death, he moved into a more publicly acceptable area of private investigation, the gloom had gone with him.

  ‘What’s with all this answering your own phone, Truffler? Haven’t you got any staff?’