by Simon Brett
‘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.
‘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 was moving up North.
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.
9
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.
10
Mrs Pargeter began the continuation of her campaign at nine-thirty sharp on the Monday morning. She got through to Littlehaven’s straight away.
‘Oh, good morning. My name is Pargeter. I wonder if you could help me? I’m ringing about a removal job you did last week.’
‘Listen,’ a truculent male voice objected, ‘if you’ve got any complaints, you should’ve got back to us within twenty-four hours. We can’t possibly be expected to—’
‘It isn’t a complaint.’
‘Oh,’ said the voice, partly mollified but still wary.
‘You see, I’m the person who’s moved into the house from which you removed the previous owner’s possessions.’
‘If anything got left behind, we must’ve had instructions about it. My men are very thorough. They don’t go around—’
‘No, no, it’s all right.’ Mrs Pargeter was beginning to wonder whether paranoia was an occupational hazard of furniture removers. ‘The fact is,’ she continued, ‘that the former owner of the house did give me her address, but I’ve lost the piece of paper she wrote it on and I am sure you must have on your records some—’
‘Look, if you want a flaming Missing Persons bureau,’ the voice complained, unaware of how apt its words were, ‘you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m running a removals business here. I haven’t got time to bust a gut chasing information about—’
It wasn’t worth pointing out that in the time he had taken to say all that, he could have found the information and given it to her. Instead, soothingly, she interrupted, ‘That wasn’t the only reason for my call. I might also be putting some business your way.’
The lie had the required effect. ‘Oh. What sort of business?’
‘Um . . . A removal job,’ she replied, thrown by the question.
‘Well. In that case . . . who was the person you were enquiring about . . . you know, last week’s job . . . ?’
‘The name was Cotton. Smithy’s Loam.’
‘Oh, yes. The Surrey job. Long way for us, that is. Don’t usually go that far. So what was it you wanted to know?’
‘The Cottons’ new address. Where you delivered to the other end.’
The voice laughed harshly. ‘Well, we didn’t deliver the other end, did we?’
‘What, you mean you got there and found the address didn’t exist?’ Her question burst out instinctively.
‘Eh?’ The voice sounded bewildered. ‘No, of course we didn’t. It wasn’t a removal job from one house to another. It was a storage job.’
‘So you mean you now have all the Cottons’ furniture in store?’
‘That’s right. In containers. In our warehouse. Five miles away from here.’
‘Ah.’ The extent of the planning behind Theresa Cotton’s disappearance was becoming clearer by the minute. ‘And did Mrs Cotton say how long she wanted everything stored?’
‘Well, she paid for six months in advance. Said it might be longer, though. Her husband had got some posting abroad or something.’
‘Really?’
‘Look, what is this?’ The voice was again becoming suspicious. ‘Why are you asking all this stuff?’
‘Well, as I say, what I really wanted was the Cotton’s new address . . .’
‘I haven’t got it. And if you don’t mind, I—’
‘But, in fact,’ Mrs Pargeter came in quickly, ‘I was asking because it’s a storage job that I need doing.’
‘Oh.’ Once again the voice was calmed by an appeal to the profit motive. ‘What is it? Full house contents?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, as I say, we do containerised storage . . .’
‘Yes, but you can store everything, can you? I mean, furniture, domestic appliances . . . ?’
‘The lot. Nothing perishable, of course, but everything else.’
‘And everything would be safe in your warehouse? I mean, from burglars and—’
‘Safe as houses, lady.’ The voice allowed itself a brief joke. ‘Safer than most houses, actually.’
‘Oh, that’s most interesting. Could you tell me how much that would cost?’
The voice reeled off a list of figures, with variations for the volume of goods stored and the period of storage. It concluded, ‘Let me take your particulars and then I can send you details through the post.’
‘Yes. Thank you. Of course I am just getting quotes at the moment.’
‘Shopping around, you mean?’
‘Yes,’
‘Right.’ The voice turned shirty. ‘Look, you’ve wasted quite enough of my time this morning. When you’ve got a serious business proposition, ring back. Otherwise don’t bother!’
This time Mrs Pargeter was not quick enough to stop the voice from putting the phone down. Though she wasn’t sure what she could have said, anyway.
Oh, well, she’d got some useful information. Pity she hadn’t been able to get more. Littlehaven’s must have had some contact address for the Cottons. Surely they wouldn’t do business with people of no fixed abode . . . ?
On the other hand, they had been paid for six months in advance. And, in a sense, the storage company had the advantage. The complete contents of a house were worth quite a bit of money. They wouldn’t anticipate anyone just leaving the stuff in their custody without reclaiming it. No, the goods were there as hostages against default of payment.
Anyway, given the thoroughness with which Theresa Cotton had disseminated her other lies, Mrs Pargeter felt sure she could have come up with something to cover this eventuality. The lie about not having the phone connected until they moved in had been glib enough; Theresa could easily have fabricated something else . . . Her husband was being posted abroad, but they didn’t know exactly where they’d be living yet . . . ? They’d get in touch as soon as they had a permanent address . . . ? Yes, that’d be good enough to satisfy the voice on the phone. Particularly if he’d got six months’ advance payment in his pocket.
For a moment Mrs Pargeter wondered whether the story about a foreign posting for Rod Cotton could be true . . .
But no, surely not. If that were the case, then Theresa could have told everyone. In fact, given the emphasis in Smithy’s Loam on succes
s and promotion, she would definitely have told everyone. She wouldn’t go to the trouble of inventing false addresses in North Yorkshire.
Unless, of course, the foreign posting was a demotion. Things hadn’t worked out for Rod in the North and now he had been forced to go abroad to get a job which would keep up their living standards . . . ?
But somehow that didn’t seem very convincing, either.
Basically, Mrs Pargeter told herself, this is all conjecture. I don’t have enough facts yet.
Still, she hadn’t come to the end of her resources. There remained a variety of ways of getting more facts.
‘Oh, hello, Vivvi. This is Melita Pargeter.’
‘How nice to hear you. I hope you had a good weekend.’
‘Delightful, thank you.’
‘Yes, not a lot happens round the close’ – damn, she’d let it slip out – ‘at weekends, but I think that’s just the time when you can appreciate how secluded we are here. You really could be in the middle of the country at the weekends. Didn’t you find that?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say. I was up in London.’
‘Oh.’ This again felt wrong to Vivvi. People who had just moved to Smithy’s Loam should stay in Smithy’s Loam. They shouldn’t go gallivanting up to London at the first opportunity.
‘Anyway, Vivvi, I was just ringing to thank you so much for Friday.’
‘Oh, it was a pleasure.’
‘No, most kind of you to set it up. I was delighted to have the opportunity to meet everyone.’
‘Well, we are all so glad you could come.’ But somehow the use of the word ‘we’ seemed inappropriate in Smithy’s Loam.
‘I’d love to repay the compliment at some point.’
‘Oh, that’d be terrific. I’d love to come, but, you know, I do get very tied up with the kids and . . .’
‘Yes. Yes, well, we’ll sort out a time.’ But as she said the words, Mrs Pargeter felt no urgency to leap for her calendar.
‘Oh, incidentally, Mrs Pargeter, did you hear that Sue Curle is trying to set up a women’s action group to stop this Indian restaurant menace . . . ?’