She still showed no signs of moving away from the wall. Carole took her frustration out on the windows, which squeaked with protest at their chastisement.
“Must’ve been lonely for Theresa…” Mrs Pargeter mused. “Stuck down here, husband away all the time. I wouldn’t have liked it. My husband always had to be away a certain amount…you know, in connection with his business…and I never really felt right until he came back.”
This did not seem to Carole to be worthy of reaction.
“No, I didn’t like it. Still, I know there are some couples it doesn’t worry…Some seem a lot happier to be separated than to be together…Depends how close they are, really, I suppose…how things are going between them…”
But if Mrs Pargeter had hoped that this fishing would elicit any comment on the state of the Cottons’ marriage, she was disappointed. Carole Temple just wrung out her cloth as if she were strangling it and attacked a top corner of the window with an air of finality.
Recognising that she had pushed as far as she dared and got as much information as she was going to get that morning, Mrs Pargeter rubbed her hands together and moved back from the wall. “Still, haven’t got time to stay here chatting all day, pleasant though it is. Things to get on with. See you soon, I’m sure. ‘Bye ‘bye, love.”
Again the familiarity stung Carole, whose head spun round to face her neighbour. She looked upstaged and very cross. If anyone should be curtailing this unwanted conversation, it should be her and not the person who had forced it on her.
But she was too late. Mrs Pargeter had picked up her unused garden tools and, with a little twitch of mischief at the corners of her mouth, waved serenely, before disappearing round the side of her house.
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Fifteen
In spite of his new up-market address and his new upmarket business, Rewind Wilson had lost none of his old efficiency in negotiating the labyrinth of crooked passages which unites the country’s car dealers. He rang back the widow of his former employer the next morning at half-past eleven.
“Mrs Pargeter, hello,” the ersatz Etonian tones rumbled. “Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you…” – which was simply showing off under the circumstances – “…but I do now have the information you require.”
“About the Fiat Uno?”
“That’s right. Very easy to trace, as it turned out.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I thought I might have to get the road scouts out on to it, but in fact it’s with a dealer.”
“With a dealer?” Mrs Pargeter echoed, slightly puzzled.
“Yes. It was sold to a fellow in Clapham. Sid Runcorn…never met him, but I’ve heard he’s a bit heavily into the old F and R…”
For an innocent widow in her late sixties, Mrs Pargeter had a surprisingly comprehensive knowledge of underworld slang, but on this occasion she had to admit ignorance.
Rewind Wilson supplied an immediate gloss. “F and R – Fill-in and Respray. A lot of it done on dodgy bodywork…never mind the rust, slap on the filler, sand it down, couple of coats of spray – fool ninety-nine per cent of the punters any day.” He suddenly recollected his new status in the motor industry. “Or so I’m told.”
“What, so he’s done that to the Cottons’ car?” asked Mrs Pargeter, her mind racing with images of vehicles disguised to avoid detection.
“No, no, nothing like that. I only mention it because it’s the only thing I know about him. No, in this case it was a straight purchase for resale.”
“You mean the Cottons sold him their car?”
“That’s right. He’s had his engineers look it over and it’s standing out on his forecourt in Clapham with a price stuck on the windscreen.”
“What kind of price?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, compared to what the Cottons sold it for…?”
Rewind Wilson dropped back instinctively into a professional defensive posture. “Of course, there would be quite a mark-up…”
“How much?”
“About forty per cent on this one.”
“Forty per cent!”
“Well, come on, the dealer’s got his overheads and it’s no picnic trying to offload motors at – ” Again Rewind Wilson seemed to realise that his past was encroaching, and recovered himself. “Erm, yes, I believe some of the dealers down that end of the market can be a little unscrupulous in the matter of pricing.”
“Yes…” Mrs Pargeter thought for a moment. “Anything unusual about this sale?”
“Unusual? I believe it was all perfectly legitimate. With a car only a year old you don’t usually have to do much in the way of cosmetics…you know, unless it’s an insurance write-off and you’ve got to weld the chassis and – or so I believe. I mean, so I have heard from operators in that kind of area of the market,” he concluded cautiously.
“I didn’t mean anything illegal. I just meant was there anything odd about it, anything that struck Mr Runcorn as odd…?”
“Ah, I’m with you. Well, there were only two things he mentioned. One, the call about the car was from way off his usual patch. I mean, that address is down near Dorking, isn’t it? Sid rarely strays out of South London.”
“Then why did he this time?”
“Because the car was such a bargain.”
“Really?”
“Yes. That’s why he could make such a healthy mark-up. She was asking way below the current price guide, so he didn’t mind a bit of travel to pick it up.”
“Mr Runcorn picked the car up himself?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. What would it suggest to you, Re…” Mrs Pargeter cleared her throat to cover the gaffe “Mr Wilson…you know, when someone tries to sell a car below its market value?”
“Could be various reasons. Might be just they’re clueless, don’t know a thing about motors…Or could be for a quick sale…”
Mrs Pargeter preferred the second explanation. It fitted in well with the rest of her thinking about Theresa Cotton’s disappearance. A quick sale of the car to a dealer from outside the area – probably randomly selected from the Yellow Pages – would raise less questions in Smithy’s Loam than a local transaction. And the lowered price was probably just an incentive to make sure that Theresa’s chosen dealer rose to the bait.
“Mr Wilson, I wonder…could you get a little more information for me…?”
“No problem at all, my dear Mrs Pargeter.”
“Are you sure I’m not keeping you from your work?”
“No, no, I’ve got a couple of sheikhs in the outer office, but they can wait.”
“Now, I shouldn’t be stopping you from –”
“Don’t think about it. They’re having such fun propositioning my secretaries, offering ever-increasing inducements for unlikely personal services, that they won’t notice the time.”
“How do the secretaries react?” asked Mrs Pargeter, intrigued.
“Oh, they think it’s enormous fun. Finishing schools may not do much in the educational line, but they at least teach them how to deal with that kind of thing.”
“Ah.”
“Anyway, what was the further information you required, Mrs Pargeter?”
“It’s a few fine details. I’d like to know whether Mr Runcorn dealt just with Mrs Cotton or whether he dealt with the husband too. I’d like to know exactly what day and what time he collected the car. Oh, and I’d like a physical description of Mr Runcorn.”
“Very well, Mrs Pargeter. I’ll call you back as soon as possible.”
If Rewind Wilson had any curiosity as to why she wanted this information, he restrained it. He had no wish to make another gaffe like the one at the end of their previous conversation.