♦
He rang back within the half-hour.
“Yes, I have it all, Mrs Pargeter. Sid Runcorn had no dealings with anyone other than Mrs Cotton. She was the one who rang him and offered the car for sale. She fixed the time for him to come and collect it, and she it was who let him in when he arrived.”
“When was this?”
“Last Monday. Week ago yesterday.”
As she had thought. “And what time did he arrive?”
“About seven in the evening. He’d gone down by train, you see, because he was going to be driving the Fiat back.”
This again supported her conjectures. So did the physical description of Sid Runcorn. He was of medium height, with a beard that he never trimmed, and his customary working clothes were a grubby navy-blue overall and a woolly hat. In other words, he was Theresa Cotton’s second bearded visitor on her last day in Smithy’s Loam.
“How long did he stay at the house?”
“Not long. He looked at the car in the garage, took it round the block for a test-drive, then handed over the money, and went off. He was very chuffed. Beautiful little motor, he said. Low mileage, really been looked after.”
“And what, did he give Mrs Cotton a cheque?”
“No, no, cash. All Sid Runcorn’s deals are cash,” was the firm reply.
“How much was the price?”
Rewind Wilson told her. Though apparently little for a car of the age and condition of the Cottons’ Fiat, it was still a lot for the average housewife to have loose in cash about her house.
“And, Mr Wilson, when Mr Runcorn left, he didn’t take Mrs Cotton with him, did he?”
“What?” This time he could not keep the curiosity out of his voice. “No, of course not. Why should he do that?”
“Oh, no reason. No, don’t worry about it. Look, Re –” Oh dear, doing it again. “…Mr Wilson, thank you enormously for all your help.”
“Think absolutely nothing of it, dear lady. It’s a mere drop in the ocean, compared to all your late husband did for me. You know, if I hadn’t been working with him, I’d never have been able to afford to set myself up in my current line.”
“Oh, well, I’m so glad. Always liked to help others, Mr Pargeter did.”
“Yes, he was a real Robin Hood.”
“Except that Robin Hood was a thief.” Mrs Pargeter reproved him mischievously.
Rewind Wilson was once again swamped in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. In no way did I wish to imply that your late –”
Mrs Pargeter cut through all this. “Don’t you worry. I was only joking. Listen, thanks a million. I’ll get out of your hair now, and let you get on with the sheikhs.”
“They’ll be no problem.”
“Do they haggle about the price?” she asked, curious.
“Good heavens, no. With them and Rollers, it’s not a question of price, it’s a question of how many. Oh no, they’re prepared to pay for what they want.”
Mrs Pargeter giggled. “Does that go for your secretaries’ services, too?”
“It certainly does. Girl on Reception went out to dinner with one of our Middle Eastern clients last week…”
“Oh?”
“Came in this morning driving a brand-new Porsche.”
“Really?”
“Mind you, she reckoned she earned every last hub-cap. Still, we don’t need to go into the details of that, do we?”
“No. No, I suppose we don’t,” Mrs Pargeter agreed, rather wistfully.
♦
She now had three new pieces of information.
First, the appearance of Theresa Cotton’s second bearded visitor was explained.
Second, on her last evening in ‘Acapulco’, Theresa Cotton had a great deal of cash with her.
And, third, she didn’t leave her house at the time Fiona Burchfield-Brown had assumed she had left.
In fact, no one had seen Theresa Cotton leave her house at all.
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Sixteen
Mrs Pargeter decided she would have a little walk before lunch. She always tried to have at least one walk a day; she knew how important it was for people to keep mobile as they got older. And exercise, she hoped, might slow down her not-unattractive tendency towards plumpness.
Also, she found walking very conducive to constructive thought.
She determined that, rather than taking the customary route from her front door, she would explore round the back of the house. There was a high gate in the neat fencing at the end of her garden, and she had not yet had time to discover what lay beyond it. She did not entertain romantic notions of finding a secret garden like that in her favourite childhood book, but she still felt a little buzz of excitement at the thought of the unknown.
As she walked down the path, she noticed how ragged the back garden had grown even in the brief period of her residence. All gardens look ragged in late autumn, but somehow the other householders of Smithy’s Loam had disciplined nature firmly to conform to their high standards.
Mrs Pargeter decided she must organise the services of a gardener. Not, she proudly asserted to herself, because she gave a damn about what her neighbours thought; simply because she liked living in pleasant surroundings.
For a moment she wondered whether she might be able to contact some of the men who proved so green-fingered during their enforced seclusion at the big house in Chigwell, but she quickly concluded that it might be a little difficult to arrange. No, better to apply for help locally. And asking advice on where to find a good gardener could be a useful excuse for paying a call on other Smithy’s Loam residents when the need arose.
The gate had metal bolts at top and bottom, but these were not locked. It opened easily, and Mrs Pargeter found herself on a tarmacked path which ran along the line of fencing at the back of the houses. Across the path was a thin band of woodland, some fifty metres wide, beyond which, through the stripped trees of autumn, she could see the undulations of a golf course. This access to open space for the walking of dogs – or even for the playing of golf – was another of the features of which the original Smithy’s Loam brochure had made much.
The strip of woodland was frequented by rabbits, squirrels and the occasional flasher, but Mrs Pargeter’s sensibilities were not challenged that morning. (In fact, if they had been, she would have coped better than many women of her age. On one occasion a few years previously, when walking along the dunes at Littlehampton West Beach, she had been confronted by a twenty-year-old man determined to show her his all. Without breaking her stride, Mrs Pargeter had stared at what was on offer, sniffed, said, “I’ve seen better”, and continued her walk.)
The path curved round the back gardens of all the houses in Smithy’s Loam. Each neat fence had its own neat gate, though on the tops of some, barbed wire or metal spikes had been affixed to deter intruders.
At the apex of the close the woodland gave way to a long wall, topped with broken glass. As Mrs Pargeter walked along the narrow passage between the high fencing and this wall, she conjectured what might lie behind it. However, she was not kept in ignorance for long, because the path opened out into what proved to be the service road behind the Shopping Parade, and she could see at the entrance to the walled enclosure a sign identifying it as a local dairy depot.
She continued her circuit, passing along the end of the Parade, past the threatened coffee shop, turning left on to the main road and then into Smithy’s Loam and back home.
The excursion had taken her less than five minutes. Not long enough, really, to count as a constitutional. Certainly not long enough to have any counteractive effect on her potential weight problem.
But quite long enough to stimulate some very useful thoughts.