But Fiona wasn’t going to be caught the same way twice. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think Alexander’s capable of jealousy. Sometimes I wonder if he’d even notice if I was up to anything.”
“Ever tempted…?” asked Mrs Pargeter mischievously.
“Huh. Chance’d be a fine thing.” But it wasn’t said with any meaning. It was just conventional banter. There was at the heart of Fiona Burchfield-Brown a kind of hopelessness, a lack of confidence that simply wouldn’t believe that any man could ever show any interest in her. No, she had long since reconciled herself to always being with Alexander – and all that that entailed.
“Anyway, this man was asking about Theresa’s visitors…” Time for another little lie. “…and I found this booklet thing around the house with a photograph of a bearded man in it, and I wondered whether you might have a look at it and see if you recognise him…?”
“Oh, sure.” Fiona Burchfield-Brown wiped her hand against her face as she had on their previous encounter. This time the streak she left was of silver polish rather than chicken grease. She looked at the proffered booklet.
“Yes. I’d say that was him. Pretty well certainly. I mean, he hadn’t got that robe thingummy on.”
“Dressed in scruffy clothes, you said…?”
“Yes, and sort of out of date. Patterned shirt, jeans with a bit of a flare, trainers…”
It sounded as though it had been Brother Brian. The clothes would fit in with the Church of Utter Simplicity’s ostentatious unworldliness.
“Well, thank you. That’s a great help, Fiona. And now if this bloke rings again, I’ll be able to tell him. And finally get him off my back, I hope.”
“Good luck. I jolly well hope you do.”
♦
It really did feel cold as Mrs Pargeter left Fiona’s front door. She clutched the Church of Utter Simplicity booklets to her ample mink-clad bosom to ward off the chill.
Jane Watson, Mrs Nervy the Neurotic, was walking briskly along the pavement from ‘Hibiscus’. At the gate of ‘High Bushes’ their paths crossed.
Mrs Pargeter was determined to make contact with the one Smithy’s Loam wife she had not yet met. “Good morning,” she said cheerily.
Jane Watson jumped as if a gun had been fired behind her ear. She flashed a furtive look at Mrs Pargeter.
What happened then was very odd. The expression of shock in Jane Watson’s eyes changed in a second to a look of sheer, blind panic. Without saying a word, she turned her head sharply away and rushed off down the road so fast she was almost running.
The incident made Mrs Pargeter all the more determined to make contact with the frightened woman. There was something very odd going on there. Something that required explanation.
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Twenty-One
Mrs Pargeter sat in the back of the chauffeur-driven limousine on the way to Bedford and tried to still the growing anxiety within her. She was not a woman prone to panic. Her temperament was naturally equable, and the years of her marriage to the late Mr Pargeter, a marriage whose excitements might have aggravated any tendency towards nervousness in some wives, had in her case simply taught her the values of patience and control. Though, of course, she had had her anxious moments when her husband was away on particularly important business trips, she had always disciplined herself into keeping the nature of the risks he undertook in proportion.
But the anxiety she was now feeling about Theresa Cotton continued to grow, in spite of the rigid constraints of logic she imposed on it.
The former resident of her house had not left it in the conventional way, of that Mrs Pargeter felt increasingly certain. Theresa Cotton had set up an elaborate subterfuge about her departure, she had devised a scenario specifically to mislead her neighbours, but that scenario had not been followed. Something had happened to change her plans.
And Mrs Pargeter didn’t think that that something had been a simple change of mind. No, her conjectures were more ominous.
One of these conjectures, though, could be checked out comparatively easily.
Which was why she was travelling to Bedford.
♦
“Oh, do come in. He’s just upstairs changing.”
The woman at the door was modest, but comfortable-looking. So was the house she ushered Mrs Pargeter into.
“We moved up here when he started. You know, ten years is a long time. Thought it’d be easier if we were on the spot.”
“Of course. How much longer has he got to go?”
“Another five. Just half-way. Mind you, could be a lot less with good behaviour. And his behaviour’s been perfect. So I’m hoping we’ll see him out in a year…eighteen months.”
“Good. I do hope so.”
“Come through into the sitting-room. Don’t mind Baby, will you?”
Mrs Pargeter went into the room indicated. It was full of the evidence of a young family. A cheerfully cooing, drooling baby rocked itself back and forth in a sprung chair. A boy of three and an eighteen-month-old of indeterminate sex were on the floor, absorbed in some elaborate game with toy cars and cereal boxes, and hardly looked up at the newcomer.
“Do take a seat, please.” Mrs Crabbe smiled expansively at her visitor. “Would you like a cup of tea? Or coffee? Whichever you like.”
“Coffee’d be lovely.”
“That’s what he’ll want, and all. He says the coffee inside tastes like metal polish.”
The homely Mrs Crabbe went off to the kitchen, leaving Mrs Pargeter to observe the charming domestic scene. It was one of peaceful chaos. The warm, comforting chaos that is inevitable in any household containing three children under four. An ordinary domestic scene.
Perfectly ordinary. In fact, the only thing that made it extraordinary was that the man of the house had been in Bedford prison for the past five years.
At that moment the man in question appeared. He was casually dressed in a cardigan, cord trousers and bedroom slippers. Just like any other husband and father taking it easy in his own home. Only the aggressive shortness of his hair suggested that he might have a life outside (or perhaps ‘inside’ would be more accurate).
His welcome was as warm as his wife’s had been. He clasped Mrs Pargeter’s hand in both of his. “Hello! Great pleasure to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you. Quite honestly, Mr Pargeter – I mean, the late Mr Pargeter – goodness, the amount he used to talk about you. On about you all the time, he was.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Certainly. All the time.”
“What, even when you were working?”
“Particularly when we was working. Goodness, your ears must’ve been burning all the time he was away. A pearl among women, he called you. A pearl among women.”
“Oh…” Mrs Pargeter blushed charmingly.
“And now I have the pleasure of meeting you, I can see he was dead right.”
“Thank you.” Mrs Pargeter decided it was time to reciprocate the odd compliment. “You’ve got yourself very nicely set up here.”
He shrugged dismissively. “Well, all right to tide us over. I mean, when I’m, er…when I’m my own master again, I’ll move us somewhere that’s more our style. But this is all right, you know, while the kids is little. Bit of a squash when they get much bigger, though.”
“It’s fine. And very convenient.”
“Yes.”
“You know, for visiting…”
“Oh, sure. Yes, well, I get out as often as I can.” The eighteen-month-old tottered across and nuzzled at his or her father’s knee. The silky hair was affectionately rumpled. “I mean, obviously sometimes it’s tricky, but I think, by and large, I probably see as much of the kids as most fathers…certainly more than those who leave for work before the little ‘uns wake up and get back after they’ve gone to bed.”