Good. Mrs Pargeter congratulated herself on her timing. With the policemen as witnesses, she felt certain that Jane Watson would maintain at least the appearance of civility. She wouldn’t want to unleash any unnecessary suspicions by suggesting dissensions among the residents of Smithy’s Loam.
“Hello, I’m Mrs Pargeter. We haven’t really met properly, have we? I’m the one who’s moved into the Cottons’ house.”
“Yes…” Jane Watson looked troubled and uncertain for a moment. Then she saw a let-out. “I’m sorry. The police are here, asking me some questions…you know, in connection with…what happened. Do you think it would be possible for you to call back another time…?”
“No, it’s no problem,” said one of the detectives, spot on cue. “We’d just about finished. Don’t let us interfere with your social life.”
“Well…er…” Jane Watson looked confused. She didn’t want to invite Mrs Pargeter in, but equally she didn’t want the detectives to see her turning her new neighbour away. She succumbed. “You’d better come in,” she said, standing back with not very good grace.
“Thank you, dear.” Mrs Pargeter bustled into the house, looking very pleased with herself.
“May have to be in touch again, Mrs Watson,” one of the detectives apologised. “Sorry, as we were only just now saying to Mrs Pargeter, these enquiries can take a hell of a long time.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Jane Watson looked weak and a little confused.
“Anyway, thank you so much for your assistance.” The two detectives made their way off down the path.
Jane Watson closed the front door behind them and leant against it. With a defiant look at Mrs Pargeter, she demanded, “Now what on earth do you want?”
♦
The door to the sitting-room was still open. Uninvited, Mrs Pargeter moved through it, saying, “Just a neighbourly call…”
Jane Watson followed her. “Look, what is this?”
There was anger in her voice, but not the confident anger of righteousness. It was the uncertain anger of anxiety.
Mrs Pargeter looked at her. Jane Watson’s looks were stuck in a time-warp. The Sixties. She looked like a bespectacled Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary; long blonde hair fading a bit now; pale eyes weak behind thick glasses; face, innocent of make-up, showing its lines. A marked contrast to most of the carefully coiffed and painted ladies of Smithy’s Loam.
“It’s just…” Mrs Pargeter began, circling round to her subject, “really this murder that’s made me come to see you. I mean, now we’re all going through the same thing, all being questioned by the police and what-have-you, I thought we ought to stick together…”
“Why?” asked Jane Watson.
It was a disconcerting question – disconcerting chiefly because Mrs Pargeter couldn’t think of an answer to it.
“Well, I don’t know,” she replied accurately enough. “It’s just strange for me, moving into a new house and then discovering that its former owner was murdered…”
Jane Watson grunted acknowledgement that that might be strange, but implied that the strangeness still did not explain Mrs Pargeter’s presence.
“…and I was just wondering when you last saw Theresa Cotton…?”
“The police asked that.”
“Yes, and now I’m asking it.”
“But the police at least have a reason for asking,” said Jane with mounting anger. “It’s their job. Whereas it’s no business of yours at all.”
“I’m just interested,” said Mrs Pargeter, with what she hoped was a disarming shrug.
It didn’t disarm Jane Watson. “Everyone round here shows too much bloody interest in other people’s lives! We all have a right to privacy, and that’s something everyone should respect.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly,” Mrs Pargeter agreed.
Jane Watson’s eyes blazed. “Then why won’t you respect mine!”
“All I want to know is whether Theresa Cotton came to say goodbye to you the evening before she died…?”
Jane reacted sharply. “Why? What does it matter whether she did or not?”
“I just want to know,” said Mrs Pargeter simply.
A change came into the pale eyes behind their thick lenses; they grew more cunning. “I do know why you want to know.”
“Oh? Really?”
“Yes. I know you’re connected with them.”
“Them?” Mrs Pargeter felt she was rather losing touch with the conversation, and what Jane Watson said next didn’t dispel that impression.
“I know what they’re like. Once they get their claws into you, they don’t let go.”
“What?”
“Theresa Cotton was one of them. And you’re one of them.”
Mrs Pargeter began to fear for the woman’s sanity, as these paranoid ramblings continued.
“And, oh yes, I admit it – I was one, too. But I escaped, I got away from it. And I’m never going to go back!” The cunning in the eyes was now giving way to a gleam of madness. “Oh, they think they can take everything from you, but they can’t take your soul! No, that remains your own! They can’t take away your self!”
Jane Watson was now very close. She took hold of Mrs Pargeter’s plump arms and gripped them tightly. “So you won’t succeed, Mrs Pargeter – or whatever your real name is! Theresa Cotton didn’t succeed, either. She came round, trying to take me back, but I was too strong for her! And I’ll be too strong for you, too!”
She certainly was strong. Her fingers were biting like metal into Mrs Pargeter’s flesh. They were hands that would have had no difficulty in strangling someone.
Mrs Pargeter felt a tremor of fear. “I must go,” she blurted out.
“Yes,” Jane Watson hissed. “You shouldn’t have come in the first place!”
With a final vindictive squeeze, she released her grip. Mrs Pargeter scuttled out of the sitting-room towards the front door.
Jane Watson’s words followed her. “And I hope now you won’t try to come again! Theresa Cotton came to see me – yes, in answer to your question, she did come to see me. And look what happened to her!”
Mrs Pargeter snatched open the front door, and burst out, breathless, into the relative calm of Smithy’s Loam.
That woman, she thought, is mad.
∨ Mrs, Presumed Dead ∧
Twenty-Eight
The phone was ringing as Mrs Pargeter entered the front door. She snatched it up and instantly recognised Truffler Mason’s funereal tones.
“Listen, I’ve found him.” Never had such exciting news been imparted in such an unexcited way. He sounded like a tiler giving an estimate for a roof repair.
“Rod? Where is he? Can I make contact with him?”
“Yes, you can,” Truffler replied dubiously, “if you’re sure you want to.”
“You don’t make it sound very attractive.”
“It isn’t very attractive. Do you really need to see him?”
She had no hesitation in saying ‘Yes’. Mrs Pargeter was now very determined that Theresa Cotton’s murderer should be unmasked, and though of course she had great respect for the abilities of the police, she rather wondered whether they would be able to do it on their own. They didn’t have the same kind of network of contacts as Truffler Mason; it might take them a very long time to trace the missing man.
And, though Mrs Pargeter was by no means committed to the prevalent view that Rod Cotton had killed his wife, she knew that no investigation into the murder would be complete without an interview with the absent husband.
Truffler did not try to dissuade her. The late Mr Pargeter, shortly before his death, had instructed the investigator to give any help his widow might require, and Truffler owed far too much to the late Mr Pargeter to dream of disobeying those orders in the smallest particular.