Mrs, Presumed Dead

by Simon Brett

  ‘Brother Brian?’

  Jane Watson nodded. ‘I saw him going up Theresa’s front path. I thought he was coming for me and had gone to the wrong house. I’m afraid I just went. Instantly I was right back like at the beginning of the breakdown. I hid. I locked myself in the lavatory.’

  ‘But Brother Brian didn’t come to your door, did he?’

  ‘No, but I was convinced they were on to me. I was convinced that they’d tracked me down. And I thought they’d take me away from my house and from Roger and—’

  ‘They haven’t got the power to do that, Jane.’

  ‘Oh, they have. They’re very powerful, Mrs Pargeter, very persuasive.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve got free of them, you really have. You’ve broken away and made your own life, outside the Church of Utter Simplicity.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jane. ‘I know I have.’ She didn’t sound very convinced by her assertion. ‘But when I see them again, I just feel utterly powerless.’

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ Mrs Pargeter soothed. ‘Even if they did know where you are, they’d have given you up as a bad job by now. Anyway, they got all your money when you joined, didn’t they?’

  The woman nodded.

  ‘That’s all they’re really interested in.’

  ‘Yes, but now I’m well-off again. I mean, Roger’s got a good job and . . .’

  ‘Jane, that is your husband’s money. He’s not going to give it to some loony sect, is he?’

  ‘No, no, I suppose not. I’m sorry, I do just panic when I see anything to do with them. I’m not rational.’

  ‘Which is why you rushed away when you saw me carrying their leaflets?’

  ‘Exactly. I thought you were another one. I just get so confused, I’m not really responsible for what I do.’

  ‘Listen . . .’ Mrs Pargeter took the woman’s trembling hand. ‘It’s all right. You’re quite safe here. There’s no one out to get you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, I know you’re right. I still just panic when I meet people.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t. Come on, you must get to know your neighbours. They don’t mean you any harm. They can even help you.’

  Jane didn’t look convinced by this assertion. Mrs Pargeter wondered how much she was convinced by it herself. One at least of the other Smithy’s Loam residents had proved unhelpful to the point of murdering someone.

  Unless, of course, it had been Jane herself.

  ‘Tell me,’ Mrs Pargeter began in a tranquillising tone, ‘what happened that day Theresa left?’

  ‘Mm?’ Jane looked at her blankly, as if she had just dragged back from another plane of being.

  ‘The day you saw Brother Brian . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know. As I say, I just panicked. I took a lot of these pills the doctor had given me.’

  ‘Tranquillisers?’

  ‘That kind of thing, yes. They make me all woozy. I don’t really know what I’m doing when I have a lot of them. Just walk around in a dream.’

  ‘Hm. And did Theresa come and see you?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘That evening. The evening after you’d seen Brother Brian. She went round and said goodbye to everyone else in the close.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Did she come and see you?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t remember. Maybe she did. I think so.’

  ‘Came just to say goodbye.’

  ‘That’s right.’ said Jane Watson, nodding her head slowly in confirmation. ‘Just to say goodbye.’

  No, Jane Watson couldn’t be ruled out, either. True, the heavily tranquillised state she was in on the night of the murder did not fit in well with the meticulousness of the crime.

  But then there was no guarantee that she was telling the truth about what had happened.

  And, given Jane Watson’s terror of being taken back there, Theresa Cotton might only have needed to mention the Church of Utter Simplicity to sign her own death warrant.

  35

  Which really just left Fiona Burchfield-Brown.

  Mrs Pargeter wondered whether there could be anything that Theresa Cotton had challenged Fiona Burchfield-Brown with when she visited her on the night before her death. Fiona seemed so aristocratically bumbling, so earnestly incompetent, so transparent, that it was hard to imagine her as the possessor of a guilty secret. But Mrs Pargeter was far too canny an old bird to be deceived by appearances.

  She settled down that evening over a large vodka Campari to think about what might worry Fiona Burchfield-Brown.

  It didn’t take long for her to decide to ring Truffler Mason. He had after all investigated the residents of Smithy’s Loam in his search for Rod. Was it possible that his Welsh ‘market researcher’ had come up with something that might be relevant?

  His voice sounded as mournful as ever, but it contained no trace of resentment. He was still quite happy to give Mrs Pargeter any assistance she might require.

  ‘I’ll ask and get back to you,’ she said. Then, with a note of concern in his voice, he continued. ‘Does this mean, Mrs Pargeter, that you’re still on the case . . . ?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘I thought the husband-kills-wife scenario was a bit obvious myself.’

  ‘I think it’s just worth my asking around a bit.’ Mrs Pargeter conceded cautiously. ‘You know, see if I get any leads.’

  ‘Hmm. All right. But you be careful.’

  ‘What do you mean, Truffler? I’m not in any danger.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. You’re up against someone completely ruthless.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll keep a low profile and—’

  ‘Look, the murderer has already killed two people to keep whatever secret it is quiet.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘Well, I’d have said quite possibly two, yes, Mrs Pargeter. Do you really think Rod Cotton fell in the Thames by mistake?’

  ‘I had assumed that, yes. Or it might have been suicide. I mean, he was in such a hopeless state, he had no idea what he was doing. He’d already fallen and had one accident. He could hardly stand up straight.’

  ‘Make him all the easier to push in, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Pargeter, you’ve established that the murderer knew about what had happened to Rod Cotton . . .’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Must be right. Only someone who knew the state he was in would have dared to dispose of the body that way. The murderer was counting on the fact that either the police wouldn’t be able to find Rod Cotton or that, if they did, they wouldn’t be able to get any sense out of him . . .’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘So if Rod had made contact with the murderer recently, the murderer might have reckoned he knew too much for safety.’

  ‘But why would Rod make contact?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because of something you said when you talked to him . . .’

  ‘Oh, good heavens, I never thought of that.’

  ‘I may be wrong. All I’m saying, Mrs Pargeter, is that you’re up against someone who won’t hesitate to use violence again. So, if you are planning any heroics—’

  ‘I don’t think heroics are my style at all,’ said Mrs Pargeter coyly.

  ‘From what I’ve seen of you, I think they just might be. Anyway, if you are planning any kind of confrontation, make sure that I’m around.’

  ‘Very well.’ She spoke contritely, like an obedient little girl. It was rather comforting, though, the thought that she had a protector on hand when she needed one. Comfortingly familiar – it was, after all, a feeling she got used to while the late Mr Pargeter had been alive.

  Truffler rang back within the hour.

  ‘Only found out one thing about the Burchfield-Brown woman,’ he announced, like an undertaker discreetly offering his price-list.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, she’s not the genuine article.
’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, the accent, all that . . . the education – it’s phoney.’

  ‘She wasn’t at Roedean or finishing schools or anything like that?’

  ‘No. She left a comprehensive in Essex at sixteen and worked in the checkout in Tesco’s.’

  ‘What? Well, how on earth did she transform herself into this Sloane Ranger figure that she is now?’

  ‘Don’t know all the details. She had elocution lessons, certainly, started grooming herself, met a few of the right sort of people, I suppose . . .’

  ‘Married one of the right sort of people?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘He must know, though, mustn’t he? Alexander, her husband. I mean, she could fool neighbours and people when she moved into a new area, but she couldn’t keep that kind of secret from someone she was living with, could she?’

  ‘No, I doubt if she could. But then it seems that he’s no more the genuine article than she is.’

  ‘What, so all his family silver and Range Rover and upper-crust manners and Hooray Henry accent are just made up?’

  ‘That’s the way it seems, Mrs Pargeter, yes.’

  She was thoughtful. ‘It does make sense of certain things, actually. Fiona’s constant fear of letting her husband down, for a start. And I suppose actually it’s an easy enough front to maintain somewhere like this. You move to a new area, you present yourself as you choose, and people accept you at face value. No problem. Particularly in Smithy’s Loam, where nobody’s that interested in anyone else, anyway.’

  ‘Well, as I say, Mrs Pargeter, that’s it. They’re both acting like they’ve got a social background that they haven’t. Common enough deception, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was, however, a deception whose necessity Mrs Pargeter could never understand. Not once in her life had she ever tried to change herself in any particular. People either took her as she was or they didn’t. And as for those who didn’t . . . well, she never reckoned it was her loss.

  ‘But,’ Truffler went on dolefully, ‘I mean, that’s a secret, OK. But it’s not a secret anyone would kill to keep quiet, is it?’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘You don’t know what people are like in Smithy’s Loam.’

  36

  Now more than ever Mrs Pargeter felt convinced that Theresa Cotton had been murdered by one of the women in Smithy’s Loam. One of the women who had been visited in Theresa’s final mind-clearing circuit on the evening she died.

  There were five suspects, each with a guilty secret. And if Theresa had confronted each one with those secrets, as seemed likely, then any of the five might have had a motive for murder.

  In her mind, Mrs Pargeter went round the close once more. Fiona Burchfield-Brown in ‘High Bushes’; in ‘Perigord’, Sue Curle (and of course Kirsten, but Kirsten had not been in at the time of Theresa’s confrontations, so she had to be excluded); Vivvi Sprake in ‘Haymakers’; Jane Watson in ‘Hibiscus’; and Carole Temple in ‘Cromarty’.

  Fiona Burchfield-Brown had to maintain secrecy about her true origins.

  Sue Curle was trying to keep quiet the affair with her boss, the West Indian Geoff, desperate lest her husband should find out and use it as a lever in his fight for custody of their children.

  Vivvi Sprake had to keep her husband in ignorance of her little flutter with Rod Cotton.

  Jane Watson thought that Theresa represented a threat to take her back to the hated Church of Utter Simplicity.

  And Carole Temple had no doubt been confronted with the news of her husband’s transvestism. Not that it had probably been news to her; for Carole the terrible part would be that someone else knew about it.

  Five women with five secrets. And one secret so important to its owner that it could justify murder.

  Mrs Pargeter thought she had done well. She had worked most of it out on her own, and had had an unrivalled support team to follow up her ideas.

  But she still hadn’t reached the solution. She still didn’t know who had killed Theresa Cotton. It was very frustrating.

  Hmm, what was that expression Truffler Mason had used? Heroics, yes, that was it.

  Maybe, Mrs Pargeter thought, with an irrepressible flicker of glee, it is time for a few heroics.

  37

  It had been quite an achievement for Sue Curle to persuade Jane Watson to come along to the discussion meeting about the proposed Indian restaurant. When receiving hers, Mrs Pargeter had asked whether an invitation had also been issued to ‘Hibiscus’, and Sue had said no, there was no point, Jane never came to anything. Mrs Pargeter had been of the opinion that it was still worth trying and made an exploratory phone call herself to prepare the ground. Her words must have been effective, because Sue Curie’s invitation was accepted, and Jane Watson, looking nervous but defiant, appeared at ‘Perigord’ on the dot of six o’clock when the meeting was due to start.

  It was held in Sue Curie’s front room, whose decor favoured the now slightly dated Laura Ashley cowshed look. Dark brown paint, stripped pine furniture, curtains with little flowers on them, tiny framed Victorian prints and polished agricultural implements hanging on the walls.

  Through the hatch to the kitchen, the sound could be heard of Kirsten giving supper to the two subjects of the custody battle. Sue had put wine bottles and glasses out to welcome her guests, though Carole Temple, for one, thought this introduced an unwarranted element of frivolity into the proceedings. ‘We are here to have a serious meeting,’ she said, ‘not a social occasion.’ And then, in an undertone, ‘And I still think it’s ridiculous not to have the men along.’

  The others seemed happy enough to accept a drink, though Jane Watson asked for Perrier (tranquillised up to her eyebrows, Mrs. Pargeter reckoned, couldn’t risk mixing it with alcohol).

  Mrs Pargeter had come to ‘Perigord’ a fraction early, so that she could monitor the arrival of the other women of Smithy’s Loam. She wanted to take a further, contemplative look at each of them, hoping without much hope that one might give some clue to identify her as Theresa Cotton’s murderer.

  Mrs Pargeter hadn’t quite worked out yet what form her ‘heroics’ were going to take, but she did feel an inward pressure to force the issue, to bring things to a head that evening. Who could say when she’d have another chance of seeing all the women together?

  Though the subject of the murder was by now old news, given the short attention-span of the Smithy’s Loam residents, its sensational nature did still justify an occasional airing, so Mrs Pargeter had no difficulty in raising the topic.

  ‘It’s really sad, isn’t it,’ she said ruminatively, ‘to think of what went on inside the Cottons’ marriage . . . you know, the kind of pressures that could build up to murder . . .’

  ‘Yes, it is dreadful,’ Vivvi Sprake agreed in a detached, automatic way.

  Fiona Burchfield-Brown supplied the inevitable platitude. ‘Still, you can never really see inside another marriage.’

  ‘No, well, everyone’s private life is secret, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sure most marriages contain a few secrets which the participants would rather stayed that way.’

  Mrs Pargeter stared directly at Carole Temple as she said this, and was rewarded by the other woman looking sharply away and announcing, ‘I think we really should get this meeting going.’

  Ignoring this, Mrs Pargeter rode on. ‘Yes, I think everyone’s got secrets.’ Then, suddenly seeing a way of staging her ‘heroics’, she continued, musing, ‘Maybe that’s what was in Theresa Cotton’s notebook . . .’

  ‘Notebook?’ Sue Curle repeated sharply.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Pargeter, improvising like mad, ‘I found this notebook of hers only a couple of days ago. Stuck behind a radiator in the hall,’ she added, remembering the late Mr Pargeter’s instruction always to incorporate as much truth as possible into anything one said. ‘It had got a list of all your names, all the women who live in Smithy’s Loam.’

  ‘O
h?’ asked Fiona Burchfield-Brown, more curious than alarmed. Goodness, how phoney her accent sounded to Mrs Pargeter now she knew the truth. Not real cut glass, more like the cheap stuff that gets given away with petrol.

  ‘Yes, I thought it was strange.’ Mrs Pargeter chuckled ingenuously. ‘Pretty funny idea, isn’t it, keeping notes on your neighbours?’

  ‘What sort of notes?’ asked Carole Temple, tight-lipped. ‘What did the book say about us?’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Mrs Pargeter hesitated for a moment. She should have thought this through. The question had been inevitable and she hadn’t prepared a way of dealing with it. Then she had an inspiration. ‘Well, I don’t know, you see. Your names are all written out in block capitals, but the rest of the stuff’s in shorthand.’

  ‘And you don’t read shorthand?’ asked Vivvi Sprake anxiously.

  ‘Oh, what? No, no,’ Mrs Pargeter replied, over-acting to give the impression, to those who would take it that way, that she might be lying.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s not important.’ Sue Curle spoke evenly, in her hostess role, trying to dismiss the subject. ‘Now perhaps we ought to get on with—’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ Jane Watson’s voice was sudden and tense, too loud compared to the others.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Mrs Pargeter replied, exaggerating her casualness. ‘I suppose I really should give it to the police.’

  ‘There’s no need to do that!’ Jane Watson shrieked.

  ‘No,’ snapped Carole Temple. ‘Completely unnecessary.’

  ‘I wouldn’t really bother the police,’ said Fiona Burchfield-Brown in a more reasonable tone. ‘I mean, they’ve always got so much on their plates, and in this case, having decided who killed Theresa—’

  ‘We don’t know they have decided that,’ Mrs Pargeter interjected.

  ‘No, but it seems a reasonable assumption that they have,’ Fiona continued, ‘and I’m sure, much as they would appreciate your public-spiritedness if you did give the notebook to them, they wouldn’t really have the time to deal with it.’