Mrs, Presumed Dead (3 page)

CHAPTER 5

Vivvi Sprake was an over-hearty presence in yellow dungarees, one of those people whose emotional range does not encompass subtlety.

'And what did your husband
do
, Mrs Pargeter?'

The object of her interrogation gave an equable smile. 'He was in business on his own account.'

'Oh, what sort of line?'

'All kinds,' Mrs Pargeter replied, charmingly but uninformatively.

'Finance?'

'Yes.'

'Commodities?'

'At times.'

'Was he a broker?'

'That kind of thing, yes.'

Vivvi seemed tacitly to recognise that that was as far as she was going to get, so she shifted her approach. 'Carole's husband Gregory's in Commodities.'

'Oh?'

'I assume you must have met Carole by now.' Vivvi Sprake spoke with great care, restraining her northern accent as one might a kitten capable of suddenly breaking free to do something disgraceful on the floor. 'I mean, with her being right next door to you.'

'No, I haven't yet.' So Mrs Huffy the Houseproud was called Carole. Slowly the names were coming together.

'Oh well, I must introduce you.' Vivvi darted away to collar a woman with rigidly coifed blonde hair, who wore a grey blouse and matching skirt.

The quarry was brought forward for presentation to the guest of honour. 'This is Melita Pargeter – Carole Temple.'

'Hello.' Carole made no pretence of being interested in her new neighbour.

'Hello, I've seen you cleaning your windows,' said Mrs Pargeter comfortably.

'Oh?' The tone implied affront.

'Well, I could hardly miss you, love, could I? I've been going in and out so much the last few days. You know how it is with a new house – you keep remembering things you've forgotten. Didn't you find that when you first moved in here?'

'No,' Carole Temple replied. 'But then my husband and I had made lists of all the things we might possibly need.'

Yes, well, you
would
have done, wouldn't you, thought Mrs Pargeter. She somehow couldn't see a close relationship developing with this neighbour.

Still, she went through the motions. 'We're very conveniently situated here, though, aren't we? You know, for the shops. You can get virtually everything you need on the Parade, can't you?'

'Well, you
can
,' Carole Temple conceded, 'but they're all very over-priced. I go and do a weekly shop at Sainsbury's. And then once a month I stock up with basics at the Cash and Carry.'

Once again, you
would
.

'I gather your husband's in Commodities,' said Mrs Pargeter, hoping that a change of subject might stimulate the conversational flow.

'Yes, he is,' Carole Temple confirmed with a finality which confounded such hopes.

Mrs Pargeter took refuge in a sip of coffee before attempting another foray. 'Do you have children?' Surely that was a safe, uncontroversial subject.

'Two. At boarding school.'

'Oh?'

Mrs Pargeter waited for fond parental amplification of these minimal details, but she wasn't even granted the sex of the Temple offspring. All she got was: 'Very expensive, boarding schools these days.'

'So I believe.'

'Do you have children?'

The suddenness of this enquiry took Mrs Pargeter by surprise. But when she looked at Carole Temple's face she saw no flicker of interest; the question had been asked merely as a matter of convention.

'No. No, I don't.' The fact was still a cause of mild regret to her. But then, given the unpredictable demands made on the late Mr Pargeter's time and his occasional absences, she had long ago concluded that their childlessness had probably been for the best. When they were together, they had been able to devote all their energies to each other.

By now roadblocks seemed to have been set up in all conversational avenues, and it was with some relief that Mrs Pargeter saw Vivvi Sprake bearing towards her, bringing in her wake two women who, by a process of elimination, must be Mrs Busy the Businesswoman and Mrs Snoop the Spy.

CHAPTER 6

They were introduced to her respectively as Sue Curle and Fiona Burchfield-Brown. The former was in her early forties, a woman whose lined face enhanced rather than diminished her attractions. She had the rueful air of someone who has suffered but is not going to let that inhibit her future enjoyment of life.

But Fiona Burchfield-Brown, Mrs Snoop the Spy, was the surprise. Mrs Pargeter had been expecting someone beady and guarded, not the tall, slightly scruffy figure with the horse-brass scarf around her neck, who greeted her in exaggerated Sloane Ranger tones.

'Hello, such a pleasure to meet you.' Mrs Pargeter's hand was seized and clumsily shaken. There was about all of Fiona Burchfield-Brown's movements a coltish gaucheness, as if she had only just grown to her current dimensions and not yet learned to control her body.

'Sorry,' she continued in her English public schoolgirl's voice, 'I kept intending to come across and say hello, but I've had to wait in all week for these wretched little men who were supposed to be coming in to install the jacuzzi. I didn't dare leave the house in case they arrived or rang up. My husband Alexander had set it all up and he'd have been frightfully cross if I'd missed them. Anyway, finally they ring this morning and say they're not coming till next week. Honestly. I ask you.'

Well, at least that explained the apparent spying from behind the net curtains. Funny, though, thought Mrs Pargeter, Bona Burchfield-Brown didn't seem the sort to have a jacuzzi. It was at odds with her slightly slapdash, eccentric aristocrat image.

As if anticipating this reaction, Fiona went on, 'I don't really think we
need
a jacuzzi. I mean, I can't see myself using it that much. Still, Alexander's very keen – lots of his chums in the City have got them – and he's the one who earns the money, so . . .' She shrugged helplessly.

'Weren't the Cottons planning to have one put in?' contributed Sue Curle.

'Well, it's certainly not there,' said Mrs Pargeter with a chuckle. 'And I don't think I'm going to miss it either.'

'No, no, I knew they hadn't had it done. It was only something they were planning. Rod was always talking about things he was going to do to the house – well, not
do
, but
have done
. And stuff they were going to buy . . . new video-camera . . . new compact disc player . . .'

'Oh, he was always on about that kind of thing,' Fiona agreed.

'Yes, and I remember Theresa saying they were going to have the kitchen done out,' Sue Curle recalled. 'And she was going to replace that dreadful old freezer.'

'I don't remember Theresa having a freezer. Wasn't one in the kitchen, was there?'

'No, Fiona, she kept it in the garage. Great big antiquated lock-up one. Anyway, they were going to get a new one of those . . .'

'And they were even talking about buying a timeshare.' Fiona Burchfield-Brown grimaced, perhaps at the vulgarity of the idea, and shrugged. 'But then once his promotion came up, he rather lost interest in Smithy's Loam.'

'That was when he was sent up North?'

'Yes, Mrs Pargeter.'

'Please call me Melita.'

'Oh. Thank you.' Mrs Pargeter was by now accustomed to the slight hesitancy she heard in Fiona Burchfield-Brown's voice. Everyone seemed to have the same reaction to her name. Though granted the licence to use 'Melita', few people took advantage of it. For most she seemed to remain 'Mrs Pargeter'. And that state of affairs suited her well. Her Christian name retained its exclusivity, a bond between her and the late Mr Pargeter.

'Did you know the Cottons well?' she hazarded.

Sue Curle shook her head. 'Not really. Well, in the way you do know people with whom you have nothing in common but geography.' Realising this might sound a little dismissive of present company, she covered it quickly. 'I mean, obviously one does have friends locally, but the Cottons . . . well, we weren't particularly close. They were perfectly amiable . . . You know, we'd help each other out, water each other's plants when we went on holiday, that kind of thing . . . And, of course, one was always happy to, you know, pass the time of day . . .'

As these words were spoken, it struck Mrs Pargeter how little 'passing the time of day' she had so far witnessed in Smithy's Loam. The six houses seemed hermetically sealed units, their occupants completely self-sufficient. Oh yes, they'd come out for a social event like that morning's, but there was a kind of strain in the air. In spite of the proximity of the houses, nothing about Smithy's Loam gave any sense of community.

Of course, the atmosphere might be different at the weekends, when husbands and children were about, but somehow Mrs Pargeter doubted it.

She turned to Fiona Burchfield-Brown. 'Did you know them well?'

'The Cottons? No, not really. I mean, one made overtures. But Theresa tended to . . . well, keep herself to herself.'

That tendency seemed to be an essential qualification for life in Smithy's Loam. In some ways, Mrs Pargeter reflected, that would suit her well. Not in every way, though.

Sue Curle summed it up. 'No, the Cottons were the standard issue Yuppie couple. Well, perhaps a bit too old to be proper Yuppies, but Rod had all the Yuppie values.'

'Do you mean by that that Theresa didn't?'

'No. Not particularly. I assume she thought as he did. I don't know, she never talked about that kind of thing. As Fiona said, she kept herself to herself. At least, they never appeared to disagree. And they had no children to complicate things. Nice standard happily married little couple.'

The bitterness in the voice prompted no more than a quizzical eyebrow from Mrs Pargeter, but that was quite sufficient cue for Sue Curle. Like a scab waiting to be picked, the subject of her own marriage was not to be avoided.

'And no, in answer to your unspoken question, I am not part of such an ideal unit. I am in the throes of a particularly ugly divorce.'

'I'm sorry.'

'You don't have to be. At least not sorry for me emotionally. I'm delighted to get shot of the bastard. You can be sorry for me because the whole process takes so long and is so bloody exhausting, if you like.'

Vivvi Sprake's doorbell rang and their hostess went off to answer it, as Fiona Burchfield-Brown leapt in to shift the conversation away from Sue's divorce. With a slight air of upper-class condescension, she said, 'I think you'll find us a friendly enough lot around here, Mrs Pargeter.'

Mrs Pargeter assessed the claim, and decided that so far the evidence did not support it.

'You know, I mean, we are all prepared to help each other out if something's important.'

'Yes, like this new Indian restaurant proposal,' said Sue Curle, pouncing on an object of dissatisfaction other than her husband. 'Have you heard, Mrs Pargeter, that coffee shop right on the corner of the Parade's for sale, and someone's applying for planning permission to turn it into an Indian restaurant?'

'No, I'm sorry. I'm still very new to the area.'

'Well, I think we must all get together and see that it doesn't happen,' said Sue Curle darkly.

'Yes,' Fiona Burchfield-Brown agreed. 'Alexander was going to write a letter to— '

'We needn't involve the bloody men!' Sue Curle snapped. 'We women can set up our own protest group.'

'Well, maybe . . .' Fiona, realising that the conversation was reverting to male shortcomings, turned again firmly to Mrs Pargeter. 'Anyway, as I say, if you've got any sort of problem, you can always ask any of us.'

'Oh, thank you.' But she thought she might be a bit careful which problems she did ask about.

The door from the hall opened, and Vivvi Sprake ushered in Miss Bored the Belgian's Daughter. The
au pair
was dressed in an expensive-looking leather jacket. Sue Curle looked up at her with annoyance.

'What is it?'

'I am sorry, Mrs Curle,' the girl replied, though there was no hint of apology in her tone. 'They call from the office. Some crisis.'

If part of the intention of the girl's stay in England was for her to learn the language, that part was not being fulfilled. Not a single vowel avoided mangling. And her accent suggested that Mrs Pargeter's Happy Families shorthand had got the nationality wrong. The singsong intonation was not Belgian. More Scandinavian. Norwegian, perhaps . . . ?

'Oh, sod it. I told them I couldn't be in till this afternoon.' But, even as she spoke, Sue Curle was picking up her handbag and rising to leave. 'All right, Kirsten, you get back to the kids. You shouldn't have left them.'

'But it was just for a few— '

'You shouldn't have left them,' her employer repeated firmly.

Kirsten slunk sulkily from the room. Sue Curle said it had been a great pleasure to meet Mrs Pargeter, that she looked forward to doing so again soon, and followed the
au pair
out.

Mrs Pargeter saw them pass separately in front of Vivvi's picture window. On the other side of Smithy's Loam, Mrs Nervy the Neurotic had just come out of the drive of 'Hibiscus'. She made no gesture of acknowledgement to Sue or Kirsten, but walked briskly along, looking neither to right nor left.

She must have been invited, thought Mrs Pargeter. And if she's only just going out now she must have been, free to come. Or was there some feud amongst the residents of Smithy's Loam?

Vivvi Sprake, who had materialised beside her, followed Mrs Pargeter's eyeline and confirmed her conjecture. 'Jane Watson, that is. The missing guest. I did invite her. Said she couldn't come. Just that, didn't even bother to make up an excuse. Huh, stuck-up bitch.'

And yet Mrs Pargeter wondered if the description was fair. It was true, the way the woman strode ahead could look as if she was acting from arrogance. But the expression on her face belied that interpretation.

To Mrs Pargeter's eyes, it looked more as if Jane Watson was motivated by fear.