Mrs, Presumed Dead (9 page)

* * *

The police, of course, have departments specialising in the location of Missing Persons, but one of the enduring legacies of her life with the late Mr Pargeter was a marked reluctance to contact the police when any possible alternative presented itself. They were, Mrs Pargeter thought in her altruistic way, very busy people and, if one could avoid adding to their work-load, one was behaving in a properly public-spirited way.

The late Mr Pargeter's address book, however, did offer an alternative means of setting a search in motion, and it was that number that his widow punched up as soon as she returned after her brief constitutional.

'Hello. Mason De Vere Detective Agency.'

'What!'

The voice, female, righteously Welsh, repeated, '
I said
this is the Mason De Vere Detective Agency.'

'Oh. Could I speak to Mr Mason, please?'

'Can I say who wants him?'

'Well, you see, my husband— '

'Oh, I see, it's matrimonial.' The Welsh voice picked up speed as it spoke. 'Don't you worry, here at the agency we're very good at those cases. You just tell us what he looks like and we'll find out what he's been up to. We'll catch the grubby bastard with his trousers down, you can rest assured of that.'

'No, I'm sorry, I'm talking about my
late
husband.'

'Don't talk to me about "late". I know all about that, too. Oh yes, always coming in when the supper's burnt to a frazzle, with some excuse about "something having come up at the office" – and we all know what it was that came up, don't we? You don't have to tell me about that.'

'But I—'

'And you know exactly where they've been, don't you? Oh, they no longer have lipstick on their collars or come in smelling of perfume, do they? Too subtle for that, I
don't
think. No, now it's coming in smelling of deodorant and aftershave . . . I mean, I ask you – who puts on deodorant and aftershave just when they're leaving the office? Unless they've got something to hide, eh? And then there's always the bunch of flowers, isn't there? Showing just how guilty the bastards are. Imagining the little wife's so bloody stupid they fob her off with a bunch of flowers. Huh.'

The righteous Welsh voice paused to breathe, and Mrs Pargeter took the opportunity to stem this and-masculine tirade. 'No, I'm sorry, you've got it wrong. I'm talking about my
late
husband. My
dead
husband.'

'Oh. You actually killed the bastard, did you?' asked the Welsh voice with a note of admiration.

'No. My name is Mrs Pargeter. Mr Mason used to work with my husband. And I would be most grateful if you could put me through to Mr Mason.'

'Oh.' The monosyllable sounded disappointed that there was no husband-murder to prompt the call. 'Very well.'

The line went silent while the identity of his caller was conveyed to Mr Mason, and then a deep, mournful voice took over the phone. 'Mrs Pargeter, what an enormous pleasure.'

Someone who had never heard the voice before might have suspected irony, so at odds with the contents of the speech was its lugubrious delivery. But Mrs Pargeter knew the voice's owner and his funereal manner from way back.

'Truffler, lovely to hear you, too.'

'Hmm. It's really wonderful to be called "Truffler" again. Makes me feel quite young.' This was delivered in the tones of a man who had just had his appeal against the death sentence rejected.

'But what's with all this "Detective Agency"? Have you gone legit.?'

'Yes,' Truffler Mason admitted apologetically. 'Really, after Mr Pargeter was out of the business, it all got a bit predictable. And I thought, goodness, I've got all these qualifications – why don't I turn them to good account? Anyway, the whole emphasis of the old business has changed. Used to be plenty of work looking for missing people. Now most of the big boys just want help in making people go missing. Never my style, that.'

'No.'

'Nor Mr Pargeter's.'

'No.'

'Anyway, I find it's all working out rather well,' said Truffler Mason, sounding as if he'd just heard of the death of all his family in a motorway pile-up.

'And who's De Vere?'

'De Vere?'

'In the agency's name?'

'Oh, that De Vere. There isn't one.'

'Then why use the name?'

'First few weeks I started, it was just the "Mason Agency", but I kept getting calls from people reckoning I had the ear of some Grandmaster or something and could get them into a Lodge or wore an apron or had a funny handshake . . . I don't know. So I thought it'd be simpler if I just changed the name. And De Vere added a bit of class. It's raised the class of the clients no end.'

'Oh. Good.'

'Anyway, what can I do for you, Mrs Pargeter? Anything you ask shall be done. You know, without Mr Pargeter's training, I couldn't have begun to think of setting up on my own.'

'No. Well, actually, Truffler, it is Missing Persons work.'

'Good. I enjoy that,' he commented in the voice of a man three minutes fifty-nine seconds into the four-minute warning.

'There are two people I need to track down. Husband and wife.'

She gave him the sketchy details she knew of Rod and Theresa Cotton's lives. He asked a few unlikely supplementary questions and then said he would do his best. He was far too professional to ask the reason why she wanted the couple traced.

'Leave it with me, Mrs Pargeter. I'll get back to you as soon as I've got a whisper.'

'Thanks, Truffler. I knew I could rely on you.'

'Any time. Anything. Oh, and . . .' His voice grew even deeper, conspiratorially gloomy. 'I hope you didn't have any trouble with the girl on the switchboard,' he murmured.

'Well, um . . . no. She was . . . maybe a bit strange.'

'Mm. You got to make allowances, though. She is just coming to the end of a particularly sticky divorce.'

'Oh, really?' said Mrs Pargeter. 'I'd never have guessed.'

CHAPTER 17

The same efficient American voice answered the telephone. 'Church of Utter Simplicity.'

'Oh, hello. I wonder if you could help me . . . ?' Mrs Pargeter was playing for time; she had not yet worked out what was going to be her best approach.

'Yes. And what sort of help was it that you required?'

'Well, I suppose . . . spiritual help.'

The woman on the switchboard was unfazed by this request. No doubt, Mrs Pargeter assumed, places with names like the Church of Utter Simplicity were used to dealing with telephonic enquiries on spiritual matters. 'I'll put you through to Brother Michael,' the American voice said.

This was, in a way, what Mrs Pargeter had wanted to happen, but now it was happening, it caused her some anxiety. She had already had two telephone conversations with Brother Michael. If he recognised her voice, his suspicions might be aroused.

On the other hand, she had not mentioned her name on either occasion. She decided to identify herself immediately and hope that, out of context, he would not make the association.

'Good afternoon, my name is Mrs Pargeter,' she announced boldly, as soon as the fruity voice had answered.

'Well, Mrs Pargeter, and what can I do for you?'

'It's difficult . . .' she began, still shaping her plan of campaign.

'The Church,' he pronounced pontifically, 'is here to be an ever-present help in time of trouble.' Whether he was referring to the Church of Utter Simplicity or to some larger concept of the Christian Church was not clear, but Mrs Pargeter rather suspected it was the former.

'Yes. The fact is . . .' She edged forward cautiously, remembering the tone of Theresa Cotton's unposted letter. '. . . that in recent years I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the kind of materialism I see all around me.'

'Our Lord,' Brother Michael intoned, 'came into the world, like us, with nothing. And when we leave the world, we will leave it with nothing. Does it not therefore seem irrelevant to set store by the riches of this world?'

'Well, yes, that's exactly what I've been thinking,' Mrs Pargeter lied. The late Mr Pargeter, she knew, would forgive her in the circumstances, although what she said went very strongly against one of the basic tenets of his life. He could never have been described as a greedy man, but he had always had – and encouraged in his wife – a proper sense of the value of material things.

'And I don't know . . .' she went on with increasing confidence. Now she had a line to follow, the words came with no problem. 'The more things one accumulates, the more unimportant they all seem. And the more complicated everything gets.'

'Indeed,' Brother Michael asserted eagerly, pouncing on the cue. 'And the more one feels in need of a more simple life.'

'Exactly.'

'This is a conclusion I myself and certain like-minded brethren reached some twenty years ago. And it was from that that the Church of Utter Simplicity was born.'

'Yes. I really would like to know more about your Church.'

'You are welcome to any information you may require. If, that is to say,' he admonished, 'you ask in a spirit of genuine enquiry after Eternal Truth.'

Mrs Pargeter crossed her fingers. 'Oh yes, of course I do.'

'Am I to understand that you are considering the possibility of joining our church?'

'Well, I had thought of it. I mean, I'd certainly like to know more about the set-up. There isn't an age limit on entry, is there?' she added anxiously. 'I'm not exactly in the first flush of youth.'

'There are no restrictions on entry to the Church of Utter Simplicity,' Brother Michael boomed. 'The only qualification is a heart empty of acquisitiveness and a mind ready to devote itself to the contemplation of the Almighty Simplicity of God.'

'Yes. Yes, well, I think I could probably manage that,' Mrs Pargeter lied again.

'I must ask,' Brother Michael pressed on, 'just a few details about yourself. You know, it would be time-wasting to arrange an interview if there were some obvious reason why we would not suit.'

What a strange way of putting it, Mrs Pargeter thought. In her own mind, she had already reached the conclusion that what wouldn't make someone 'suit' was a completely empty bank balance. She had a feeling that the Church of Utter Simplicity, though emphasising that people could
take
nothing with them, would not welcome aspirant members who
brought
nothing with them. But perhaps she was being overcynical.

'First,' Brother Michael continued, 'what is your marital status?'

'I am widowed,' she replied in appropriately subdued tones.

He produced an uninterested reflex condolence. 'So your problem is not a husband who keeps lavishing worldly goods upon you?'

'Oh no. Mind you, he did in the past. He was very lavish, the late Mr Pargeter. But now, I'm afraid, I have to do most of the lavishing on myself.'

'You are at least fortunate – even though in the unhappy state of widowhood – that you do not have to worry too much about money.'

'Oh, goodness, no. That's not a problem.' She stopped herself, and continued soberly. 'Well, yes, it is a problem – that is what makes me so materialistic, which is the cause of my spiritual problems. But the lack of money is not a problem in the conventional sense.'

'No, no,' said Brother Michael judiciously. And then he went straight on to arrange an interview for the next morning. The 'just a few details about yourself seemed to have become less important once the health of her bank balance had been established.

Or, again, Mrs Pargeter asked herself, was she letting her natural scepticism get the better of her?

CHAPTER 18

Dunstridge Manor had presumably in its time been the home of the Lord of the Manor of Dunstridge, but now it looked like a private school. So many such buildings became private schools when the depredations of death duties ousted family owners that the architectural style now says 'private school' rather than 'manor house' to the casual onlooker.

And at Dunstridge Manor this impression was reinforced by a scattering of low, apparently prefabricated buildings around the central Tudor pile. (It is a rule, quickly observed by prospective parents doing the rounds, that in all English private schools the majority of classrooms shall be in prefabricated buildings. A secondary rule supports the thesis that, the higher the fees are, the tattier these prefabricated buildings shall be.)

The Manor House, or 'private school', was in good repair, and so were the low prefabricated buildings, offering the hope to an inspecting parent that the fees might be quite reasonable. But such an inspection was not the purpose of Mrs Pargeter's mission. Once she was out of her hired limousine, she merely noted the condition of the buildings, observed evidence of well-organised agricultural activity in the surrounding area, and tugged at the long wrought-iron bell-pull beside the studded oak door.

After a pause, the door was opened by a tallish man of indeterminate age, who wore a cassock of some rough dark blue material. He had black-framed glasses and a straggling beard. His hair had that unrubbed-tobacco texture of hair that could do with a wash.

He identified himself as 'Brother Brian', and led the way across the stone-flagged hall towards a pointed doorway. As she followed, Mrs Pargeter received the distinct impression that it wasn't only his hair that needed washing. The fumes of ancient sweat assailed her nostrils.

This Mrs Pargeter did not like. She was aware that Man created the deodorant, but she liked to feel that the act had been performed under God's direction. She did not subscribe to any fundamentalist view that, if God hadn't intended people to smell, then He wouldn't have given them sweaty armpits. If that was one of the beliefs of the Church whose premises she had just entered, then she thought it was taking Simplicity too far.

The hall they crossed could have been magnificent, but wasn't. It needed thick rugs on the flagstones, heavy brocade curtains at the windows, ancestral portraits on the wall, maybe the odd stag's head, stuffed pike or spray of halberds. Instead, no doubt in accordance with the precepts of Simplicity, there were thin cotton check curtains, chipboard notice-boards, metal filing cabinets and rows of the sort of coat-hooks found in municipal swimming baths.

But it was all clean and tidy. When they entered, two girls in their twenties, sleeves of their navy blue cassocks rolled up, were polishing the magnificent oak banisters of the staircase. They showed no interest in the new arrival. Neither looked up. The face of the one Mrs Pargeter could see was blank. Not blank in rapt contemplation of the Almighty Simplicity, but blank as if devoid of thought.

Through the doorway, Mrs Pargeter and her rancid usher found themselves in an office. Here, too, all was neat, but, again, no concession had been made to the beauty of the room. Its stately lines were broken by more metal cabinets, and its finely panelled walls obscured by more notice-boards, as well as some rather unattractively printed texts. These were of the not-quite-biblical variety popular in the late sixties and early seventies. They even included, Mrs Pargeter noted with distaste,
Desiderata
.

The office equipment was all very up-to-date, though its anonymous beige plastic casings provided another jarring contrast to the ancient elegance of the room. Behind the word processor keyboard and adjacent to the modern switchboard sat a woman with faded blonde hair and rimless glasses which accentuated the paleness of her eyes. Her perfunctory 'Good morning. Mrs Pargeter, is it?' identified her as the American voice which took spiritual enquiries so much in its stride.

'Brother Michael is busy on the telephone at the moment. Would you like to sit down, please, until he's free.' Though phrased as a question, the sentence had no interrogative quality; it was an order.

The chair on which Mrs Pargeter sat was again unnecessarily functional. A tubular steel office chair. Like everything else she had seen in the building, it aggressively denounced the temptations of materialism. Too much so. Mrs Pargeter knew, from her own experience, that, for less money, the Manor House could have been furnished with more congenial second-hand stuff. But then the intrusion of a little taste wouldn't have given off the same 'Look at us – aren't we being unmaterialistic?' message.

As soon as she was seated, Brother Brian, without saying anything, turned on his heel and padded off across the hall. As he did so, Mrs Pargeter noticed that the bottoms of grubby jeans and stained trainers showed beneath the hem of his cassock. They seemed of a piece with the rest of his image.

Though he had gone, Brother Brian seemed, vindictively, to have left his smell behind him. Mrs Pargeter wrinkled her nose in distaste.

The bloodless American woman opposite tapped at her keyboard, uninterested in the visitor. Through a window two navy-cassocked figures could be seen listlessly splitting logs with axes. From somewhere in the recesses of the house a recorder or tin whistle was playing
Morning Has Broken
without expression.

Something on the desk buzzed. Without looking away from her screen, the American woman said, 'He's ready for you now', and waved Mrs Pargeter across the room.

The door, like others in the house, was oak with a pointed top, but its surface was insensitively spoiled by a taped-on notice, on which felt-penned letters read: