Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh by Simon Brett Read Free Book Online Page A

need to ask the question. 'Nice couple. Both retired, must've been quite old when Jenny was born. Living on the state pension – no spare cash for anything.'
    'So Jenny'd be on a full grant at Cambridge?'
    'Guess so. Not, from all accounts,' he added lugubriously, 'that that goes far these days.'
    'No. Boyfriends – anything in that line?'
    'Apparently, yes. Tom O'Brien – same year at Cambridge, also doing French and Spanish, though at a different college. Came from a comprehensive too. From all accounts it's a good relationship, love's young dream – though apparently she didn't even tell him where she was going off to at the end of last term.'
    'But why didn't someone raise the alarm about her then? Surely when a nineteen-year-old girl just vanishes off the face of the earth someone's going to –'
    'Ah, but she didn't just vanish off the face of the earth. Kept ringing her parents through the holidays, every week, telling them she was OK.'
    'Did she say where she was or what she was up to?'
    'Doing a holiday job, she said. Implied it was market research, interviewing people, that kind of stuff. Didn't say where, though.'
    'And the boyfriend – Tom – she didn't call him?'
    'Seems not. Jenny only contacted her parents.'
    'And Tom didn't check things out with them?'
    'Once. Otherwise no. Seems there wasn't that much warmth between Tom O'Brien and the elder Hargreaves.'
    'They didn't approve of him?'
    'Gather not. From all accounts he's a bit political for their taste.'
    'What kind of political? Anarchist bomb-throwing or just youthful idealism?'
    'Youthful idealism. Saving the planet, exposing the corporate destroyers of our natural heritage, you know the kind of number. Left-wing with it, though, and it seems that's the bit the Hargreves couldn't cope with. They're deep-dyed Conservative – you know, as blue as only the respectable and impoverished working class can be.'
    'Ah. Have you actually talked to Tom O'Brien, Truffler?'
    'No. Most of this stuff I got secondhand. 'Cause that's the funny thing, see . . . Tom hasn't turned up for the beginning of this term either.'
    'Oh.' A chilling thought came into Mrs Pargeter's mind. 'I hope nothing's happened to him . . .'
    'No reason why it should have done.'
    In any other voice the words would have brought reassurance. As spoken by Truffler Mason they had the reverse effect.
    'No. No, one death's quite enough, isn't it?' Mrs Pargeter was silent for a moment. 'Must be dreadful for the poor girl's parents. I mean, to lose an only child at that age – well, at any age, but particularly when she's just setting out on her adult life . . . dreadful. How did they take the news, Truffler?'
    'So far as I can discover, Mrs Pargeter, they don't know about it yet.'
    'What?' she asked in surprise.
    'I mean, it was less than twenty-four hours after the girl's death that I was checking out the parents . . . hospital might not have had time to track them down yet . . .'
    'No, perhaps not,' Mrs Pargeter mused.
    'If they still don't know when I'm next in touch . . . do you reckon I should tell them?'
    'No. No, Truffler. Give it a bit more time.'
    Mrs Pargeter decided that she needed a bit more time, too. When the booking had been made, she and Kim had agreed, in spite of Ankle-Deep Arkwright's assurances that they could stay as long as they wanted to, that three days would be about right. Which meant they were due to leave in the early evening of the following day, the Wednesday.
    But those arrangements had been made before Mrs Pargeter had anything at Brotherton Hall to investigate. Now a rather longer stay was in order. Leaving on the Saturday would be about right.
    Kim Thurrock, tracked down once again to the gym where she was doing doughty things with dumb-bells, required the minimum of persuasion. She was so revelling in what she regarded as the pampering of her body (though 'punishment' was the word Mrs Pargeter would have used), that the idea of continuing it was infinitely