Mrs. Pargeter's pound of flesh mp-4 Page 5

  ‘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 dumbbells, 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 appealing. And no, the girls were no problem, they loved being looked after by her mum. So did the poodles.

  Also, of course, the longer Kim stayed at Brotherton Hall, the less time she would have before Thicko’s release for backsliding from her regime — and the less traitorous pounds would have an opportunity to infiltrate themselves back on to her body.

  Ankle-Deep Arkwright was less enthusiastic about the extension to their stay when Mrs Pargeter mooted it. The generosity of his initial welcome changed to much whingeing about the availability of rooms and abject reminders that there was a recession on.

  She answered the first objection by checking future bookings at Reception, and the second by insisting that she was happy to pay for the extra days.

  Ankle-Deep Arkwright, realizing that further opposition would raise more suspicions than it might quell, agreed miserably.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ank?’ Mrs Pargeter asked gently. ‘There’s something upsetting you, isn’t there?’

  She could see he was torn. Ranked on one side stood his loyalty to the widow of the late Mr Pargeter, and the alluring relief of talking to someone about his problems.

  On the other side stood fear. Though fear of what or of whom Mrs Pargeter could not begin to guess.

  The fear won.

  ‘All right, Mrs P., go ahead, book the extra days. I can’t stop you. But I must tell you that I’m just about to get very busy, so I may not be able to give you quite the personal attention I have up till now.’

  The message to Mrs Pargeter was clear. You’re on your own. Keep your nose out of my business.

  Chapter Eleven

  Before the interview finished, Mrs Pargeter asked Ankle-Deep Arkwright whether their disagreement would mean the end of her ‘Special Treatment’ status, and he fell over himself to assure her that she was still welcome to all of the facilities of the ‘Allergy Room’. Again, half of him seemed desperate to get rid of her, while the other half still wanted to provide all the cosseting due to the widow of the late Mr Pargeter.

  She got the feeling he was not blocking her progress from any personal animus, but because of pressure from a person or persons unknown. Since Mrs Pargeter had always favoured pulling bushes up by the roots rather than beating about them, she again asked directly what his problem was or who was making his life difficult, but she got nothing back. Ankle-Deep Arkwright clammed up and brought their interview to an abrupt conclusion.

  There was not a lot more she could do that day on the investigation front. She was waiting for more information from Truffler Mason, and her enquiries at Brotherton Hall could not progress further until Lindy Galton returned to work the following morning.

  But Mrs Pargeter was not the sort to let this enforced idleness prey on her spirits. She resigned herself philosophically to a day of indulgence. Her exercise programme incorporated an hour in the jacuzzi and another sweet nostalgia-inducing massage session with the ex-baker. And she continued to warm the cockles of Gaston’s heart by the relish with which she despatched his Truite aux Amandes Style Paysan complemented by a Sorbet de Cassis at lunchtime, and his Carre d’Agneau Imperiale followed by Tiramisu at dinner.

  With the former meal she drank a young Vouvray; with the latter a mature Rioja Gran Reserva as thick and rich as arterial blood.

  There were worse ways of spending a day.

  Tracking down Lindy Galton the following morning proved harder than it should have been. The girl on Reception confirmed that Lindy was back at work, but then became evasively ignorant of precisely which duties she had been allocated. Whether this ignorance was genuine or commanded by Ankle-Deep Arkwright was impossible to know.

  Kim Thurrock proved more helpful. So immersed had she become in the lifestyle of Brotherton Hall that she seemed to know everything that went on there. Kim, whom Mrs Pargeter found on her back in the gym pushing up impossible-looking weights with her feet, said she thought she’d seen Lindy going through to the Dead Sea Mud Bath area.

  So Mrs Pargeter went down to the Brotherton Hall basement, but was denied entrance by an officious teenager with the obligatory perfect body. ‘Only guests who’ve actually booked baths are allowed through,’ she announced in less than perfect vowels.

  There was nothing else for it. Mrs Pargeter returned to Reception and booked herself a Dead Sea Mud Bath for ten o’clock.

  Beneath Brotherton Hall was a considerable network of cellars. Part of this had been developed into a well-appointed basement area, which had been through many incarnations since the building’s consecration to the religion of health.

  Following the passing fads of fitness regimes, it had housed Steam Baths, Ice Baths, Traditional Turkish Baths, Hose Baths, Needle-Sharp Showers, and Electro-Tingle Pools. (These last were introduced for a treatment whereby very mild electric currents were passed through a guest’s bathwater. The facility never proved popular and after a couple of rather nasty electrocutions had been replaced by Stagnant Water Tubs, another failure.)

  The basement’s current incarnation was certainly its messiest and, Mrs Pargeter surmised, wrinkling her nose as she entered the bath area, probably its most malodorous. Maybe the Dead Sea did smell like that, but she couldn’t remove from her mind the image of Stan the Stapler and his shovel. A fetid flavour of pondwater hung in the air.

  The Dead Sea Mud Bath treatment was, like many such regimes, based on a book. In common with all such fitness books, the argument of New Life From Dead Sea Mud could be expressed in one sentence — in this case: ‘Dead Sea Mud is good for you.’

  But, also in common with all such fitness books, this simple thought was backed up by all kinds of pseudoscientific research and lots of charts and graphs. Dead Sea Mud, it was asserted, contained unrivalled concentrations of natural chemicals. Filtered and purified through the varied strata of clay, marl, soft chalk, sand and gypsum, were abundant deposits of sulphide; potassium, magnesium, bromine, chlorine, and sodium chloride. The fact that the Dead Sea was, at four hundred metres below sea level, the lowest terrestrial area of water, meant that it was closer to the health-giving radiances and healing magnetism of the Earth’s core. The mud’s anti-corruptive powers had been proved historically because the Dead Sea was reputed to have engulfed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Its mystical significance could be judged from the fact that it was fed by the sacred River Jordan, as well as streams running through the wadis of al-Uzaymi, Zarqa’Ma’in, al-Mawjib and al-Hasa.

  And, needless to say, the book contained some stuff about ley lines.

  All of this material had been assembled by a publisher secure in the knowledge that New Life From Dead Sea Mud was not the kind of book that anyone would actually read.

  Its tiny thesis, supported by some really arty photographs and a couple of meaningless graphs of mineral analysis or weight/body-fat ratios, would be just the right size to fill a colour supplement serialization, which would recoup most of the production costs.

  Then the book itself (published in the run-up to Christmas) would be bought by faddists, frien
ds of faddists, husbands trying gently to hint that their wives were letting their appearance go a bit, and women determined to change their lives completely after the breakdown of relationships.

  There were sufficient such purchasers about to ensure reasonable sales figures, or even, with a bit of serendipitous publicity — like, say, a chat-show host showing what a good sport he was by getting into a Dead Sea Mud Bath — an entry into the bestsellers’ lists.

  The fact that none of the purchasers or recipients of the book would read more than a couple of pages did not give the publishers a moment’s unease. They felt absolutely confident that they had produced a product with enough confusing words in it to make people think they were learning something. And, more importantly, a product that would sell.

  At the end of the process the public consciousness would have assimilated the dubious thesis of the book’s title, that ‘Dead Sea Mud is good for you’.

  And it would stay in the public consciousness until the next fitness fad came along.

  The one detail never mentioned anywhere in the book was that any fish foolish enough to stray into the waters of the Dead Sea dies instantly.

  Chapter Twelve

  The difficulty with mud — whether from the Dead Sea or from the pond of an English stately home — is keeping it muddy. In a centrally heated interior it has a distressing habit of setting, and the mud in the basement of Brotherton Hall needed constant dilution to maintain it at a properly glutinous level.

  The Dead Sea Mud Bath unit had, in common with every other facility at the health spa, been installed to a very high specification. Given the costs of that, and the costs of keeping the area spotless, it was no surprise that the Dead Sea Mud Baths were promoted so heavily to the guests. Ankle-Deep Arkwright had to see his installation money back before the arrival of the next fitness fad would require the unit’s complete refurbishment.

  There were four baths in all, each in a cubicle separated from the others by eight-foot-high walls. The baths themselves were sunken, filled from incongruously gleaming lion’s head sluices, and drained by some unseen but presumably very powerful pumping system. Brotherton Hall assured guests that their baths would be individually filled, so that no one had to step into someone else’s dirty mud, and presumably that was one of the reasons for the exorbitant costs of the treatment. (Mrs Pargeter’s natural cynicism — and knowledge of Ankle-Deep Arkwright’s customary business practices — made her pretty sure that some kind of mud-recycling would be going on, but she had no proof of this.)

  The lion’s heads were fed from a large central tank, in which a stew of mud was kept in constant motion and, it was to be hoped, fluency, by a rotating blade like that used in the mixing of cement or the manufacture of toffee. Because of the viscous nature of its contents, the outlets to this tank frequently became clogged and indeed, when Mrs Pargeter arrived that morning, Stan the Stapler was up on a ladder poking away with a long instrument at some blockage.

  By happy coincidence, the other users of the unit were demonstrating the sequence of the treatment.

  Through the half-open door of Cubicle One Mrs Pargeter could see a body lying at full length in its tub. So complete was the covering of pale brown sludge (participants were encouraged to smear their faces and work the mud into their hair) that she could not even have told the sex, let alone the identity of the bather. This immersion part of the process was recommended to last for an hour, during which ‘the natural salts and minerals can get really deeply into the pores’ (Mrs Pargeter shuddered at the very idea).

  On a bench outside Cubicle Two, in the glare of a kind of sunlamp, another participant was enjoying the second part of the treatment. This involved letting the mud dry ‘naturally’ on the skin till it formed a pale beige crust. During this stage guests were encouraged to keep as still as possible, to avoid cracking and flaking. The recommended drying time was also one hour, and again Mrs Pargeter could form no opinion about the identity of the participant — or even whether she had on any underwear.

  Cubicle Three was empty, but from it came an abdominal rumbling and gurgling, which presumably denoted that the bath was being drained. On the other side of the unit, the cubicle’s most recent occupant was undergoing the most gruelling part of the Dead Sea Mud treatment — getting the bloody stuff off.

  Under a ferocious shower a streaked body scrubbed away at itself, directing high-speed jets of water from a hose into its most intimate crevices. Mrs Pargeter had heard from Kim Thurrock that this cleansing process took hours; ‘and still at the end of the day when I undressed I found flaky bits in my knickers…’ The depth of Kim’s love affair with everything related to Brotherton Hall can be judged from the fact that she then added fervently, ‘… which shows it must’ve been doing some good.’

  Lindy Galton, perfectly proportioned and still immaculately uniformed in spite of the mud that surrounded her, stepped forward to meet her latest client.

  ‘Mrs Pargeter, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘If you’d like to come through to Cubicle Four, the bath should just about be full now.’

  Mrs Pargeter stood inside the doorway, dressed as instructed in only her Brotherton Hall towelling gown over swimwear, and looked down at the contents of the bath as the last strainings plopped in from the lion’s head sluice.

  The mud could have been said to look like liquid milk chocolate, with a consistency like that of Bolognese sauce — though it has to be confessed that the similes which sprang instinctively to Mrs Pargeter’s mind were rather less elegant.

  There was a silence as the two of them looked down at the sluggish sludge. ‘Well,’ Lindy Galton prompted eventually, ‘aren’t you going to get in?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ said Mrs Pargeter. ‘What on earth do you take me for?’

  ‘Then why are you here?’ The girl looked confused rather than alarmed.

  Before answering, Mrs Pargeter moved forward to a console of switches on the wall and pressed the one marked ‘Empty’. The room was filling with the kind of sounds that can be the consequence of an ill-considered curry.

  Lindy Galton stepped towards the console, her face sharp with anger. ‘What are you doing? The bath’s only just been filled.’

  ‘I’m paying for the Dead Sea Mud Bath treatment,’ Mrs Pargeter replied coolly. ‘Whether I choose to have it or not I’d have thought was up to me.’

  ‘But why are you emptying it away? Someone else could have the mud.’

  ‘Why, do you want it?’ asked Mrs Pargeter, deliberately frivolous.

  The reaction — and the distaste — were instinctive. ‘No, thank you!’

  ‘Oh, you know where it’s come from then, do you?’

  The girl seemed about to agree, then remembered her professional role and replied frostily, ‘I can’t personally go into the mud because of an allergy. I’ve tried the treatment and I’m afraid it brings me out in a rash.’ She gave her client a beady look. ‘You still haven’t explained why you’re emptying the bath.’

  ‘I’ve started that for the noise… so’s we can’t be overheard,’ said Mrs Pargeter in an even whisper.

  Now there was a light of alarm in Lindy Galton’s eye. ‘What is this?’

  ‘I want to ask you about a guest registration you made at Reception a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A registration for someone called “Jenny Hargreaves”.’ The girl’s eyes told her instantly that she was on to something. ‘You see, I think that Jenny Hargreaves arrived at Brotherton Hall earlier than that registration record implies. I think you only keyed those details into the computer because Mr Arkwright told you to.’

  Lindy Galton licked a lip that seemed suddenly to have become dry. ‘Why do you want to know about this? Why’re you interested, Mrs Pargeter?’

  ‘Because I think it could have something to do with a mystery guest at Brotherton Hall. Someone who was staying in a room on the third floor… until a couple of nights ago.
’

  However good Lindy Galton may have been at body sculpture, she had no skills in the art of deception. ‘How much do you know about it?’ she blurted out.

  ‘Well, clearly not as much as you do, Lindy. Which is why I’m asking you these questions.’ Mrs Pargeter moved closer. ‘ Was the girl on the third floor Jenny Hargreaves?’

  Lindy Galton’s mouth opened to reply, but she was distracted by a slight clang from above. They both looked over the top of the cubicle wall to the ladder from which Stan the Stapler was still doing his Dynorod routine.

  The oddjob man was not looking at them, but he did seem almost too studiously preoccupied with his task. The two women exchanged glances. ‘Can’t talk now,’ Lindy Galton breathed. ‘Later in the day.’

  ‘All right. When?’

  ‘Quarter past nine. Down here. Everyone else’ll be involved in the Weigh-In.’

  Mrs Pargeter gave a quick nod, as Lindy Galton crossed to cancel the ‘Empty’ switch and say in a voice that was suddenly loud, ‘No, I’m very sorry, Mrs Pargeter, but I think it would be unwise. The salts and minerals in the mud could all too easily trigger off your allergy.’

  With appropriate expressions of annoyance and frustration at this cruel deprivation, Mrs Pargeter left the Dead Sea Mud Bath unit.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was another message to ring Mr Mason when she got back to her room. Truffler, as ever, had done his stuff. He’d tracked down Tom O’Brien, Jenny Hargreaves’ boyfriend.

  ‘How did you find him — through Cambridge?’ asked Mrs Pargeter.

  ‘No,’ Truffler replied dolefully. ‘I had to track him down by.. other routes.’

  She knew better than to enquire further. ‘Any chance of my meeting him?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve set it up. That is, if you’d be able to get out of that place for a while…’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Truffler. Brotherton Hall isn’t Colditz.’ Though when she came to think of it, there were similarities.