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backed up to the shops, the great maws of their hatchbacks gaping to consume the cartons of food, the cases of wine, the boxes of electronic gadgetry, the pots of paint, the ready-to-assemble furniture and all the other credit-card booty of their owners. Whatever troubles the area might have, lack of money (or at least lack of credit) was not among them.
    At the end of the Parade, Mrs Pargeter noted, with a wry smile, the run-down coffee shop, which was under threat of translation into an Indian restaurant. From Mrs Pargeter's point of view the proposed change seemed an excellent idea. Nothing she liked better than a good hot curry, and to have a takeaway within fifty yards of her house sounded an ideal arrangement. Her fellow-residents, though, she had gathered, might not share that view.
    In Smithy's Loam the husbands' cars glistened outside the houses. A moustached man who was presumably Carole Temple's husband Gregory, the commodity broker, was outside 'Cromarty' in a designer tracksuit cleaning his BMW. He gave no acknowledgement to Mrs Pargeter as she walked up her garden path. And when, a few minutes later, a grey-haired man who must have been Nigel Sprake emerged from 'Haymakers' and slung a golf bag into the back of his Renault 25, Mr Temple gave him no more than a cursory nod.
    The realisation came to Mrs Pargeter of how safe Theresa Cotton had been when she gave her neighbours a false address. However much the residents of Smithy's Loam might gush over each other at a coffee morning, there was no real contact there. Someone who left the area was instantly blanked out from the screens of the others' selfishness. There was no danger of any of them ever trying to make contact with Theresa again.
    Without much expectation of success, Mrs Pargeter punched up the Littlehaven's number. There was no one in the office over the weekend, but if she cared to leave a message on the ansaphone . . . She didn't bother. What she wanted to find out would require a more delicate approach than a recorded message.
    Never mind, she would continue her enquiries on the Monday.
    She pottered around the house for the rest of the morning, and prepared herself a herb omelette for lunch. On the occasions when she looked through her net curtains, Smithy's Loam proved, in accordance with her expectations, to be as quiet at weekends as it was during the week. A few of the cars left and returned with full family loads, but for most of the morning the loop of road and pavement remained empty. The children, if out of doors, would be playing in their back gardens; no one would be so 'common' as to allow them to play in the street. Anyway, wouldn't it be dreadful if childish feet scarred the baize-like smoothness of the green central reservation?
    Mrs Pargeter was glad she had planned a treat for herself that weekend. It had been a hard week. She deserved a little pampering.
    Promptly at three o'clock, the limousine arrived for her. By then she was dressed in another of her bright silk print dresses and wearing a considerable array of jewellery. The mink coat draped over her shoulders was longer than the one she had been wearing on the day of her arrival. An exotic evening dress was packed in the neat overnight case the chauffeur carried down to the limousine.
    Just as she was getting into the car, the sour commodity broker emerged from the front door of 'Cromarty', carrying electric hedge clippers with Which to scrape another unnecessary millimetre off his perfect front hedge. Mrs Pargeter was gratified to see that he gave her an involuntary look of impressed surprise.
    On the way up to London she chattered amiably to the chauffeur, asking tenderly after his geographically extended family. She always used the same man, whose name was Gary. He had been employed on numerous occasions by the late Mr Pargeter, but after his patron's death had adapted to a slower style of driving. When he started his own business, he had offered to ferry Mrs Pargeter