Beating About the Bush

by M C Beaton

  “Ridiculous!” snorted Agatha. “You empty an ashtray and give it a wipe when it has been used. You don’t scrub it almost out of existence!”

  “I agree that is strange,” said Bill, “and I don’t much like some of those characters at Morrison’s, but we have no real evidence to suggest that the death of Mrs. Dinwiddy was anything other than what it appears to be—an accident. We need to take a formal statement from you now, as the person who discovered the body. We spoke to Toni yesterday.”

  “What’s the rush?” asked Agatha, frowning.

  “Chief Inspector Wilkes wants everything tied up before the inquest,” Alice explained.

  “Which is when?” Agatha demanded.

  “This afternoon,” said Bill, “at two o’clock.”

  “You have to be joking!” cried Agatha. “Whoever heard of an inquest on a Saturday?”

  “It’s not normal procedure,” Bill confirmed, “but this has been deemed a very straightforward accident—an easy case to deal with and get out of the way. The chief inspector wants it all done and dusted. He says we don’t have the time or the budget to waste on this. The coroner agreed to fit us in today providing that we had everything in order. All we need now is a statement from you.”

  “Well, here’s my statement,” said Agatha, her voice strained, her jaw taut. “Wilkes is a pillock!”

  Alice, who had been sitting with pen and paper at the ready, covered her mouth to hide a giggle. Bill rubbed his temples and sighed.

  “That’s not very helpful, Agatha,” he said.

  “Helpful?” cried Agatha, jumping to her feet. “What would be helpful is if you were allowed to conduct a proper investigation into what the hell is going on at Morrison’s that led to a woman being MURDERED!”

  “Calm down, Agatha,” said Toni, arriving with a tray of coffee cups. “You’re getting yourself into a state. Why don’t you have a cigarette?”

  “BECAUSE I’VE GIVEN UP!” Agatha roared.

  The others looked at each other and nodded wisely.

  “Don’t you patronise me,” said Agatha, settling back into her seat and scanning the room with an accusing finger. “I have every right to be upset when I discovered the body of a murdered woman and Wilkes is prepared to let the bastards get away with it.”

  “So who is getting away with it?” asked Bill.

  “I don’t know yet,” Agatha replied, “but I intend to find out.”

  Accepting a cup of coffee from Toni, she ran through a short version of the events leading to the discovery in the stable yard. She paused when she came to the part where she saw Dinwiddy’s body lying on the ground and Wizz-Wazz standing by her. Something was missing from that picture and she had yet to figure out what.

  * * *

  Driving to the office in Mircester, Agatha and Toni were finally alone.

  “So what was it you wanted to talk about?” Agatha asked. “Have you figured out what to do about that young man of yours?”

  “You know, that really is my business. I don’t need you interfering.”

  “Who’s interfering? I have your best interests at heart,” said Agatha, thinking to herself: and I don’t want you lumbering yourself with a demanding husband and a pack of squalling kids when I need you in the office.

  “I am perfectly able to deal with my own private life,” said Toni.

  “Good,” Agatha responded, “because you don’t want to go falling head over heels for the first thing that comes along in trousers.”

  “Or overalls?”

  “That was low!”

  They looked away from each other, then slowly turned back and both burst out laughing.

  “He’s really very nice,” said Agatha.

  “He looked it,” said Toni. “I’m pleased for you.” Now was not the time to tell her about Charles.

  * * *

  Agatha settled behind her desk at Raisin Investigations, Toni and Patrick Mulligan filing into the room behind her. They sat opposite her, both wielding notebooks and pens.

  “Right,” said Agatha. “Let’s share what we know about the Morrison’s affair. First, we need to know the people we are dealing with. What have you got, Toni?”

  “I’ve done a bit of digging into Aphrodite Morrison’s past,” said Toni, “and it’s been a real eye-opener. She is thirty years old and was born here as Kate Hibbert. Her mother was English and her father was an American serviceman, an engine fitter with the US Air Force. They never married. He was posted back to the States and Kate was brought up here by her mother. When Kate was just seventeen, her mother died and she headed to the States to track down her father. She never found him, but she was a beautiful young woman and soon found work as a model in New York.”

  “I could have guessed,” Agatha nodded, “by the way she dresses.”

  “Dressing,” said Toni, “was not a major requirement for the kind of modelling she was doing. She was known by a number of names, including Adorable Angelica from Arkansas, Lusty Layla from Louisiana and … I’m not even going to mention the Kentucky one.

  “Five years ago, she got married to a billionaire Wall Street broker, Edwin Levin. The marriage lasted only nine months before he died. She inherited over a hundred million dollars.”

  “A-ha!” said Agatha. “That sounds like a pretty suspicious death!”

  “Not really,” Toni explained. “He was ninety-two. He told reporters when they got engaged that he wanted to go out with a bang.”

  Patrick Mulligan let out a wheezing laugh. “Any photos of Lusty Layla?” he asked.

  “None at all,” said Toni. “Edwin bought up every photo of her and had teams scouring the internet to acquire and destroy any images. He wanted her all to himself.

  “His family—he had children from previous marriages—contested the will, but Kate, who had by then changed her name to Aphrodite, still walked away with a large share of the Levin millions. She met Albert Morrison at a hotel in Saint-Tropez three years ago and they were married within six months.”

  Agatha sat back in her chair. “Wow,” she said. “Our Aphrodite’s quite a girl, isn’t she? What have you got on Morrison, Patrick?”

  “He’s not nearly as interesting as his wife,” said Mulligan. “He’s forty-eight. An only child. Comes from a middle-class family. Has a degree in chemical engineering. Worked for a few of the big corporations before he took over the family business when his father died thirteen years ago. He set up the plant in Sekiliv. He has no kids, and as Toni said, he married Aphrodite three years ago.”

  “He’s so dull,” Agatha moaned. “Whatever did Aphrodite see in him?”

  “A father figure maybe,” offered Toni. “Someone to look after her, make her feel secure.”

  “Could be.” Agatha nodded. “Now, what do we have on Morrison’s security guards, Bream and Dunster?”

  “As you suspected,” said Mulligan, “neither of them was ever in the SAS, but they were both in the army, in the Royal Logistics Corps.”

  “What’s that?” asked Agatha.

  “It’s the biggest army corps. They supply and transport everything from food and clothes to fuel and ammunition. Bream and Dunster served together in Germany and in Afghanistan. A mate of mine in the Royal Military Police told me that there was a real scandal involving their unit in Germany. All sorts of stuff was going missing by the truckload—petrol, clothing, food, booze, you name it. It all stopped when the unit was shipped out to Afghanistan, and the military police never got to the bottom of it.

  “Bream went AWOL—absent without leave—in Afghanistan for three weeks. He then spent two months in a military prison before being kicked out of the army. Dunster was also dismissed from Her Majesty’s Service. He picked a fight with another squaddie and ended up breaking his legs with a crowbar. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

  “So Dunster has a vicious streak,” Agatha pondered, “and he and Bream have clearly kept in touch.”

  “Not just kept in touch,” said Mulligan. “They worked
together in a warehouse in Leicester but were sacked after they got into a fight with the foreman. He found out they had been running some kind of mail order business of their own out of his warehouse. Police were called. After that, there’s nothing on them until they both turned up here.”

  “Why would Morrison’s want to employ two thugs like Bream and Dunster?” Toni wondered.

  “That’s another question for John Sayer,” said Agatha. “What do you have on him?”

  “Nothing yet,” Mulligan admitted. “He’s a bit of a puzzle. I can only think that perhaps John Sayer is not his real name. I’m working on it.”

  “Good,” said Agatha. “We need to know how the mysterious Mr. Sayer fits in. Keep at it, Patrick. Now,” she added, “I can fill you in on what I discovered yesterday. Mr. Sayer was not entirely truthful with us about the staff in Sekiliv. There are some Brits working out there…”

  She explained about the courier service, and how Josie appeared to have been paid off to get her out of the way.

  “… and then there’s the battery pack,” she continued. “It doesn’t work. In fact, it’s downright dangerous. It has a tendency to burst into flames. That’s almost certainly what caused the fire.”

  “So we were right,” said Toni. “We were being used to make Morrison’s look like they had something to protect, to cover up the fact that their battery is useless. Then the leg stunt was to discredit us so that we could be dispensed with.”

  “That’s looking most likely now,” Agatha agreed. “We can probably expect to have our contract with Morrison’s cancelled any time now. We’ll have to move fast if we are to get to the bottom of this.”

  “And we still don’t know why Dinwiddy was murdered,” Mulligan pointed out. “Unless she found out what was going on.”

  “She knew there were problems with the battery pack,” Agatha reasoned, “but there were others who knew that, too. Chris Firkin for one. No, Dinwiddy believed that the battery’s teething problems were being resolved, so why kill her? There has to be something more.”

  “She could have found out about the boss and the receptionist,” Mulligan suggested.

  “Without a doubt,” said Agatha, “but that appears to have been fairly common knowledge.”

  “And it was dealt with in any case,” said Toni. “Josie was got rid of—paid off.”

  “We’re still not seeing the full picture.” Agatha sighed.

  “But we are making progress,” said Mulligan. “You found the murder weapon.”

  “And we have a list of suspects,” said Toni. “Albert Morrison may have been having an affair with Dinwiddy. If she had become an inconvenience, he might have wanted rid of her.”

  “Then there’s Farley and Dunster,” added Mulligan. “Dinwiddy seemed wary of them. Maybe they had some kind of grudge against her. And Sayer. We don’t know enough about him yet.”

  “We should consider Aphrodite, too,” Toni said. “She might have found out about Morrison’s affair with Dinwiddy and decided to bump her off.”

  “But all of those,” argued Agatha, “have cast-iron alibis. We saw them all at the party at Morrison’s house. They couldn’t have reached the stable, clobbered Dinwiddy and vanished again before we arrived. We would have seen something. Wait, though … what about that vile little turd Peter Trotter?”

  “He’s a failed jockey,” said Mulligan, consulting his notes. “Known to the police. Bar brawls mainly. Never held down a job for long. Can’t think what his motive would be.”

  “He wouldn’t need one,” said Agatha. “He’s got a real temper. He might just have flipped.”

  “That doesn’t really fit, though,” said Toni. “He couldn’t have lost his temper, gone into the main building, retrieved the hoof ashtray and battered Dinwiddy, then framed the donkey, cleaned the hoof and returned it to the conference room.”

  “Agreed,” said Mulligan. “This was premeditated. Whoever did it planned it in advance and had the ashtray ready to use.”

  “Trotter is too thick for that.” Agatha nodded. “He couldn’t plan his way into a clean pair of underpants.”

  “And he also has an alibi,” Toni said. “According to Bill Wong, he walked to the betting shop in Mircester and was seen leaving there with just enough time to get back for when we saw him arrive at the stables.”

  “Well, let’s keep him on our list anyway,” said Agatha. “I’ve no doubt that he’s capable of murder.” She slipped off her high heels and produced from a desk drawer a pair of flat shoes that Toni had never seen before. “Patrick,” she said. “You stay on John Sayer. Toni, get yourself something to eat. I am going for a walk.”

  “A walk?” said Toni. “You mean to a pub for lunch?”

  “Not at all,” said Agatha, patting her stomach and sucking it in at the same time. “I am taking a little exercise. I can do without lunch, and if I went to the pub, I would have to have a drink, which might…”

  “Make you want a cigarette?”

  “… cloud my thinking for this afternoon’s inquest. I will see you back here in good time for that.”

  From the office window, Toni watched Agatha march briskly up the lane towards Mircester High Street, swinging her arms. Agatha Raisin on a health kick? That could only mean one thing. She was preparing for an all-out assault. Chris Firkin didn’t stand a chance.

  * * *

  The coroner’s inquest was held in a council chamber inside Mircester Town Hall, a building that dominated an open square in the centre of town. A short flight of steps led up to a double entrance door that sheltered beneath a triangular roof supported by two stone columns, a Victorian take on classical Greek architecture. It was, Agatha decided, failing in its attempt to impress. She had never paid the building much attention in the past and would pay it less in the future.

  Bland wooden panelling lined the walls of the council chamber, and the room was laid out with rows of chairs, all facing a raised platform on which stood a desk decorated with the same featureless wood. A portly old man in a tweed suit sat behind the desk, and to his left, at a smaller desk, sat another man, a clerk, almost hidden behind a computer screen.

  Agatha and Toni took seats near the middle of the room. There were very few others in attendance. Albert Morrison sat to their left, near the front, flanked by Aphrodite and John Sayer. Several rows behind them was an elderly couple, the woman demurely dressed in a sombre black coat and the man unremarkable save for a glorious crown of curly silver-grey hair.

  To Agatha’s right, she could see the backs of Chief Inspector Wilkes, Bill Wong, and Dr. Charles Bunbury. She recognised none of the handful of others in the room.

  The coroner said a few words to get proceedings under way and asked a few questions of Wilkes, who stood to give concise, direct answers. He then questioned Dr. Bunbury, who, Agatha could tell, was enjoying being the centre of attention.

  “… and it is my considered opinion,” he droned, “supported by a weight of indisputable evidence, that death was caused by…”

  “Yes, yes, we have all that,” mumbled the coroner, interrupting by waving a sheaf of papers. “Blow to the back of the head and so on…”

  The hearing had been in progress for only twenty minutes when, to Agatha’s surprise, the coroner began drawing things to a close. Was there really to be no more discussion, no more investigation? The death of Mrs. Dinwiddy, she thought, was being dispensed with in inappropriate haste.

  “Fwom the evidence that has been pwesented to me and the testimonies given to this inquest,” burbled the coroner in a voice that spoke of a heavy lunch followed by too many glasses of port—the port, Agatha decided, might also have aggravated his inability to pronounce the letter R—“I am of the opinion that the death of Mrs. Clawissa Dinwiddy was the wesult of a twagic incident when the donkey known as Wishy-Washy…”

  The clerk leant over and whispered something.

  “… the donkey known as Wizz-Wazz lashed out with its back hooves. The injuwies sustained by Mrs. D
inwiddy pwoved to be fatal. Death was almost instantaneous. My conclusion is that this was an accidental death.”

  “That is utter nonsense!” cried Agatha, shooting from her seat. “This was no accident!”

  “And you aw, madam…?” said the coroner, looking at her over the top of his spectacles.

  “I am Agatha Raisin, private investigator.”

  “Is this woman known to you, Chief Inspectoh?” the coroner asked, turning to Wilkes.

  “She is indeed, sir,” said Wilkes, standing to respond and casting a furious glare towards Agatha. If looks could kill, she thought, they’d be booking another inquest around now. Bill Wong stared straight ahead. “She discovered the body and—”

  “Ah, yes,” said the coroner, sifting through the papers in front of him and dismissing Wilkes with a wave of his hand. “The one who was pweviously attacked by the donkey.”

  “That wasn’t an attack,” said Agatha. “That was just Wizz-Wazz being … playful.”

  “Playful, you say? Yet you fled fwom the animal in gweat distwess.”

  “I did not flee,” said Agatha indignantly. “I just … didn’t know Wizz-Wazz very well then, so we decided to keep our distance.”

  “Vewwy wise. Had you attempted to befwiend the beast, you might well be the subject of this inquest instead of Mrs. Dinwiddy. That donkey is a dangewous animal that caused a fatal accident.”

  “Oh, don’t be so ridiculous! This was not an accident—it was murder!”

  “Mrs. Waisin! I will thank you not to take that tone with me. You should know that a donkey cannot commit mudah. Only people can commit mudah.”

  “Of course I know that! Wizz-Wazz wasn’t the murderer, you silly old fool!”

  “What? What did you…!? Have this woman wemoved at once!”

  “I’m going!” said Agatha, seeing two officials in grey suits closing in on her. “But you haven’t heard the last of this!”

  “And I wecommend,” she heard the coroner pronounce just as she and Toni reached the door, “that the donkey should be destwoyed.”