Beating About the Bush

by M C Beaton

  “It’s AGATHA!!” she screamed, snatching a cushion and hurling it at the closing door. Then she picked up another cushion, buried her face in it and wailed and sobbed until her chest ached.

  * * *

  “Now you are ready for this, aren’t you, darling?” Roy Silver fussed around Agatha. He had a crumple of scribbled notes in one hand and a lint roller in the other, running it over Agatha’s jacket to remove imagined dust specks. “We must have you looking your best. You know what you have to say, don’t you? Don’t try to give a big speech. When you answer questions, remember to use the slogans ‘Wizz-Wazz Is Innocent’ and ‘Save Wizz-Wazz.’

  “And don’t forget those sound bites we practised. ‘Even a humble donkey deserves justice’ and ‘I see nothing but innocence in her eyes.’ You will have to lose those sunglasses, dear, and we want to see that gorgeous smile again. Eyes aren’t still puffy from all that crying, are they?”

  “Get stuffed, Roy.”

  Roy wisely decided to busy himself somewhere else, and Agatha retrieved a compact from her handbag. She flipped it open and studied herself in the mirror. Her make-up looked fine. Her hair was perfect. There was hardly a whisper of a breeze today, so she didn’t have to worry about looking wind-blown. She took off her sunglasses. My eyes do not look puffy, she told herself. The early-morning ice packs took care of that. And the smile? Well, I can turn that on whenever I want.

  She moved the mirror a little to the left and picked up the figure of John Sayer, positioned to keep an eye on proceedings as he had been yesterday. Glancing in the other direction, she could see Dunster in position, too. Bream would be on the main factory door, making sure that Morrison’s had no unwelcome visitors. Dunster looked a little nervous. Too many people, thought Agatha. This morning’s press pack had swelled in size. There were far more reporters standing around chatting, far more cars and vans cluttering the parking area and the driveway. There were even vehicles parked haphazardly wherever they could pull off the main road near the front gates. A variety of aerials and satellite dishes had been set up, and TV cameramen were hefting the tools of their trade onto their shoulders. Powerful lights blazed down on the stable yard from tall stands, while sound technicians wearing headphones and carrying huge fluffy microphones were jostling for position.

  Roy, still resplendent in pink, had taken centre stage beneath the lights. He was smiling and joking with the ladies and gentlemen of the press. The warm-up act, thought Agatha. He is there preparing them for me, but I am the star of this show. They are all waiting for me. She took another look in the mirror. The same blue suit as yesterday, worn over a powder-blue silk top, also similar to yesterday’s. Sticking to the same outfit was good for continuity, meaning that today’s photographs would be interchangeable with yesterday’s. She wanted her image to be instantly recognisable. Her audience was not yet ready for her to start experimenting with different looks.

  She decided she was all set. It’s show time, Agatha, she told herself. Tucking the compact back into her handbag, she began walking towards the lights, turning on her most dazzling smile.

  * * *

  Toni sat at her desk, a pen in her hand and a notepad open in front of her. Her other hand moved and clicked her computer mouse, opening one sound file after another. She was alone in the office. She had stayed late the night before. She had even taken some of the files home on a memory stick to carry on listening to them there. She had listened to hundreds, and there were thousands more to go. Some were snatches of conversation just a few seconds long. Others dragged on for a minute or more. She now had a system. She was sorting the files into different folders. Recordings that were clearly of no use she dropped into a folder marked “DUD.” Anything that was even mildly scurrilous, she filed in a “GOOD” folder, and anything that might be evidence or even a clue, she put in her “VITAL” folder. “VITAL” was still empty.

  She let out a heavy sigh and got up to make herself a cup of coffee. Listening to the recordings had been quite exciting in the beginning. She had felt a real thrill snooping on conversations—eavesdropping on people who had no idea that she was listening. But the naughtiness and novelty of hearing things not intended for her ears had soon worn off. If she had learned anything at all from the tittle-tattle on the recordings, it was that an awful lot of people led mind-numbingly dreary lives.

  The recordings featured a cavalcade of complaints from men and women about their partners, their children, their jobs, and their health. The women in particular seemed to want to go into great detail about all sorts of health issues—especially other people’s health issues. The whole thing was getting Toni down. Was that all she had to look forward to in getting married? Endless problems and rows over the mortgage, the kids, the house, the car, the carpets, and the curtains, and a life that descended into such monotony that backache and bunions were the most interesting things to talk about?

  She stirred her coffee and decided to take a proper break. She picked up the remote control for the office TV and switched it on. Maybe there would be some kind of news bulletin from the stables. She flicked through the channels and gave a little whoop when Agatha’s smiling face filled the screen.

  She looks great, she thought. Maybe a bit puffy around the eyes. She turned up the volume to hear what Agatha was saying.

  “… and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what our campaign is all about—justice,” Agatha’s voice assured her via the TV loudspeaker. Toni watched her boss reach out to her left, a not-so-carefully-concealed carrot partially visible in her hand. Wizz-Wazz wandered into view, snatching the carrot from Agatha’s hand, which she quickly withdrew, her smile fading not one flicker. “Because even a humble donkey deserves justice.”

  Her words were almost drowned out by the loud crunch of Wizz-Wazz chomping the carrot. Toni watched Agatha pause and look towards the donkey, still smiling sweetly. Wizz-Wazz gazed at Agatha, then turned to face the cameras, drawing every focus to the soulful dark pools of her eyes. Then she slowly batted just one long-lashed eyelid.

  “Surely not,” Toni said out loud, starting to giggle. “Did she just wink? Donkeys don’t wink, do they?”

  The press pack loved it. Toni could hear them calling, “Lovely, Wizz-Wazz!” “Look at those eyes!” “Give us another wink, Wizz-Wazz!”

  Wizz-Wazz is such a star, she thought. She’s really stealing the show!

  * * *

  In the stable yard, Agatha was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm under the lights. Her irritation was intensified by the feeling that she might be starting to lose control of her own press call. No way, she told herself. Agatha Raisin is not about to be upstaged by a donkey! She threw her arm around Wizz-Wazz’s neck and cuddled close to give a perfect photo opportunity full of affection.

  “At Raisin Investigations,” she said, “we are proud of our enviable reputation for rooting out injustice. Our track record in solving crime is—”

  She was interrupted by a thunderous, rasping, trumpeting fart.

  There was an instant of shocked silence before she attempted to continue.

  “I see nothing but innocence in those—” and then she was engulfed in a stench so noxious that her throat closed up. She gagged and coughed and her eyes began to water. “SNAKES AND BASTARDS!” she screamed. “GET THIS FILTHY BLOODY ANIMAL AWAY FROM ME!”

  The press pack roared with laughter. Cameras clicked and whirred, and Wizz-Wazz let out a braying “HEE-HAWW!!” accompanied by another joyous, booming, sustained parping from her rear end. Roy Silver stepped in front of Agatha, smiling, laughing, and fanning his pink corduroy cap in front of his increasingly flushed face in an effort to waft some fresh air in his direction.

  “I must apologise for Mrs. Raisin,” he said breathlessly.

  “Really?” came a voice from the crowd. “We thought it was the donkey!”

  There was even more laughter. Agatha stormed off.

  * * *

  Toni waited anxiously in the office. She had watched the
whole debacle on TV. Agatha had gone from being a national celebrity to a national disgrace live on air. From hero to zero in the space of a donkey fart. She was not going to be happy when she arrived back at the office, and Toni was convinced that the office was where she would come. She could use her cottage as a sanctuary, but in Lilac Lane she would have to contend with friends and neighbours calling round. Here, no one could get past the street door and upstairs to the outer office if they were not welcome. And Toni knew that Agatha would rely on her to let no one past the outer office. Agatha would come here, she reasoned. She would feel safe here.

  As if to confirm her theory, there came a drumming of footsteps on the stairs and Agatha made her entrance.

  “I thought that went well,” said Toni. “Up to a point. You looked great on TV.”

  “I have warned you before about patronising me,” said Agatha haughtily.

  “I didn’t mean to … I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Then you might think about keeping your trap shut!”

  “Agatha … look, I’m sorry. Have you thought about…”

  “… having a cigarette? NO, I HAVE NOT!!”

  “No, have you thought about the fact that you were not to blame?”

  “Well we can’t blame the donkey, can we? After all, Wizz-Wazz is innocent!”

  Agatha marched across the room to the rhythm of the clinking of bottles in the carrier bag she was holding. She slammed her office door. Toni sat down at her desk, leaning on her elbows, her chin in her hands.

  “I thought that went well,” she muttered. “What a stupid thing to say.”

  She was still sitting there staring at her computer screen a few moments later when she heard a voice behind her.

  “Why so glum?” Agatha was back, with a glass in her hand. “It wasn’t your fault either. Come and have a drink.”

  They sat in Agatha’s office. A bottle of gin stood on the desk with a bottle of tonic keeping it company. The gin was open, the tonic was not.

  “Help yourself,” said Agatha. “What shall we drink to?”

  “The future?” Toni suggested.

  “Raisin Investigations might not have much of a future after my little outburst on national TV earlier today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, who’s going to want to hire Agatha Raisin after that performance?”

  “Can you hear yourself?” snapped Toni. Agatha’s tone was starting to get on her nerves. “You sound like you’ve given up! ‘Pull yourself together, girl!’ That’s what you always say to me when I’m down in the dumps. So pull yourself together! We’ve been in worse scrapes than this. Surely you’re not going to let yourself be beaten by a flatulent donkey?”

  Agatha blinked. She wasn’t used to being spoken to like that by an employee.

  “If we’d drunk a little more, I would have put that down to the gin doing the talking,” she said, “but as things stand, you’re right. We’re not to blame for this, Albert Morrison is, and I’m going to get the bastard!”

  “The door was wide open,” said Bill Wong, walking into the office, “so I just came straight up.”

  “So much for keeping people out.” Toni sighed.

  “Drink?” asked Agatha. “Or not while you’re on duty?”

  “I’m not on duty.” Bill smiled. “So yes, please.”

  Toni decided to get back to the sound files and left Bill and Agatha alone.

  “You didn’t have much to say at the inquest on Saturday,” said Agatha.

  “It wasn’t my place to say anything,” said Bill, “but I wasn’t happy about the way it was handled. We may be overworked and under strength, but even a straightforward accident needs proper attention. Mrs. Dinwiddy deserved better. You have to show some respect for the dead.”

  Those words, thought Agatha, could have come straight from your father. Agatha knew Bill’s parents well. His mother was a Gloucestershire lass, but his father was Hong Kong Chinese. That mix was what gave Bill his slightly Oriental good looks. Respect for your elders. Respect for the dead. That was the Chinese way.

  “I’d like to show Mrs. Dinwiddy some respect,” said Agatha, “by finding her murderer.”

  “You are convinced it’s murder,” said Bill, sounding more than slightly exasperated, “but there is no evidence.”

  “Let me fill you in,” said Agatha, and she talked Bill through everything that had happened since she gave him her statement in her cottage living room.

  “I had already looked into Bream and Dunster,” Bill admitted once she had finished, “and Trotter we know of old. I told you that I didn’t much like some of Morrison’s men. Sayer is a different kettle of fish. I will check with the military police if they would like us to collar him for them.”

  “Not yet,” said Agatha. “If you nick Sayer, we risk never getting to the bottom of all this and finding the murderer.”

  “I’m not at work until tomorrow afternoon”—Bill grinned—“and we are so busy that it might take me at least another day even to contact the military, especially as it’s related to a case that I have been told is closed.”

  “You should both hear these,” said Toni, popping back into the room and beckoning them out towards her computer. “I got bored ploughing through the ancient stuff from four or five years ago and started dipping into more recent files. There’s still a load of rubbish to wade through, but these are very interesting. I think Dinwiddy must have managed to make some secret recordings while she was hiding out of sight.” She clicked on a file to play.

  “Git rid of dat stoopid tart before I git back or I swear I’m gonna kill her, ya hear?”

  “Aphrodite,” said Toni. “But who was she talking about?”

  “Could be Dinwiddy,” said Bill, “but could also be Josie, the receptionist.”

  “The real question,” Agatha pointed out, “is who was she talking to? We know she has a temper. We know she has money. Was she talking to the murderer? Did she pay to have Dinwiddy killed?”

  “Or was Dinwiddy present for that recording,” countered Toni. “Aphrodite could be telling her to get rid of Josie, which we know Dinwiddy did.”

  “Either is possible,” said Bill. “What else do you have?”

  “I hate the damn donkey and I hate her! She’s on my back the whole time, tellin’ me to brush it, or feed it, or muck it out!”

  “Trotter,” said Agatha. “I’d recognise that voice anywhere.”

  “Shh … wait,” said Toni, holding a finger to her lips.

  “The boss’s wife likes having the donkey around and the boss likes having his wife’s money around, so for now the donkey stays … until we have dealt with our other problem.”

  “That’s Sayer,” said Agatha. “Could their ‘other problem’ have been Dinwiddy?”

  “And who was Trotter talking about?” asked Bill. “Dinwiddy or Aphrodite?”

  “Dinwiddy, I’d say,” Agatha decided. “Aphrodite doesn’t really care about Wizz-Wazz. She wouldn’t hassle Trotter about looking after her.”

  “But something weird is definitely going on,” said Toni. “Listen to this…”

  “The first consignment is due tomorrow night. We need everybody here to deal with it.”

  “Morrison!” said Agatha. “But what does he mean by ‘consignment’?”

  “They bring in consignments of batteries,” said Toni. “I saw them unpacking them and repacking them into small orders for dispatch before Bream captured me.”

  “But that was during the day,” Agatha pointed out. “The workforce isn’t there at night.”

  “And ‘consignment’ or ‘shipment’,” Toni pointed out, “are the sort of words that the Mafia use when they’re talking about drugs!”

  Bill looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

  “What?” said Toni, shrugging her shoulders. “I’ve seen it on TV.”

  “It certainly all sounds suspicious,” Bill said, “but none of it is real evidence. It wouldn’t stand up in
court. Any good defence lawyer would tear it to shreds. The recordings themselves are probably illegal.”

  “Killjoy,” said Agatha.

  “I think they give us something to think about,” said Toni.

  “They do,” Agatha agreed. “Keep on it, Toni, and forget about the old stuff. Start working backwards from the newest ones. I’m going to head home. I want to shower and change. This suit feels like it’s going rigid with donkey fart.”

  “It feels like what?” said Bill, laughing.

  “Er … you haven’t seen the TV news?” Toni asked.

  “You’re in for a treat,” said Agatha.

  * * *

  Agatha parked by her front gate and stepped out onto the pavement just as Roy Silver drew in behind her car.

  “Aggie, sweetie,” he twittered. “I am so glad I caught you. This whole day has just gone absolutely haywire. I have to pack, darling. I need to get back to London straightaway.”

  “I understand, Roy,” Agatha said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to be seen associating with me either.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Roy, trotting up the garden path at her side. “You mean this morning? Oh, everyone’s forgotten about that already, darling. You know what this business is like. We have to move fast. We have to move on, move forward to the next big thing. And the next big thing, Aggie, is Wizz-Wazz. The whole country has gone crazy for Wizz-Wazz the Cranky Donkey! My contact in the toy business is already working on a donkey prototype that not only goes ‘Hee-haw!’ but also winks and farts. How fabulous is that?”

  That, thought Agatha, is a glowing cloud of fabulousness on which I really do not want to be floating. She chatted to Roy while he stuffed clothes and toiletries into his giant suitcase, then waved him goodbye as he trotted down the path to his car.

  * * *

  Once Agatha had freshened up, she picked out the most colourful sweater she could find and matched it with a loose-fitting pair of casual cream trousers. More loose-fitting than I expected, she thought, tugging at the waistband with her thumbs. Then she realised that she hadn’t eaten a thing all day.