by M C Beaton
“Terrible,” said Agatha vaguely, her mind still on that image of Kylie floating underneath her.
“I can’t do much to help you until the police find out more,” said Bill. “Meanwhile, let’s go inside and have some tea.”
“I think I’d better get on my way,” said Agatha hurriedly. Bill’s mother terrified her. “If you’ve got a free moment in the next few days, drop over and let me know what you’ve found out.”
“If I can’t manage, I’ll phone you.”
♦
When Agatha got home, she switched on the news. It was full of pictures of the flooded Midlands, tales of people being swept to their deaths, and then the announcer said, “The body of a young woman was recovered from the river Avon at Evesham by divers. She had been spotted by onlookers on the bridge as she floated underneath. She was wearing a wedding gown. Police are not releasing her name until the family has been informed. So far, foul play is not suspected.”
“Pah,” said Agatha angrily. “What do they know?” Hearing her doorbell ring, she went to answer it. Miss Simms stood there, swaying slightly on her usual, very high heels. “Can I come in?” she asked. “I’ve got some news.”
“Of course you can come in,” said Agatha, leading the way to the kitchen. “Is it about that girl in the river in Evesham?”
“What girl? No, it’s about your new neighbour. He’s John Armitage.”
“And who’s he?”
“He writes detective stories. Ever so clever he is. Mrs. Bloxby says his last one, A Cruel Innocence, was on the bestseller lists.”
“Married?”
“Don’t think so. Mrs. Anstruther-Jones said she once read an article about him in the Sunday Times. She’s sure he’s a widower.”
“How old?”
“About fifty-something.” Miss Simms giggled. “Just the sort of age I like. I like mature men. They can be ever so generous, where the young fellows expect you to pay for everything.”
“When’s he arriving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Agatha felt a flutter of excitement followed by a feeling of competitiveness. She must get to know him first.
“Anyway, what’s this about a girl in the river?”
Agatha told her about the drowned Kylie. “Are you going to find out who done it?” asked Miss Simms eagerly. “I mean to say, maybe you and that new neighbour could join forces.”
“I don’t suppose detective writers know anything about detecting,” said Agatha loftily.
But when Miss Simms had left, Agatha drifted off on a rosy dream. She and this John Armitage would solve the case together. “Murder has brought us very close together,” he would murmur. “I think we should get married.” And James would read about the wedding in the newspapers and feel terrible about what he had lost. She jerked herself out of her reverie to plan. First, she’d better get down to the bookshop in Moreton-in-Marsh and buy a copy of one of his books.
♦
In the bookshop, all the talk was of the floods and how the main street at Moreton had been flooded. Agatha burst through the little knot of customers and interrupted their never-seen-anything-like-it exclamations to demand harshly, “Any books by John Armitage?”
“Just his latest,” said the bookseller. “A Cruel Innocence.”
“That’ll do,” said Agatha. “Get me a copy.” And ignoring the glares of the interrupted customers, she paid for the book and headed back home. Once there, she unplugged the phone and settled down to read.
Her heart sank by the time she had read the first two chapters. The story was set in a tower block in Birmingham, much like the one in which Agatha had been brought up. It started with the ferocious gang rape of a young girl. It was compulsive reading, but Agatha read for escape, not to be reminded of scenes of her youth, the past which she tried so hard to forget about, to bury.
She began to picture this John Armitage in her mind, for there was no photo of him on the cover of the book. He would be short with a beer belly. He would be middle-aged with a beard and a false hearty laugh. But she continued to read, because the story was gripping, and by the end of it she knew she was free from indulging in any romantic thoughts about her new neighbour. Let the other village women call on him with scones and cakes. She, Agatha Raisin, would get on with studying one real-life murder – for Agatha was convinced it was murder.
♦
Agatha drove down to Moreton-in-Marsh the next morning to buy the Evesham Journal. There were pages of photographs of the flood, but only a brief report about Kylie’s death, still with that quote from the police saying that they could not release the name until close family had been informed. She returned home. A removal van stood outside the neighbouring cottage, but she only gave it one brief, sour glance before letting herself into her own cottage. She phoned Bill Wong at Mircester police headquarters but was told he was out on a job.
She then phoned Rosemary at Butterflies and asked for Kylie’s address. “I can’t do that, Agatha,” said Rosemary. “I wouldn’t, for example, give anyone your address.”
“But she’s dead and I’m not.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it. You do understand?”
“No,” said Agatha crossly and put down the phone and then wondered what she was doing snapping at the best beautician around.
There was a ring at the door. When she answered it, Mrs. Bloxby was standing there.
“Come in,” said Agatha. “I’ve got lots to tell you.”
Over coffee, she described seeing Kylie’s body in the river. “It’s so frustrating,” said Agatha finally. “I’d like to get started but I don’t know anything about her.”
“It’s early days yet,” said the vicar’s wife soothingly. “You may have a soul mate next door.”
“Him! I read one of his books.”
“They are very violent but he does know how to tell a good story.”
“He doesn’t seem like my type.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Not yet. But you can always tell what they look like from their writing. He’s probably short and fat with a beer belly and a beard.”
“My! And you got all that from just reading one of his books?”
“I’m quite good at that.”
Mrs. Bloxby, who had just met John Armitage, opened her mouth to tell Agatha that she was way off the mark, but then closed it again. An Agatha in love once more with a next-door neighbour didn’t even bear thinking of. Mrs. Bloxby was fond of Agatha and did not want to see her getting hurt again.
“Well, I gather he’s going up to London for a week immediately after he’s unloaded his stuff, so you won’t be able to see if your description fits for another week.”
“Not interested anyway,” said Agatha with a shrug, assuming the vicar’s wife hadn’t yet met the author either.
♦
After a week, Agatha had quite forgotten about her neighbour and was wondering if she would ever be able to get in touch with Bill Wong again. She dreaded calling at his home and finding herself put down once more by the terrifying Mrs. Wong. But just as she was wondering whether she should stake out Mircester police headquarters to see if she could waylay him, Bill called round.
Agatha practically dragged him into the house, crying, “Where have you been? What’s been happening?”
“Sit down. Relax,” said Bill. “I got caught up investigating a series of break-ins in Mircester and only got round to phoning my friend in Worcester CID last night. It’s all rather odd.”
“What’s odd?” asked Agatha, scrabbling in a packet for a cigarette while not taking her eyes off Bill’s face.
“She died of an overdose of heroin. Her fiancé, Zak Jensen, says she was addicted but had promised him that she had given up the habit.”
Agatha’s face fell. “So it was suicide?”
“We might think so, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The body had been frozen.”
“What?�
��
“Yes, after death the body had been frozen. It was dumped in the river during the floods. Maybe the idea was to give the impression that she was just another flood victim.”
“In her wedding gown!”
“Yes, you would think they would have taken it off first. But then it would have been frozen to the body. The girl’s name was Kylie Stokes. She worked for a company on the Four Pools Estate. She was something to do with computers. Four days before her body was discovered, the girls in the office gave her a hen party, all getting drunk and dressing her up in tinsel and streamers and parading her through the streets. Her wedding was supposed to have taken place two days after. She had already taken leave from work. Her mother says she went out late and never came home. She reported her missing to the Evesham police. Every shop and building and home in Evesham that might have a deep freeze is being checked.”
“And what of Zak?”
“Well, as we can’t pin-point the time of death, it’s hard to ask him for an alibi for a specific time.”
“Bill, when I saw her at the beauticians, she did not look like a drug addict. She looked the picture of glowing health and happiness.”
“That’s the most I can tell you at the moment.”
“What sort of family are the Stokeses?”
“No harm in telling you. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow. Mrs. Freda Stokes is a widow. Works a stall at Evesham Market, you know, the covered market in the High Street. By all reports, decent and hard-working. Kylie was her only child. This whole thing has hit her hard. She lives in one of those terraced houses near the income-tax office, just off Port Street. I haven’t the number with me, which is probably just as well. She’s very distressed, so I don’t want you knocking on her door.”
“And what about Zak?”
“He’s employed as a bouncer at his father’s disco called Hollywood Nights in Evesham. The police have been called out to the disco several times, usually drunken fights between youths. Neither he nor his father has any criminal record. Zak seems genuinely broken up.”
“If she was in her wedding gown, you’d think if, just if, someone gave her an overdose of heroin that the murder would have taken place at her mother’s house. I mean, the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride in her gown until the wedding.”
“Agatha, if it weren’t for the fact that the body had been frozen, I would be happy to assure you that Kylie was just another unfortunate on drugs.”
“And wouldn’t a frozen body have sunk?”
“No. On the contrary. If the body had still been frozen, it would have floated. It had thawed out to river temperature, which isn’t very warm, and the flood currents in the Avon were strong. The police think the body got caught in some sort of whirlpool just before the bridge and spun up to the surface before sinking again. But don’t go around thinking Zak did it. Just because there was a case in Chile doesn’t mean the same thing happened here. Kylie’s mother isn’t well-off by any means. Kylie hadn’t made a will. There was nothing to be gained by her death.”
“That disco. Are you sure there’s nothing there to connect it to drugs?”
“No, nothing. If there were, Worcester police would know. I’ve said this before, Agatha, and I’ll say it again. Why don’t you leave it all to Worcester police. They really are very good indeed.”
“Humph!”
♦
After Bill had left, Agatha decided to drive into Evesham and ask Sarah, who had been working on Kylie, whether she thought the girl had been on drugs. As she got in the car, she saw a squat man with a beard working in the front garden of the house next door. She grinned to herself. He was everything she had imagined the author to be.
She parked in Merstow Green in Evesham and went in to the beauticians. She was in luck, Sarah had just finished with one customer and was taking a break before the next.
“I want to ask you about Kylie,” said Agatha. “Did she look as if she was a heroin addict?”
Sarah looked shocked. “No, she was the picture of health. Not only were there no track marks, but no signs that she had been sniffing the stuff. Beautiful skin that poor girl had. Is that how she died? Drugs? Was it a bad Ecstasy pill?”
“I gather the police are saying she died of a heroin overdose.”
“Oh, dear. There’s a lot of drugs in Evesham, I believe.”
“Have you heard anything about that disco, Hollywood Nights?”
“Not a thing, but then I don’t live in Evesham.”
Agatha thanked her and left. She stood outside, irresolute. As if to mock the recent suffering of the inhabitants, the weather had turned balmy and warm. She suddenly missed both James and Charles. They would have been every bit as interested as she was in finding out what had happened to Kylie. Then she thought of Roy Silver, who had once worked for her. She would invite him down for the weekend.
♦
Roy descended from the London train at Moreton-in-Marsh wearing a black, sort of Gandhi-style collarless business suit and fake crocodile boots with very pointed toes. He came off the train talking rapidly into his mobile phone.
“You’re impressing no one,” said Agatha as she went to met him and he tucked his phone away. “Every nerd in the country has a mobile phone.”
“You haven’t changed,” said Roy huffily. “I do have a stressful job, you know.”
He still had the white-faced, rather weedy look of an East End of London urchin. He deposited a damp kiss on her cheek and then followed her to her car where he stowed his luggage in the back.
“So tell me all about this murder,” he said as Agatha drove off.
Agatha told him what she knew, ending with, “If it wasn’t for the fact that the body had been placed in a deep freeze somewhere, the police might have let it go as death by misadventure.”
“Still could be.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Well, say the fiancé knew about her drug habit. She doesn’t need track marks. She could have been sniffing the stuff. She finally takes to the needle, drops dead. This Zak is alarmed. Doesn’t know what to do. Panics. Puts the body in a freezer somewhere. The police can’t find all the freezers in Evesham. Could be one in a shed in someone’s back garden. A lot of these chest freezers are too big to keep in the house. Panic subsides. Realizes he should have left the body as is. Can’t call the police. Floods start. Great opportunity. Dump it in the river.”
“But in her wedding dress.”
“Well, people in a panic will do anything. Where do we start, Sherlock?”
“I thought we might go to that disco tonight.”
“We’d stick out like a pair of sore thumbs. I can pass, but you’re too old, sweetie.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“So we need an excuse. I tell you what, I had a friend who was a researcher for the BBC. He said half his time was going places and asking people all sorts of questions. I’ll be the researcher and you can be someone who’s writing a script on the life of young people in middle England. Except for one thing: Hasn’t your photo been in the local papers in the past?”
“Yes, but I can disguise myself.”
“Try and I’ll see if you’ll pass.”
♦
Agatha called on Mrs. Bloxby accompanied by Roy because there was a box of theatrical wigs and costumes at the vicarage, used for the various church amateur dramatic shows. Agatha selected a blond wig and a pair of spectacles with plain glass lenses. Once she had tied the wig back with a black ribbon, it looked less false.
“You’ll do,” said Roy.
“I don’t suppose you’ll come to any harm,” said Mrs. Bloxby doubtfully, who had been told all the latest news about the death of Kylie.
“Just going for a recce,” said Agatha cheerfully.
“Have you met your new neighbour yet?”
“No, but I’ve seen him and he’s everything I imagined him to be.”
“Without talking to him?”
“I don’t need
to. I saw the beard and the beer belly.” Roy noticed a look of almost unholy glee in Mrs. Bloxby’s usually mild eyes. At that moment, the vicar called from the study. “That Anstruther-Jones woman is coming up the path. Has the Agatha creature left yet?”
“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Bloxby, flushing pink. She hurried I off to the study.
“The vicar doesn’t seem to like you,” said Roy as the doorbell went.
“Oh, I don’t think he likes anyone,” said Agatha huffily. “In my opinion, he shouldn’t be a vicar at all.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Should we answer it?” said Roy.
“Leave it to them,” retorted Agatha.
The vicar appeared, looking flustered, followed by his wife. “My dear Mrs. Raisin,” he said, “I gather from my wife that you overheard me referring to some Agatha creature. I am so sorry. We have a mangy stray cat around the churchyard called Agatha and my wife will feed it.”
Roy reflected that he had just heard one of the lamest excuses ever, but Agatha seemed mollified. The doorbell went again. “I suppose I’d better answer it,” said Mrs. Bloxby. The vicar hurried back to his study.
Mrs. Anstruther-Jones bustled in. “Oh, Mrs. Raisin,” she fluted, “and who do we have here? Your son?”
“No,” said Roy, straight-faced. “I’m her lover.”
“Let’s go,” said Agatha, gathering up her disguise.
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Mrs. Anstruther-Jones after the door had closed behind Agatha and Roy. “Disgraceful. A woman of her age! I hope, as a lady of the church, Mrs. Bloxby, you told her what you think of her liaison.”
“Mrs. Raisin is not having an affair with that young man.”
“But he said – ”
“When confronted with someone who appears to be in a perpetual state of outrage, it is tempting for other people to wind them up. Besides, I have always found the most vociferous guardians of morality on matters of sex are those who aren’t getting any. Some tea?”
♦
Agatha recognized Zak, standing at the door of the disco. Whatever distress he might feel over the odd death of his bride-to-be did not show. He smiled and said, “You sure you want to come in here? It’s all young folks.”
