by M C Beaton
“We’re doing some research for a television programme on provincial entertainment,” said Agatha.
“Well, then.” Zak beamed and flexed his muscles under his dinner jacket. “You’ve come to the right place. You’d better have a word with my dad. He owns the place.” He turned and shouted, “Take over the door, Wayne.”
A thuggish young man came out. His beady eyes raked over Agatha and Roy. “Police, again?”
“No, television,” said Zak proudly. “Come along.”
The disco had the usual revolving crystal ball with strobe lights shooting at it from different corners of the room. Kylie must have thought she had won the jackpot getting Zak, thought Agatha. Some of the girls were pretty, but the youths were of the thin, white-faced, round-shouldered type, as if they had spent their formative years hunched up in front of the television set eating junk food. There was a bar over in the corner to which Zak led them. The music was so loud, it beat upon the ears, it reverberated through the floor under their feet, and it assaulted every sense. The air was hot and filled with the smell of sweat and cheap perfume. Zak’s father was standing at the bar. Zak mouthed something in his ear and he looked at Agatha and Roy and then jerked his head. They followed him up a staircase at the corner of the room and then through a thick padded door and into an office. Agatha sighed with relief as the dreadful sound of the music became muted to a thud-thud-thud on the downbeat.
“I’m Terry Jensen,” said Zak’s father. “Sit down. Drink?”
Agatha asked for a gin and tonic and Roy ordered the same.
Terry went to a glass-and-wrought-iron bar in the corner and began to pour drinks. He was a powerfully built man; his shirt stretched over his back muscles. He had the same thick head of black hair as his son. His legs were very short and rather bandy. He was wearing a white nylon shirt over a string vest, grey trousers, and black lace-up shoes, very shiny, like the type of shoes an off-duty policeman wears. He handed them their drinks. His face showed no trace of the good looks with which his son had been blessed. His skin was swarthy, his mouth thick-lipped, and his eyes were large and pale and slightly protuberant.
Agatha and Roy were seated on a fake leather sofa facing a large desk behind which Terry sat. Zak sat on a hard chair near the door.
“Now, what’s all this about us being on telly?” asked Terry.
Agatha, clutching a clipboard, made a speech about covering entertainment in the provinces. Television had become too London-oriented. They needed to find out first some details about the club, the hours it was open, what kind of young people attended, and had they ever had any trouble with the police?
“We had no trouble with the police,” said Terry. “No drugs here and no under-age drinking, either.” He began to brag about his disco, how he had set it up two years before, after he had moved down from Birmingham when he realized there wasn’t much for young people to do in the evenings. Agatha scribbled notes, not caring much what she wrote, as she had no intention of ever using any of it.
At last she said, looking at Zak, “I was very sad to read about your loss.”
Zak’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and he buried his face in his hands. “We don’t want to talk about it,” said Terry gruffly. “It’s a bad business. Now, if you pair would like to go down to the club? I’m sure you’ll want to talk to some of the young folks.”
Agatha rose, feeling chastened. She had been so sure Zak would turn out to be a villain. She longed to ask him if Kylie had any enemies, but he seemed too genuinely distressed to cope with any questions. Now all she wanted to do was to get out of the club, but she had to pretend to be working for television for a bit longer.
As the noise once more beat upon her ears, she wondered how on earth anyone was supposed to even hear a question. Roy grabbed her and shouted in her ear. “You go and stand outside and I’ll get some of them out there.”
Agatha gratefully made her way outside. She lit a cigarette and waited. Even out on the street, she could feel the beat from the disco reverberating under her feet. She glanced round at the surrounding houses. How could the neighbours stand the noise? Roy then came out, followed by ten excited teenagers, their eyes shining with the prospect of being on television. He and Agatha patiently answered questions of the have-you-met and what-was-he-like questions about pop stars. Roy, because of his high-powered public relations job, knew some of the pop stars they were being questioned about and cheerfully gossiped away. Agatha’s head was beginning to itch under the heavy blond wig. She raised her clipboard and asked them for their names and addresses and occupations. Five were unemployed, but one of the girls said she was ‘in computers.’
“That wouldn’t be the firm where Kylie Stokes worked?” asked Agatha.
“Yes, she worked alongside me at Barrington’s,” said the girl.
“And you are?” Agatha squinted down at her clipboard.
“Sharon Heath.”
Sharon was tall and thin. She was wearing a tube top which exposed a bare midriff. A stud winked in her belly button. She had a stud in her nose and four gold rings in each of her ears. Her make-up was a white mask with eyes ringed with kohl. Although young, her shoulders were already rounded and everything about her drooped, including her eyes and her thin mouth. Her hair, dyed aubergine, was long and lank.
“It was ever so sad about Kylie,” said Sharon. “She had the desk next to mine.”
Barrington’s, it transpired, was not a computer company, but a firm which supplied bathroom fittings. Sharon worked in what would have been, in the days before computers, the typing pool. Like herself, Kylie had dealt with accounts and orders.
“I gather it’s a suspicious death,” said Agatha. “Did anyone dislike her enough to kill her?”
Sharon put her hand up to her mouth and giggled nervously. “There’s Phyllis.”
Terry Jensen appeared in the doorway. Sharon muttered, “Got ter go,” and scurried off inside as the rest returned to their questioning of Roy about pop stars.
♦
“We might have got something after all,” said Agatha as they drove out of Evesham. “I’d like another word with Sharon. I’ve got her address. I think we should call on her tomorrow.”
“Right,” said Roy. “You haven’t mentioned James.”
“There’s nothing to mention. Drop the subject.” As Agatha turned the car into Lilac Lane, she saw lights burning in the author’s cottage. She saw the broad, tweedy back of Mrs. Anstruther-Jones at the window. She appeared to be talking animatedly.
“My new neighbour’s been trapped by the village bore,” commented Agatha.
She parked the car and she and Roy walked indoors.
“You don’t seem to have formed a favourable opinion of him,” said Roy.
“I didn’t meet him. I saw him, digging the garden.”
“Sure that was him?”
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s only when you were describing him, there was a look of amusement in Mrs. Bloxby’s eyes, as if she were laughing at you.”
Agatha stared at Roy in surprise. “Mrs. Bloxby? You must be joking. Mrs. Bloxby would never laugh at me!”
∨ The Day the Floods Came ∧
3
Sharon Heath lived in a modest terrace house off Port Street, near the income-tax office. The day had turned warm and Agatha’s head was once more itching under the blond wig. “Wait a minute,” said Roy, seizing Agatha’s hand as she was just about to ring the bell. “We haven’t decided what we’re going to say. We’re supposed to be doing research into youth in the provinces in general. Not ask about Kylie in particular.”
“We’ll ask the usual boring questions and then just slip it into the conversation,” said Agatha impatiently. Roy gave a resigned shrug. Sometimes, he knew from bitter experience, Agatha had all the tact of a charging rhino.
Agatha rang the bell. They waited quite a few minutes and Agatha was raising her hand to ring the bell again when the door was opened by a blowsy-loo
king woman wrapped in a dressing-gown. “Whatever it is, we don’t want any.” She made to shut the door.
“We’re from television.”
Oh, the magic of television. The woman’s hand fluttered up to the rollers in her hair.
“Oh, my! I’m Mrs. Heath. Whatever must you think of me? Give me a moment.”
The door slammed.
“What’s that all about?” demanded Agatha crossly.
“We’re from the telly, so she’s gone to pull the rollers out of her hair and cram her nasty, floppy carcass into a body stocking,” said Roy waspishly.
Agatha lit a cigarette. Above, the sky was pale blue, looking as if it had been scrubbed and washed by all the recent rain. The faintest of breezes blew along the street. Church bells clanged out over Evesham. From one of the neighbouring houses a baby set up a crotchety wail.
Finally the door opened and a transformed Mrs. Heath stood there, hair lacquered, floury make-up, and figure encased in a tight, imitation-silk dress of imperial purple.
“Come in,” she cooed. “Sharon was just telling us how you’d been at the club last night. Will my little girl be on the telly?”
“Possibly,” said Agatha briskly. “She did strike us as being an interesting subject.”
She craned her neck round Agatha. “Where’s the cameraman?”
“That comes later,” said Agatha briskly. “We have to do the research first.”
“Come in.” Mrs. Heath stepped aside. “The lounge is on your left.”
The lounge was a small room that showed all the signs of having been hurriedly tidied. Agatha sat down on an armchair which crackled because newspapers and magazines had been hurriedly thrust under the seat cushion.
“Now,” said Mrs. Heath, “can I get you some refreshment?” Her mouth was a thin lipsticked line turned down at the corners, and her eyes were hard. Agatha judged that when she was not smarming to visitors, Mrs. Heath could very well have a bad temper.
“Nothing for us,” said Agatha. “Where’s Sharon?”
“I’ll just get her.”
Mrs. Heath sailed from the room. Soon her voice came back to them, harsh and angry. “For Pete’s sake, move your arse, girl. They ain’t going to wait all day.”
A few moments later she reappeared, followed by Sharon, who was wearing a blouse of glittery material and a long skirt over a pair of platform-soled boots, the soles so thick they looked like diving boots. She had liberally applied tan make-up which stopped short at her jawline and contrasted sharply with the unhealthy whiteness of her neck.
“Now,” said Agatha, putting her clipboard on her lap. “We’re doing a feature on youth entertainment in the Midlands, but we are also interested in crime. There have been incidents of girls leaving discos late at night and never making it home.”
“I saw about them on the telly, but it ain’t happened in Evesham,” said Sharon, picking nervously at her red nail polish.
“There was that Kylie,” broke in Mrs. Heath eagerly. “‘S in the papers this morning. Says she died of a heroin overdose and the body was frozen first. Did you ever?”
Sharon’s plucked eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “Drugs! Kylie? Naw.”
“I asked you if she’d had any enemies,” pursued Agatha. “You said something about someone called Phyllis.”
“I dunno. If this goes on the telly, she’ll claw my eyes out.”
“I assure you it won’t,” said Agatha. “I’m just trying to understand how such a thing could have happened.”
“Promise you won’t say anythink.”
“Cross our hearts and hope to die,” said Roy solemnly. As if registering his presence for the first time, Sharon gave him a coquettish smile – although perhaps ‘coquettish’ was the wrong way to describe it, thought Agatha. Given that Sharon’s mouth was heavily painted with deep-purple lipstick, it had more of a vampire look.
“Well,” said Sharon eagerly and leaning forward to enjoy a now-sanctioned piece of gossip, “Zak was dating Phyllis. Phyllis is a big girl and ever so noisy when she’s had a few. What she didn’t know was that Zak was dating Kylie at the same time. One day, Kylie turns up in the office with an engagement ring. Phyllis goes ape-shit and tries to pull Kylie’s hair out and we had to separate them. She said, “You’ll never marry him. I’ll kill you first.” There, what do you think of that?”
“Very interesting,” said Agatha. “Where does this Phyllis live?”
“I can’t tell you that,” said Sharon, alarmed. “She might guess I told you.”
“No reason to,” said Agatha smoothly. “Is there any way I could interview all the girls she worked with at once?”
“There’s McDonald’s on the Four Pools. We mostly go there. ‘Bout one o’clock.”
“But the police will surely have interviewed Phyllis.”
“They come round to speak to all of us, but we’re all so frightened of Phyllis, nobody said a word.”
Feeling that she had got something to go on, Agatha then asked Sharon all about her interests and hobbies – which turned out to be going to the disco and watching soaps on television.
When she had finished, Mrs. Heath saw them out, saying, “You will let us know when the cameras are coming so we can get the place redecorated.”
Agatha, worried at putting the woman to unnecessary expense, said quickly, “We’ll be doing any filming or interviews at the disco.”
♦
John Armitage shifted restlessly in his chair, vowing to lock the cottage door and never leave it open again. For facing him was Mrs. Anstruther-Jones, who had simply walked in without knocking.
She broke off a lecture about her importance in the village as the sound of a car went past the windows of the cottage. “That’ll be your neighbour, Agatha Raisin, and her toy-boy.”
“Really?” he said in a bored voice. “Now, if you will excuse me – ”
“Not that she doesn’t occasionally do Good Work.”
“Like underwater basket weaving for the bewildered?”
She stared at him, her mouth open.
“And I really must get on. Got to write.”
She rose and picked up an enormous, shiny leather handbag. “Ah, your muse,” she said coyly.
“Exactly,” he said, ushering her to the door.
Once she was out, he locked the door behind her. He sat down at his computer and switched it on. He stared at the screen. Agatha Raisin. From village gossip, he gathered she was some sort of amateur detective and had been married to the chap who formerly had this cottage. There was one thing in her favour. She hadn’t come snooping around like almost every other woman in this village. He could only hope that when the novelty of his presence wore off, they would all leave him alone.
♦
Just before noon the following day, he heard the door of his neighbouring cottage slam shut. Suddenly curious to see what this Agatha Raisin looked like, he went to the window on the small landing at the side of his cottage where he could get a view of his neighbour’s front door.
A woman was just getting into her car. She had odd-looking blond hair – it looked like a wig – and ugly glasses. “Well, if that can get herself a toy-boy, good luck to her,” he murmured and went downstairs to start work.
♦
Agatha had run Roy to the London train the evening before, and had to admit she missed his support. She had given him money to buy her a more respectable blond wig, with instructions to post it to her. She could only hope that the excitement of television would stop the young women of Barrington’s from questioning her too closely.
Again, the weather was fine. Sun shone in the car windows and the resultant heat made her wig feel even more uncomfortable. She went to Tesco’s in Evesham to buy groceries and then arrived at McDonald’s at just after one o’clock. Sharon and four other young girls were seated round a table.
Clipboard at the ready, Agatha approached them. “I think I saw some of you at the disco the other night,” she began. “I
am working on a television programme on the activities of youth in the Midlands. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?”
They eagerly made room for her. She took down their names as an opening gambit. As well as Sharon, the others were Ann Trump, Mary Webster, Joanna Field, and Phyllis Heger. They said only one, Marilyn Josh, was missing. She had a hair appointment. Agatha studied Phyllis. Everything about her was large, although she was not fat. It all looked like solid muscle. She had large brown eyes, a large full-lipped mouth, thick black hair, and a generous bust. Her eyes glared this way and that, as if she were in a perpetual temper.
Agatha proceeded to ask them the same general questions she had asked Sharon, and noticed that Phyllis mostly butted in with all the answers. They resented Phyllis’s hogging the limelight, Agatha could see that. When she herself had been working her way up, starting with lowly office jobs, Agatha had been amazed to find that each office seemed to contain one bully. She longed to put Phyllis down, but at the moment she was a suspect and Agatha didn’t want to alienate her. She decided not to ask any questions about Kylie, but to try to arrange a meeting with Phyllis and get the girl on her own.
So Agatha wrote and wrote and then said brightly, “You will get tired of all my questions, but this is simply the start. We do an awful lot of research before we actually start filming.”
They all said eagerly it was no trouble at all.
Agatha thanked them and went to her car.
She was about to get in when she heard the rapid clack of high heels behind her. She turned round and found herself confronted by Phyllis. “You should really talk to me,” said Phyllis. “I’ve got more sophistication than what them have.”
“What if I meet you after work?” suggested Agatha.
“That would be ever so nice,” said Phyllis in a sort of strangulated voice she seemed to imagine was upper-class. “Where?”
“There’s a pub called The Grapes in Evesham High Street. Know it?”
“Yes, but no one much goes there.”
“I know,” said Agatha. “It’s a good place for a quiet chat. I’ll see you there at, say, six o’clock.”
