by M C Beaton
“Right you are,” said Phyllis, those large eyes alight with a sort of ferocious vanity.
♦
John Armitage was heading up the stairs of his cottage when he heard a car drive up to his neighbour’s cottage. Once more he looked out of the landing window. Yes, it was that Raisin female, all right. Then he stared. For Agatha Raisin jerked the blond wig off her head and threw it on the car seat and then took off her glasses. Had she been in disguise? Or did she really think, perhaps, that she looked younger in that dreadful wig? A pair of good legs emerged from the driving seat as she opened the car door. The sun shone down on her glossy brown hair cut in a fashionable style.
Curiouser and curiouser, thought John. I might just call on her.
♦
Agatha fed her cats. She was sure she had already fed them, but they looked hungry. She had cooked them fresh fish. She herself ate microwaved meals, but she went to a lot of trouble to see her cats had the best. She bent down and stroked their warm furry heads, feeling a wave of loneliness engulf her. Her cats, Hodge and Boswell, never really seemed to need her except as a source of food. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Time to get ready to meet the dreadful Phyllis. She remembered she had left her wig in the car along with her glasses and went out to fetch them.
Returning, she went upstairs to the bathroom and made up her face and put the wig and glasses back on. She wondered briefly why no one had called around to ask her why she was always going out in disguise. There was a ring at the doorbell.
Agatha went down and opened the door. A tall, good-looking man stood there. He had a lightly tanned face, green eyes and a strong chin. But he was carrying a Bible.
“No!” said Agatha, and slammed the door in his face.
Mormons, she thought, as she picked up her handbag. They always send the best-looking ones around.
♦
John Armitage retreated to his cottage. He had found the Bible in a cupboard with James Lacey’s name on it and thought if he took it along next door it would be a good excuse to meet his neighbour.
Well, at least he now knew there was one woman in the village who most definitely did not want to have anything to do with him. He went upstairs to pack. He planned to spend a few days in London visiting an old friend.
♦
Agatha opened the door to the musty interior of The Grapes. It had neither piped music nor one-armed bandits nor pool table and so was shunned by the youth of Evesham. Phyllis was already there, drinkless.
“May I get you something?”
“A dry martini,” said Phyllis, who normally drank vodka and Red Bull, but thought a dry martini sounded sophisticated.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Agatha. “They probably don’t know how to make one. What about a gin and tonic? That’s what I’m having.”
“All right, then,” said Phyllis ungraciously. “Make it a large one.”
Agatha came back to the table carrying two large gin and tonics. “Perhaps instead of asking you questions, you begin by telling me about your life,” said Agatha. “I’m surprised a pretty girl like you isn’t engaged.”
“I’m hard to please,” replied Phyllis. “I think someone like me should move to London. I’m wasted down here. Nothing ever happens here.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Agatha. “Floods. Murder.”
“Murder?”
“Kylie Stokes.”
“Oh, her. Load of rubbish, that. Take it from me. It was suicide.”
“How come?”
“Can I have another?” Phyllis had managed to gulp down her gin and tonic.
Agatha went back to the bar and returned with two more drinks.
“You were saying…?”
“Oh, about Kylie? If you ask me, that wedding would never have taken place.”
“Why? I mean, she had the wedding gown and everything.”
“Zak proposed to her on the rebound.”
“From whom?”
“From me.”
“So you had dumped him?”
“We had this row. We were always having rows. We were hot in bed. Let me tell you…”
Phyllis proceeded to give a description of her sexual prowess in anatomical detail.
Amazing, thought Agatha. It was all the fault of those women’s magazines which led young girls to believe that the only way to keep a man was to indulge in the tricks of the brothel. But, then, maybe she was being old-fashioned. The very word modesty, as applied to women, had gone out of fashion a long time ago. She averted her eyes from Phyllis’s thick red lips, trying to fight down a feeling of revulsion at what those lips had done, and said, “The body was frozen. You don’t commit suicide and then freeze yourself.”
“Police have got it wrong,” remarked Phyllis.
“Did you know she was on heroin?”
“Oh, sure.”
“No track marks.”
“She probably sniffed the stuff.”
“And were you very upset when Zak became engaged to Kylie?”
“I s’pose you’ll hear it from the other girls. I was furious. He was only getting married to her to spite me.”
“But there was some sort of hen party for her, was there not? Did you go to that?”
“Naw. Silly business. Then Kylie disappeared the day afterwards. The Stokes family had the police round at the office questioning us all. But the police seemed to think she’d had wedding nerves and had done a runner.”
“And what did you think?”
“I told Zak she’d only wanted a ring to show off to the other girls, but she didn’t care for him.”
“So you saw Zak? When was this?”
“‘Bout a day before she was found. He came round my house that evening.”
“And was he upset?”
Phyllis gave a coarse laugh. “Not after I’d seen to him, he isn’t.”
“You mean you had sex?”
“What d’you think?”
Agatha had a memory of Zak weeping at the club. She thought Phyllis was one horrible out-and-out liar.
“What’s all this about Kylie?” asked Phyllis suspiciously. “I thought we were here to talk about me.”
“And so we are,” said Agatha evenly. “Don’t you realize that to have known someone who was mysteriously murdered makes you newsworthy?”
“It was suicide,” said Phyllis mulishly. “Now let’s talk about me.”
She proceeded to brag. She had always fancied herself on television, she said, because she had a good personality and was a looker.
I hate you, thought Agatha as Phyllis bragged on. I bet you’re capable of murder. I bet you’re a narcissist, and a psychotic one at that. All the while, she pretended to take notes.
“And you live alone?” she asked when Phyllis finally paused for breath. “Let me see, 10A Jones Terrace, is that right? Where is your family?”
“Over in Worcester.”
I wish I were a policeman and I could ask her where she was on the days before the murder, thought Agatha. I must phone Bill and see if they know exactly when she was murdered. I must see Kylie’s mother. When exactly did she go missing? Did she return after the hen party? But she must have gone home to get the wedding dress. And why would she put it on and leave the house dressed in it? To show someone? To show Zak? If only she had not adopted this stupid television role, she could revert to herself and ask questions until Zak and his father threw her out, but at least it would be more straightforward. She missed James. Even Charles would have done. She needed someone as back-up. Of course, she could always go and see Worcester police, but she was well aware that they considered her an interfering busybody.
Phyllis’s voice was churning on, about how her family didn’t appreciate her ambitions and that was why she had left home. They had been dragging her down. I’ll talk to the others apart from Sharon and Phyllis separately, thought Agatha, and set her clipboard down on the table and said resolutely, “I think that’s more than enough for now.”
Phyllis looked disappointed, but Agatha said she had other people to interview. She took a note of Phyllis’s home phone number and with relief escaped out into the evening air of Evesham. She glanced at her watch. Only six-thirty. Agatha felt that Phyllis had been talking for hours. She hurried off. Phyllis had gone to the loo in the pub but might appear at any minute and start talking again.
She walked off rapidly along the High Street in the direction of Merstow Green where she had left her car. She was passing a bookshop when she suddenly stopped and stared in the window, which was still lit. The shop sold remaindered books, but the bookseller often had a few books by popular authors at knock-down prices. There was a display of one of John Armitage’s books, not the one Agatha had read, and one of them was turned round to show the picture of the author on the back.
Agatha found herself looking down at the face of the man she had mistaken for a Mormon. The man she had seen digging the garden must have been a gardener he had hired. Damn Mrs. Bloxby for a devious woman. That’s why she had looked amused when she, Agatha, had described the gardener instead of the author. Well, it all went to show what a rotten influence the church was on people.
Agatha forgot her burst of temper as she drove homewards. John Armitage was certainly attractive. She would call on him and apologize and they would both laugh over her mistake…and…and…
Wrapped in rosy dreams, Agatha dashed into her cottage, removed the wig and glasses, changed into a clinging red dress and high heels, after putting on fresh make-up, and rushed next door. No one. The cottage stood dark and silent. And his car wasn’t parked outside.
♦
The next day Agatha received a visit from Detective Inspector John Brudge of the Worcester police. “Come in,” said Agatha, delighted. She thought he had called to enlist her help, for had she not solved an Evesham murder before? He was accompanied by a detective sergeant and a detective constable.
“Mrs. Raisin,” said Brudge severely, “we are questioning everyone connected with the death of Kylie Stokes.”
“Yes,” said Agatha eagerly. “I know a bit about – ”
He cut across her. “And it has come to our ears that some woman, saying she is arranging a television programme, has been asking questions. We have checked with all the television companies and not one of them knows of this woman.”
Agatha’s heart sank.
“What’s her name?” she asked feebly.
“That is what’s so amazing. She didn’t give one. Everyone is so gullible when it comes to thinking they are dealing with someone who claims to represent a television company. This woman was described as middle-aged, blond and with glasses. Now, we haven’t got a search warrant but we can get one today to find if you have a blond wig and glasses in this house. Do you want to tell us the truth, or do I have to get that warrant?”
Agatha bit her lip. Then she gave a shrug. “Yes, that was me.”
“Before I consider charging you with obstructing police business, tell me what you have learned.”
Too worried to hold anything back, Agatha told them what she had found out, about Zak’s distress, about Phyllis’s story, about the other girls.
Brudge listened to her impassively and then said, “Would you mind waiting in the other room?”
He saw her across the hall and into the kitchen and then shut the door behind her.
“What do you think?” Brudge asked his detective sergeant, a young man called Norris.
“Interfering busybody,” said Norris. “I’d book her, sir, and get her out of our hair.”
“That’s what I should do. On the other hand, she’s capable of digging up stuff the people concerned wouldn’t tell a policeman.”
“But, sir, we’re dealing with a murder investigation. She could get killed.”
“Yes, she could, couldn’t she? I’ll give her a rap on the knuckles but I won’t stop her.”
He went and jerked open the door, fully expecting to find Agatha listening outside, but he found she was still in the kitchen. She was sitting on the floor, playing with her cats.
“I must give you a severe warning, Mrs. Raisin, about the penalties of interfering in a police investigation. But as a favour to you for having been of some little, very little, assistance to us in the past, we will not tell those you have interviewed your real identity. That will be all. Oh, one other thing. Anything else you do find out, you are to report to me immediately. Here is my card. It has my office number, home number and mobile phone number.”
“Thank you,” said Agatha meekly.
After they had left, Agatha turned over what he had said and then her face cleared. They weren’t going to stop her.
♦
Agatha was admiring a splendid blond wig which had arrived by special delivery from Roy when the doorbell rang again. She found a woman she did not know standing on the step.
“Mrs. Raisin,” she said. “I am Freda Stokes, Kylie’s mother.”
“Come in,” said Agatha. “Come through to the kitchen. Would you like a cup of tea? I am very sorry about your sad loss.”
Freda Stokes was a sturdy woman with round apple cheeks with a high colour. Her grizzled hair was frizzy and her hands rough and red. She had large eyes of an indeterminate colour.
She refused the offer of tea and settled her battered handbag firmly on her capacious lap and studied Agatha. “I’ve heard you’re a sort of detective.”
“In a way,” said Agatha.
“I’ll pay you to find out who killed my daughter. Won’t be much. I’ve a stall at the market. Glass animals. Don’t make much.”
“I’ll do it for nothing,” said Agatha.
“I won’t take charity.”
“I’m fairly well off and you aren’t,” said Agatha bluntly. “I’ll do it. Wait till I get some paper. I’ll need to ask you questions. Do you feel up to it?”
“I’m up to anything,” said Freda grimly, “if it’ll nail the bastard who killed my daughter.”
Agatha darted through to her desk and returned with a sheaf of papers.
“So tell me when you last saw her?”
“It was two days before she died. She’d been to some sort of hen party with the girls in her office. She was a bit tiddly when she came home, that would be around midnight. I told her to get straight to bed. She said she’d had a good time. She said that girl, Phyllis Heger, who was always picking on her, wasn’t there. As she was off work, I thought I’d let her have a long lie-in. My husband’s dead. There was only me and Kylie.” A fat tear slid down her cheek. Agatha handed her a box of tissues and waited until she had composed herself.
“I went to the market early as usual. I came back at dinnertime.” Agatha knew she meant lunch-time. They still had dinner in the middle of the day in Evesham. “The house was quiet. Lazy girl, I thought, and went to wake her. Her bed was empty. Hadn’t been slept in. I called Zak, I called her work, I called her friends, then I called the police. They didn’t take it seriously. They said brides always got nervous before a wedding and she’d turn up. Then I found her wedding dress was missing. I phoned them again. But again they wouldn’t take me seriously. That was until she turned up dead.”
“What about Zak?” asked Agatha. “Could he possibly have done it?”
“No, he adored her, and he and his father have been marvellous to me. I couldn’t have got through the last few days without them. Zak’s broken up.”
“And you never had any suspicion that Kylie might be on drugs?”
“My Kylie? Never! She was part of a youth group at the church. They’re very down on drugs.”
“So why do you think she took her wedding dress?”
“Like I said, she’d had a bit to drink. I think one of them girls said she wanted to see the dress. Kylie was ever so proud of it. I think she took it round to one of their houses. She might have been attacked on the road home. It’s hard to get a cab.”
“She’d change back into her ordinary clothes, surely,” s
aid Agatha. “And whoever she had been visiting, if they had nothing to hide, then why wouldn’t they come forward?”
“Maybe whoever it was might be frightened of being suspected.”
“What about Phyllis Heger?”
“She wasn’t at the office party, like I said.”
“I don’t know if you know this, Mrs. Stokes – ”
“Freda.”
“Right, then, Freda. I don’t know if you know that Zak, according to Phyllis, was dating her.”
“Oh, Kylie told me about that. She said Phyllis hated her. Do you think it could have been her?”
“I’d like to think so,” said Agatha. “I don’t like her. But just think of the organization! Could Phyllis have injected her with heroin and then dumped her body in a freezer chest, and then somehow got it into the river? Was Kylie dating anyone before Zak?”
“She was engaged once before, to Harry McCoy.”
“Who’s he?”
“He’s a machine-tool operator at Barrington’s. Steady chap. I liked him.”
“What’s his address?”
Freda gave it to her and Agatha wrote it down.
Agatha leaned forward. “I’d better tell you something in confidence. I’ve already been investigating your daughter’s murder. I’ve been going around masquerading as someone from television, wearing a disguise of blond wig and glasses. If you hear about such a person, you’ll know it’s me.” Agatha thought about Brudge. Had he really been encouraging her to go ahead?
“Worcester police are very good,” she said cautiously. “They’ll probably get to the bottom of it eventually. What about drugs? I didn’t think they’d be that much in a quiet place like Evesham. You work at the market. You must hear things.”
“Evesham’s like everywhere else, riddled with the stuff,” said Freda bitterly. “They found a pub dealing in the stuff and closed it down. Nobody knows where it’s coming from now.”
“The people who take drugs must know,” said Agatha. “Ever hear of anything connected to the club?”
“Not even one Ecstasy tablet. It’s been raided at least once. A few under-age drinkers, that’s all.”
“Give me your phone number,” said Agatha. “I’ll let you know anything I find out.”
