by M C Beaton
“I don’t know that she has any neighbours. She lives above a shop in Port Street. A lot of property there is still flood-damaged, you know, no one doing anything until the insurance comes through, and with so many claims, that could take ages. Anyway, the police will already have interviewed everyone possible. I feel something awful has happened to her.”
“Maybe not. Maybe she just wanted to clear off knowing the police would want to question her about Barrington.”
“Without clothes or money?”
“She could have been very frightened.”
“She didn’t strike me as being frightened the last time I saw her. Angry, cheeky, insolent. But not frightened.”
“Let’s look at the drug business. That suggests viciousness plus organization.”
“That brings us back to the club again and there’s no record of any drugs being dealt there.”
“Needn’t be the club. What about Barrington’s? Barrington himself sounds a nasty bit of work, and what about that goon you described, George, the one who mans the front desk?”
“Really, Charles. A plumbing business?”
“All things are possible. Would they have a deep freeze at Barrington’s?”
“I shouldn’t think so. Anyway, after the blackmailing business came out, the police would have turned the place inside out. I wish it would turn out to be Phyllis.”
“Why that one?”
“She’s a narcissistic bully. She’s violently jealous. She hated Kylie. I think she’s a low life.”
“Any sign that she takes drugs?”
“Not that I noticed, but unless someone has bare arms and tracks marks up them, I wouldn’t know.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t I stay the night and I’ll go round all these people with you tomorrow?”
“No, Charles. I’ve got to serve teas in the village tomorrow for some photographic exhibition.” Agatha hesitated. It was difficult to continue to be angry with the lightweight Charles. And somehow, just talking over a case with him like old times connected her in some way to James Lacey. “But I tell you what. Why don’t you call over on Saturday and we’ll take it from there?”
“Great. I’ll come in the morning and we’ll get started.”
“What are you going to do about your marriage?”
“What about it?”
“I mean, aren’t you going to try to fix things? Fly to Paris?”
“No point. I mean, it’s not just her I have to deal with. It’s her father, mother, two brothers, uncles, aunts, all jabbering at me in French.”
“But Charles. She’s expecting twins!”
A faint red flush crept up Charles’s face. Agatha stared at him in amazement. “You’re actually blushing! I didn’t think you could.”
“The fact is,” he said, twisting the stem on his wineglass, “I got well and truly caught.”
“How?”
“I met her when I was on holiday in Saint Tropez. She was well-guarded by relatives, friends and family, and although she was – is – awfully pretty, I wouldn’t have made a move if she hadn’t moved on me. She kept gazing over at me in this restaurant, sending out signals. You know. One day, she was on her own. I stopped at her table and asked if she was enjoying her stay. She asked me to sit down. We laughed and talked. Then she saw her parents coming into the restaurant and asked me quickly where I was staying. I gave her the name of my hotel. She said she’d meet me in the foyer at midnight. And she did. And we spent the night together, although she had to sneak off at six in the morning. She told me she was on the pill. No, I didn’t have any protection. To tell the truth, I didn’t know I was going to need it. I didn’t see her again and put it all down to a rather intriguing one-night stand. I’d given her my address and phone number. A month later I got this hysterical phone call from Paris saying her period was late and that she’d lied to me about being on the pill. I told her to check out whether she was pregnant or not and phone me back. She phoned back a day later and confirmed that she was. Well, I decided to do the decent thing. Family’s rich, she’s pretty, chance to be a dad, all that. Went over, met the family, popped the question. Got a bit frightened with marriage settlements and lawyers before the wedding and asked her if she was really sure she was pregnant and she smiled at me mistily and said she had been told she was expecting twins.
“Well, that clinched it. I could see myself teaching them to fish and ride and Daddy stuff like that. Went ahead with the wedding. Only realize now in retrospect that I’d told her a lot about me but she hadn’t told me that much about her past. Anyway, by the time we got married, she should have been about four months preggers but she didn’t really look pregnant, but she was on this salad diet because she said she didn’t want to get too fat. So we got married and I took her back to Warwickshire, where she was bored out of her tiny mind. It was my aunt – remember her? – who began nagging me about her not showing any signs at all of pregnancy. I began to get suspicious and made an appointment for her with a gynaecologist in London and then told her that she should get checked up and see if everything was okay. She began to rant and rave that I was mean, that she hadn’t expected to stay buried in the country. That was when I accused her of cheating me, of not being pregnant at all.
“She insisted sulkily that she’d thought she was. I said, so what about these twins? She said the doctor must have made a mistake. She was going back to Paris and wanted a divorce. I said she could get one if she took all the blame. God, I never realized what she was really like. She pointed out, quite rightly, that there was nothing on record that she was pregnant. And there wasn’t! She had made me swear not to tell her parents. After the wedding I said, ‘Let’s tell them now,’ and she said, ‘Oh, no, Maman and Papa would be so shocked.’ And to think I went along with it!
“I mean, she certainly was no virgin when I’d first had her. I felt stuck, and I would have been stuck if it hadn’t been for my man, Gustav.”
“He’s back with you, is he?” Agatha remembered Charles’s terrifying butler.
“Yes, and terribly keen on gadgets is old Gustav. I kept forgetting appointments, dinners and things that people had phoned up to invite me to. So Gustav bought this thingy that plugs into your phone and records things. He went over the tapes and glory be, there were the two calls from her saying she thought she was pregnant and then the one saying she had been to the doctor and it had been confirmed.
“Anyway, my lawyers are dealing with it and I don’t want to see her or anyone from France again.”
“Why pick on you?”
“That’s where it gets interesting.”
“I thought it was all already interesting enough,” commented Agatha.
“Boofy Pratt-Rogers, an old school friend of mine who works at the British Embassy in Paris, got the low-down. Anne-Marie Duchenne, that’s the wife, had one flaming affair with some French comte. Can’t remember his name. They were supposed to get married and were engaged and all and then this comte ups and offs at the last minute and marries someone else. Anne-Marie devastated and furious and with a bad case of the ‘I’ll show him.’ Family take her to Saint Trap to recover and she’s tipped off that I’m a rich English milord. Of course I’m only a baronet, but what does a frog know?” said Charles with a burst of xenophobic bitterness.
“Mrs. Bloxby would say,” said Agatha, “that the good Lord was punishing you for years of philandering.”
“Mrs. Bloxby would not say anything so unkind. Shall we go?”
“After you’ve paid the bill,” said Agatha.
Charles had parked a little way down the High Street from the restaurant. Agatha was walking along to the car with him when she suddenly came face to face with Marilyn Josh. She quickly ducked her head and scurried along to the car. Open the door, Charles, quickly, her mind pleaded as he fumbled for his keys. Just before Agatha slid into the passenger seat, she glanced back. Marilyn was standing looking along the street at her.
“Lost something?” asked Charles
as Agatha crouched down. “No, that was Marilyn Josh on the High Street, just before we reached the car. She was looking straight at me, and when I got into the car I looked back, and she was standing in the High Street staring at me.”
“I thought you were wearing some disguise when you interviewed her.”
“Yes, a blond wig and glasses. It really did alter my appearance.”
“Were you by any chance wearing the clothes you’re wearing now?”
Agatha glanced down at her biscuit-coloured trouser-suit. “Lord, I was wearing this last time I saw her.”
“Can’t be helped. She probably thought there was something familiar about you, but couldn’t quite think what.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Agatha. Charles had left and she was preparing for bed when the phone rang. It was Bill Wong. “The most peculiar thing has happened, Agatha,” he said. “We’ve just arrested two young fellows high on drugs, who frightened the life out of a woman in Mircester by driving straight at her. She said she jumped clear and was able to give us a description of the car and the licence number. Tough old bird with nerves of steel. So we picked them up. The car was stolen. They’re being charged with that, plus possession of drugs. Now Worcester police are going to have to be brought into this because they’ll want to know if they were the ones who killed Mrs. Anstruther-Jones. They could be the ones that went for you.”
“Don’t tell Brudge about me,” pleaded Agatha.
“I can’t very well tell him now,” said Bill, “and more’s the pity. They’re trying to say they only did it to give her a fright, just a joke, they would have slammed on the brakes at the last minute. There’s been a few more instances of this kind of thing. We’ll need to sweat it out of them, find the other cars they’ve stolen and try to get forensics to come up with something. It could be that the attack on you was just these silly buggers playing games.”
“What about Mrs. Anstruther-Jones?”
“Could be them as well and it was a joke that went wrong. I’ll let you know.”
Agatha, after she had rung off, found herself hoping that it had been they. But before she fell asleep, Marilyn Josh’s face rose before her eyes. She could only hope she hadn’t recognized her.
♦
The following day was sultry and warm. The sun was veiled in thin cloud. The leaves on the trees hung motionless. What a day for standing behind a counter with a hot tea urn and a hot coffee urn, Agatha thought crossly.
She put on a loose summer gown and made her way along to the hall. At the back of the hall, tables and chairs had been laid out to make a temporary tea-room. There was a long trestle-table filled with home-made cakes and sandwiches and the urns of tea and coffee.
Three o’clock arrived. Agatha shifted restlessly in the heat. Very few people were coming in. The school hall smelled of dust and chalk. Dust motes drifted in shafts of sunlight.
Mrs. Bloxby, who had been selling tickets at the school hall door, surrendered her post to Miss Simms and joined Agatha. “It’s quite sad,” she said. “Poor Mr. Parry. That’s him over there.”
Agatha looked to where a stooped, elderly gentleman was standing in front of one of his photographs.
“Who’s he?”
“Mr. Parry is the man whose collection of old photographs it is. So sad. I would have thought more people would have been interested.”
“Take over from me,” said Agatha. “I’ll have this place full in an hour.”
She went to a cupboard where she knew materials were kept for finger-painting, having once been drafted by Mrs. Bloxby to supervise a kindergarten class while the teacher went to the doctor. She pulled out a large square of cardboard and painted FREE TEAS, HOME-BAKING, CHURCH HALL, ALL WELCOME on the card. She went to her car and drove up to the main road and tacked the card onto a tree. Then she went back to the hall.
“We’re giving away the teas and stuff,” she told Mrs. Bloxby. “Don’t panic. I’ll pay you for them.”
“That’s awfully generous of you. Are you sure?”
“Real little Lady Bountiful, me,” said Agatha with a shrug. “Anything to liven this dump up.”
Cars started to arrive and then a whole coach-load of people. Mrs. Bloxby was once more at the door, saying sweetly, “It’s two pounds for admission, but that covers your afternoon teas.” Agatha grinned. The vicar’s wife had jacked up the price from twenty pee. Then she was kept so busy serving that the rest of the afternoon flew past until every cake and sandwich had gone. Old Mr. Parry had spent a happy time taking people round his exhibition of pictures.
“I think you’ve done enough, Mrs. Raisin,” beamed Mrs. Bloxby. “The ladies and I will clean up.”
“Thanks,” said Agatha with relief. “I’m so hot and sticky, I need a bath.”
“Oh, before you go, Mr. Parry would really like to show you his photographs. He says you’ve been working so hard you haven’t had enough time to see them.”
“Must I?”
“I said you would.”
“Rats!”
Agatha slouched off to join Mr. Parry. “Ah, Mrs. Raisin,” he cried. “Shall we start with this one? This is a view of Blockley High Street circa 1910, and this…”
Agatha’s mind drifted off in the heat. At last the tour was over. “Thank you very much,” said Agatha.
“I didn’t display them all,” he said. “Some I have in a folder were watermarked or cracked, but very interesting for all that.”
To Agatha’s horror he picked up a folder from a chair, opened it and spread the contents on a table. “I have an appointment,” she gabbled. “Must go.”
He looked at her in disappointment. “I’m sure they’re all as fascinating as the ones in the exhibition,” she said, “but…”
On the top of the open folder was a sepia photograph of a street which seemed familiar to her. In the next second, she realized it was the back lane where the disco was situated. But where the disco was now stood a butchers shop, with the butcher grinning outside and game hanging from hooks.
“A butchers,” said Agatha.
He gave her a peculiar look. “Yes, obviously. So few of the old butchers left now that people go to the supermarket. That was Gringe’s. Bless me, that’s an old photograph, but they were there until five years ago. They sold up. The man that bought it meant to turn it into two flats but he went bankrupt and it was sold to those disco people. Such a shame.”
Agatha walked off slowly, deaf to his cry of “But you haven’t seen the others!”
A butcher, thought Agatha. How far would the chap who bought it for the flats have got with the conversion? Say he hadn’t got anywhere, then it would be as it had been when it was a butchers shop. That would mean the walk-in deep freeze would still be there.
“Mrs. Raisin!”
Agatha turned round reluctantly. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “Mr. Parry thought you’d taken a funny turn.”
“I’m all right. It was one of those photographs, Mrs. Bloxby. A butchers used to be in Evesham where the disco is now and that means there still might be a deep freeze there.”
“But the police searched the disco!”
“They were looking for a freezer chest,” said Agatha excitedly. “What if the freezer room is still there, behind a curtain or a fake wall?”
“You must tell the police.”
“Gringe was the name of the butcher. I’m going to see if I can find the man who sold the shop and get him to draw me a plan of where that freezer room was. Then I’ll go to the disco tomorrow night and see if it’s still there.”
“Mrs. Raisin, it’s too dangerous.”
“You mustn’t tell the police. This is my case,” said Agatha fiercely. “Promise?”
“I promise,” said Mrs. Bloxby reluctantly.
♦
As soon as she got home, Agatha checked the phone-book. There were two Gringes, A. Gringe and M. Gringe.
She dialled the A. Gringe. No reply. She tried the M.
Gringe. A woman answered. Aga
tha said she wanted to speak to whoever had owned the butchers-shop which was now a disco. “Oh, that’s my husband’s father,” she said.
“Do you know when he’ll be at home?” asked Agatha. “I phoned him but there was no reply.”
“He doesn’t go out much. He’s probably out in his garden.”
“I see he lives in Badsey,” said Agatha.
“Yes, you’ll find his house is near the schoolhouse. Know where that is?”
Agatha said she did and rang off.
She had a quick shower and changed. Before she left for Badsey, she phoned Charles’s number to put him off. Agatha wanted all the glory for herself. Gustav answered the phone and said Sir Charles was out and so she left a message. Now for Mr. Gringe.
♦
His home in Badsey was a trim, end-terraced house. Agatha saw there was a path at the side leading to the garden at the back, and decided to try the garden first.
She walked along the path. The garden was a plantless miracle. A wooden deck stretched out from behind the back door covered in a canvas canopy, and the area in front of it, where an old man was stooped, pulling at a weed, was covered in small shiny pebbles.
“Mr. Gringe?”
He straightened up, his eyes roaming over the pebbles as if threatening any other bit of green to show its face. “Yes?”
“I’m Agatha Raisin. I want to ask you about your butchers shop, the one that’s now a disco.”
He turned slowly and looked at her. His face was seamed and lined and his shoulders were stooped. He wiped his hands on an old pair of flannels, held one out and solemnly shook Agatha’s hand.
“What do you want to know?”
“I wondered if you could draw me a plan of your shop as it once was, showing me where the freezer, the cold room, was situated.”
“Why?”
“I’m writing a book,” lied Agatha, “and I have this butchers shop in it. I needed a layout.”
“So why don’t you just go to the butchers in, say, Moreton, and ask them to show you around?”
“Because I’m setting it in the past,” said Agatha desperately. “I need an old-fashioned butchers shop.”
He indicated a gleaming white plastic table surrounded by hard plastic chairs on the deck. “Let’s sit down and I’ll get a piece of paper.”
