by M C Beaton
“Zak said nothing about Marilyn Josh,” said Brudge, “but we’ll check it out. Here’s Mrs. Bloxby.”
Brudge stood up to leave.
“Aren’t you going to thank me?” asked Agatha.
“For what? For nearly getting killed? For interfering in police business? You’re damn lucky you’re not being charged. You were wearing that wig again when we found you.”
“Oh, sod off!” shouted Agatha to his retreating back.
“That wasn’t very nice, Mrs. Raisin,” said Mrs. Bloxby reprovingly.
“He deserved it,” said Agatha sulkily.
“You seem to be back on your old form.” The vicar’s wife sat down beside the bed. “It’s in all the newspapers and on television.”
“What do they say about me?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid. Just about Kylie and Joanna and that a large quantity of drugs was found at the disco.”
“That does take the biscuit! They’d never have found out if it hadn’t been for me,” complained Agatha. “Where’s John?”
“Coming along later.”
“Really! Can you get me my handbag out of that locker? I’ve got make-up in it.”
“When are they going to release you?” said Mrs. Bloxby, retrieving Agatha’s capacious handbag and handing it to her.
“Tomorrow,” said Agatha, taking out a small mirror and squinting at her face in it. “I look a fright.”
She busily began to apply foundation cream. “Do you think that’s a spot coming on my forehead?”
“Can’t see anything,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I’ve brought you a box of chocolates.”
“How kind of you.” Agatha eyed the box greedily. She loved chocolates but hated the effect even one had on her imagination. One chocolate and she could feel her stomach expanding and her hips grower wider. Still, she had gone through a lot and she deserved at least a few.
She applied powder and lipstick and then opened the box. “Have one.”
“I’ve just had breakfast.”
“Oh, go on,” urged Agatha. “I’ll feel like a pig eating them myself.”
Mrs. Bloxby took one and Agatha took one and ate it and then reached for another.
They chatted about village affairs, and when Mrs. Bloxby at last stood up to leave, Agatha realized that the chocolate box was nearly empty and Mrs. Bloxby had only eaten two.
♦
John Armitage arrived in the afternoon, bearing a large bouquet of flowers which Agatha studied carefully until she had judged they were slightly more expensive than the ones he had taken to Joanna.
“Have you heard the latest?” he asked.
“No, what’s that?”
“I heard it on the radio. They’ve rounded up the gang in Birmingham, the ones that got Terry Jensen to store the stuff.”
“And Brudge never even said thank you,” said Agatha.
“I think he got the impression that you were interfering. But you’ll have your moment at the trial.”
“Me! If I hadn’t interfered, as you put it, he’d still be none the wiser.”
“It’s certainly been quite a case. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. I’m out of here tomorrow.”
“I’ll take you for dinner to celebrate.”
Agatha brightened. “That’ll be nice. Where?”
“There’s a French restaurant in Oxford, Ma Belle, in Blue Boar Street. They’ve got tables set out in a courtyard in front of the restaurant, and if the weather stays fine, we can go there. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
♦
After he had left, Bill Wong arrived with more flowers. “Agatha,” he said, “I hope this is the last time I have to visit you in hospital after a case. You did a very dangerous thing.”
“Does that man Brudge do nothing but complain about me?” demanded Agatha furiously.
“I called at the vicarage yesterday. It’s Mrs. Bloxby who worried about you. If John Armitage hadn’t decided to call the police, you would have been frozen meat.”
But Agatha, as usual, was not going to take the blame for anything. She gave him a long speech about the fact that it was due to her own brilliance that the police had wound up such a successful case.
“That’s an expensive bouquet,” said Bill, who had not really been listening to her and was pointing to John’s offering.
“It’s from John Armitage,” said Agatha proudly. “He’s taking me out for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Be careful.”
“I’m not a virgin.”
“It’s just you had enough pain and trouble over falling in love with your last neighbour.”
“I’m not going to fall in love with John Armitage,” howled Agatha.
♦
But the next day, as she left the hospital to be driven home by Mrs. Bloxby in the old Morris Minor, Agatha made polite conversation while all the time her mind was plotting and planning what to wear for dinner that evening.
Once home, she resisted the impulse to rush out and buy something new. She had plenty of clothes. It was just a matter of choosing the right things. After having taken every item out of her wardrobe, she settled for a deep-crimson silk evening skirt, slit up the side, and a soft white silk blouse with a plunging neckline.
That evening, made up with care, scented, hair brushed and burnished, she felt she had never looked better. John arrived at seven and they set off for Oxford. It was a warm, glorious evening, with the sun sending down shafts of golden light between the trees, which were still fresh and green, having not yet taken on the dull heaviness of summer.
For once Oxford looked to Agatha like the city of dreaming spires instead of what she usually saw as a mess of bad traffic system, panhandlers and drunken fourteen-year-olds.
John had booked a table in the courtyard of the restaurant. They ordered their meal and a bottle of wine. They talked about the case, going over and over it, until John asked, “You seemed to think my book, the one you read, was not quite real. Why was that?”
They were on to their second bottle of wine. Agatha, mellow and secure in his company, began to tell him about her upbringing in the Birmingham slums while he listened, fascinated.
Agatha hardly ever told anyone about this background from which she was so anxious to distance herself.
When she had finished, John ordered brandies and then leaned across the table and gazed into her eyes.
“What about it, Agatha?”
Agatha looked at him, puzzled.
“What about what?”
“You and me making a night of it.”
Agatha still did not understand. “You mean you want to go on somewhere?”
“Come on, Agatha. You know what I mean. The somewhere is your bed.”
“You’ve got a cheek,” said Agatha.
“We’re both adults.”
Agatha’s self-worth, never very high, sank like a stone. It was because she had told him about her upbringing that he thought that no preliminaries were necessary. She rose to her feet. “Excuse me.”
She walked into the restaurant and past the bar and the diners to a door at the side. She went out into a lane leading up to the High. She hailed a taxi and got in. “Carsely,” she said. “Near Moreton-in-Marsh.”
“Cost you,” said the driver.
“Just go!” ordered Agatha.
She was too upset and humiliated even to cry. Not once had John tried to kiss her or show any sign of affection. He had wanted to get laid and she seemed easy.
When she got home, she sat down and switched on her computer and sent an e-mail to Marie, saying that she had changed her mind. She would like to go back to Robinson Crusoe Island. What dates?
Later that evening, she heard her doorbell. She was sure it was John. She put her head under the duvet. The ringing went on for some time. Then, after that, the phone began to ring. She got out of bed and pulled the jack out of the wall.
She would wait for Marie’s reply and then book her planes. Tomorrow, she would
pack up her computer and luggage and move to a hotel in London until it was time to leave. She would tell Worcester police where she was and make them promise to tell no one else.
Agatha felt a pang. She would need to leave her cats again, but her cleaner, Doris Simpson, would look after them and they adored Doris.
She felt she hurt all over.
∨ The Day the Floods Came ∧
EPILOGUE
Once more on Robinson Crusoe Island, Agatha sat with Marie and Carlos in the lounge and watched the rain clouds sweep across the bay. It was cold. She should have realized it would be winter in August on the Juan Fernandez Islands.
But somehow there was still that atmosphere of peace and comfort, that feeling of being very far away from worries and troubles. Marie and Carlos were good listeners and took Agatha through her story over and over again, until it all seemed so incredible, almost as if it had all never happened.
“This Evesham sounds like a wicked place,” said Marie.
“On the contrary, the people are wonderful. That’s what makes it seem so odd,” said Agatha.
“And has this Marilyn Josh been arrested?”
“Yes; I read about it in the newspapers before I left. The police are keeping very quiet about me. I think they don’t want anyone to know I was masquerading as a woman from a television company. So I don’t get any glory.”
“You get the glory of knowing that a lot of villains are locked up,” pointed out Carlos.
“True,” agreed Agatha, although she privately thought it would have been nice to get some praise and recognition for her efforts.
When Carlos took himself off to go for a long walk, Maria asked, “And what about you ex-husband?”
“Oh, that’s definitely over,” said Agatha. “I’ve closed that chapter in my life.”
“So what about this writer who was supposed to be helping you?”
“He insulted me. I don’t want to have anything to do with him again.”
“Why?”
“He took me out for dinner. He is very attractive-looking. We went to a restaurant in Oxford.” Agatha broke off and bit her lip.
“So what happened?”
“You may as well know. He wrote a detective story I’d read based in the Birmingham slums, only you don’t call them slums any more. You refer to them politely as inner cities. I had said the background didn’t ring true and he asked me how I knew.”
“And how did you know?”
May as well tell the truth, thought Agatha. I’m so very far from home.
“Because I was brought up in that sort of environment until I escaped and clawed my way to the top, got a posh accent, got money and success. But my background is something I like to keep quiet about.”
“I do not see why,” said Marie. “It is a sign of how far you have come by your own efforts.”
“Britain isn’t so very class-conscious now, but it was when I was growing up. I’ve always had this feeling of not fitting in anywhere and that in itself breeds a sort of snobbery. Anyway, I told him because we’d had a fair bit to drink. He propositioned me, just like that. He hadn’t uttered one word of praise about my appearance, he hadn’t shown me any affection, he hadn’t even shown he desired me. So I thought it was because of my poor background that he felt he could dispense with the preliminaries.”
Marie sat like a small round Buddha, lost in thought, her mind going over Agatha’s previous stories about the case.
“I remember,” she said, “that your young friend, this Roy Silver, gave the impression that he was having an affair with you. Yes?”
“Yes, he did.”
“So you are a mature worldly woman who he believes has affairs. A lot of men do not court or woo these days, Agatha. It started in the seventies. Women’s magazines urging us to believe that we were the same as men and could behave like men. You can have it all. Do you remember that one? And endless articles about erogenous zones and sexual tricks of the brothel. Women were suddenly even more available for sex than they had ever been before, and so the courtesies between the sexes disappeared. When was the last time you saw a man on public transport stand up to give a woman a seat? And the women were equally to blame. Some even insulted men who held doors open for them. And the dignity of the housewife and mother was taken away. Women who did not work were held in contempt. Children are often brought up by cheap, uncaring help while the mother works.” She sighed. “Sometimes I feel we women have thrown off one set of chains only to be weighed down by another. I do not think he propositioned you because of your background, but because he, too, had been drinking. He is probably quite naive where women are concerned. And you must still have been suffering from shock.”
“Perhaps,” said Agatha moodily.
“Were you in love with him?”
“No, he’s too cold, too robotic.”
“And could it not be that you misjudged him? You said he’d had an unhappy marriage.”
“No need for him to take it out on me,” said Agatha waspishly. “He’s probably forgotten about the whole thing.”
♦
“Any news of Agatha?” John Armitage asked Mrs. Bloxby.
“No, she took off and left her cats at home for her cleaner to take care of. I think she told Doris Simpson where she was going, but Doris is very loyal and I think Agatha told her not to tell anyone. The near-death experience she had must have overset her. Or,” went on the vicar’s wife, “someone humiliated her. In the past, when Agatha has been hurt, she’s always run away.”
She gazed at John with her mild, clear eyes. He fidgeted and turned slightly red.
Mrs. Bloxby gave a little sigh. “You did something, didn’t you?”
He gave a reluctant laugh. “I took her out for dinner in Oxford. We drank a fair bit. I suggested we spend the night together.”
“Just like that?”
“She’s not a young girl,” said John defensively, “and she’d been having an affair with that horrible-looking young man…”
“Agatha is not having and never has had an affair with Roy Silver. She is very thin-skinned and doesn’t think much of herself. She has also surprisingly old-fashioned ideas when it comes to relationships. Agatha craves affection and romance and you offered a one-night stand. I assume there were no kisses or hand-holding?”
“Women don’t need that nowadays.”
“Women will always need that sort of thing.”
“I’ll make it up to her when she gets back.”
“Mr. Armitage, why don’t you just leave her alone?”
He stared at her in surprise.
“I must make some sort of amends.”
“Well, a simple apology should do. But don’t chase after her if you’re not in love with her.”
“Love?”
“It does exist,” said Mrs. Bloxby wearily.
♦
In his office in Worcester, Detective Inspector Brudge had an uneasy conscience. He should have warned that Raisin woman from doing any investigation right from the beginning. He was proud to be a member of the Worcester Police Force, which he considered the best in the country. Now he was having to cover up that small lapse. Of course it had come out about Agatha’s masquerade and he had been truthful enough in explaining to his superiors that he had warned her off, but had failed to explain that he had not warned her off in the beginning. Why couldn’t the woman go legal? Set up her own detective agency? Get licensed? He might just suggest it.
♦
By the time Agatha boarded the small propeller plane to take her to Santiago, where she planned to spend one night before catching the flight to London, she felt talked out and soothed.
She was finally free of men, free of obsessions. From now on, she would be her own woman. For a start, she would wear sensible shoes and comfortable loose clothes, instead of teetering about on high heels and worrying about her waistline. Her face was shiny and free from make-up.
The captain climbed in behind the controls. He was e
xtremely good-looking. Agatha automatically fumbled in her handbag for her make-up and then decided against it. Give your skin a chance to breathe, she lectured herself crossly.
In Santiago, she checked into the overfurnished Spanish decor of the Hotel Fundador. Not wanting to eat a formal meal by herself in the hotel restaurant, she unpacked the few things she needed for the night and the morning, and made her way to a cafe-restaurant on O’Higgins Avenue. She opened her Spanish-English dictionary and began to try to translate the food on offer, displayed on coloured placards on the wall. She ordered roast lamb and an avocado salad and a beer.
Distressingly small and beautiful children occasionally tried to make sorties into the café to beg before being chased away. Music was thudding out. Outside on the avenue, crowds sauntered up and down. It was a cold, clear evening.
Agatha’s food arrived. To her delight, not only was it cheap, it was delicious.
She felt happy and relaxed, her brain free from worries, anxieties and obsessions.
Agatha raised her glass of beer to her lips.
And then outside, amongst the crowds, James Lacey walked past.
Agatha dropped her glass with a crash. She would have recognized that rangy walk anywhere. Seizing her handbag and deaf to the shout of the waiter, who saw what looked like a customer escaping without paying, she darted out of the door and set off in pursuit.
She thrust her way through the crowds, sometimes losing him, and then seeing that dark head a distance in front of her. The crowd thinned and she put on a desperate spurt.
She caught up with him and seized his arm. “James!” she panted.
A total stranger turned round and looked down at her, a puzzled look on his face.
