by M C Beaton
‘Too tired. What’s it about anyway?’
‘Thinking of ways to raise money for the pub.’
‘Oh, dear. I’ve got to go. I promised Mrs Bloxby I’d do something to help and I forgot all about it.’
‘Well, just you get your drink and rest up. You really look tired.’
‘Is James home?’
‘I saw him yesterday.’
Agatha resisted an impulse to rush next door. Doris had said she looked tired. She went upstairs to the bathroom and let out a squawk of dismay. There were dark shadows under her eyes and two nasty hairs growing on her upper lip. She got rid of the hairs and then rinsed her face in cold water. After showering, she applied some skin-tightening cream before carefully making up her face and brushing her thick brown hair until it shone. She changed into a white cotton blouse and linen trousers.
Downstairs, she poured herself a stiff drink and lit a cigarette. Felicity’s murder, she reflected, would be the first case she had ever given up on. Her eyes began to close and soon she was asleep. Doris came in quietly and stubbed out Agatha’s cigarette in the ashtray.
Agatha was awakened two hours later by the sound of Doris returning with the cats. They did not seem particularly glad to see her, but then they never did after she had been away, punishing her in their cat way for what they saw as her neglect.
I’m getting old, thought Agatha, after she had paid Doris. I’m losing energy. Then she remembered she had barely slept the night before, trying to work out reasons for the two murders, and there had been the long drive home.
Feeling better, she went upstairs again and refreshed her make-up before going to call on James. He answered the door and said abruptly, ‘Come in. I’ve just been reading about this other murder in the morning papers.’
‘Let me see,’ said Agatha eagerly.
‘Sit down. I’ll get you a coffee.’
Agatha began to read the newspapers. There was very little hard information. There was no background on Sean at all, except that he earned money doing odd jobs – working on other people’s boats and occasional carpentry and gardening jobs. No mention of grieving relatives. But the press had got hold of Felicity’s previous fiancés and had also interviewed the village boys. Without actually saying so, they had portrayed Felicity as some sort of nymphomaniac. Her latest fiancé, whom she had nearly married, James Lacey, was unavailable for comment. George and Olivia must be furious, thought Agatha.
When James came back with a mug of coffee for her, Agatha said, ‘I thought the press would be at your door.’
‘They were yesterday. They’ll probably be back.’
‘Did you know Felicity was not Olivia’s daughter?’
‘No! How did you find that out?’
‘It’s odd. First Sylvan tells me Felicity was a result of an affair Olivia had and then Olivia tells me Felicity was the result of an affair George had, and before I could follow it up, the police told me Olivia wanted me to drop the case and told me to get out of town.
‘I’ll go into the office and ask Patrick to ferret around with his police contacts and see what he can dig up about Sean. Have the police been to see you?’
‘Yes, they checked up on me yesterday to make sure I hadn’t left the village.’
‘Are you going to the village hall tomorrow?’
‘Oh, about the pub? I suppose so. If we can raise enough money, it means John Fletcher can find the money to put in an outside smoking area with heaters for the cold weather. I don’t approve of smoking, but the smoking ban means the end of a lot of village pubs.’
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Agatha.
‘How do you think? Like a dirty old man.’
‘Come on. She wasn’t a teenager.’
‘I could only see the beauty,’ said James sadly and Agatha once more felt old and frumpy.
‘I’d better get to the office.’ She rose stiffly to her feet.
‘Shouldn’t you rest a bit? You look tired.’
‘That’s all I need,’ said Agatha bitterly.
On her way to the office, she was struck with an idea about how to raise interest in the pub extension. The office was empty apart from Mrs Freedman. She said that Patrick and Phil were out on jobs. ‘We really need someone else,’ she said.
‘I’ll put an ad in,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll draft it out later.’ She picked up the phone and began to dial. She phoned every newspaper, magazine and television station she could think of, promising them that, as she was still working on the Felicity case, if they would support her in covering the meeting at the village hall, she would tip them off as soon as the case was about to break. Then she drafted out an advertisement for a detective in the local papers and gave it to Mrs Freedman to phone in.
She hoped for publican John Fletcher’s sake that the press would take the bait.
Then she left, got in her car and drove back to the Red Lion in Carsely.
‘You want me to what? asked John.
‘I want you to break down a bit, sob, sniffle, something like that. Look. If you seem sympathetic enough and it gets on local TV, you’ll get donations. Come on. A sniffle or two is worth it.’
‘I’ll feel such a fool.’
‘Do you want your damn pub or not?’ snapped Agatha.
‘Yes, but -’
‘So sniffle.’
Mrs Bloxby, who had been elected to the parish council, was on the platform with the other councillors the following evening, along with John Fletcher. Agatha hissed that she and James needed chairs on the platform as well; otherwise the press would try to interview James and the pub would be forgotten.
The village hall was packed and the press had turned out in force. Mrs Bloxby was well aware that Agatha knew how to handle this crowd better than any of them, and so the dismayed members of the parish council, who had hoped for their moment in front of the cameras, heard Mrs Bloxby announce that Mrs Raisin would explain why funds were needed.
Agatha knew the press wanted sound bites, so she started by hammering, ‘This nanny state, the worst this country has known since the days of Cromwell,’ and then went on to say that if the pub, that centre of social life in the village, closed down, then the village would lose its heart.
Even the anti-smokers in the audience were on her side because the weekly quiz game was disrupted with the smokers nipping outside for a cigarette, not to mention the darts competition and the snooker competition.
Then she called John Fletcher to the microphone. ‘Here is our landlord to say a few words. Poor John is nervous,’ said Agatha with a laugh. She produced a large handkerchief and wiped his face. The handkerchief had been soaked in onion juice from good old-fashioned garden onions. John choked and sniffled and the tears ran down his honest red face. He tried several times to speak but was overcome by the effect of the onions.
‘There, there,’ said Agatha soothingly, leading him back to his chair and whipping her handkerchief away from him. She returned to the microphone and shouted, ‘Three cheers for John!’ The cheers were deafening. Agatha signalled to the village band at the side, who broke into a rendering of ‘Jerusalem’, followed by ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.
James looked on in wry amusement. It was vulgar and at the same time magnificent. Agatha had made arrangements for Boy Scouts to go up and down the aisles collecting donations.
Agatha had moved the village hall meeting back to the earlier time of five o’clock in the hope that it would be easier to get articles in the morning papers. Her luck was in. Film of the meeting was shown on BBC’s Midlands Today news just before seven o’clock.
Charles was entertaining a lady friend, Tessa Anderson, to pre-dinner drinks in his study because his aunt was in the drawing room with the television sound turned up high. Tessa would make a good wife, thought Charles. She was tall, which was a disadvantage as he was only of medium height. But she was a rich divorcee with extremely good looks and a large fortune. Not that he was mercenary, he tried to tell his conscience, it was
just that the estate ate up money.
They were sitting side by side on a sofa. He put down his drink and decided the time had come to kiss her. Then the unmistakable voice of Agatha Raisin boomed out of the other room.
Charles shot up and ran into the drawing room. Tessa, who had closed her eyes in anticipation of that kiss, opened them again and stared about her, wondering where he had gone.
Bill Wong joined the others who were crowded around the television set in the squad room to watch Agatha’s performance. Collins joined him. ‘Glad to see she’s back to doing PR. All she was really fit for anyway. I bet the police down at Hewes are glad she’s out of their hair.’
But Agatha had also talked to the newspapers about the murders in Hewes, saying she regretted nothing seemed to be happening to solve the murders and promising a reward to anyone who could give her information on Sean Fitzpatrick. Agatha felt sure that, if she could find out about Sean, the trail might lead back to Felicity.
Agatha felt she had now done all she could do about the Hewes affair as she drove to her office the following morning.
The next couple of days found her back in the old routine of searching for missing teenagers, cats, dogs, and tracking down faithless lovers or husbands. Mrs Freedman told her she had lined up interviews for the following day so that Agatha could hire a new detective.
‘There won’t be another Toni,’ mourned Agatha. ‘What a fool I was!’
‘Why?’ asked Mrs Freedman curiously.
But Agatha did not want to tell her that it was her own jealousy of Toni that had made her encourage the girl to set up her own detective agency.
She began the interviews the following day. The candidates were mostly young, barely educated, and had peculiar fantasies about what the work involved. Mrs Freedman had gone home and Agatha was thinking about locking up when the office door opened and Toni walked in.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ cried Agatha. ‘I thought for one awful minute it was one of those morons after a job here.’
‘This moron is looking for her job back,’ said Toni quietly.
‘Sit down. What happened? Have you had a row with Harry?’
‘Worse than that. Betty Talent, that genius who was handling the books, she’s decamped and cleared out the bank account.’
‘Have you phoned the police?’
‘Yes, I spoke to Bill.’
‘How on earth did she do it?’
‘She seemed so ultra-competent. We left all the billing and bookkeeping to her. She had a chequebook for office supplies, petty cash, things like that.’
‘Was there much?’
‘Harry had originally put two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of his inheritance into the office bank account and then we had been making money. There was over two hundred thousand pounds in the account. She’s gone, vanished.’ A tear ran down Toni’s cheek.
‘Where is Harry?’
‘Said he was going back to Cambridge to see if he could resume his studies. I was frightened to ask you, then I saw your ad.’
‘Of course you can have your job back, and welcome.’
‘I trusted Betty,’ wailed Toni.
‘Let’s go for a drink and we’ll work out what to do,’ said Agatha. ‘Was it just the money? Did she pinch anything else out of the office?’
‘A couple of cameras and a telephoto lens.’
‘Bitch. Let’s go.’
In a corner of The George pub, Agatha, after she had fetched drinks from the bar, pulled out a notebook and pen from her capacious handbag. ‘Let me see,’ she began. ‘Was the office rented?’
‘Yes. Rent paid. Oh, I should have guessed something. The estate agency phoned up two months ago and said the rent was in arrears. Betty turned very red but said she would go round and pay them immediately. I should have suspected something even then.’
‘Now, office equipment, computers and stuff?’
‘Still there.’
‘We’ll sell that and you continue with outstanding cases and collect the money for any you solve.’
Charles came and joined them. ‘Saw your car outside,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Buy your own drink,’ said Agatha huffily. She had not forgiven him for running away from Hewes.
Charles shortly returned carrying a half of lager. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Toni, you look as if you’ve been crying.’
In a sad little voice, Toni described what had happened.
When she had finished, Agatha surveyed Charles’s well-tailored figure. ‘You’ve stayed with me a lot, haven’t you, Charles?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘You have eaten my food, haven’t you?’
‘If you can call microwaved curries food, yes.’
‘So you owe me.’ Agatha’s bearlike eyes bored into his face.
‘My dear Aggie, if you want to have sex with me, you only have to ask.’
‘Don’t be flippant. I’ve got a lot of work and so has Toni. I’ve got this pub business to follow through.’
‘Saw you on the box. Real tub-thumping perfor-’
‘I want you to find Betty Talent.’
‘But Toni’s got the police on to it.’
‘They won’t do much. Oh, have you a photo?’
Toni had a folder and produced one. ‘I gave the rest to Bill.’
Betty Talent was undoubtedly a plain-looking girl with a sallow face and dark brown hair pulled back in a knot.
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Charles. ‘Give me her address. I’ll start there.’
But instead of going straight to Betty Talent’s address, Charles waited until the following morning and went to see James Lacey.
After James had welcomed him, Charles explained that Agatha had bulldozed him into finding the missing Betty Talent, and recounted the story of how Betty had absconded with the money.
‘You could always have said no,’ James pointed out.
‘To Agatha? You must be joking. Anyway, that’s why I’m here.’
‘I can’t see -’
‘You can pick locks, can’t you?’
‘Yes, but -’
‘Then get your jacket. We’re off to break into Betty’s flat.’
The flat was over a grocer’s shop in Berry’s Wynd, one of the narrow medieval streets behind the abbey.
‘If the street door is locked, I can’t stand in broad daylight picking the lock,’ complained James.
‘We won’t know until we try it,’ said Charles. ‘Come on.’
They crossed the street. Charles turned the handle of the front door. It swung open.
‘See,’ he said. ‘Faint heart never won successful burglary.’
‘What if there’s more than two flats?’ whispered James.
‘It’s just a little Pakistani grocer’s,’ muttered Charles impatiently as they mounted the stairs. ‘See! One flat. I’ll knock first.’
He knocked very loudly. ‘There’s a bell,’ said James.
Charles leaned on it. No reply.
‘Okay,’ said Charles. ‘Get to work.’
James pulled out a set of skeleton keys. ‘I remembered you had a set of those,’ said Charles. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘I took them off someone a long time ago.’
‘Does it always take this long?’ complained Charles after ten minutes.
‘Shut up. This isn’t a movie and there are two locks here. We really should have checked in the grocery store first. No doubt they own this flat. Maybe they’ve already re-rented it. Ah, here we go.’ The door opened.
They found themselves inside a small two-roomed flat with a tiny bathroom and a minuscule kitchen behind a curtain. Charles started searching in the bedroom while James searched the living room.
‘Her clothes are still in the wardrobe,’ said Charles. ‘Very dowdy they are, too.’
‘There’s hair dye in the bathroom,’ called James. ‘She’s gone blonde by the look of it.’
Charles wandered back in. ‘She’s left nothing el
se apart from the clothes. No sign of any personal papers or passport.’
‘And no toothbrush in the bathroom,’ said James.
Charles peered out of the kitchen window and down into the area at the back.
‘Thank God for the new lousy rubbish collections. There are bins down there. Feel like some bin diving? We may find some clue as to where she’s gone.’
‘How do we get to the area?’ asked James.
‘I saw a lane at the side of the shop.’
‘What if someone comes out of the back of the shop and asks us what we are doing?’
‘They won’t because we are going to go into the shop and tell them why we want to search the rubbish and ask them to tell us which is Betty’s.’
A large woman in a sari behind the counter raised her hands in horror when they explained about Betty being a thief. She summoned a small boy and told him to show them the bin where Miss Talent put her rubbish.
‘Now,’ said Charles, ‘all this recycling is great because we don’t want the small green food bin, we want that big grey one.’
James opened the lid. ‘Not much. We’d better tip it over and go through the stuff.’
‘Carrier bags,’ said James triumphantly. ‘Look at this. Victoria’s Secret, Ghost and Armani.’
‘And look what I’ve found,’ said Charles, holding up a brochure. ‘A cruise on the Southern Cross. Sails to the Caribbean. Wait a bit. Sails tomorrow morning. Passengers on board this evening. I bet she’s there, all blonded up and dressed up in poor Harry’s money. Let’s go.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to tell the police and have her arrested?’ asked James.
‘Where’s the thrill of the hunt? Let’s find her first and then call the police. Come on. It’ll be worth it for Aggie.’
Betty Talent unpacked her new clothes and hung them away in her first-class cabin. She ran her hands down the fine material of the clothes and grinned as she thought about the shock Toni would get when she was told all their money had gone. She detested Toni. Toni had always been one of the prettiest and most popular girls in the school.
She studied her new appearance in the mirror and patted her blonde hair. Gone was shivering, frightened Betty Talent. She felt reborn. There came a knock at the cabin door. She smiled. Probably that good-looking purser back again to see if she was all right.
