by M C Beaton
He looked at her bleakly. “You’ll need to give me a little more time, Agatha. I have been behaving badly. In the past I have always had light affairs, nothing very serious. I don’t know why it should have to be you. I like very gentle, feminine women. In fact, I feel at ease in the company of rather stupid women. You smoke, you swear, you are dreadfully blunt. If we were married, I think you would drive me mad, Agatha. You are right, I have always shied away from intimacy, not necessarily sex but discussions like this, talking about my feelings. I’ll try to watch my temper.”
Agatha looked at him sadly. “I don’t think I can change, James. I don’t think I can turn myself into the type of woman you would like me to be. But I could give up smoking…”
He reached forward and took her hand in a warm, firm clasp. “Let’s give it a little time. Friends?”
“Friends,” echoed Agatha, but feeling in a bewildered way that nothing had been resolved at all. “I’ll keep clear of Charles.”
“I can’t under the circumstances dictate to you who you should see or not see. Now let’s discuss our suspects,” he said cheerfully, looking, thought Agatha, for all the world like a schoolboy leaving the headmaster’s study once a dreaded lecture was over.
“Everything points to Trevor,” he said. “And Trevor is drinking like a fish. Sooner or later he is going to betray himself.”
“I’m surprised the press haven’t been beating at our door after this last attack,” said Agatha. “After Olivia’s famous press conference, they seem to have disappeared.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. There’s been a dreadful murder over on the Greek side and some British soldiers have been accused. They’ve all gone over there. Our murder is old hat.”
“Well, at least that should give us some peace. Where do we go from here? Back to the hotel this evening?”
“I can’t. I’ve got an appointment in Nicosia this evening.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, Agatha, it’s got to do with my investigations into Mustafa, and I don’t want you involved. Don’t go to them on your own. Why not spend a quiet evening here and watch some television?”
“Apart from the local news, there’s hardly anything in English.”
“Sometimes the local station puts on a film in English.”
“All right,” said Agatha. “I haven’t really had a quiet evening since I’ve been here.”
“I’ll go and get ready then,” said James, and Agatha was left to her thoughts.
When he had left, she took a cup of coffee out into the garden and watched the sun set until a nasty mosquito bite drove her indoors to look for ointment. Having applied it, she switched on the television and flicked through the channels. All Turkish. Arnold Schwarzenegger shouted in Turkish, Bugs Bunny shouted in Turkish, everyone shouted in Turkish. She switched it off.
Suddenly the villa seemed very quiet and almost sinister. For once, the sea was calm and no children played in the road outside. She began to feel edgy and jumpy.
And then the phone rang. She stared at it, startled, and then, with relief, decided it must be James.
She picked up the receiver.
“Hullo, Aggie.”
Charles.
“What do you want?” she demanded, feeling a lurch of disappointment. “And how did you get this number?”
“Easy,” he said cheerfully. “You left it with the manager of the hotel. Had dinner?”
“Not yet. But I’m not going to pay for yours.”
“Nasty. I was going to pay for yours.”
“Charles, I’ve got into enough trouble over you. James found out I had slept with you.”
“That wasn’t my fault. They’d found that out from the hotel servants and had tactfully kept that information from James until someone tried to smother you.”
“How do you know James isn’t here?”
“I was coming back into Kyrenia and he passed me like the clappers, heading off in the direction of Nicosia. Come on, Aggie. Come out to play. I’m bored.”
Agatha hesitated, thinking of an evening on her own and jumping nervously at every single sound.
“Oh, all right,” she said ungraciously. “Where will I meet you?”
“Here. The Dome.”
Agatha sighed. “I should be investigating, but I don’t think I want to run into any of that lot this evening.”
“What about that restaurant called The Grapevine?”
“No, they might be there. All the British go there.”
“What about the Saray Hotel in Nicosia?”
“Well…”
“ Nicosia ’s a big place. But if you think James will be there…”
“No, come to think of it, if he is where I think he is, he’ll be nowhere near the centre. I’ll park my car up on the main street, just outside the newspaper shop, and you can drive me from there.”
“What’s the time? It’s only seven. I’ll pick you up there at eight.”
But Agatha suddenly did not want to wait in the villa longer than she had to. “It’ll take me ten minutes to change and about ten minutes to get there,” she said. “Make it seven-thirty.”
She rang off and ran up the stairs and put on the little black dress she had shunned the night before. After a hasty wash-down, she re-applied her make up, grabbed her handbag and fled the villa.
Glad to be out and free of what she felt was the sinister silence of the villa, she headed for Kyrenia along the now familiar road with the mountains towering up on one side and the sea stretched out on the other. Remembering Kyrenia’s irritating one-way system, she went along the ring road to the lights and turned left down into Kyrenia, past The Grapevine, wondering if Olivia and the others were there, past the roundabout and the town hall, and found to her delight that a car was just moving out from a parking place outside the newspaper shop, and slid neatly into the empty space. Charles appeared promptly. She climbed into his rented car.
To avoid going back all around the town, he executed a neat turn under the blaring horn and flashing lights of a Turkish truck and headed back round the roundabout and out towards Nicosia, along past the Onar Village Hotel and up over the mountains until the twinkling lights of Nicosia appeared below them on the plain.
“So how are you feeling?” he asked.
“A bit shaken. Sort of unreal. As if it had all never happened and I’ll wake up in my bed in Carsely.”
“What sort of place have you got?”
“A thatched cottage, like the kind you see on calendars or biscuit boxes. Little garden at the front and a bigger one at the back. Two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, dining-room and living-room. God, I wish I were there.”
“I don’t think Pamir can keep you here for much longer. Why don’t you go and see him tomorrow and tell him you want to go home?”
“There’s James.”
“Is he still talking to you?”
“Yes.”
“Amazing. I wouldn’t.”
“I don’t want to talk about James,” said Agatha firmly.
He drove competently into the centre of Nicosia and managed to find a parking place near The Saray.
“What I can’t understand about this hotel,” said Agatha as they ascended in the lift to the restaurant, “is how they get away with only having two loos next to the restaurant. Only two public toilets for a hotel this size. How do they cope when they have, say, a wedding reception?”
“Don’t know. Maybe they piss off the terrace,” said Charles indifferently. “Here we are. Do you want a drink at the bar or will we go straight into the restaurant?”
“The restaurant, I think. I’ve been drinking too much.”
“The trouble is booze here is so cheap.”
“And cigarettes,” said Agatha. “It’s a smoker’s dream. Everyone smokes, ashtrays everywhere, even in the butcher’s.”
They ordered their meal and looked out at the lights of Nicosia.
The hors-d’oeuvre was a light flaky pastry filled
with cheese, and the main course was lamb on the bone with salad and rice. Charles had ordered a bottle of wine and Agatha forgot her resolution not to drink. It was so easy to talk to Charles. But then she wasn’t in love with Charles.
“So who do you think tried to murder you?” Charles asked over coffee and brandies.
“Trevor,” said Agatha. “I’m sure it must have been Trevor.”
“I would have thought by three in the morning our Trevor would have been deep in an alcoholic stupor. Was there a strong smell of booze?”
“I was too frightened to smell anything. Besides, I had been drinking a lot myself. It’s like smoking. If you smoke, then you don’t much notice the smell of other people’s cigarette smoke.”
“Let me think. There’s friend Harry Tembleton, old but still quite powerful from a lifetime of shifting bales of hay or whatever. Now he said Rose was a slut. He’s devoted to Olivia. Could he have thought that George was about to stray and, loyal friend that he is, decided to eliminate the temptress?”
“Far-fetched.”
“The whole thing’s far-fetched. Apart from various flare-ups at the border between the Greeks and the Turks, this place is the safest in the Mediterranean. There have certainly been a few burglaries of British residents’ homes, but the police practically always find the culprits. They’ve got a big success rate. Only the tourists bother to lock their cars. So the very idea of the murder of a British tourist in a night-club is extraordinary. And yet Trevor is the obvious suspect. He needs money, Rose has money, she won’t give him any, his business is down the tubes, and she’s a flirt and he’s a jealous man. Must be Trevor. And I don’t think you’re going to have to use your investigative powers on this one, Aggie, because if it’s, Trevor, and considering the amount of alcohol he sinks, I think he’ll crack. Pamir will keep after us all with his endless questions.”
Agatha gave a rueful smile. “‘Could you go through it all from the beginning, Mrs. Raisin?’ He has incredible patience.”
“He’s waiting for one of us to s’p up and tell him something different,” said Charles. “And he thinks James might have tried to bump you off in a fit of passion.”
“James had an alibi.”
“I didn’t. Lucky James. Pamir implied that people like me suffer from inbreeding in the family and could be potty.”
“I sometimes think you’re potty myself, Charles. Why bother with me?”
“You amuse me.”
“Not very flattering.”
“You actually look good in that black dress.”
“Thank you. You must be the only man in this hot climate to wear a tie.” Charles was wearing a striped silk tie with an impeccable white shirt and a white linen suit. “Don’t you ever sweat?”
“Only when I’m making love to you, Aggie.”
Agatha sighed. “If only you were the right man. I’m at least ten years older than you, Charles.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a toy-boy.”
“And I’ve never wanted one.”
“What about that young Chinese policeman? I thought he was rather keen on you.”
“Bill Wong is a friend of mine. In fact, he was my first real friend.”
“But he’s only in his twenties. You can’t have known him long.”
“When I worked in London, before I took early retirement,” said Agatha, resting her chin on her hands, “I was too ambitious to have friends and I didn’t feel the need for any. I built up a successful public-relations business.”
“But surely public-relations involves getting on with people?”
Agatha laughed. “In my case, I think I was successful because I bullied and cajoled and threatened. When I moved to the Cotswolds, things changed. I no longer had my work as my identity. I met Bill on what I like to think as my first case. Then there came other friends.”
“life begins at fifty?”
“Something like that. What about you, Charles? No wish to get married?”
“This is so sudden.”
“Be serious.”
“Never found the right girl. Have no burning desire for children.”
“That’s sad.”
“Then we’re a sad pair, Aggie. You haven’t got children either.”
“No,” said Agatha sadly, “and now I never will. Wasted years, Charles.”
He ordered another two brandies and raised his glass. “Here’s to the wasted years,” he said solemnly.
“Are you sure you ought to be driving after drinking this lot?” demanded Agatha.
“They do breathalyse people here just like back home, but I shall drive home carefully. I don’t feel in the least bit tipsy.”
When they finally rose to leave, Agatha said, “I hope James is back. I don’t relish the idea of being in that villa on my own.”
His eyes twinkled maliciously. “We could spend the night here.”
“Forget it. Let’s just go.”
As they were driving out of Nicosia towards the Kyrenia Road, Agatha saw they were approaching the Great Eastern Hotel and she started to think about James. What was he up to?
And then, with a lurch of her heart, she saw him walking along the street with a girl on his arm, a girl with long brown curly hair, a short, short skirt and long, long legs. They were going in the direction of the town.
“That was James!” gasped Agatha. “Turn the car.”
“You’ll need to wait, Aggie, until the next corner. This is a dual carriageway.”
Agatha waited impatiently until Charles was able to swing round and head back. And then, in front of them on the deserted street and under the lights of the street lamps, they saw James. His arm was around the girl. Charles slowed to a crawl. James and the girl turned a corner into a side street. Charles parked at the side of the road.
“Out we get,” he said cheerfully, “and see where they’re going. Unless you want to confront them.”
“No,” said Agatha hurriedly. “This might be part of his investigations.”
“And very nice, too,” murmured Charles. “What investigations?”
“He wants to find out if his old fixer who runs a brothel is dealing drugs.”
James and his companion turned in at a block of flats in the side street. Charles and Agatha walked along and stood on the other side of the block of flats.
“Now what do we do?” asked Charles.
They gazed up at the block of flats. And then a light came on in one of the windows on the second floor, and like watching people on a stage set, they saw James and the girl.
The girl said something and laughed, and took off her short jacket.
James went up to her, put his arms around her and kissed her, a long, deep embrace. She drew back and began to unbutton her blouse.
James crossed to the window and jerked down the blinds.
Agatha found she was trembling.
“Well, well, well,” said Charles. “Who would have thought it. Don’t break your heart, Aggie. That was a prostitute if ever I saw one.”
“You don’t kiss prostitutes like that,” said Agatha bleakly.
“We can’t stand here all night. Do you want to go up and bang on the door and throw a scene?”
“No,” said Agatha, “I just want to go home.”
They walked back to the car. When they drove off, Agatha said, “That’s that. I don’t feel anything for him any more. How could he?”
“Getting even? Maybe the poor man is still wondering how you could sleep with me.”
“That was different.”
“I suppose it was. You didn’t have to pay me.”
“Aré you sure that was a prostitute, Charles?”
“Pretty sure.”
“But she was pretty.”
“A lot of them here are. They come from God-awful places like Romania.”
There had been girls in the Great Eastern Hotel, but the bar had been very dark and Agatha had not studied any of them very closely.
Perhaps the girl was one o
f the prostitutes from the Great Eastern Hotel and this was James’s way of finding out information about Mustafa. But he could simply have offered her money. There was no need to kiss her like that. Agatha felt beyond tears.
They drove the rest of the way to Kyrenia in silence.
When they reached Agatha’s car, Charles said, “Want to come to the hotel for a nightcap?”
Agatha shook her head.
“Good-night kiss?”
“No, I don’t feel like it.”
“Try not to weep all night into your pillow. You’re worth better than James, Aggie.”
Agatha got out of the car and waved to Charles as he drove away.
Then she drove back to the villa and let herself in. Grief was being replaced by rage. She paced up and down the living-room, wondering what she should say to him when he returned, wondering whether to say anything at all. He had not laid a finger on her and yet he had kissed that girl so passionately.
She felt lonely, old and unwanted.
Then, with a hardening of the heart, she went upstairs and put her night-gown-froths of satin and lace bought especially to charm James-into a small traveling-bag along with make-up, a change of clothes and a toothbrush. Then she went out, locked up and got back into her car and drove back to Kyrenia.
In the hotel reception a late busload of Israeli tourists had just arrived and were milling around the reception area and so Agatha was able to get into the lift unobserved.
Charles opened his bedroom door in answer to her knock.
“Come in,” he said. “We’ll have a drink and then you’ll take the spare bed, Aggie. I don’t want to be made love to by a woman with a mind full of revenge.”
“You are very kind, Charles,” said Agatha with a break in her voice.
“Not me. You’re a laugh a minute, Aggie. We’ll have a bottle of wine on the balcony.”
“I don’t know what my liver’s going to be like after all this booze,” said Agatha.
“You’ll soon be back in Carsely and you can drink herb tea until it comes out your ears.”
They sat together on the balcony. “I don’t know how to handle this,” said Agatha. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Then do nothing. That’s what I would do, Aggie. When in doubt, do nothing. If you tell him you saw him, he might, as you guessed, tell you it was part of his investigations, and then you’ll start shouting about the way he kissed that girl, and he’ll say he had to make it look good and don’t be silly, and you’ll have got exactly nowhere. Also we’re both assuming naively that he means to spend the night. He may even be back at the villa now. So how do you explain your absence?”
