by M C Beaton
“We’ll try the beach again for you,” said Charles. “Maybe you missed him.”
“But that’s miles,” groaned Agatha.
“Then you wait here,” said Charles. “I’ll go alone.”
“No, I’m coming with you.” Agatha did not want to be left with them in case one of them tried to murder her.
They set off as the sun fell lower in the sky. There were few tourists now. Ah passed them and shouted, “Any luck?” They shook their heads and pressed on until they came to the crossroads.”
“It should be easier to search now,” said Charles. “Most people will have left the beach.”
They almost ran down the narrow road to the beach, Agatha forgetting her fatigue in her desire to find Harry.
The beach was nearly deserted. A yacht bobbed out on the water. The sea was calm, with only little waves rippling in across the sand.
And then, along the beach, they saw a lone figure, lying prone. The top half of the body was mostly covered by a newspaper, its pages rising and falling in the slight breeze.
Charles pointed. “Do you think that’s him?”
“May as well go and see.” Agatha headed along the beach and Charles followed.
They both stood together at last, looking down.
“Seems to be asleep,” said Charles. “Do you think those are Harry’s feet?”
“I don’t know what Harry’s feet look like,” said Agatha. “Here goes.”
She bent down and gently drew away the newspaper which was covering the man’s face and top half of his body, noting that it was Kibris, a Turkish Cypriot paper.
Agatha knew immediately, before she saw the broad red stain on the front of Harry’s shirt, that he was dead. The face was as lifeless as clay. Someone had closed his eyes.
All the frights she had endured, the two attempts on her life, the long hot day and now this made Agatha feel sick, and dizzy and faint. She sat down on the sand and put her head between her knees.
“Stay there,” said Charles urgently. “I’ll get help.”
So Agatha sat where she was, beside the dead body of Harry. A woman passed her, leading a small child by the hand. She stopped and turned back and stared open-mouthed at the dead body, at the gruesome red stain on the shirt. Then she scooped up the child and ran off down the beach, screaming at the top of her voice.
Agatha stayed, unmoving. Her mind seemed to be a numb blank. In the distance, she heard the wail of police sirens. She felt very tired.
Then she was dimly aware of being surrounded by people, of Charles’s saying sharply, “Can’t you see she’s in shock? I was with her when we found the body. I’ll answer any questions.”
He helped Agatha to her feet. She blinked and stared around in a dazed way.
Pamir was there, his face grim. “If you will just step aside for a moment with Sir Charles,” he said to Agatha. “Only a few preliminary questions.”
With Charles’s arm around her waist, Agatha walked up the beach.
“Now we will sit down here,” said Pamir. “You first, Sir Charles.”
So Charles painstakingly went through their day, ending up with the finding of Harry.
In a dreary little voice, Agatha then told the same story.
“You may go,” said Pamir. “I will call on you later.”
“I’ll be with Mrs. Raisin at the villa,” said Charles.
Agatha wanted to cry out that James might be there, but felt too weak and shaky to protest.
Charles said he would drive. She fell asleep on the road back to Kyrenia, awaking only when they stopped outside The Dome.
“Wait there,” said Charles. “I’ll get my stuff.”
He’s going to move into the villa, thought Agatha with a stab of panic. She still cherished a hope that James might be there waiting for her.
Bright images of the day crowded her head-the ruins, the ancient brutality of the tombs, Harry’s still, dead face and closed eyes facing up to the sun. Who had closed his eyes? The killer, no doubt.
She fumbled in her handbag for a cigarette and ht it. What were they doing in Carsely, sleepy Carsely that she used to despise for its lack of excitement? She thought longingly of the vicarage, where Mrs. Bloxby would produce tea and scones and they would sit by the fire and chat about safe and secure village matters. Would she ever see her home again? Or would the killer, who had tried to get rid of her twice and failed, be successful on the third attempt? She shivered, suddenly glad that she was not going to be alone in the villa. Damn James for a heartless, selfish beast. He should be there to protect her. Yes, he hadn’t even thought of that! Two attempts on her Ufe and he had cleared off, leaving her alone. He didn’t care a rap for her or he would not have gone. Forget the analysis-paralysis and look at the footwork. She could not possibly imagine that a man who had any feeling for her at all could leave her in such peril.
Charles came out of the hotel, carrying two expensive suitcases which he put in the boot.
He slid in behind the steering wheel.
“You’re very kind,” volunteered Agatha.
“Think nothing of it,” said Charles. “You’re saving me a hotel bill.”
The rest of the evening went by like a bad dream. Pamir came at eight o’clock to grill both of them again. His anger seemed to have mounted. Outside, the press waited eagerly. The murder on the Greek side was old hat.
At last Pamir left.
“We can’t go out anywhere without being plagued by the press,” said Charles. “They will keep banging on the door. There they go again. “
But a voice shouted, “British High Commission here.”
Charles went to let a small, dapper man in, blinking in the sudden blast of flashes from press cameras.
He introduced himself as Mr. Urquhart and advised them, unnecessarily, as Charles acidly pointed out, to cooperate with the police. Then he began to question Agatha closely about James Lacey. Where was he? Turkey? Was she sure? He could still be on the island.
“If he were,” said Agatha, “then he certainly would not be at Salamis, murdering poor old Harry Tembleton.”
“This is all most unfortunate,” said Mr. Urquhart. “The police were about to release Mrs. Wilcox’s body and let you all go home, but in the light of this latest murder they are certainly not going to let any of you go.”
He then questioned Agatha about James again, but Agatha would only repeat that James had said he was going to Turkey. She did not mention anything about his investigations into Mustafa.
At last Mr. Urquhart departed the villa in a fusillade of flashes. From outside the villa came the nasal voice of a television reporter talking to a camera.
“Do you want to go to bed?” asked Charles. “Or shall we eat first?”
“There’s nothing much left in the house,” said Agatha. “And I don’t feel like the picnic stuff. The phone’s ringing again. Maybe I should answer it. It might be James.”
“And pigs might fly. I’m hungry. Those few little kebabs at lunch-time didn’t go very far. Tell you what. If we go out the back and shin over the garden wall, we’ll find ourselves in the fish-restaurant car-park. I fancy some of those nice little red fish like mullet.”
“The press will see us.”
“They can’t, surely.” He opened the back door, which was next to a small laundry-room. “Come here, Aggie. All we need to do is sneak round the corner of the building and over the wall. They’ll never see us. That great hedge of mimosa screens us.”
The idea of being with other people in a crowded restaurant appealed to Agatha.
They went out, gently closing the door behind them, and climbed over the low wall which separated the villa garden from the car-park.
“Now let’s just hope none of the press decides to come in for dinner,” said Charles. “But I think they’ll stand outside the villa for a bit and then go back to The Dome to join the others who are trying to talk to Olivia and George. Who knows? Olivia may give another press conference.”
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“What we haven’t thought about is who on earth would want to bump off Harry?”
“Harry must have found out who did it,” said Agatha. “I suppose it will turn out he was murdered in the same way as Rose.”
“Probably. And someone must have been desperate. If it was any of the remaining four, then one of them must have been frightened enough to bump off Harry, knowing that now they really would be suspected and hopes of some mad stray Turk losing his head, as in the murder of Rose, just wouldn’t be considered any more.”
“I’ve been thinking about George Debenham,” said Charles, deboning a small fish with neat and surgical precision. “Why should he flirt with Rose? He doesn’t look the type.”
“In the information on them I took down from Bill Wong, it turns out that George suffered heavy losses on the stock exchange. Did I tell you that? And Rose had money.”
“But they had just met. I mean, Rose would hardly say, ‘Look, I’m rich. Stick with me and I’ll see you all right.’”
“She might not have been blunt like that,” said Agatha slowly. “But she might have made some jokey reference to being loaded. No, I think Trevor’s jealousy and rage are the cause of these murders. You said Trevor wanted to punch Harry because Harry called Rose a slut.”
“Do you want to go to the hotel after dinner and see how they’re getting on?”
Agatha repressed a shudder. “After we eat, I just want to go to bed. I’ve never felt like giving up like this before. I have a longing to go home.”
“If you’ve finished, now’s the time,” said Charles, looking out through the restaurant doors. “The press have arrived. Quickly.”
He threw some money pn the table. They had been sitting on the terrace and both went over the edge into the scrub below and made their way cautiously around to the car-park, Agatha hoping that the report of the poisonous snakes keeping to the mountains was true.
They gained the villa without being accosted. “First bath for me,” said Agatha with a yawn.
“We sharing a bed?”
“No, Charles. I am too old for casual sex.”
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Agatha awoke during the night shivering and found a quilt and put it over her. The weather was beginning to change. The long summer was over.
A police car arrived the next morning to take them to police headquarters in Nicosia. Agatha groaned. “What can he possibly ask us that he hasn’t asked us already?”
“I didn’t tell him about Trevor trying to punch Harry,” said Charles. “I think I should. I mean, I hardly know that bunch and don’t like them.”
“I think that’s why Pamir keeps on at us,” said Agatha wearily. “He gets a little more each time.”
Olivia, George, Angus and Trevor were waiting at police headquarters to be interviewed when they arrived. George looked white and strained under his tan; Trevor, stunned; Angus had aged terribly; and Olivia for once was without any social talk or animation.
They looked up dully when Agatha and Charles entered, but did not say anything.
Agatha and Charles sat down and waited. After half an hour of total silence Pamir arrived, nodded to them and went into the inner room. “Like waiting for the doctor,” said Charles.
George Debenham was summoned first. The morning dragged on, the bright sunlight çutside seeming to mock the grim dreariness within.
Agatha was called last.
“Now, Mrs. Raisin…” began Pamir.
“I know, I know,” said Agatha wearily. “I’ve to tell you all over again, starting at the beginning.”
“Not yet. Do you, Mrs. Raisin, not think that you might have precipitated this murder?”
“How? Why?”
“I gather from Sir Charles that you went to Salamis for the sole purpose of finding the others and continuing your amateur investigation.”
Yes… That’s true. But I didn’t see any of them until after the murder had been committed.”
“But they might have seen you.”
“So what made that different to all the other days they had seen me?” said Agatha impatiently. “And if it hadn’t been for me and Charles, you might not have found the body until the next day and who knows, by that time the murderer might have returned and shoved the body in the sea, forged a note from Harry saying he had left on a fishing boat or something like James, and you would have been none the wiser.”
“We have asked everyone who was on the beach and in the ruins yesterday to come forward. Someone might have seen something. So begin at the beginning…”
So Agatha did, vivid memories of the heat and the ruins coming back into her mind.
Then she said, “If one of them murdered Harry, he must have sneaked back to the beach when they split up. And when they were supposed to be searching for him why didn’t they find him on the beach?”
“They say that after Mr. Tembleton went off to the beach, that they arranged to meet in the gymnasium in an hour. Mrs. Debenham went to look at the basilica; Mr. Debenham said he simply wanted to go back to the gymnasium, sit down and rest and wait for the others; Mr. Wilcox said he wanted to be on his own for a bit; and Mr. Angus King went to look at the tombs. All say they searched the beach, but it was still full of tourists and they did not spot Mr. Tembleton.”
“So it could have been any of them,” said Agatha.
Pamir surveyed her and then leaned back in his chair. “Or you, Mrs. Raisin.”
“Me? Why? I barely knew them. I didn’t know any of them before I came here.”
He leaned forward. “How can I put this? At your age, Mrs. Raisin, ladies can go a little unhinged. It seems to me that since you gave up your career, you have had a desire for prominence and attention, which is why you turned to amateur detective investigation. Perhaps not having any more murders to investigate, you decided to make some of your own.”
“That’s outrageous,” spluttered Agatha.
“Perhaps. But murder is outrageous. Your own behaviour has been erratic.”
“But someone tried to kill me-twice!”
“There are no witnesses to either attempt. We have only your own word for that. You follow James Lacey to Cyprus because everyone seems to know you are romantically interested in him and yet, after moving in with him, you accept a dinner date with an Israeli business man and who knows where that might have led had not his wife turned up, and then you sleep with Sir Charles. I know this is the permissive society. Such behaviour, however, in a middle-aged lady from an English village is most odd.”
“How dare you!” panted Agatha.
“I dare because I am very angry. We have a very low crime rate in north Cyprus. Tourists come here because it is still the safest place in the Mediterranean and I am going to accuse all of you of everything and keep you here until these murders are solved. We have respectable British residents here, Mrs. Raisin, who contribute to the cultural life of the island. They cause no trouble. Until your arrival, we have never suffered anything like this.”
“You are insulting. You are looking in the wrong direction. What about Trevor Wilcox? His business is on the skids and Rose wouldn’t bail him out. He’ll be all right now. He probably inherits her money. And what of George Debenham? He’s in debt as well.”
“How did you find this out, Mrs. Raisin?”
Damn him, thought Agatha. She could not betray Bill Wong.
“They told me,” she muttered.
“They just told you!”
“Something like that.”
“I do not believe you,” said Pamir. “I think somebody in England found out the information for you.”
Sweating now, Agatha hoped the manager of The Dome had not told the police about her fax to police headquarters in Mircester. She wanted to run away from this room, from this inexorable questioning, from the humiliating accusation that she was a batty sensation-seeker driven mad by the menopause.
Pamir then made her tell her story again. If I
had anything to hide, it would certainly have come out during this remorseless questioning, thought Agatha.
At last she was free to go. The others, apart from Charles, had disappeared.
“You look awful,” said Charles. “Rough time?”
“It was grim, He accused me of the murders.”
“Why?”
“He thinks I am a sensation-seeker driven potty by the menopause, and not having any murders here to investigate, decided to manufacture some of my own.”
Charles’s eyes crinkled up with laughter. “That’s funny.”
“It’s not funny at all,” said Agatha furiously.
A secretary came out and told them a car was ready to take them home. They travelled in silence, Agatha thinking that she really must find out who murdered Rose and Harry or she would be damned forever as a madwoman.
At the villa, where the press were fortunately absent, Agatha said she would like to lie down and read.
She tried to concentrate on a novel about the complexities of broken marriages, but finally felt too restless to go on reading.
When she emerged from her room, it was to find that Charles had gone off somewhere. Not wanting to be on her own in the villa, she took her own rented car and drove into Kyrenia and parked behind the post office. She walked down the main street looking at the shops, and then saw the turning to the left where she had first pursued James and met Bilal. She turned along the street, wondering suddenly if Bilal was working at his dry-cleaning and laundry business.
He left his work when he saw her hovering in the doorway. “Mrs. Raisin!” he cried. “I was just trying to call you. How are you?”
“Shattered,” said Agatha.
“It is the terrible business,” said Bilal. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
He placed two chairs and a wooden box to act as a table outside his shop and went to the café next door and came back with a tray on which were two cups of Turkish coffee and two glasses of water.
“The owners have been phoning me and Jackie from Australia,” said Bilal. “They would like Mr. Lacey to call them.”
“I meant to phone you about that. Mr. Lacey has gone to Turkey. If I’m still here after the month’s rent has run out, I’ll pay you for another month.”
