by M C Beaton
“We’d better go to the police,” said Agatha heavily. “I’ll come with you.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, dear? Your little moment of Girls’ Own glory. ‘Brave Agatha of the Upper Sixth solves the mystery when police were baffled.’ But you’re not going to.”
. “You can’t very well stick a knitting needle in me here,” said Agatha. “People about.”
“Do you think I’m going to leave my George with all the shame of being married to a murderess? You’ve no proof, and you never will have!”
Olivia rose suddenly and turned and ran out of the bar, leaving her handbag on the table. Taken aback for only a moment, Agatha recovered and then leaped to her feet and set off in pursuit. Olivia was heading for the pool area. Blinded by the rain, Agatha ran hard after her.
Olivia veered round the pool and jumped straight into the boiling sea.
“Olivia!” screamed Agatha.
She ran to the edge and crouched down, peering through the torrent of rain. Olivia’s head appeared between two huge waves and then she struck out strongly, swimming away from the shore.
Agatha screamed and screamed, but the rolls of thunder drowned out her voice.
A watery shaft of sunlight shone briefly down through the black clouds and Agatha saw Olivia’s head rise above a wave and then she disappeared.
Agatha turned and ran back to the hotel, shouting for help.
An hour later she was huddled in a blanket in the manager’s office when Pamir came in. He stood for a moment looking down at her, and then said, “No sign of her. Again I ask you, Mrs. Raisin: Why did you not call us first?”
“Because I had no proof! I told you!”
“But now, because of you, we definitely have no proof, and we have only your word for it.”
“You don’t think she drowned herself for fun!”
“Again, we have only your word for it. You could have thrown her in.”
“Oh, don’t be so silly. The waiters saw her run out of the bar.”
“She could have been running away from you. No proof, Mrs. Raisin.”
Agatha suddenly sat up, her eyes gleaming. “I know. She said when she stabbed Harry she buried the knitting needle in the sand on the beach.”
“Wait here,” he said curtly and went out.
Charles came in fifteen minutes later. “I’ve been trying and trying to get to you, Aggie, but you seem to be suspect number one. What went on?”
So Agatha told him about her brainwave, about confronting Olivia and how Olivia had confessed to the murders and run off into the sea.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” asked Charles. “I was only round at the garage getting petrol.”
“How was I to know that?” wailed Agatha. “For all I knew you might have been trawling north Cyprus looking for a female tourist to bed.”
“Nasty But I’ll forgive you because you must be in shock. Pamir’s swearing about there being no proof.”
“She buried the knitting needle she used to kill Harry in the beach at Salamis. I hope they find it in this storm. And I hope her fingerprints are on it or they’ll start saying I killed Harry and tried to pin the blame on Olivia.”
Pamir came in again and Agatha looked up hopefully. “Find the knitting needle?”
“You are free to go.”
“Why?” Agatha’s eyes gleamed. “You’ve found something?”
“We had already searched their rooms several times when they were out,” said Pamir, sitting down, “but we did not find anything.”
“You didn’t search me,” said Agatha.
“Yes, your villa was searched when you were out.”
“So what did you find to incriminate Olivia? You must have found something or you would not be letting me go.”
“We found the knitting needle.”
“A sharpened knitting needle. I knew it!” cried Agatha. But how did you find it? Where? Why? She only had to clean it and throw it away anywhere on the island.”
“We are lucky she did not. It was one of my sharp-eyed policeman. We returned to search her hotel room for the last time. Believe me, we had taken everything apart. And then this policeman saw a little white knob of plaster in a stain on the ceiling. We knew about the stain. The man in the room above had let his bath over-run and it had soaked the ceiling. He scraped away the little bit of white plaster and dug into the ceiling. While the plaster was still damp, she had simply rammed the needle up into the ceiling. It had a sharpened point and went in easily. Then she had bought a little bit of plaster from a hardware shop and sealed up the hole.”
Agatha gasped. “It was a wonder she didn’t get it out and throw it into the sea.”
“Not at all. She had no reason to. And digging out again after the damp plaster had hardened might have alerted us to its whereabouts, always assuming we were clever enough to guess that she had done it.”
“You mean, I was clever enough to guess she had done it,” said Agatha.
“How’s George taking it?” asked Charles.
“He’s a shattered man. He says if Rose were alive today, he murder her himself. Seems she lured him with a promise of bailing him out. He said he hated making love to her but he was desperate for money. Turns out he had asked Harry Tembleton for money and Harry said he would only give it to Mrs. Debenham and George did not want Olivia to know. Harry said that instead he would take them on holiday. George said Rose promised she would give him the money when they got back to England. He said that Olivia had a complete nervous breakdown about three years ago. He hadn’t told her about his debts in case that tipped her over the edge again.”
“I must ask the all-important question,” said Charles. “Are we really free to go?”
“You’ll need to come to police headquarters and make a complete statement, Mrs. Raisin, and sign it. After that, you are free to go.”
Agatha pulled the blanket closely around her still wet clothes. “Aren’t you going to thank me for having solved the murders?” she asked.
“I am sure we would have got there, sooner or later,” said Pamir. “In which case Mrs. Debenham would still be alive to stand trial. No, I am not grateful to you.”
“Well, I’m going back to the villa for a hot bath,” said Agatha. “I suppose that is all right?”
“Yes, just go!”
Agatha got into her car outside while Charles went off to collect his. She lit a cigarette. Above, the storm clouds were rolling away but a chilly breeze was blowing from the sea.
At the villa, she bathed and changed her clothes.
She had just arrived downstairs when the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” she called to Charles whom she could hear moving about the kitchen.
Wondering whether she was wise to answer it for it might be some reporter, she said cautiously, “Yes?”
“Agatha,” came James’s voice.
Agatha sat down in a chair by the phone. “James,” she said weakly. “Where are you?”
“Turkey. Istanbul.”
“Did you find any proof against Mustafa?”
“As it turned out, I didn’t have to. By the time I caught up with him in Istanbul, he was dead, shot by the Turkish mafia.”
“Why? I mean was he dealing in drugs?”
“He owed the Turkish mafia money for a drugs’ consignment and the silly bugger gave them a cheque that bounced so they shot him. What’s been happening?”
Agatha told him everything and ended up by saying, “How could you leave me in this mess, James?”
“I always think you are well able to take care of yourself, Agatha. Besides it seemed more important to catch someone who was ruining thousands of lives with drugs instead of one murderer.”
“But you just left. You knew there had been two attacks on my life, and you just left.”
His voice softened. “You’re right, Agatha. I did behave badly. I’ll be back in a couple of days and make my peace with the police.”
“Oh, James,” said Agatha, forgivin
g him.
Charles walked into the living room and called in his clear, carrying voice, “What about some lunch, darling, and then let’s go to bed?”
Agatha flapped him angrily away, but the damage was done.
“Who was that?” asked James.
“Charles,” said Agatha weakly.
“I am glad you are being well looked after,” said James crisply. “You won’t need me.”
EIGHT
AGATHA and Charles fought their way through the press outside police headquarters the following day.
She had been dreading meeting George, but this time, only she and Charles were in the waiting room.
Not Pamir, but another detective took down Agatha’s statement. When she had finished, Agatha asked, “Has Mrs. Debenham’s body been found yet?”
“Mrs. Debenham was found, yes, still alive, just. She must have been a very powerful swimmer. Attempts were made to resuscitate her but she died on the road to Nicosia hospital.”
So she might not have been trying to drown but to escape, thought Agatha.
Agatha went outside and waited for Charles. He would have little to say. Simply that he had found her missing and had gone looking for her.
At last Charles came out. “Ready?”
“Ready,” echoed Agatha. “Let’s go to the airline office and book our seats home. I’ve got an open return, what about you?”
“The same.”
At the Turkish Cypriot Airline office near the Saray Hotel, they could not find anyone who could speak English and so were forced to go to a travel agent across the road.
“Tomorrow?” asked Charles.
But Agatha clung to hope. James had said two days. This was Monday.
“Saturday,” she said firmly.
“Saturday!” exclaimed Charles. “Sorry, Aggie, but I’m going tomorrow.”
“Suit yourself,” said Agatha bleakly.
Charles hesitated. Then he booked a seat for the following day.
“I think you should come with me,” he said, but Agatha was adamant. She had convinced herself that James would return.
Outside, great gusty clouds were blowing across the red roofs of Nicosia. They talked about the case on the journey back to the villa. Charles went off to begin packing.
Agatha realised that since James had left, the villa seemed to have accumulated a great deal of dust and the floor needed a wash.
She spent the rest of the day, cleaning energetically, stopping only for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and at one stage to look in on Charles who was found in his room, fast asleep.
Agatha tried to fight down the miserable thought that James would not arrive after all, and that she would be better to go home on the same flight as Charles.
Then Charles emerged to suggest they should go out for dinner for the last time.
“There’s an advertisement out on the road for a restaurant called Rita On The Rocks,” said Charles. “Sounds intriguing.”
They drove west along the coast through Lapta and found the restaurant on the far side. It was open-air with a swimming pool and full of the sound of British voices. Rita herself, an attractive middle-aged Englishwoman, was moving from table to table greeting friends.
“So they found Olivia,” said Agatha bleakly. Charles gave her a nervous look. They had already talked and talked about Olivia, but Agatha kept returning to the subject as if she had not said anything about it before. He decided to humour her.
“Yes,” he said. “Maybe she thought to swim to shore after the heat was off and emulate James by bribing someone to take her to the mainland.”
“I suppose it was a miracle they found that knitting needle,” said Agatha. “She could have got rid of it where it would never have been found.”
“So you keep saying. You’re not cracking up, are you? Forget the murder, forget Olivia. I’m going to talk to you like your father, Aggie.”
“You’re too young, Charles.”
“Seriously. Give up chasing after James. Waste of time, waste of energy. You’re only going to get hurt again.”
“That’s my business.”
“This trip, you seem to have made your business my business, Aggie. Stop thinking that he really loves you. If he really loved you, he would not have gone off to Turkey for any reason and left you alone.”
“He had begun to think I wasn’t alone because of you,” said Agatha.
“You see!” He pointed a fork at her. “You’re already beginning to look for excuses for him and there aren’t any.”
“He said he would back in two days,” said Agatha stubbornly.
“I give up. Well, we’ve had some adventures. One day I will look back on all this and scream.”
A noisy group of British residents at the next table were practising their Turkish, having started lessons in Turkish in Kyrenia.
Conversation between Charles and Agatha became difficult because of the noise. They decided to have coffee at home, asked for the bill which Charles handed to Agatha who paid it, and then they left.
Back at the villa, they drank coffee, and watched a Brother Cadfael mystery broadcast by the local TV station which was mercifully in English and then decided to go to bed. Agatha said if Charles left his rented car outside Atlantic Cars in the morning, she would drive him to the airport.
“Last night together, sweetheart?” asked Charles as they went up the stairs.
“No,” said Agatha firmly, having visions of James arriving in the middle of the night to find them in bed together.
“Oh, well, I can’t say you don’t know what you’re missing because you do.”
“I’m too old for you, Charles.”
“Didn’t notice.”
“Thank you for that, but see you in the morning.”
Agatha slept uneasily. During the night, a car drew up on the road outside and she leapt from bed and ran down the stairs and jerked open the door. But it was only a late visitor leaving a neighbour’s house.
She drove Charles to the airport in the early light of dawn. He turned before going through security and said, “I’ll see you around, Aggie,”
“No doubt,” said Agatha.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?”
Agatha put her arms round him and kissed him. He turned away, and then turned back at the security gate.
“You’re too good for him, Aggie,” he said, and then he was gone.
With his going, hope sprang anew in Agatha’s breast. James would come, and they would talk, and during the days that followed with no murders hanging over them, they would grow closer together.
For the next two days, she dressed in her prettiest clothes and with full make-up on, she waited, rushing out of the villa door every time she heard a car coming down the road.
By Thursday, she had decided that if she wore just a comfortable T-shirt and shorts and didn’t bother about make-up, he would come. But Thursday came and went, then Friday.
She packed slowly, her heart heavy. She drove to Bilal’s laundry and told him she would leave the keys at his home on the road to the airport if he gave her the address, but that James would no doubt be back soon.
“Will you ever come back?” asked Bilal.
“Yes, I probably will,” said Agatha. “One day.”
She said goodbye to him and drove back to the villa. The day was sunny but now there was a slight chill in the air.
Agatha tried not to think of James, tried to concentrate on neat packing. She felt she should go out for a last meal but could not bring herself to leave.
But all too soon it was the morning of her departure. She drove slowly to the airport, looking all the time eagerly at the faces of any drivers in approaching rented cars, still hoping to see James.
Even at the airport, she scanned the faces of the passengers, hoping by some miracle he had just arrived.
It was only when she had cleared passport control that she at last lost all hope of seeing him and knew if he came back to Carsely that
nothing was ever going to be the same. She would never forgive him for having abandoned her.
The take-off was delayed for two hours because of some hijack crisis at Stansted. They got as far as Istanbul and then had to wait four hours in a gate which did not seem to have a tannoy system. From time to time, various officials would come in and shout at the passengers in Turkish and Agatha had to beg one of the passengers to translate for her. They were going to Heathrow, they were going to Gatwick, and then it was announced that they were in fact going to Stansted after all.
A charter plane took them off and Agatha slept and woke and slept and woke, seeing in her dreams Trevor’s pink and angry face, seeing Olivia’s head rising above the monstrous waves.
And then the last time she awoke, the plane was descending into bleak and rainy Essex.
She collected her car at the Long Stay car-park and headed home, home to Carsely, the ache at her heart lifting when she reached Chipping Norton and turned the car towards Moreton-in-Marsh.
Down the road into Carsely, wind and rain sent spirals of coloured leaves down onto the road in front of her.
As she turned into the lane where she lived, her eyes flew immediately to James’s cottage, hoping to see smoke rising from the chimney, but it had a closed, dark, empty look.
When she walked into her cottage, her cats, Hodge and Boswell, uncoiled themselves and came to meet her. Her cleaner had said it would be better for the cats to be left in the familiar surroundings of home and she would come every day to feed them.
Agatha felt very lonely. She found she missed Charles. He had been such an undemanding and constant companion.
The doorbell rang and her first, stupid, thought was, “James!” And then she knew it could not possibly be James.
She opened the door and the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Bloxby, stood there, carrying a casserole.
“The bush telegraph told me you had been sighted,” said Mrs. Bloxby, “so I put some of my Irish stew in a casserole for you. You won’t feel like cooking.”
“Come in,” said Agatha, gratefully. “I’ve had such an awful time.”
