Busy Body: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

by M C Beaton

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Get some money from the petty cash and take Simon for a drink and introduce him to the world of detecting. You can charge for the overtime.”

  “All right,” said Toni listlessly.

  “Simon, report to this office at nine o’ clock tomorrow and our secretary will give you a contract to sign.”

  “Thank you ver—” began Simon, but Agatha waved a dismissive hand. “Off you both go.”

  Agatha waited until they had gone down the stairs and out into the street. She rose and crossed to the window. They were walking along, several feet apart, not talking.

  Chapter Seven

  In The George pub next to police headquarters, Simon ordered a beer and Toni a half of lager.

  “Which school did you go to?” asked Toni.

  “Mircester Grammar.”

  “I could have gone there myself,” said Toni, “but my mother said she couldn’t afford the uniform.”

  “A lot of the kids can’t. That’s why they have a secondhand clothes store in the school.”

  “Well, my mum was having a bit of difficulty then,” said Toni. “Let’s talk about the job. What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know first of all if Agatha Raisin is a good boss. You look trodden down and miserable.”

  “I lost a friend I used to work with.”

  “That girl, Sharon, who was murdered?”

  Toni nodded.

  “Is the job that dangerous?”

  “No. Not often. It’s usually routine stuff—missing pets and children, unfaithful wives and husbands. Sharon got into bad company. Bikers.”

  “Have you been to grief or bereavement counselling?”

  “Nothing like that. I wasn’t family. She was just a friend and a friend I was well and truly fed up with just before she died.”

  “Have you been to Pyrt Park?”

  Toni looked at him in surprise. “No, why?”

  “They’ve got a truly evil roller coaster. Drink up. That’s where we’re going.”

  “Why on earth . . . ?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He had a motorbike parked in the square. He handed Toni a helmet and put on his own.

  “This is mad,” said Toni when they got to the entrance to the amusement park.

  “Trust me.”

  “I’ve never been on a roller coaster before. I might get sick.”

  “You won’t. Follow me.”

  When they were strapped in, their chair began to move up and up and up until Toni could see the Malvern Hills in the distance. As they reached the crest, Toni clutched Simon’s arm. “I don’t think I can take this.” The car plunged down and Toni screamed and screamed. She screamed like a banshee through the whole ride and when Simon helped her out at the end, she felt her legs wobble.

  “What was that all about?” she asked weakly.

  “It’s scream therapy. I came here when my parents were killed. Don’t worry about the job. I’ll pick it up as I go along. Oh, look. Candy floss. I’ll get us some.”

  He danced off, turning round to grin at her. What an odd boy, thought Toni. Like a jester. All he needs is a cap and bells.

  But that night, she slept as she had not slept since the news of Sharon’s murder.

  In the morning, Simon signed his contract. He blinked in surprise at the generosity of his pay and looked across at Agatha. “I’m taking you on full-time. I have a hunch about you,” said Agatha. “Mind you, you are still on trial. Now, I was going to start you on some of the small stuff but I need a new pair of eyes. Do you remember reading about the murder of John Sunday?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to read up everything on it. Work all day on it and see if you can come up with any ideas. You’ll find it all on the computer at that desk over there.”

  Agatha caught a bleak look from Toni and thought with irritation, Yes, I know it was Sharon’s desk but I can hardly lay a wreath on it and burn candles. Agatha introduced him to the staff.

  Simon sat down and got to work. He could dimly hear Agatha discussing other assignments. He concentrated on the files on the computer, shutting everything else out, including thoughts about Toni. He had been in love, once disastrously, and he never wanted to suffer hurt like that again. Toni, with her fair good looks, intelligence and disarming air of innocence, was danger.

  As he read the reports, he tried to conjure up the scene in the vicarage drawing room when the dying Sunday had appeared at the window. Apart from Miriam Courtney and Miss Simms, no one seemed to have left the room. When he looked up after half an hour, the place was empty apart from Mrs. Freedman. “Why Miss Simms and Mrs. Bloxby?” he asked.

  “I don’t understand you,” said Mrs. Freedman.

  “No first names.”

  “Oh, they’re members of the Carsely Ladies Society. It’s an old-fashioned tradition. They don’t use first names.”

  Simon then focussed on Tilly Glossop. She was reported to have been having an affair with Sunday. Had he been using that photograph of her with the mayor to get a bit of free sex for himself?

  His stomach rumbled and he looked up at the clock in surprise. “I’m just going out for lunch,” he said. “Then tell them I’ve gone over to Odley Cruesis to have a look at the place. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, I had a sandwich at my desk. Don’t you think you should phone Mrs. Raisin first and say you’re going there?”

  “I’ll be on a motorbike with my helmet on. I just want to get a feel of the place.”

  Simon went to the nearest Burger King and gulped down a hamburger and fries before getting on his bike and heading for Odley Cruesis. He drove carefully right through the village and parked up on a hill above it.

  Visitors to the beauty spot that is the Cotswolds often pass by villages like Odley Cruesis, hidden down in a fold of the Cotswold hills. They go instead to the main tourist spots such as Chipping Campden or Bourton-on-the-Water or Stow-on-the-Wold.

  The village was very quiet. A high wind soughed through the tops of the old elm trees surrounding the small triangle of village green. The little cottages that he could see were all very small and so covered in creeping plants of various varieties—wisteria, clematis and Virginia creeper—that the houses themselves seemed to have become part of the vegetation.

  Simon approached the church and studied the notice board. The notices announcing various events were mostly old and faded, but there was one new one, recently pinned up. It said, “Room to let in period house of great charm. Contact Miss May Dinwoody.” Then followed the address and phone number.

  He took out his mobile phone and called Agatha. When he had finished speaking, she squawked down the line, “You want to live there? It could be dangerous. Not only have there been two murders but a friend of mine got struck on the head and ended up in hospital. And what on earth would be your excuse for living there?”

  “My parents were both killed in a car crash—true. I want peace and quiet to recover from the trauma. I am interested in entering the church.”

  “Are you?”

  “One visit to Mircester Library and I’ll know an awful lot about it. I’m good at integrating myself.”

  “All right. Give it a try and report to me every evening. We’ll keep it secret. Don’t come near the office. I’ll tell everyone you’ve decided not to take the job. Have you enough money to put down a deposit?”

  “Yes. I’m not going to rush into things so it could take some time. Can you remember exactly where she lives?”

  “She lives in the old mill house. There’s a track leads down the far side of the shop and you reach it that way.”

  Simon glanced at the village shop as he passed. It looked a gloomy place with a tattered banner hanging over the door emblazoned with the legend: YOUR VILLAGE SHOP—USE IT OR LOSE IT. I’d better shop there, he thought. Probably think in this place that a visit to a supermarket amounts to treason. Funny. It doesn’t feel calm and peaceful. I feel as if
hundreds of eyes are watching me.

  He made his way down a damp, weedy track to where the old mill house brooded over a weedy pond. He pressed the bell to Flat 3 and a voice told him over the intercom to enter.

  May Dinwoody’s first words when she saw him sounded disappointed. “I was hoping for someone older,” she said in her reedy voice. “Maybe an elderly gentleman. There have been murders in this village and one feels so very frightened.”

  Simon smiled. “Maybe a young man would be better protection.”

  “Oh, well, you’d best come in. Take a seat.”

  Grey-haired May Dinwoody was wearing an odd assortment of clothes: a ratty brown cardigan over a red sequinned evening top, harem trousers and trainers.

  “You had better give me references,” she said.

  “I have with me,” said Simon, “my school certificates and my driving licence. I do not have job references because I have never worked. My parents were killed in a car crash last year and it has taken me a long time to sort out their affairs with the lawyers. My home is in 22, Blackberry Avenue, Mircester, but it is up for sale. I want to stay somewhere very quiet for a little while until I decide what I am going to do. I am seriously thinking of entering the church.”

  “I think you’ll do very well,” said May. “We’ll have some coffee and go across to the vicarage so that you may meet the vicar. But first, I shall show you your room. It’s a bittie small. I’m afraid it doesn’t overlook the pond. It really was the pond view that persuaded me to move here.”

  How such a dank and murky pond could attract anyone was beyond Simon’s imaginings, but he followed through to a room at the back. The room, although small, had a large window overlooking the village green. “The previous tenant was an artist and he got that large window put in,” said May. “Such desecration. He’d never have got planning permission these days.”

  The room was simply furnished with a single bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a desk at the window and three hard chairs.

  “Now, I’ll show you the bathroom. I’m afraid I shall ask you to supply your own sheets and towels.”

  “That’s all right,” said Simon. “Can manage that.”

  “Now follow me. Off to the right of the living room is the kitchen. We’ll need to share the fridge and shelves. I will keep my groceries on the bottom two shelves and you may have to the top two shelves and one freezer drawer. The cupboard up here on the left is yours also.”

  “Looks fine.”

  “There is another room here but I use that as my workshop. I make toys.”

  “How clever of you!”

  May’s voice began to tremble. “There is now the question of the rent and the deposit.”

  “How much?”

  “Seventy-five pounds a week and three months in advance.”

  “Okay. Cash or cheque?”

  May blinked at him.

  “If you said I was a nephew or something like that,” said Simon, “I could pay you the cash and then you would not have to pay any taxes.”

  “That would be criminal!”

  Simon grinned. “Yes, wouldn’t it just.”

  “Isn’t it, well, a wee bit naughty?”

  “Just a bit.”

  “Oh, all right then,” said May. “It’s a good thing that John Sunday is dead. He’d soon have found something out.”

  “I read about that. Perhaps before I meet the vicar I should go back to my place and collect my belongings and get you the money from the bank?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” twittered May.

  “Am I supposed to be Scottish, like you?”

  “I wouldn’t bother. My poor sister, now dead, was married to an Englishman. They did not have any children, but nobody in the village knows that.”

  Simon said goodbye and May sat down and stared out at the rippling waters of the millpond. She gained a little money from selling her toys at various fairs, but her pension did not stretch to much. Her last luxury was smoking and she thought day in and day out about giving it up. What if this odd-looking young man didn’t come back?

  But two hours later, Simon came back driving his father’s old vintage Morris Minor. He felt it was more suitable than a motorbike to his image of a young man interested in the church. He carried in a box of sheets and towels and pillowslips and then gave May an envelope full of money.

  Simon went back to bring in a suitcase and while he was hanging his clothes away, he briefly regretting that he would not be seeing Toni for some time. Agatha Raisin appeared to be rather a formidable woman. Still, she was reported to have solved a lot of cases and it took an intelligent woman to do that.

  _______

  Mircester market happened once a week in the little square in front of the abbey. Agatha loved poking around it, often buying tempting fresh fruit and vegetables which she never got around to eating and ended up giving away.

  Then as she looked across the stalls, she saw Tom Courtney’s sister, Amy Bairns. Her stomach gave a lurch. She was in no doubt as to what Amy was doing in the area. Hadn’t escaped murderers, or in Amy’s case, assistant murderers historically come back to wreak vengeance?

  She edged her way round the stalls until she was behind the woman and grasped her firmly and began to scream, “Police! Help!”

  Two policemen on duty at the market rushed up. “Leave me alone,” shouted Amy in an American accent. “This woman’s mad.”

  “And this woman,” panted Agatha, “is the sister of that murderer, Tom Courtney.”

  The policemen took over. They handcuffed her and led her off with Agatha following.

  Agatha was told to wait in the reception area of police headquarters. She felt elated with triumph.

  After half an hour, a tall man strode up to the desk sergeant and demanded, “What are you doing with my wife?”

  “What is the name of your wife?”

  “Maisie Berger. We’re here on holiday and they tell me at the market that some woman started screaming at poor Maisie and Maisie was taken in here.”

  The desk sergeant pressed the buzzer. “If you will just come through, sir.”

  A little lump of ice began to form in Agatha’s stomach. She couldn’t be wrong. Of course—they must have fake passports.

  Another half hour dragged past. The plastic palm which decorated the waiting area was dusty. The cheerful noises from the market filtered in from the street. Several members of the press started to come in, demanding to know who had been arrested. They swung round and saw Agatha and were bearing down on her when Inspector Wilkes called, “Mrs. Raisin, if you will just come this way.”

  Agatha was buzzed through and led into an interview room. As she sat down opposite Wilkes, she noticed first that he was alone, and second that the tape wasn’t running.

  “The woman you grabbed is exactly who she says she is,” said Wilkes. “What on earth made you think she was Amy Bairns?”

  “It was that California face-lift look, you know, they all look as if they came off the same alien planet.”

  “We have given them full apologies and we are paying their hotel bill, plus a set of golfing clubs for the husband and a week at a health spa for both of them so that they will not press charges. We will send you the bill for all this in return for us not arresting you for wasting police time. You will leave by the back door and you will not, repeat not, speak to the press. Get it?”

  “Got it,” said Agatha miserably.

  Wilkes’s expression softened slightly. He had to admit that he too had received a shock when he had first seen Mrs. Berger. She did look almost identical to the missing Amy Bairns.

  “Go back to your usual run-of-the-mill detecting, Mrs. Raisin. That will be all.”

  He rang a bell and told the policewoman who answered the summons, “Show Mrs. Raisin out by the back way.”

  When Agatha got back to the office, she said to Mrs. Freedman, “If there are any calls from the press, I’m not available.”

  “There’ve been quite
a few already,” said Mrs. Freedman.

  Patrick was helping himself to a cup of coffee. “What’s up?” he asked.

  Agatha told him. She ending by exclaiming, “How could I have been so stupid?”

  Patrick looked at her for a long moment. Then he said, “Did you ever see a photo of Dr. Bairns?”

  “No, why? Well, maybe I must have. I think there was a grainy photo in one of the newspapers I saw.”

  “Let me check my computer,” said Patrick. “I made contact with a chap in the Philadelphia police and he sent me some stuff over.”

  “They must be who they say they are,” protested Agatha. “They had passports and everything, I suppose.”

  “Give me a few minutes. Have a cigarette and relax.”

  Mrs. Freedman gave a loud sigh as Agatha lit up a cigarette, and pointedly opened the window next to her desk as far as it would go.

  “I’ll lock the door,” said Agatha. “I can hear the clump of press footsteps on the stairs.”

  Patrick tapped away at the keys while Agatha ignored the ringing of the doorbell and the shouts through the letter box.

  “Got it,” he said at last. “Come and have a look.”

  Agatha went over and studied the photograph on his computer. “It’s him!” she shouted. “The man who said he was Berger. Which means he’s Dr. Bairns and she’s Amy! Come on, Patrick. Print that off and we’ll take it to Wilkes.”

  “What is she up to now?” asked Wilkes when the desk sergeant phoned through to say Mrs. Raisin and Patrick Mulligan were back with vital information and if he didn’t see them quick, a murderer would get away. He had shut the press outside, but Mrs. Raisin had promised them a statement after she saw Wilkes.

  “I’ll send someone to fetch her,” said Wilkes. “But I think she’s finally cracked.”

  Detective Sergeant Collins appeared, her eyes gleaming with malice and her hair as usual pulled back so tightly into a bun that it made Agatha wonder why she didn’t suffer from permanent headaches.

  “You’ve done it this time, you silly old trout,” said Collins. “The press will have a field day.”