(17/30 Love, Lies and Liquor

by M C Beaton

Agatha tried to imagine the blowsy Geraldine in such surroundings, and failed.

  Agatha and James sat down on a sofa covered with silk-covered cushions faded with age. Archie took a seat in an armchair next to the fireplace.

  “How long were you married?” asked Agatha.

  “About a year.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “In a pub in Brighton. She was down from London for the day.”

  “And what attracted you to her?”

  “I was pretty lonely. My wife died fifteen years ago. Geraldine came up to my table and asked if she could join me, as all the other tables were taken. She seemed an easy, friendly sort.”

  “Have you any photographs of her as she was then?”

  He rose stiffly and went to a bureau by the window, opened a drawer and took out a photograph. He handed it to Agatha. “That was us on our wedding day. Brighton Registry Office.”

  Agatha stared at the photograph in surprise. Geraldine was slimmer and had brown hair.

  “She was blonde when we saw her,” said Agatha, “and fatter.”

  “That was the thing,” he said. “Soon as we were married, she started to change. I’d never met that son of hers before we were married and he came to stay with his wife. Scum they were. Wayne stole a gold cigarette case that had been my father’s. I know he stole it, but Geraldine screamed at me for insulting her precious son. After that, things began to go rapidly downhill. She had seemed a nice, quiet lady before we were married. She liked her drink, but so do I. But she dyed her hair blonde and began to stay out late and wouldn’t tell me where she had been. I thought I was trapped for life when she suddenly asked me for a divorce. I thought she would gouge me out of every penny I had left, but she settled for an amicable divorce. I felt I had got off lightly.

  “I heard she’d married again. It was on the radio when they were announcing the murder. What can I tell you about her? I think she was a bit of an actress. I mean, the difference before our wedding and after was astounding. I inherited this house from an aunt. I now live on my pension. I think the fact that I wasn’t well off upset her. She had a nasty mouth on her. I began to be frightened of her.”

  “Did you know she had been married twice before you?” asked James.

  “Yes, she said they had both died.”

  “The first one did. The other is doing time for armed robbery.”

  They continued to question him for the next quarter of an hour, but Archie did not have much more to tell them and so they left.

  “Let’s go back and brief Patrick and try to have a quiet word with Harry,” said Agatha. “I wonder whether that armed robber ex of hers is still in prison.”

  THREE

  PATRICK was sitting in the hotel bar when they arrived. Agatha often wished he would dress more casually. From his neatly combed grey hair and lugubrious face to his suit, collar and tie and well-polished black shoes, he seemed to scream cop.

  They sat down and ordered drinks and then began to tell him the whole story of what they had found out so far in detail. “So what we want you to do for a start,” said Agatha finally, “is to use your police contacts and find out if Geraldine’s second husband, Charlie Black, is still doing time in prison.”

  “I’ll try,” said Patrick.

  “Where’s Harry?”

  “He went out for a look around the town.”

  “Does he look the part?”

  “Oh, God, yes. He even followed me down on his motorbike. Black leather, shaved head, tattoos, studs, the lot.”

  “Do you know what room he’s in?”

  “Two five seven.”

  “We’ll call on him later when the coast is clear.”

  “Excuse me.”

  They looked round and saw Cyril Hammond. “I can’t get Wayne to speak to you, but Fred Jankers said he would like a word. He wants to see you in his room.”

  “Now?” asked James.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  Patrick said he would go round to the police station to make friends with the local force. Agatha and James followed Cyril. Cyril was now wearing a yachting cap.

  “Would it be possible,” said Agatha to Cyril’s back, “to have a word with your wife?”

  That back stiffened noticeably. He turned round. “I don’t know if she can tell you anything that I don’t know.”

  Agatha looked at him silently. “Oh, very well,” he said reluctantly. “When you’re finished with Fred, I’ll bring Dawn down to the bar.”

  “We would really like to talk to your wife on her own,” said James.

  “Why?”

  “Wives often find the presence of a husband a bit intimidating.”

  As if you would know anything about marriage, thought Agatha bitterly.

  “All right,” said Cyril with obvious reluctance.

  He walked on and they followed him along one of the hotel’s long corridors. He stopped at a door and shouted, “It’s me, Cyril.”

  A faint voice answered and he opened the door and went in, followed by Agatha and James.

  Fred Jankers was sitting in a chair by the window. He was a small man with black hair, which looked as if it had been dyed, combed in sparse lines across his head. He had a small face and small black eyes.

  He was wearing a charcoal-grey suit which hung about him in folds, a striped shirt and a black silk tie.

  “Sit down,” said Fred. His room faced the sea. They could hear the waves pounding the sea wall.

  Agatha and James found two hard chairs and Cyril sat on the bed.

  “I want you to find out who killed my Geraldine,” said Fred. His voice was high and reedy.

  “We’ll do our best,” said James and Agatha threw him an irritated look. After all, she was the detective.

  “We’d like to know as much as you can tell us about your late wife,” said Agatha. “Where did you meet her?”

  “Ballroom dancing class. I was a bit shy, but she latched on to me right away.”

  “What is your job or profession?”

  “I own a chain of small dress shops. I think that’s what attracted Geraldine to me. She was very fashion-conscious.”

  Like hell she was, thought Agatha, remembering Geraldine’s blowsy appearance; it was your money she was after.

  “Do you inherit your wife’s money?” she asked.

  “No, she left it all to her son, Wayne. I only found that out this morning when I phoned the solicitor.”

  “I suppose she hadn’t had time to change her will,” put in James.

  “That must be it. Geraldine was devoted to me.”

  “Now, the night of the murder,” said Agatha, “you went to sleep as usual. What time was this?”

  “About eleven o’clock in the evening. She was pacing up and down the room. I said, ‘Come to bed. This isn’t much of a honeymoon.’ She said, ‘Go to sleep. I’ve got to think.’ I slept all night and when I awoke, I saw her bed wasn’t slept in and then the police arrived.”

  “They found my scarf round her neck. I lost it. Did she pick it up?”

  Fred looked uncomfortable. “It was lying on the dining room floor. Yes, she said something about finders, keepers.”

  “Did you tell the police this?”

  “I didn’t like to. I wanted to protect her memory. I didn’t want the police to think of her as a thief.”

  “You’d better tell them now. You could have saved me from enduring hours of questioning. Did she receive a phone call?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “Have you a photo of your wedding day?” asked James.

  “Yes, I have one with me.” Fred pulled out his wallet and extracted a square photograph. There was Geraldine, slimmer, looking demure in a blue silk tailored suit and a little blue hat with an eye veil.

  James handed back the photograph. “Immediately after you were married, did she change? When was the wedding?”

  “Four weeks ago. We decided to delay the honeymoon because I had a lot
of business to attend to. Did she change? She ate an awful lot and put on weight. Apart from that, she was pretty much the same.”

  “Why Snoth-on-Sea?” asked Agatha.

  “Geraldine came here as a kid. She said she and her parents were staying at a bed and breakfast. She said the Palace Hotel was ever so posh and she always dreamed of staying there.”

  “Did you know that her second husband was in jail for armed robbery?”

  “No!” He looked amazed. “You see, it was a whirlwind romance.” He gave a reminiscent smile. “She swept me off my feet. We were married a few weeks after I met her. I didn’t have much time to find out who she knew. I didn’t even know she had a son and daughter-in-law until she told me they would be coming on the honeymoon, along with her friend, Cyril, and his wife.”

  “Didn’t you object?”

  He shifted uneasily in his chair. “I did say something, but she said we would have the rest of our lives together. Then I found out I had to pay for everyone and I wasn’t too pleased. But she hugged me and said, ‘You can afford it, darling, and it would make me so happy.’ ”

  Agatha wondered what Geraldine had actually said. The foul-mouthed woman had probably bullied the meek Fred into it.

  “So you can’t think of anyone who would want to kill her?”

  “Why would anyone?” Fred raised his eyes to the ceiling. “As God is my witness, she hadn’t an enemy in the world.”

  She made me one in two seconds flat, thought Agatha.

  Neither Agatha nor James could think of anything else to ask him. Fred thanked them and again said he hoped they could find out who had murdered his wife.

  As they walked downstairs, James said, “Well, that was odd. He doesn’t seem entirely broken up, does he?”

  “Grief takes people in odd ways,” said Agatha. “But no, he did seem unnaturally calm about the whole thing. And he phoned the solicitor. I wonder how much Geraldine was worth.”

  Cyril Hammond and his wife, Dawn, were waiting in the bar. “Poor Fred,” said Cyril. “How’s he taking it?”

  “Seems to be bearing up pretty well,” commented Agatha. “Now may we have a word with Mrs. Hammond on her own?”

  Cyril looked about to protest, but then said, “Okay, I’ll be up in my room.”

  Agatha and James sat down with Dawn. Her hair was an even more ferocious colour of red than when Agatha had first seen her, and she was unnaturally thin, with deep shadows under her eyes and arms like sticks.

  “What about a drink?” she asked in a throaty voice.

  James signalled to the waitress. “What would you like?”

  “Vodka and Red Bull.”

  James ordered what she wanted, gin and tonic for Agatha and a bottle of beer for himself.

  “We are trying to get a picture of what Mrs. Jankers was like,” began Agatha.

  “Why? You saw her.”

  “I mean her personality, her friends, anyone she was frightened of.”

  The drinks arrived. Dawn took a swig of hers and then said, “People were frightened of Geraldine, not the other way round. Me, I didn’t want to come on this bleeding honeymoon, but Cyril, he says that Geraldine had pleaded with him to come along. Now, take my word for it, dear Geraldine never pleaded with anyone. But Cyril always had a soft spot for her. You want to know what she was like? A great fat spider, that’s what. Always on the lookout for a fellow with money. Before she married Fred, she was as meek as anything. After they were married, she reverted to her usual shit-mouthed self. I said to Cyril that this whole honeymoon was sick, sick, sick.”

  “Did you know that her second husband was doing time for armed robbery?”

  “Charlie, oh, sure. I knew Charlie. The only thing I liked about that villain was that he knew how to shut Geraldine up. Smacked her across the mouth once.”

  “Who did he rob?”

  “Some jeweller in Lewisham. They got him, but they never found the jewels.”

  “Is he still in prison?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Who would have wanted to kill, Geraldine?”

  “Just about everyone I can think of.”

  “Her husband?”

  “Fred? Naw. Poor little bugger got sandbagged by her. He’s not exactly weeping over her death. But Fred couldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “What about her son?”

  “Wayne? Her own son! Why?”

  “He inherits.”

  “Don’t think she would leave enough to make her own son murder her.”

  “Did you know that Geraldine stole my scarf, the one she was found strangled with?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Mr. Jankers. He said she found it lying in the dining room after we had left.”

  “Now there’s a thing. He left us thinking you must have murdered her.”

  James interrupted. “As to that, Agatha, I really think we should go along to the police station and tell them. With us in the clear, we can get out of here.”

  But after they had said goodbye to Dawn and were walking along in the direction of the police station, Agatha began to fret. Only a short time ago, she had longed to get out of this terrible place and head south to the Mediterranean with James. She tried to conjure up a dream of James holding her in his arms on a hotel balcony overlooking the moonlit sea, but the dream would not come. They would probably have separate rooms, she thought wearily, and no doubt James would run into some old friends and she would be left on the outskirts of some party while they all chattered on about people she did not know.

  At the police station, they asked to see Detective Inspector Barret. They were told to wait. Agatha sat down on a bench and suddenly wished she could smoke. She had been trying to cut down, but all the terrible threats about what happened to the health of smokers only made her want to smoke more.

  “Cheer up, Agatha,” said James. “We’ll soon be heading south.”

  “I don’t—” Agatha was just beginning when they were told that Barret would see them. They were taken to an interview room.

  James gave Agatha a puzzled look. “You were starting to say something.”

  But at that moment Barret walked in.

  He listened in silence as Agatha told him about Mr. Jankers’s confession that his wife had actually found Agatha’s scarf where she had dropped it in the dining room.

  “We’ll need to take another statement from him,” said Barret. “Why didn’t he tell us in the first place?”

  “He didn’t want to sully his wife’s good name.”

  “I’ll be having a sharp word with him. Wasting police time unnecessarily. Sending us off chasing after you pair.”

  “When you get your statement,” asked James, “will we be free to leave?”

  “Yes, I see no reason to keep you.”

  Agatha was unnaturally silent when they left the police station.

  “Well, that’s that,” said James at last. “We can pack up and be on our way.”

  “Don’t you want to find out who murdered Geraldine?”

  “I neither know nor care.”

  “But I’ve brought Harry and Patrick down. Think of the expense.”

  “That’s your fault. You haven’t charged anyone anything.”

  “But think of the good publicity if I solve the case. Besides, I was photographed going into the police station and photos appeared in the papers with captions giving my name and saying I was helping the police with their enquiries, which made me look guilty.”

  James stopped abruptly. “Agatha, I do not want to stay in this place a moment longer than I have to. If you won’t come with me—well, I’ll just go on my own. I could do with a decent holiday after this.”

  Agatha stared up at him, the wind from the sea blowing her jacket about her stocky figure, her bearlike eyes narrowing.

  “I can’t just leave it,” she said stubbornly.

  James looked back at her with something like amazement in his blue eyes. Where had the Agatha gone who would have g
one through fire and water to be with him?

  “I think you are being selfish and silly,” he said flatly.

  “No, it’s you who are being selfish. It was selfish in the extreme to pick out this place for a holiday simply because you wanted to wander down memory lane.”

  “I have nothing more to say to you,” said James haughtily.

  He stalked off. Agatha watched him go. As he approached the hotel, a large wave burst over the sea wall and drenched him from head to foot.

  “There is a God,” said Agatha Raisin.

  She realized when she got to the hotel, that she was very hungry. Somewhere deep inside her was an ache because of James’s behaviour. Agatha went to Harry’s room and tapped on the door.

  Harry opened it. The odour of fish and chips wafted out of the room.

  “Got any of that fish supper left?” asked Agatha.

  “Just about to start. Come in. We can share it.”

  “Have you met Wayne Weldon and his equally horrible wife?” said Agatha, walking into the room.

  “Not yet. I was just taking a recce round the town. Horrible little place. I’ll be down there at breakfast time and strike up a conversation. Dig in, Agatha. Loads of fish and chips.”

  “No knives and forks?”

  “Course not.”

  “Anything to drink?”

  “I’ve got a bottle of wine. I’ll get another glass out of the bathroom.”

  They ate and drank in silence. Then Agatha told Harry all she had found out.

  “Hasn’t been much of a second honeymoon for you, has it?” commented Harry.

  “It wasn’t a second honeymoon,” said Agatha defiantly. “James is leaving tomorrow to holiday on his own.” Then, to Agatha’s horror, she gave a gulping sob and began to cry.

  “Here, now,” said Harry, moving his chair next to hers and giving her a hug. “The man’s a bastard. You’re better off without him.”

  He handed Agatha a clean handkerchief. Agatha blew her nose and gulped and then dried her eyes. “You won’t look the part,” she said, giving him a watery smile, “if you’re going to carry clean handkerchiefs about with you. Don’t these studs hurt?”

  Harry had one in his nose and one in his upper lip. “No, but I wish I’d never started wearing them. I suppose I’ll need to get surgery to get the holes filled up. So why is James leaving?”