(17/30 Love, Lies and Liquor

by M C Beaton

  They circled around Lewisham until they found a car park. Charles looked up Cherry Street in the London A to Z he kept in the car. “It’s right off the High Street,” he said. “Not far to walk. I see you’ve taken to wearing flat shoes. Ah, when love dies, women lose two and a half inches in height.”

  “I’m not even going to reply to that,” said Agatha. “Come on.”

  Jane and Jon’s Ballroom Dancing was situated above an antique shop. As they mounted the stairs, they could hear the strains of “La Paloma “ “Tango time,” commented Charles. “I can just see you with a rose in your teeth, Aggie.”

  “Stop being frivolous,” snapped Agatha. “This is a murder investigation, remember?”

  They opened the door and went in. Six couples were gyrating in a genteel version of the tango. A tall thin woman wearing a leotard and black tights came forward to meet them.

  “Are you interested in joining the class?” she asked. She thrust out a bony hand. “I’m Jane.”

  “I’m a private detective,” said Agatha, “and this is Sir Charles Fraith.”

  Jane looked alarmed. Her penciled eyebrows rose nearly into her black hair. “It’s all rubbish,” she said. “I never touched the silly man.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Didn’t Mrs. Smither send you?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  Jane visibly relaxed. “We’ve had some trouble because some woman is claiming I made a pass at her husband, but you should see Mr. Smither! Fat and fifty, my dear.”

  The music stopped. “Excuse me,” said Jane. She started the CD over again and called, “Once more and put some feeling into it.”

  Agatha wondered why Jane was dressed more for a ballet class than for ballroom dancing. As if reading her thoughts, Jane said, “I take them through some ballet exercises first to limber them up. Now what can I do for you?”

  Agatha told her about the murder of Geraldine and how Geraldine had first come to the classes with a man name Peter.

  “Oh, I remember her,” said Jane. “Seemed a quiet woman but quite a nifty dancer. I believe she hit it off with Mr. Jankers very quickly and then we never saw Peter Brody again.”

  Are you sure his name was Brody? Not Silen?”

  “Definitely Brody.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Come into the office and I’ll find his address.” She turned to the class. “Swoop, Hugh. Swoop and dip.”

  The small man called Hugh dipped so far, his partner fell to the floor with him on top of her.

  “Leave the swoop for the moment,” said Jane in a tired voice. And to Agatha, “Follow me.”

  “Is Jon your husband?” asked Agatha as Jane led them into the cubicle that served as an office.

  “He was.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Pentonville.”

  “In prison? Why?”

  “Dealing drugs. So I’ve got to manage the business on my own.” She squeezed in behind a desk and switched on a computer. “Let me see. Brody. Ah, here we are. Fifty-two B Carriage Way.”

  “Where is Carriage Way?” asked Charles.

  “Go outside and turn right. It’s the fourth turning on your right.”

  They thanked her and left.

  “I suppose we couldn’t really expect this Peter to be Peter Silen,” said Agatha. “I mean, if he was that easy to find, the police would have arrested him ages ago.”

  “Still, he might shed some light on Geraldine’s past,” said Charles. “Here we are. Carriage Way. I thought with a name like that they’d be mews cottages.”

  They walked along past tall stuccoed Victorian buildings until they came to number 52. “B must be the basement,” said Agatha.

  They opened an iron gate and walked down stone steps. “No bell,” said Charles, knocking on the door.

  A few moments passed and then the door was opened by a small wiry man wearing a tank top and stained jeans. He had sandy hair and small features: small brown eyes, small mouth and small nose. Charles guessed he was in his fifties.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Agatha launched into her spiel of being a private detective investigating the death of Geraldine Jankers.

  “What’s it to do with me?” he asked.

  “Well, you used to escort Mrs. Jankers to the ballroom classes. We thought if you could tell us a bit about her, about her friends, anyone who might have hated her, that sort of thing, it would be a great help.”

  He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Come in.”

  He ushered them into a sparsely furnished but tidy living room. Apart from an old-fashioned hatstand loaded with coats, the furniture consisted of three hard upright chairs, a table and a large television set.

  They sat down at the table. “How did you meet Geraldine?” asked Agatha.

  “I met her at the market. I was shopping, so was she. We got to talking and went for a drink. She said she had never learned to dance properly and one thing led to another and I volunteered to take her. I only went with her to two classes and then she got her claws into Jankers.”

  “So you didn’t know anything about her before then?”

  “No. I thought it would be a bit of fun, but I tell you, I was a bit fed up when she left me standing to go chasing after Jankers. Wait a bit. I thought the police got the murderer. Some armed robber.”

  “Charlie Black murdered the son and his wife,” said Agatha. “But he’s got a cast-iron alibi for the night Mrs. Jankers was killed.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help you. I thought she was nice at first but she turned out to be a bit of a bitch. I told her I was angry with her for getting me to sign on for the classes and then dumping me. She had seemed quite refined, but then she gave me a mouthful that would have made a sailor blush.”

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Brody?” asked Charles.

  “Oh, this and that. Why?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  Peter Brody seemed in that moment to change from quite an amiable man into someone hard and angry.

  “Look, bugger off, the pair of you,” he said. “I haven’t got time for this. I’ll show you out.”

  Charles turned round as he and Agatha approached the door. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Silen,” said Charles.

  Peter reached behind the hatstand and pulled out a sawn-off shotgun. He held it on them. “Get back in the room.”

  “It was a slip of the tongue,” said Charles desperately.

  “Oh, yeah? Get in that room over there. Move it!”

  They retreated before him. “The police know where we are,” said Agatha.

  “Move! Drop your handbag and leave it on the floor.”

  He backed them into a room, empty except for a few packing cases, and then slammed the door on them and locked it.

  Agatha and Charles looked at each other in dismay.

  “Why did you call him Silen?” whispered Agatha.

  “Because I felt he was lying. What are we going to do?”

  Charles went to the window. It was barred. They could hear the sound of hurried movements coming from the other room.

  “Have you got your phone?” asked Agatha.

  “I left it behind,” mourned Charles.

  They heard the outside door of the flat slam shut and then footsteps mounting the stairs.

  “He’s gone,” said Agatha. “He may be back. We’ve got to get out of here. Can’t you break the door down?”

  Charles aimed a kick at the lock and then hopped around the room, moaning, “I think I’ve broken my foot.”

  “I’m going to look in these cases,” said Agatha. “There might be something we can use. Stop howling and help me.”

  But Charles sat on the floor nursing his foot. Agatha gave an exclamation of disgust and began to search in one of the packing cases. “This one’s full of car radios,” she said. She fried the next one. “Leather jackets. No use. There must be something h
ere we could use. Why couldn’t he steal hardware?”

  Charles fished in his pocket and held up a Swiss army knife. “Look what I’ve got!”

  “Oh, Charles, try and fiddle with the lock.”

  “Should be able to do it. It’s only a Yale.”

  Charles extracted a thin blade from the knife and inserted it between the lock and the door jamb. The blade snapped in two. “This can’t be genuine,” he said.

  “Where did you buy it?”

  “At a market in Morocco. I’ll try another blade.”

  He inserted a stronger blade and tried again. Agatha waited in a fever of impatience. She was just beginning to say, “Here, let me try,” when there was a snap and the door swung open.

  “Right,” she said, seizing her handbag. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “He’s coming back,” cried Charles. “Back in the room. He’s probably got that gun with him.”

  They darted back into the room and shut the door.

  They heard Peter come in. Then they heard splashing sounds and the air was filled with the smell of petrol.

  “He’s going to burn us to death,” whispered Agatha. She took out her phone and called the police. “Number fifty-two B Carriage Way, Lewisham,” she said urgently. “Armed man with shotgun about to burn the place down. For God’s sake, hurry!”

  The sinister splashing sounds continued outside.

  “Give me one of those car radios,” whispered Charles.

  “What for?”

  “Just get it. We’ll be burned to a crisp if we don’t do anything.”

  Agatha handed him a radio.

  The door had not locked again. Charles eased it open. Peter was holding a can of petrol. His back was to Charles.

  Charles raised the radio and brought it down with all his force on the back of Peter’s head. Peter slumped unconscious to the floor.

  “Come on, Aggie,” shouted Charles. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They ran out and up the stairs and leaned against the railings, panting.

  “Where the hell are the police?” raged Charles.

  “At least we’re safe.” Agatha opened her handbag and lit a cigarette.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that. I hate smoking.”

  “You smoke yourself—that is, when you can pinch someone else’s cigarettes.”

  “I don’t any more. Haven’t you heard about the dangers of passive smoking?”

  “Bollocks. We’re in the polluted open air of London.”

  “You’ll get wrinkles.” Charles seized the cigarette from Agatha’s fingers and threw it down the area steps.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” Agatha raged. Then there was a whumph and a sheet of flame roared up from the area steps just as the police and fire brigade arrived.

  “There’s a man in there,” shouted Charles.

  “Stand back,” ordered a police inspector.

  Agatha and Charles clutched each other as firemen shot water down into the basement.

  “Now, who are you?” demanded the police inspector, “and who’s in there?”

  More police had raced up the stairs to evacuate the flat above.

  “In a moment,” said Agatha, watching anxiously as firemen with breathing apparatus began to descend the area steps.

  She sighed with relief when a fireman slowly emerged with Peter slung over his shoulder.

  Ambulance men rushed forward. Peter was put on a stretcher and an oxygen mask was placed over his face.

  “Now,” said the police inspector.

  Charles and Agatha eyed each other anxiously. Charles did not want to admit they had started the fire.

  They gave their names and then began the long explanation of why they were there. “I hit him with a car radio and knocked him out,” said Charles. “That’s how we made our escape. You see, it was when I called him Mr. Silen that he panicked.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we believe he’s Pete Silen, not Peter Brody. He was Charles Black’s partner in the jewel theft—that is the Charles Black who has just been charged with murder.”

  “So how did the fire start?” asked the inspector. “I mean, it obviously started after you had knocked him out.”

  Charles looked at Agatha. “It was that man,” said Agatha. “He was walking past smoking and he threw his cigarette down the area steps. Silen must have splashed some petrol outside as well as inside.”

  “You’d best come down to the police station and make a full statement.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Bloxby answered the door and found James Lacey on the steps.

  “Mr. Lacey. How nice. Do come in. How was your holiday?”

  He followed her into the vicarage drawing room and sat down on the sofa with a sigh. “Not very good, actually.”

  Mrs. Bloxby had no intention of telling him that she knew he had deserted Agatha.

  “What happened?”

  “We could have left Snoth-on-Sea…”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, it’s a place I used to go to with my parents as a boy. I thought Agatha would love it, but it had all changed for the worse. Then there was this murder. When the police told us we were free to leave, Agatha refused to budge, so I went to the south of France to stay with friends who have a B and B there. I sent her a postcard, giving her the address and asking her to join me, but she didn’t. I can’t understand it.”

  “Let me see,” said Mrs. Bloxby gently. “You left her in the middle of a murder enquiry and then expected her to make her own way to the south of France?”

  “Put like that, it sounds bad. But she agreed to go on holiday with me. Maybe I should go back and give her a hand. She has a talent for running into danger.”

  “I believe Sir Charles is still with her.”

  I’m enjoying this, thought Mrs. Bloxby. Oh dear.

  James’s face darkened. “That’s all right then. I had better go home and get on with my work.”

  As he walked from the vicarage, he felt the pangs of emotional indigestion. James was not used to feeling guilty, particularly about anything to do with Agatha. He tried to tell himself that it was all her own fault, but finally came to the miserable conclusion thathe had behaved like a selfish bastard Agatha had spoilt him by being always adoring and always available. He had an uneasy feeling that he had lost her respect and affection for good.

  It was evening by the time Charles and Agatha were released by the police. They were both tired and felt bludgeoned by all the questioning.

  As they drove off, Agatha said, “They made me feel like a criminal. Why hadn’t we shared our suspicions with the police? What would they have done? We were only looking for someone called Peter. I mean, who would have thought that it would be Pete Silen?”

  “Don’t play the innocent, Aggie. We hoped it might turn outto be Silen.”

  “But we didn’t really expect to find him!”

  “I’m hungry. All we’ve had is a sandwich. Let’s stop somewhere and eat.”

  Agatha was too tired to want to waste time sitting in some restaurant, so they bought takeaway burgers, fries and Cokes and had them in the car.

  “Nothing like junk food when you’re feeling miserable. Now, back to the hotel. I could sleep for hours.”

  It was midnight when they reached the hotel. They were confronted by a policeman on duty. “Mrs. Raisin? Sir Charles Fraith? You are to report to the police station immediately.”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” wailed Agatha.

  “Those are my orders.”

  “Come on,” said Charles wearily. “May as well get it over with.”

  * * *

  Detective Inspector Barret and Detective Sergeant Wilkins were waiting for them in an interview room. Barret looked angry.

  “You had important information about this case that you did not report to the police. You should have told us about Pete Silen.”

  “It was only a guess,” said Agatha. “We were only checking up on one of Mrs.
Jankers’s old dancing partners. How were we to know he’d turn out to be a villain?”

  “In the future, I want you to report anything significant to us before you set out to investigate it. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, yes. Stop shouting at me. I’m tired and I was nearly killed.” To Agatha’s horror a tear slid down her cheek.

  “Leave her alone,” said Charles angrily. “All this could have waited until the morning.”

  “Very well,” said Barret. “I’ll let you go. But remember, your amateur efforts are impeding a police investigation.”

  “How?” yelled Agatha. “If it hadn’t been for us, the police would never have got Pete Silen.”

  “Come on, Aggie,” said Charles. “Let’s get out of here.”

  When Agatha finally said goodnight to Charles and was undressing, the phone rang. “Now what?” she muttered, picking up the receiver. It was Harry Beam. “I’ve been trying you all evening,” he said. “It was on television about Pete Silen.”

  “Couldn’t this call have waited until the morning?”

  “It was just this. Did you know that Fred Jankers and his late missus lived in Lewisham? In fact, I think Fred still has a house there.”

  “So?”

  “It’s quiet at the agency. Why don’t I go to Lewisham and make some enquiries. Maybe the neighbours know a bit about the late Geraldine. There might be some other man in the picture. Do the police think Pete killed Geraldine?”

  “I gather he has an alibi. All right, Harry. Go to Lewisham but keep in touch.”

  Agatha rang off and got out of the rest of her clothes. She cleaned off her make-up but was too tired to take a shower. She crawled into bed and lay there shivering.

  She could hear the sound of the waves pounding against the promenade outside.

  There was a knock at the door and she let out a whimper of terror. “Who’s there?” she called.

  “It’s me. Charles.”

  Agatha crawled out of bed and unlocked the door. “I brought some brandy,” said Charles. “Funnily enough, I can’t sleep. Thought you might need a nightcap.”