(17/30 Love, Lies and Liquor

by M C Beaton

  “The trouble is, I don’t really know what James thinks of me. I thought when he suggested a holiday together that perhaps he might want to marry me again. But when I was married to him before, it wasn’t comfortable. It was like being a house guest rather than a wife. He found fault with everything I did. So why should he want to get back together with me?”

  “Perhaps he’s thinking of approaching old age and doesn’t want to be alone. Men always like to think there’ll be some woman there to look after them in their dotage.”

  “Hardly a romantic picture,” said Agatha drily. “What do you plan to do today?”

  “Hang around the police station and see what I can pick up.”

  “I need a break from it all,” said Agatha. “I’ll drive off somewhere and spend the day alone.”

  “Is that wise? McNally or one of his villains could still be looking for you.”

  “But I’ll feel like a sitting duck if I stay in the hotel. Phone me if you find out anything.”

  * * *

  Agatha drove out of the underground car park experiencing a feeling of freedom. She drove up over the downs and then cruised through small villages. She stopped for lunch at a pub and then returned to her car, still reluctant to return to the hotel.

  She went down into Brighton, parked the car, and walked to the Pavilion, that famous folly of the Prince Regent. She walked around the rooms, wearying at last of so much garishness and so much gold leaf.

  Then Agatha found a second-hand bookshop in the Lanes, bought herself a chick-lit book, found a café and settled down to read.

  It was the usual mixture—the good girlfriend, the gay friend, the handsome friend whom the heroine had always regarded as a brother and the usual catalogue of Versace dresses and Jimmy Choo shoes.

  But it was undemanding reading and she enjoyed it. When she finally left the café, the sky was becoming black overhead and the seagulls, wheeling and screaming, looked startlingly white against the inky backdrop.

  A classic cinema was advertising Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Agatha remembered someone telling her it was very funny. She bought a ticket and went in, buying herself a tub of popcorn and a Coke at the little shop in the foyer.

  There were very few customers in the cinema. Agatha settled down in the dark and prepared to enjoy herself.

  She found the film very funny indeed, and laughing at Jacques Tati’s antics enabled her to forget about murder.

  When she emerged after the film, the wind was blowing in great violent gusts.

  Back in the shelter of her car, she still did not feel like returning to Snoth and decided to have dinner in the pub where she had had lunch earlier. She ate a generous helping of roast duck and followed it up with an equally generous helping of sticky toffee pudding covered in double cream.

  The waistband of her skirt was uncomfortably tight when she left, but she felt soothed and relaxed.

  Gusts of wind buffeted the car as she drove back towards Snoth-on-Sea. When she parked the car and emerged from the underground car park, she could only be glad it was not yet high tide. Already the roar of the waves was deafening.

  A pile of sandbags blocked the hotel entrance and she had to climb over them. As she collected her key, Nick Loncar handed her a note. It was from James, typewritten as usual, thought Agatha, as if he considered the written word too intimate.

  It read: “Patrick tells me you went off for a drive. Meet me for breakfast at nine o’clock. There is something we need to discuss. James.”

  Agatha crumpled it up in disgust. No “Love, James” or “Affectionately yours, James.”

  “Bad news.”

  Agatha turned and saw Charles standing there. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  “Got fed up with the hotel and went off by myself for the day. Why are you still here? Didn’t get permission to leave?”

  “I can go tomorrow. Let’s have a talk, Aggie. I’m worried about you.”

  “Can’t I just go to bed? I’m tired.”

  “Just one drink in the bar.”

  “All right. Just the one.”

  Charles ordered a whisky for himself and a gin and tonic for Agatha.

  “So what’s all this about?” asked Agatha.

  “It’s about you and James.”

  “What about it?”

  “I was talking to James today. He seems confident that you and he will take this holiday together.”

  “I’m not confident we will. I just want to get home.”

  “I feel somehow sure that James will persuade you at the last minute. Although I behave like a callous rat sometimes, I am your friend. Have you ever seriously considered that the attraction James holds for you is because he is nearly always unavailable in some way? You go on like a battered wife, always returning for another helping of abuse. Maybe you need some form of therapy.”

  “There is nothing up with me,” retorted Agatha. “As a matter of fact, I am going to go home as soon as I can.”

  “We’ll see. Just don’t go back and after a few weeks start mourning what you might see as a lost opportunity.”

  “Charles, I am sure all this lecturing is well meant, but I am tired. That shrieking storm is getting on my nerves.”

  “I hope the hotel lasts the night,” said Charles. “But think about what I said.”

  At one in the morning, Nick Loncar looked up from the football magazine he was reading and saw a man standing in front of him. Nick could hear the waves thundering over the sea wall and wondered how this man had managed to keep dry.

  “Do you want a room, sir?” he asked.

  The man smiled. He had a pleasant, tanned face and he was expensively dressed. “I am from Lewes CID,” he said. “I am afraid I’ll need to have another word with Mrs. Raisin. Something’s just happened.”

  “May I see some ID?” asked Nick cautiously.

  He flashed a card at him.

  “We’ll use the bar,” said the man. “What we have to discuss is top secret, so I want you to put on the lights in the bar and make yourself scarce.”

  “Will do.” Nick hesitated. “How did you manage to get in here without getting wet?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “You are impeding the police in an investigation,” he said in a voice heavy with menace.

  “All right, all right,” said Nick. “I’ll call her.”

  He rang from the desk and spoke to Agatha. When he put down the phone he said, “Mrs. Raisin says to give her ten minutes to get dressed.”

  “Right. Just put on a couple of lights in the bar and get lost.”

  “I’ll be in the manager’s office if you want me.”

  Agatha walked down into the reception area and was immediately deafened by the roar of the storm. The wind howled and great waves crashed against the door of the hotel.

  She went into the bar. Only two lamps were lit. She saw a man sitting over by the long windows, his back to her.

  She approached. “You asked to see me?”

  Nick sat at the manager’s desk, biting his thumb nervously and eyeing the phone. He had received a rocket from the police after the murder of Geraldine because he had said he had not noticed anyone leaving the hotel around the time she was murdered. The fact was, he had gone into the bar and stretched out in one of the armchairs for a sleep. Nick also worked during the day at a pub in Snoth as barman.

  He made up his mind. He phoned Lewes police headquarters and asked them if they had sent a detective to interview Mrs. Raisin.

  The man in the bar rose as he heard Agatha approach. He turned and smiled. “Sit down, Mrs. Raisin.”

  Agatha let out a gasp of fear. “Brian McNally,” she said.

  He was holding a gun on her. How odd the workings of the frightened mind, thought Agatha. I don’t know if that’s a pistol or a revolver. I’m the pre-gun generation. I can’t tell one from the other.

  “Sit down,” he ordered again.

  Agatha sat down, her heart as tumultuous as the raging storm outside.r />
  He raised his voice against the storm. “You are one nosy interfering bitch and it’s going to be a pleasure to get rid of you. This casino deal was going to be sweet as a nut. You’ve ruined my business.”

  Goodbye, everybody, thought Agatha. She suddenly felt calm. She didn’t know if there was a God, but Mrs. Bloxby believed in one, so she asked Mrs. Bloxby’s God either to let her die with dignity or save her.

  He levelled the gun and pointed it at her heart.

  “Not going to beg for your life? I’d like that.”

  “Fry in hell, you bastard,” said Agatha.

  At that moment a huge wave crashed against the long windows of the bar, shattering them. As the sea poured in, Brian half turned his head in alarm. A flying shard of glass embedded itself in his neck. Agatha threw herself on the floor and then felt herself being swept up in a tide of seawater towards the bar. As the undertow began to drag her back, she clutched on to the foot rail of the bar.

  Then, as the water receded, she stumbled to her feet and ran screaming and splashing through the now flooded reception. Still screaming, she ran up the stairs and pounded on James’s door.

  James answered it. Agatha shot past him, babbling, “Brian McNally was in the bar. He tried to shoot me.”

  “Sit down,” ordered James. “I’ll call the police.”

  The police arrived very quickly, alerted by Nick’s call. Not being able to approach the front of the hotel, they had climbed over the garden wall at the side and had come in through an open fire door.

  Agatha had had time to change into dry clothes, which James had fetched from her room.

  Sergeant Wilkins was the first to appear. “Tell us what happened, Mrs. Raisin.”

  In a shaky voice Agatha told him all she knew.

  “Brian McNally’s dead,” said Wilkins. “A piece of glass from the shattered windows sliced an artery in his neck. He bled to death. He was nearly swept out to sea. We found his body jammed under a sofa next to the windows. Evidently he got Nick Loncar to get you down to the bar by saying he was a detective and flashing a fake ID. Loncar phoned the police. The police found a fire door open and we assume he got in that way. We got here as soon as we could. It’s a mess out there. The fire brigade and ambulance men will be searching the houses on the waterfront in the hope that the residents have survived the storm. You’ll need to come along to the police station and make an official statement.”

  “Can’t you see she’s still in shock?” demanded James angrily. “I’ll bring her along in the morning.”

  “Very well. We’ll send someone for her at seven o’clock.”

  “Make it nine,” said James. “Let her get some sleep.”

  Agatha, who in her fantasies about James had imagined being rescued by him and spending the night in his arms, now only wanted to get to the privacy of her own room and have a good cry.

  She assured James she would be all right and locked her door. She found she was shivering and stripped off and had a hot shower. She changed into her nightdress and crawled into bed and fell into a sleep tortured with dreams of being lost at sea and fighting up one wave and down the next and never having land in sight.

  She awoke early. Sun was streaming in the window. She got out of bed and looked out to see if the sea had receded, forgetting that her room overlooked a weedy garden at the back of the hotel.

  Agatha got dressed and went down to the dining room to find it full of shattered glass and upturned tables and chairs. Charles appeared behind her.

  “What a night,” he said.

  “Haven’t you heard what happened?”

  “No.”

  Agatha told him. “Let’s go up to my room,” said Charles. “My feet are getting wet. The carpets are sodden.”

  Wearing a pair of bright pink Wellington boots, Betty came into the hotel.

  “Oh, Mrs. Raisin, the police stopped me outside and told me what had happened. The hotel’s finished. I’ll need to look for another job. There was something odd I should have told you about. I got talking to a young man and he took me for a drink. He asked me all sorts of questions about you and Mr. Lacey and when I went to the loo and came back, he’d disappeared.”

  “You’d better tell the police,” said Agatha.

  Upstairs in Charles’s room, Agatha said, “I wonder why that young man was asking questions about me.”

  “Probably one of McNally’s boys trying to find out for him what they could,” said Charles. “Before he thought up the detective idea, he maybe planned to try something like sending up a note pretending it came from James. You haven’t any make-up on.”

  “So what?”

  “So you’d feel better if you put a bit of paint on. You’re awfully white. The press will be there and you don’t want to look like a ghost. Cheer up. You know what I think? I think with McNally dead, that will be the end of attempts on your life. The head of the serpent has been chopped off. You’ve the devil’s own luck, Agatha.”

  “Or maybe it was Mrs. Bloxby’s God.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind.”

  The police came and took Agatha to the police station along with Nick and Betty. They had to walk because the waterfront was a shattered mess of fallen slates, bricks, broken glass and flotsam and jetsam.

  Agatha was glad she had made up her face because it seemed as if all the world’s press were outside the police station.

  Agatha, Nick and Betty were taken off to separate interviewing rooms.

  Faced by Barret and Wilkins, Agatha wearily told her story all over again. And again and again.

  At last Barret said, “Well, that wraps it up. I must say we’re pretty happy. One highly dangerous villain dead. And a money-laundering operation broken for the moment. McNally was the kingpin, and with him out of the way I don’t think you should have anything to fear any longer, Mrs. Raisin. I think you should go home.”

  “What about the death of Geraldine Jankers?”

  “We’ve come to the conclusion it had something to do with that jewel theft. If McNally could hire killers to attack you, then he would not have blinked at getting rid of Geraldine to do Charlie Black a favour.”

  “But what if it had nothing to do with McNally?”

  “Case closed. Go home, Mrs. Raisin.”

  Agatha emerged from the interviewing room to find Charles waiting for her. “I thought you could do with some breakfast before we all start filling in insurance forms.”

  “What for?”

  “All the cars in the car park are a wreck, including your rented car.” He turned to the desk sergeant. “Is there a back way out of this station?”

  “I’ll show you the way.”

  “Unless, Aggie, you want to face the press.”

  “Not now,” said Agatha.

  Agatha was comforted and sustained by a large breakfast of sausage, eggs, bacon, beans and fried bread, washed down with mugs of black coffee.

  What was even more surprising was that Charles paid for it.

  “I’d better phone the car rental company as soon as I get back,” said Agatha. “I want to get home today.”

  “Why bother? I phoned my insurance company early mis morning and I’ve got a courtesy car waiting for me at a garage outside the town. I’ll run you back to Carsely. I’ll order a taxi to wait for us round the corner from the hotel and we’ll need to lug our bags round to it. It’ll be a while before anything can drive up to the front.”

  Agatha had hoped to escape the press, but the storm damage was also news and television crews were filling the waterfront. For once in her life all she said was a gruff “No comment.”

  She arranged to meet Charles downstairs in an hour’s time. Duckboards had been placed across the wet carpet in the hall.

  In her room, Agatha phoned Patrick and told him she was leaving and that she would settle his bill as well as her own. Then she phoned the car rental company and told them what had happened, saying that she would fill in the accid
ent forms and send them off.

  The phone rang almost as soon as she replaced the receiver. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “I’ve just heard the news on the radio,” said the vicar’s wife. “Would you like me to drive down there?”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Bloxby. I’m coming home.”

  “I’ll see Doris Simpson and give her a casserole to put in your kitchen. I won’t talk any more because you must be feeling shaken. Ring me when you get home.”

  Agatha packed quickly, looking sadly at all the filmy holiday garments that she had hoped to wear. She had just finished when Charles knocked at the door.

  “Taxi’s waiting.”

  Charles took hold of Agatha’s case, and they had just reached the top of the stairs when James came to join them.

  “Where on earth have you been, Agatha?” he demanded.

  “At the police station. I’ve got to go, James.”

  “Agatha, I thought we were going on holiday together.”

  “I’m going home,” said Agatha. “Besides, your car’s a wreck.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you know? The car park was flooded and all the cars are wrecked.”

  “Look, wait at the hotel until I get a replacement. It should only take a few days. You can stay at the hotel with me until then.”

  “Taxi’s waiting,” muttered Charles.

  “I can’t wait a minute longer in this arsehole of the world,” said Agatha. “I’m off.”

  “Agatha, I’m warning you. This is your last chance.”

  “Just who the hell do you think you are? Come on, Charles.”

  The taxi dropped them off at the garage and Charles signed the papers for a courtesy car—a new Peugeot.

  As they drove out of Snoth, Agatha heaved a sigh of relief as she watched the housing estates on the outskirts of the town pass by and recede into the distance.

  “Feeling all right about James?” asked Charles.

  “I don’t feel anything other than relief at getting away from that place.”

  Agatha’s mobile phone rang. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” asked Charles.