by M C Beaton
“Anyone in particular?” asked Agatha.
“I ain’t one to spread the muck around now that bastard’s dead. You’re a detective, ain’t you? Find out yourself.”
A thin woman huddled in a shabby tweed coat came into the shed carrying a flask and a mug. “I brought your tea, Harry,” she said.
“Put it down on the bench and get out o’ here,” he said.
She scuttled off, her head bent. I would like to get her alone, thought Agatha. She’s been crying.
“Well, go on,” roared the blacksmith.
* * *
“That’s his work,” said Agatha outside. “Where’s his home?”
“It’s a cottage round the back. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. If Harry catches you, he’ll be furious.”
“Oh, come on,” said Agatha impatiently.
“Actually, I’ve got a lot to do.” Gareth hurried off, leaving Agatha glaring after him.
She squared her shoulders and went round the back of the shed.
The blacksmith’s home was a plain redbrick building with a scarred front door that looked as if someone had periodically tried to kick their way in. The window frames were badly in need of painting.
The door was standing open. Agatha rapped on it and called out, “Anyone home?”
Mrs. Crosswith emerged from the dark nether regions of the house. She had discarded her coat and was wearing an apron made out of an old sack. From her straggly unkempt hair down to her old cracked shoes she looked like a photograph of rural poverty in the forties. Her faded face showed vestiges of what had once been a pretty woman. There was a purple bruise on one cheek.
Impulsively, Agatha asked, “Does your husband beat you?”
One red hand crept up to cover the bruise. “Only when he has had the drink taken,” she said mournfully.
“Do you have children?” demanded Agatha.
“No.”
“Then let’s get you into a shelter for battered women. You don’t need to put up with this treatment.”
“You leave my Harry alone,” she shrieked. “You come round here, interfering. Get yourself a man.”
Agatha turned away in disgust. A clod of earth struck her on the back of the head. She swung round, picked up the clod and hurled it straight at the blacksmith’s wife. It struck her full in the face.
Running back to her car, Agatha drove off as quickly as possible and then parked some distance away, switched off the engine and began to claw bits of earth from her hair.
There was a rap at the car window and Agatha shied nervously, expecting to see the furious face of the blacksmith. But it was Charles Fraith, smiling at her. Agatha lowered the window. “Have you been rolling on the ground with the local fellows?” he asked.
“No. I’ve just been assaulted by the blacksmith’s wife. I need junk food. I’m going to the nearest McDonald’s.”
Charles went round the other side of her car and let himself into the passenger seat. “The nearest McDonald’s is in Evesham,” he said.
“Don’t care,” muttered Agatha, switching on the engine. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get there.”
* * *
“Rather like some sex,” said Charles, wiping his fingers after disposing of a Big Mac. “Better in the anticipation than the reality.”
Do you mean sex with me? Agatha wanted to ask, but feared the answer and started to talk about the little she knew about the case. A lump of earth she had missed fell out of her hair onto the table. An employee rushed forward with a damp cloth and cleared it up.
“So why did the blacksmith’s wife throw a clod of earth at you?” asked Charles.
A shaft of sunlight came through the window and lit up his neat, composed features, barbered hair and tailored clothes.
“I think she’s one of those martyrs,” said Agatha bitterly. “I bet if I’d got her out of there and she got a divorce, the next thing you know, she’d be off with the same sort of man. She’s eminently beatable. You know the type. They crave sympathy like a drug. I think the blacksmith did it. He was the one that put the trap in.”
“The way you’ve described it,” said Charles, “makes the whole village seem suspect. Why don’t you get Toni to help you?”
Agatha fought down a pang of jealousy. “I suppose I could do with some assistance,” she said. “I wonder whether I can get near the wife now.”
“No time like the present,” said Charles. “But I warn you. She is probably surrounded by helpful neighbours who won’t let us near her.”
* * *
When they drove away from Evesham, the sky had turned leaden grey. “Looks like snow,” said Charles.
“Surely not,” said Agatha. “What about global warming?”
“That’s up at the North Pole. Nobody told the weather gods to lay off the Costwolds.”
Agatha drove along the main street of Winter Parva and then suddenly stopped with a screech of brakes. “What happened?” asked Charles.
“Look!” exclaimed Agatha. “The baker’s shop is open.”
“Probably some help.”
“I’ll park and have a look inside anyway,” said Agatha. “Why can one never see a parking place in these villages?”
“There’s one right there.”
“You forget. I need a parking place the size of a truck.”
“Let me at the wheel and I’ll park for you.”
The parking expertly effected, they both got out and walked into the shop. A tall, slim young man with a sensitive face was serving customers, aided by a small, chubby girl with rosy cheeks.
Agatha and Charles inched forward until they were at the counter. “Are you Walt Simple?” asked Agatha.
“Yes.”
“My condolences on your sad loss.”
“Want to buy anything?” he asked.
“I am a private detective, Agatha Raisin, employed by Gareth Craven to find the murderer of your father. Is it possible to have a word with your mother?”
“Mum’s in the back shop, having a break.” He lifted a flap on the counter. “Go through.”
He led the way past gleaming ovens and into a small parlour where Gwen Simple sat, drinking tea.
The baker’s wife looked as if she had stepped down from a mediaeval painting. She had blond hair worn in an old-fashioned chignon which gleamed in the soft light from a table lamp beside her. She had a dead-white face, a long thin nose and thick hooded lids, shielding brown eyes. Her wool dress of green and gold was long. Her hands were very white with long, tapered fingers.
“Mum,” said Walt, “this is that detective woman. I’ve got to get back to the shop.”
“May we sit down?” asked Agatha.
Gwen nodded.
“This is a colleague of mine, Charles Fraith. I am Agatha Raisin. We are so sorry for your loss. Have you any idea who might have done such a dreadful thing?”
“No. You must have tea. Wait.”
Charles watched Gwen, fascinated, as the woman’s white fingers put tea into a pot and added boiling water from a kettle steaming on the Aga cooker in the corner. Her movements seemed to flow. It was like watching a sort of tea-making ballet. When she had put the tea with cups and saucers on the plain wooden table along with milk and sugar, she went to the fridge and produced a plate of iced buns filled with fresh cream and strawberry jam.
“You must try this,” she said in a gentle Gloucester accent. “The strawberry jam is my own.”
Charles did not much like sweet things but he felt almost hypnotised into taking a bun.
“This is delicious,” he said.
She smiled warmly at him, a small thin curved smile. “Mrs. Raisin?”
“No, thank you,” said Agatha. “Got to watch my figure.” Agatha’s mind was working busily. There was no sense of mourning in this house.
“Do you miss your husband?” she asked bluntly.
Gwen raised pencil-thin eyebrows, suddenly making Agatha feel crude and clumsy.
“Of cours
e,” she said. “But it is all too horrible to take in, so Walt and I go on as usual. I will be glad when the body is released and we can mourn properly.”
“Who would want to murder your husband?” asked Charles.
“I can’t believe that anyone would,” she said. “Everyone liked and respected Bert.”
“But Mr. Crosswith said that your husband had affairs.”
Those heavy lids masked her eyes for a moment. Then she looked steadily at Agatha. “Please leave. You are upsetting me. This is nothing more than malicious gossip.”
“We are very sorry,” said Charles. “But we must ask these awful questions.”
“I do not want to speak to you anymore.” She rose to her feet.
Charles took her hand. “If there is anything we can do…”
She smiled faintly. “I will let you know. But not her.”
Charles handed Gwen his card and ushered Agatha out through the shop.
“Don’t say anything until we get in the car,” muttered Charles. “You look ready to explode.”
* * *
“What a creepy phoney!” exclaimed Agatha, as soon as Charles was in the driving seat. “I bet she did it.”
“How could she manage all the technicalities?” said Charles. “But I tell you one thing. La Belle Dame sans Merci is the sort of woman most men would kill for.”
“La Bell … who?”
“It’s a poem by John Keats about a knight who is seduced by a fairy.”
“She’s just an ordinary housewife,” said Agatha jealously.
“Come on, Aggie. She looks as if she’d stepped down from a tapestry.”
“Well, you must admit, Charles, the lack of mourning is most odd.”
“Shock takes people strange ways.”
“I do believe you’re smitten.”
Charles grinned. “You’re jealous because she can make strawberry jam and bake while you just nuke stuff in the microwave.”
“I think her son does the baking and that jam was probably made by a local. I don’t believe a word that woman says.”
“Don’t worry, Agatha, I’ll hear from her quite soon.”
“Big-headed, aren’t you?”
“Not at all. She will study my card and see the title. She will look me up on the Internet and find I am not married. She wants the best for her son. Oh, let’s go and interview someone else. Look! Here comes the snow.”
Tiny little flakes were spiralling upwards as the streetlights blossomed in the late-afternoon gloom. “I don’t like it when the snow seems to be falling upwards,” said Charles. “Must have got really cold.”
“I’ll phone Gareth and get the address of Bessie Burdock,” said Agatha. “She played Mother Hubbard.”
* * *
Bessie Burdock lived on the council estate, which was, like all council estates, on the edge of the village. Most of the council houses were now privately owned. They were trim, stone, two-storied buildings with well-kept gardens, or what looked like well-kept gardens under the increasing blanket of snow.
Bessie, a voluminous woman, answered the door. From behind her came the sounds of screaming children. Agatha explained who they were and what they wanted.
“Come in,” she said. “I’ll get my daughter, Effie, to shut this lot up. Effie! Get ’em out into the back garden and make a snowman.”
A heavily tattooed teenager in a Goth outfit said, “Right, Mum. But I’m sick o’ the bastards.”
Bessie led them into a cosy front room. “Are all those children I hear yours?” asked Agatha.
“No, thank goodness,” said Bessie. “I mind the kids until their parents get back from work.”
Agatha thought she even looked the part of Mother Hubbard. Bessie was very fat. She had a big round head and several chins and a huge bosom.
“You’ll want to know about Bert,” she said. “Right awful to die that way. Must be some madman.”
“Did you like him?” asked Charles.
“No, I didn’t. I was sorry for Gwen, his wife. He was a crude bully. Great baker, mind you. Folks come from miles around to buy stuff at the village bakery.”
“Did he have affairs?” asked Agatha.
“Gossip here and there. That’s all. Nobody ever had any proof. My Effie loathed him.”
“Why? Did he make a pass at her?”
“No. He’d just shout insults at her in the high street, called her Night of the Living Dead. This Goth thing is just a phase. Folks are saying Gareth Craven maybe did it.”
“Why?” asked Charles and Agatha in unison.
“Gareth always fancied Gwen. He wanted to marry her at one time. When she got married to Bert, he went off and married someone else and that didn’t work out.”
“Who was Gareth married to?”
“Some woman in the BBC. She didn’t like it here. When they were married, Gareth lived in London. He kept on his house and came back here after he got the sack. That’s why he joined that Gilbert and Sullivan lot in Mircester. Gwen’s one of the stars.”
“If Bert Simple was the bully I believe him to have been,” said Agatha, “I’m surprised he allowed her to be part of it.”
“I think he was proud of her. There were always plenty of local girls to work in the bakery behind the counter.”
“Any of the girls report any trouble?”
“No. A lot fancy Walt.”
“I’m surprised the bakery is still open,” said Agatha.
“Walt told people that he and his mum found it the best way to cope with grief. They said Bert would have wanted it that way.”
Agatha asked more questions, not so much in the hope of gaining anything new, but of a reluctance to leave the cosy, chintzy room and go back out into the cold snow.
At last they thanked her and took their leave.
* * *
“Now for the First Murderer,” said Charles.
“And who’s that?” asked Agatha.
“Why, Gareth Craven. Who else?”
Chapter Three
Charles noticed that Agatha insisted on repairing her make-up before approaching Gareth Craven’s house.
His fears that Agatha might be in the grip of one of her unfortunate obsessions died when he met Gareth. The man was handsome, but in rather a weak way.
“I’m glad to see you,” said Gareth. “Oh, the police are looking for you, Mrs. Raisin.”
“Agatha, please. Why?”
“They came back to interview me again. They said that Mrs. Crosswith claimed you assaulted her.”
“She threw a clod of earth at me and I threw it back,” said Agatha.
“Well, they’re just setting up a mobile unit next to the market hall,” said Gareth. “Maybe you should drop in there and clear the matter up.”
“All right,” said Agatha irritably. “Why did the police want to see you again?”
“Oh, all that old history of me wanting to marry Gwen. If her husband had thought there was anything going on, he wouldn’t have let her perform for me.”
“Perform?” asked Agatha. “Do you mean he wanted to watch while you had sex with his wife?”
“Get your mind out of the sewer,” snapped Gareth, turning red. “Gwen is the leading lady in the Mircester Players. We are going to put on a production of The Mikado. John Hale plays the Mikado’s son and Gwen plays Yum-Yum. Gwen phoned me and said she wished to carry on with rehearsals. She is such a trouper. The police say the body will be released shortly. Everyone will feel better once the funeral is over.”
“Where is the funeral to take place?” asked Charles.
“It’s to be a non-religious service at Mircester crematorium.”
“I don’t know how everyone can feel better with a murderer at large,” said Agatha. “Is anyone else carrying a torch for Gwen?”
“Any more remarks like that and I shall regret employing you, Agatha. If you mean, was anyone so much in love with her that they would kill her husband—no.”
Except you, thought Agath
a.
* * *
They were just getting back into the car when Charles’s mobile rang. Agatha heard him say soothingly, “I’ll be right along.”
Agatha looked at the rather smug smile on Charles’s face. “Who was that?”
“The merry widow. She wants to talk to me.”
“Good! Let’s get going.”
“I have been ordered to leave you behind.”
“Snakes and bastards,” howled Agatha. “Who’s the detective? You or me.”
“You, detective. Me, marriageable man. Geddit?”
“Got it,” said Agatha sourly. “I may as well report to the police.”
* * *
Agatha drove the short distance to the mobile police unit. She reflected that she was falling into the villager’s lazy way of driving everywhere instead of walking.
To her relief, Bill Wong was there with two constables.
“I gather you’ve had a complaint about me,” said Agatha.
“Yes, pull up a chair, Agatha. What happened?”
“I had spoken to her and was just leaving when she threw a clod of earth that hit me on the head.” Agatha bent her head over the desk and combed her hair with her fingers. Several little bits of earth fell onto the white pages of a report. “See? So I threw it back.”
“Here’s paper and pen. Write down what happened. I don’t think we’ll be taking it further. We have been called out several times in the past by Mrs. Crosswith, claiming her husband had attacked her, but she always backed down.”
Agatha wrote busily and passed the report over to Bill.
“It’s all getting more and more complicated,” said Agatha. “It’s always the same. Someone dies or gets murdered and, at first, everyone says what a great person the deceased was and then nasty things begin to seep out. What do you think of Mrs. Simple?”
“Seems an ordinary sort of housewife to me.”
“Oh, Bill. I do love you.”
“Then don’t get under our feet,” warned Bill. “I don’t want you messing up a police investigation.”
“Did I ever?”
“Often.”
“And the result was, you got your murderer,” said Agatha.
“And the result on one or more occasions was that the police had to rescue you,” said Bill. “Off you go, and don’t hide evidence.”
