by M C Beaton
“I don’t do casual sex,” said Agatha.
“But this is not casual. My dearest, when I saw you walk into my classroom, I thought, this is the woman for me.”
Agatha could feel herself weakening. Why not? It had been a long time. What was up with wanting a night with this beautiful man whatever his motives?
“Sorry, I’ve got to go to the loo again,” said Agatha.
She frantically phoned Charles but his mobile was switched off.
When she returned, John’s doorbell rang. “Ignore that,” he said.
Agatha hesitated. She knew it was Charles. If he couldn’t get in, he might call the police, thinking something awful had happened to her.
“I think you should answer it,” she said firmly. “It might be the police.”
He got to his feet reluctantly, and pressed the bell to release the downstairs door.
Agatha could hear John saying sarcastically, “What an unexpected pleasure. What brings you here?”
And Charles’s voice coming closer. “I’ve come to rescue Agatha. I’ve got the four-by-four. She’ll never make it home in her own car.”
Charles strolled into the room. “Hi, Aggie. I’ve come to give you a lift home.”
“How did you know she was here?” demanded John.
“I told him,” said Agatha quickly. “May I have my coat, please?”
John fetched her coat from the bedroom and her cardigan and boots. Both men stood silently while Agatha got dressed.
“Well, thank you for a delightful evening,” said Agatha. “We must do this again.”
“When?” asked John.
“I’ll phone you. Bye. Come along, Charles.”
* * *
“So,” said Charles, as he drove cautiously through the snow, “why are you fleeing from Adonis back there?”
Agatha sighed. “He is beautiful, isn’t he? That wretched Toni.”
“What’s Toni got to do with it? Did she lure him away?”
“No, she said that maybe George Southern had paid John to take his place on opening night. It stuck in my head. I took a peek in his bank statement. A week before the performance, John received a deposit of one thousand pounds. Before that, he had only two hundred in his account. Toni said that maybe he was strapped for cash. He’s been married before and has a son.”
“You’d better tell Bill Wong. So do you think he was after your money?”
“I don’t want to,” said Agatha miserably. “But it was an awful dinner. Cheap microwave lasagne and Bulgarian wine that tasted like paint stripper. No starter or dessert. I don’t want to tell Bill. It’s my investigation.”
“If you don’t and if there’s another murder, and the murderer does turn out to be John, you’ll never forgive yourself.”
“I’ll phone him tomorrow,” said Agatha.
“I rescued you early. It’s only ten thirty. Phone him when we get back. You can’t look at his bank statements, but the police can, and they can find out if that thousand pounds came from George Southern.”
“It still doesn’t make John a murderer,” protested Agatha.
“It’s still very odd. These amateur dramatic people take themselves very seriously. You know that, Agatha. He must need money very badly.”
“I suppose so,” mumbled Agatha.
* * *
Once back in her cottage, Agatha phoned Bill after getting through the usual battle of pleading with his formidable mother to let him come to the phone. He listened carefully and then said, “Good work, Agatha. We can do with any lead.”
And Agatha, conscious of Charles listening to every word, said, “Actually, it was Toni who put me on to it. But I think you owe it to me. Let me know what you find out.”
“I can’t really do that, Agatha.”
“Oh, yes you can. If it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t even have thought of it.”
When Agatha said goodnight and rang off, she stood for a moment looking sadly down at the phone. She remembered John’s beauty and suddenly felt like a traitor.
Charles’s voice made her jump. “Have you thought, Agatha, that a man like John with those incredible good looks might rouse strong passions in people? For example, obsessions in women and jealousy in men.”
“Perhaps,” said Agatha reluctantly.
“Or perhaps,” Charles pursued, “beautiful John is the murderer. That bakery seems to be a thriving business and Gwen is an attractive woman. With her husband out of the way, she would be free to marry again.”
“So why come after me?” demanded Agatha.
“Maybe he is scared. He needs money but he won’t want to do anything that might make the police suspect him. You’ve got money. Marry you, bump you off after you’ve made your will and after a couple of years to allay suspicion and he’d be comfortably off.”
Agatha sat down at the kitchen table. “Then why go to all this elaborate business? All John had to do was bump off his ex.”
“True. But in that case he’d be first suspect. I’d like to talk to the ex. Why don’t we both go over to Oxford tomorrow?”
“In this weather! We’ll be lucky if we get out of the front door.”
Charles went to the kitchen door and looked out through the glass. “It’s stopped snowing. I’ve got snow tyres and the main roads will probably be gritted by the morning.”
“Okay,” agreed Agatha. She thought that, after all, it would be interesting to see what sort of female John had been married to. “I took a note of her address.”
* * *
They left the following morning and drove off into a silent, white countryside.
“We’d better take the road out through Burford,” said Charles. “They’re notoriously bad at gritting the Woodstock road.”
Once through Burford and onto the dual carriageway, it was easier going. As they reached the outskirts of Oxford, the sun shone down, glittering on the blanket of snow that covered the gardens of the houses in Summertown.
Agatha thought about John and Charles thought about Agatha. It would be hopeless being married to her, he thought, not for the first time. He would never be able to trust her. Agatha would always be one woman looking for an obsession.
“It’s down near the synagogue,” said Agatha, studying a map.
“I think there’s a good Lebanese restaurant close by,” said Charles.
“In this weather,” said Agatha, “I crave junk food.”
“All right. Here’s the address. Quite a handsome villa. I wonder if she owns all of it.”
“You can’t park here,” said Agatha. “It’s resident parking only.”
“They’re not going to be around to ticket people in this weather,” said Charles, driving neatly into the only free parking place on the street.
The steps up to the front door of the villa had not been cleared. Agatha was wearing ankle boots, but Charles had on a pair of green Wellingtons.
“You go first,” said Agatha, “and I’ll follow in your footsteps.”
“Sounds like Good King Wenceslas,” said Charles. “I wonder what this woman is like.”
Did John dump her, or was it the other way round? wondered Agatha.
It was a tall Victorian villa with handsome stained-glass panels on the door. Charles rang the bell. Agatha stood behind him, suddenly nervous. John’s ex was bound to be beautiful, a beauty that would make one middle-aged detective feel diminished.
The door opened and a small, dumpy woman stared at them. Her hair was in rollers and she was wearing a long droopy sweater over jeans. An incongruous pair of fluffy pink slippers decorated her feet.
The door began to close. “I’m not buying anything,” she said sharply. “I don’t believe in God and I have double glazing.”
“Mrs. Hale,” said Agatha quickly. “I am a private detective, hired to investigate the murders in Winter Parva. Here is my card.”
The door opened wide. “I don’t see what it has to do with me,” she said. “But I’m curious. Come in.”
As they entered the shadowy hall, two young women came down the stairs. “Bye, Mrs. H.,” said one. “Going to try to make it to college.”
“In here,” said Olivia Hale. She ushered them into a study lined with books. “I live on the ground-floor rooms and let the rest to students. If I waited for my ex to pay up on time, I’d starve.”
She sat behind a large desk and indicated they should sit in two seats facing her. The room was cold. A fly-speckled mirror hung over a tiled fireplace. In one corner on a low table was a small television set with two cups and an electric coffee maker.
“So what brings you?” she asked. “Suspect John of murdering people?”
“We have to find out the background of everyone involved,” said Agatha. “For example, have you any idea why John would step down from his part on opening night and let George Southern take his place?”
“Money, I should think,” said Olivia. “He is a very greedy man.”
Agatha’s heart sank. She had been secretly hoping to hear something good about John. Her rosy dream of marrying a gorgeous man finally disappeared.
“Was yours a bad marriage?” asked Charles.
“Not at first. It was fine until the money ran out. I had inherited a comfortable amount along with this house from my parents. I was so much in love, so dazzled that someone like me should snare such a beautiful man that I left the banking side to John, who insisted we have a joint account. He had told me he was well off and only continued schoolteaching because he felt committed to the job. So we had expensive foreign holidays and dined at the best restaurants. Then I had a baby. My son is seventeen now and will finish at Prince Edward’s in June. It was when I insisted he went to a private school that the trouble started. John said a state school was good enough and the boy could come to his school. I did not tell him, but I called in at the bank to check our finances. There was practically nothing left.
“I confronted John with it, and he waffled and said I had enjoyed all the foreign holidays and so on as much as he. So I said, at least we had this house and could let rooms. He hit the roof and said we could sell it for at least a million. I felt betrayed. We had poisonous rows and that was when he said, ‘You don’t think I married you for your looks.’ So I got a lawyer. An aunt died and left me some money. I didn’t tell John. I opened a separate account. I realised it would be enough to pay for a conversion to this villa. He agreed to the divorce but I made sure to get him to agree to alimony and child support. But murder! Not John. He’s too weak. I’m amazed he hasn’t found another rich woman to take my place. But I was old-fashioned. Any other woman would probably have seen through him.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I try to remember the good times but I can’t. He has no interest in our son. He’s a cold-hearted mercenary beast. And they call some women gold diggers!”
Agatha felt sad and wanted to get away from the villa. The study was filled with white light from the snow outside. She felt they were encased in a bubble of cold light, like figures in one of those glass snowstorms you found in gift shops.
“And you are really sure John could not be capable of murdering anyone?” asked Charles gently.
“No, but someday someone might murder him. God knows, I’ve dreamt about it often enough.”
“You have my card,” said Agatha. “If you think of anything, phone me.”
* * *
As they drove off, Agatha said, “I need junk food.”
“Don’t you care about your waistline?” asked Charles.
“Not today.”
“Do you think dear John might be our murderer?”
“No, it doesn’t seem like it,” said Agatha.
“But what if George Southern threatened to tell everyone about John taking money from him?”
“Not really enough motive.”
“Well, try this on for size. What if Bert Simple was blackmailing him over something?”
“Too far-fetched,” said Agatha. “Besides, he didn’t have anything to do with the pantomime.”
“No, but he didn’t need to. Anyone like John could have got below that stage between the dress rehearsal and the actual performance.”
“Oh, forget about John,” snapped Agatha. “What about you and Gwen?”
“She tried to get me to call again, but I told her I was too busy.”
“Aha!”
“Aha, what?”
“If she’s chasing after you, then she’s hardly the grieving widow.”
“Oh, shut up about it all,” said Charles. “One greasy spoon coming up. You’ll get a breakthrough soon.”
But as Agatha ploughed through a plate of egg, sausage, bacon and chips, she did not realise how long it would be before that breakthrough happened.
Chapter Six
It was only on television detective shows, thought Agatha bleakly, as she stared out at yet another grey cold day in late spring, that cases were quickly solved.
Winter had moved into a dismal cold spring, and Patrick Mulligan told Agatha that, according to his police sources, there was still not even a hint of the identity of the murderer.
Agatha had reinterviewed as many people as she could think of, with the exception of John Hale.
The weird thing was, that as time went by, the residents of Winter Parva seemed to settle down to their usual ways and forget about the murders. It had happened to Agatha before on a previous case where a whole village had decided the murderer must have been some visiting lunatic. Perhaps, thought Agatha, it was because the idea that the murderer might be one of them was too awful to contemplate. She had reluctantly told Gareth Craven at the end of January that she could not go on charging him until she produced results.
She worked hard on various other cases. Charles had disappeared again and James Lacey was off on his travels.
She had one last try at interviewing the Buxton family to try to find out if Kimberley had really been sexually attacked but the girl’s parents threatened to take her to court and charge her with harassment.
The weather continued as gloomy as Agatha’s mood. She had put Roy Silver off several times, but finally decided to invite him because she was feeling lonely. Agatha always felt lonely when she was not in love with anyone.
Roy, a rather effeminate young man who had once worked for Agatha, arrived on the Saturday morning. To Agatha’s relief, he was, for once, conservatively dressed. Roy, who worked for a public relations firm, was handling a new account for expensive men’s shoes. Like a chameleon, Roy dressed according to whatever client he happened to be representing. If he were representing, say, a pop group, then he would have gelled, spiky hair and jeans torn at the knee.
“The weather is simply awful,” said Agatha. “It’s so cold that everything is late. I haven’t even seen a daffodil, and what’s that white blossom that’s usually out by now?”
“Blackthorn,” said Roy.
“How do you know that?” asked Agatha.
“I did PR for the Country People magazine. I learned ever such a lot of boring rural stuff. So how’s murder?”
“Nothing,” said Agatha. “I’ve tried and tried. Now, what can I do to entertain you?”
“There’s a performance of The Mikado in Mircester this evening. We could go,” said Roy. “You can point out all the suspects to me.”
* * *
It was a full house. Agatha was lucky enough to get two last-minute cancellations.
Roy wondered if something would happen. He was addicted to publicity for himself and in the past had muscled in on Agatha’s cases, just to get his photograph in the newspapers.
Edging forward on his seat, Roy whispered, “Who is that gorgeous man?”
“John Hale,” said Agatha. “I’ll tell you about him afterwards.”
John and Gwen turned out to have beautiful voices. The performance went without a hitch, much to Roy’s disappointment. He began to wish he had not come. The weather was dreary and Agatha’s microwave cookery was awful.
To hi
s relief, Agatha suggested they have dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. “Now, fill me in,” said Roy.
“John Hale is a schoolteacher and a mercenary bastard,” said Agatha. “He chased after me because he thought I was rich. The late George Southern paid him one thousand pounds to take his place on opening night. The police found that out. But John swore blind that George was repaying a loan. That it had nothing to do with letting George take the starring role. So back to square one. When George was murdered, John was in rehearsals and there was no way he could have done it.
“Now, Gwen Simple, wife of the first murdered man, showed no sign of grief or shock. But I can’t see her as a murderer.”
“She and John are sweet on each other,” said Roy.
Agatha pointed a chopstick at him. “How can you know that?”
“Body chemistry. Bet you anything they’ve been to bed together.”
Agatha was amazed to feel a pang of pure jealousy. She didn’t want John, did she?
“Do you know where he lives?” asked Roy.
“Yes, he’s got a flat near the theatre.”
“Let’s go and spy on him,” said Roy eagerly. “They’ve got to take off their make-up. Hurry up and finish eating.”
* * *
Agatha was just driving past the theatre when John came out with Gwen. She stopped and watched. John and Gwen walked to a parked car. John held the door open for Gwen and then got into the driving seat. When he moved off, Agatha followed.
“They’re heading for Winter Parva,” she said.
“So maybe he’ll stay the night,” said Roy.
“So what?” grumbled Agatha. “That won’t get us any further.”
“But it might give John a reason to murder her husband,” said Roy.
At last, John stopped outside the bakery. He walked round and opened the passenger door and helped Gwen out. He walked up to the door of the bakery with her, said something, kissed her on the cheek and went back to his car.
“Now, that’s what I call a waste of time,” said Agatha.
Roy decided to leave first thing in the morning. Nothing was going to happen that might result in him getting his picture in the newspapers. He had driven himself to Carsely instead of coming by train as he usually did.
