by M C Beaton
“Oh, yes,” said Agatha, giving him an orange smile.
They chose their meals and then Paul talked about farming while Agatha, not really listening, wondered if the blacksmith had gone on holiday or fled out of the country.
“It was terrible last year,” Paul was saying. “My fields were flooded.”
“How awful,” murmured Agatha, thinking, I really should call on Bill Wong. He hasn’t called me in ages.
She suddenly realised Paul was coming to the end of an anecdote. “And old Jimmy said, ‘Reckon you do be right.’” Paul laughed heartily and Agatha laughed as well.
This won’t do, she thought frantically. You can’t have a marriage where you don’t even listen to the man.
He then asked Agatha how work was going and Agatha chatted on until the end of the meal, thinking all the time, he’s nice and strong and I haven’t had sex in ages. But it’s no go. There just isn’t that spark there. She felt suddenly depressed and insisted on paying for the meal as a compensation for having encouraged him.
They were just getting up to leave when Luke, Paul’s son, walked into the restaurant. “Hi, Pops!” he said, ignoring Agatha. “I thought you’d like a lift home. The police are out tonight with their breathalysers. I can run you back for your car in the morning.”
“How did you know I was here?” demanded Paul.
“You told Jimmy where you were in case there was any trouble with the lambing,” said Luke.
“And is there?”
“No, fortunately. Let’s go.”
“I’ll see you outside,” said Paul. “I want to say goodnight to Agatha.”
When his son had left, Paul took her hand. “I can send him away,” he said. “We could have a nightcap at your place.”
“Maybe another time,” said Agatha. “Got an early start in the morning.”
* * *
This is silly, thought Agatha. Why must I chase after men I have nothing in common with? She let herself into her cottage. But it would be nice, she thought sadly, to have a warm man in a warm bed.
The next morning, she called at police headquarters and asked to speak to Bill Wong, only to be told it was his day off.
Agatha headed out to his home, dreading meeting Bill’s mother, who, she knew, did not like her one bit. In fact, she often thought that Bill seemed unaware that his mother put a stop to him having any relationship with any woman whatsoever. His father was Hong Kong Chinese but had been in England for so long that he had a Gloucestershire accent.
Mrs. Wong answered the door. She was wearing an apron over a droopy dress and carpet slippers. The last woman alive to wear an apron, thought Agatha.
“You can’t see him,” she said. “Goodbye.” The door slammed.
Agatha was retreating down the path when the door opened again and Bill called, “I thought I heard your voice. Come in. Poor mum has such a bad memory for faces that she did not recognise you and thought you were selling something.”
Oh, yeah, thought Agatha, but followed him to his home and into the antiseptic living room where everything was so clean and polished that it glittered.
“You’re supposed to take the plastic covering off the furniture,” said Agatha. “Must be hell on the bum in the hot weather.”
“Only if you sit on it naked,” said Bill equably. “Mum says it keeps the dust off and we only use this room for guests. We can join her in the kitchen, if you like?”
“No, this is fine. I called on the blacksmith yesterday only to find he’s gone to Bangkok. Did you know about this?”
“No. We’re still on the case, of course. But to be honest, we’re not getting any further,” said Bill. “Winter Parva is a small village. Someone must know something. What about Gareth Craven? He must know the villagers well.”
“I’ll try him again,” said Agatha. “There’s something else.” She told Bill about Mrs. Crosswith’s affair. “And,” said Agatha, “I bet the new boyfriend turns out to like beating up women. Women like her never learn.”
“We’d better get after Harry Crosswith,” said Bill. “But the trouble is, we’ve got no evidence that he is a murderer.”
“Did forensics not come up with anything?” asked Agatha.
“Not even a hair. The trouble is with all those reality crime shows on television, everyone who watches them gets instructions on how to clean up a crime scene. There was no forced entry. You and Lacey just walked in. Somebody took that sword out of the theatre. Maybe Southern himself, planning some other joke.”
“How did you get on with Gwen Simple?” asked Agatha.
“I think she helped as much as she could.”
“And the son?”
“Him, too. The latest news is that they’re going to sell the bakery.”
“John Hale will like that,” said Agatha. “He’s desperate for money.”
“He may be disappointed. Gwen gave the shop to her son so any money from the sale goes to him.”
Agatha grinned. “Then I’ll be amazed if the wedding goes ahead.”
“I often wonder about Hale,” said Bill. “Rumour round the village says that he was keen on Gwen for a long time.”
“So was Gareth Craven. I still wonder if he hired me to investigate so that he wouldn’t be suspected. I think I’ll pay him a visit, although I am wasting precious time. I told him I wouldn’t charge him until I had something concrete.”
“So how’s your love life?” asked Bill.
“Know anything about a farmer called Paul Newton?”
“Rings a bell. I know, he reported the theft of a tractor last year and I went out to take down the details. Seems pleasant. Been courting you?”
“I suppose you could call it that. I think he just wants sex.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He came up to me in Jacey’s. Said he was a friend of James.”
“So ask James about him.”
“James is away on his travels,” said Agatha.
“I haven’t offered you coffee or anything,” said Bill. “I’ll ask Mother to make us some.”
“No, don’t!” said Agatha. “I’d better be off. I’ll call on Gareth and then get back to all the work I ought to be doing.”
* * *
Gareth seemed pleased to see Agatha. He supplied her with a cup of excellent coffee and an ashtray.
“Any news?” he asked.
“Dead ends all round except that Harry Crosswith has gone to Bangkok and his wife is having an affair.”
“She’d never dare!”
“I assure you, she has. I saw them.”
“What did the man look like?”
“Big, heavyset chap, working clothes, curly brown hair, broad piggy face.”
“That sounds like Jed Widdle.”
“Who’s he?”
“He’s a builder. Works on construction sites. Lives in a cottage on the road out of the village. I wouldn’t have thought she would have had the courage. And I don’t care if Harry is in Bangkok. He’d need to be dead before she started anything.”
Agatha looked at him and then said slowly, “What if he is dead?”
“Not another murder!”
“I’d like to check. I’ll get someone to help me.”
* * *
Agatha phoned Simon and told him to join her outside the market hall. When he finally arrived, she briefed him, and then said, “Where would they have got rid of a body?”
“It’s a smithy, isn’t it?” said Simon. “Cut him up and put him in the fire.”
“We’ll park down the lane from the smithy,” said Agatha. “We wait until she goes out and then we start to search.”
He got into Agatha’s car and they drove to the end of the lane.
“Will spring never come?” mourned Simon, looking out at the grey day. Although there was no rain, the wind was rising. A crisp packet flattened itself against the windscreen before being torn away to dance up the lane.
“Does Toni ever talk about me?” asked Simon
.
Agatha glanced sideways at his sad jester’s face. “I’m afraid not, Simon. Give up. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive you for dumping that girl at the altar. You couldn’t have been that keen on Toni to go and propose to someone else, and then decide you didn’t want her.”
“It all happened when I was in the army in Afghanistan,” said Simon sulkily. “You bond with the oddest people out there.”
“Get down!” said Agatha. “Here she comes.”
Mrs. Crosswith was coming down the lane. She was wearing high-heeled boots and a scarlet coat.
“Right,” said Agatha, straightening up. “Let’s go and have a look.”
“That’s odd,” said Simon as they walked into the yard.
“What’s odd?”
“The smithy isn’t locked and there’s all this metal lying around. It’s a wonder thieves haven’t pinched it and shipped it to China.”
They walked into the smithy. “It’s pretty dark in here,” said Simon. “Want me to switch on the lights?”
“No, leave it,” said Agatha. “Don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“It’s an earth floor,” said Simon. “Handy for burying a body. Hey! What’s this?”
Agatha came to join him. “What’s what?”
“Look where the earth has been freshly turned over. Give me something to dig with.”
Agatha found a spade and handed it to him. “Go carefully,” she warned. “If there’s a body there, we don’t want to be accused of messing up a crime scene.”
Simon scraped away at the earth with the back of the spade. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Bones.”
“Can’t be the blacksmith. There would be a decomposing body at least.”
“They could have boiled the flesh off.”
“Ugh! Leave it. Let’s get out of here and I’ll call the police.”
* * *
Agatha and Simon stood and shivered in the cold while a forensics team worked on the floor of the smithy.
Then there was a shriek of outrage as Mrs. Crosswith ran into the yard. “What the hell are you doing?” she screamed.
Inspector Wilkes said solemnly, “We need to take you in for questioning. A skeleton has been found buried in the smithy.”
“That’s Jess, you idiot,” she shouted.
“Jess?”
“Our old dog.”
Wilkes turned a fulminating eye on Agatha before striding into the smithy.
With a sinking heart, Agatha waited for him to reappear while Mrs. Crosswith said to her, “If it was you, mucking around in there and poking your nose in, I’ll have you for trespass.”
When Wilkes came out, he said, “I am sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Crosswith. But you will need to come to headquarters with us. We have some questions to ask you about the whereabouts of your husband.”
Bill must have told him about Bangkok, thought Agatha. “And you,” said Wilkes to Agatha, “follow us. I’ve got some questions to ask you.”
* * *
Agatha waited a long time with Simon at police headquarters in Mircester until they were summoned to an interviewing room. Wilkes was flanked by a detective Agatha had not met before.
The interview began. “Why were you searching around the smithy?” began Wilkes.
So Agatha told him of her suspicions.
“Did you tell Detective Wong that you meant to go and search the smithy?”
“Definitely not. When did Harry Crosswith leave for Bangkok?”
“Just leave the investigation to the police,” snapped Wilkes. “I will not charge you with wasting police time on this occasion, but a repeat of anything like this and I will throw the book at you.”
* * *
When they finally left police headquarters, Simon said, “They’ll check all the airlines and if there is no sign of the blacksmith having booked a flight, then that wife of his will be in trouble.”
They went back to the office and, to Simon’s dismay, he was given the details of two missing dogs and told to look for them.
Simon often wanted to shine in Agatha’s eyes. He knew she rated him much lower than Toni and when she went on holiday, it was Toni who was left in charge.
To his relief, he found both dogs at the Animal Rescue Centre, and wondered why the owners never thought to check there first. Also as both dogs had been microchipped and the owners had been informed and were on their way to collect their pets, it cancelled out the agency’s fee.
He suddenly decided to go back to the smithy and see if he could find anything. It was getting dark and he figured he could hide in some bushes he had seen at the entrance to the blacksmith’s yard. But the smithy was dark and deserted. He went round to the back and saw the redbrick house. A light was on in a downstairs room. Simon crept up to the window and listened.
“Don’t worry, my chuck, they’ll never find the bastard,” said a man’s voice.
“There hasn’t been rain in ages. What if that pond dries up?”
“It’s been too grey and cold. No sun. Stop…”
The voices moved away and the light in the downstairs room went off. The front door began to open. Simon nipped quietly round the side of the building, his heart hammering.
He waited until they had driven off and wondered what to do. He couldn’t phone the police, because he and Agatha had been warned off.
What pond?
He took himself off to the pub, ordered a half of lager, and said to the barmaid, “Are there any ponds around the village?”
“Thinking of going fishing?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“Won’t do you no good, m’dear. There’s just the one pond up on Sar Field and it got nothing in there but rubbish.”
“And how do I get to Sar Field?”
“You go out the village, past the church and just before the turn-off to the Evesham road, you’ll see the pond in the field on your right. But what do you want to go there for?”
“It’s for a bet,” said Simon.
He gulped down his drink and left. He blessed the day he had taken up fishing, because he had a pair of waders in the back of his car.
Simon located the pond and walked towards it carrying a torch and his waders. He sat down on a tussock of grass and pulled his waders on. He stood up and shone his torch at the pond. A shopping market trolley stuck out at the edge of the water along with an old sofa. Wishing he had brought a stick to test the depth of the water, he gingerly stepped into the pond.
A sliver of new moon shone down. Icy ripples ran across the pond, driven by a stiff wind. He shone his powerful torch down into the water but the ripples distorted everything.
* * *
It was a quiet night in the pub and the barmaid was telling everyone about the young man who was going to the pond for a bet. Jed Widdle heard her and made for the door.
Two young men finished their drinks and one said, “Let’s go to the pond. I want to see what this bet is.”
* * *
Simon was beginning to feel it was all hopeless. He would need a long rod to poke about. He had just reached the edge of the pond when a pair of strong hands seized him and thrust him down into the icy water. He fought and struggled, feeling himself getting weaker, when he was suddenly released. His attacker had propelled him into a deep part of the pond. He struggled to the shore, cursing the dragging weight of his water-filled waders.
The two young men from the pub helped him out. “What’s going on, mate?” one asked. “We saw Jed Widdle trying to drown you.”
“Get the police,” said Simon.
* * *
Wrapped in blankets, Simon sat in a police car. Detective Constable Alice Peterson was in the front. “Can I borrow your phone?” asked Simon. “Mine’s at the bottom of the pond. I have to phone Agatha.”
“Sorry,” said Alice. “Wilkes would kill me.”
* * *
The ringing of her bedside phone woke Agatha. “What is it?” she demanded.
/> “It’s Chris Jenty here, Agatha. Mircester Echo. Do you know what’s going on at the pond outside Winter Parva? Your detective is there in a police car. Someone tried to attack him and the police are draining the pond.”
By the time Agatha arrived at the pond, a small crowd of villagers had gathered. She saw Simon sitting in the police car and rapped on the window. He rolled it down.
“Are you all right?” asked Agatha. “Are they looking for Crosswith?”
“I think he must be in the pond,” said Simon. “I was looking because I overheard Mrs. Crosswith and Jed talking about a pond.”
“That’s enough, Mrs. Raisin,” said Alice. “Mr. Black will be questioned later.”
Police had put tape around the scene, which Agatha had ducked under on her arrival. A policeman told her to get back and she reluctantly agreed.
Chris Jenty came to join her. “I heard Wilkes order a search for Jed Widdle. He took off over the fields, say the fellows who rescued Simon. Jed was trying to drown him. I heard Wilkes say that if the body of the blacksmith is found, he’ll forgive Simon. If not, he’ll throw the book at him for interfering in a police investigation.”
“Rubbish,” said Agatha. “Oh, look. A couple of divers have arrived. I didn’t think the pond would be that deep.”
“Maybe not. But it’s a bit of a rubbish tip and they’ve got to scrabble around the bottom.”
A couple of floodlights had been erected. Agatha nervously lit a cigarette. “Disgusting habit,” complained a man behind her.
Agatha swung round. “Oh, shut up, you tiresome man,” she yelled.
“Steady,” admonished Chris. “Look.”
One of the divers had surfaced and held up a hand.
“If they’ve found a body and it’s weighted down, how are they going to get it out?” asked Agatha.
“Pull it out,” said Chris. “They’re fastening a rope to the tow bar of that police Land Rover.”
Everyone fell silent. The Land Rover backed slowly. Something wrapped in black plastic was slowly pulled up from the pond and onto the bank. A tent was quickly erected over it.
Patrick Mulligan appeared at Agatha’s side. “I got a tipoff,” he said. “I went to the smithy. Police all over the place but no sign of the wife.”
“Anyone in the police here that you know?” asked Agatha.
