by M C Beaton
“Agatha!” exclaimed James. “Welcome. I’ve been reading about you. Come in.”
Settling happily on the sofa while James went to make her a coffee, Agatha reflected that having James back next door gave her a much-needed feeling of security.
When he came back with her coffee, she said, “I’ve just been having lunch with Jeremy Rutherford. Evidently, he knows you.”
“Oh, him. I actually don’t know him very well. I bumped into him in Mircester a couple of days before our wedding. I knew him in Iraq. We had a drink and talked a bit.”
“Is he married?”
“I don’t know. Still husband hunting, Agatha? Weren’t two marriages enough for you?”
“I am not husband hunting!”
“Never mind,” said James. “Tell me all about your adventures.”
So Agatha did, although she felt she had been talking about them so much recently that her own voice seemed to belong to someone else.
When she had finished, James looked worried. “I’ve a feeling he’ll try to get you again. Why isn’t there a policeman outside your door?”
“I don’t know. Although Wilkes is so furious with me, he probably hopes I will get bumped off.”
James rose and began to pace up and down the room. “Look, Agatha,” he said at last. “You’d better move in here and bring your cats.”
Agatha surveyed his handsome face and figure, thinking ruefully of the days when such an invitation would have sent her to seventh heaven.
But such security would be a relief. “All right,” she said.
“Give me your car keys. I’ll park your car somewhere out of sight,” said James. “You go and pack. I’ll be along in a short time to carry the cat boxes for you.”
* * *
Agatha had forgotten just how fussy James was. She had to make sure that she always put a coaster under her coffee or wineglass. She slept in the spare room. The bed was not only covered by a duvet but a top sheet as well and that top sheet was firmly anchored. She had wrenched it loose and thrown it on the floor only to find it back on the bed later the next morning.
James settled down to work after breakfast. Agatha switched on the television and James told her to switch it off because the noise was too distracting. Agatha took a Kindle out of her handbag and turned it on.
James glanced up. “I’m shocked you have one of those, Agatha. Don’t you ever think of the poor booksellers being put out of business by these electronic monsters?”
“I have plenty of real books in my cottage,” said Agatha huffily. “Go back to your work and leave me alone.”
Agatha began to read a new detective story. The plot was going along nicely until Agatha got to the bit where the hero was estranged from his father and he was telling his lady love all about his dysfunctional childhood. “Pah!” said Agatha.
“Pah what?” asked James, looking up.
“It’s happening in books and on television,” complained Agatha. “The hero always has issues with his father, and in television series, you just know there’s going to be a long cheesy bit where they get round to the reconciliation. Of course it saves the script writers a lot of words as father and son gaze into each other’s eyes in silence accompanied by an angel choir.”
“You had a rotten upbringing,” said James, who had heard about Agatha’s drunken parents.
“Yes, but I moved on,” said Agatha impatiently. “Oh, well, I’ve started this story so I may as well read the damn thing.”
But the book could not hold Agatha’s attention. She went up to the spare room and collected her iPad and took it out into the garden, letting her cats out at the same time. She sat down at the garden table and downloaded an old James Bond movie with Sean Connery in the lead.
Her mobile phone rang just as Bond was confronting Blofeld. It was Toni. “Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m staying at James’s place.”
“I’d like to see you,” said Toni. “I’m outside your cottage.”
Agatha reluctantly switched off the movie. “Come along.”
“It’s Toni,” said Agatha, walking past James to the front door. And that’s made him switch off his computer, thought Agatha jealously, remembering when James had had a crush on Toni.
“So what brings you?” asked Agatha, sourly noticing Toni’s attractive outfit of shorts and white blouse.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Toni. “Walt must be obsessed with his mother in some sick way or he wouldn’t have killed John Hale and in such a macabre and horrible way. I read your report. Those meat pies were served at the reception. Did he feed one to his mother?”
“Or did his mother know about it?” said Agatha.
“The thing is,” said Toni eagerly, “that I cannot see Walt hiding out and not trying to get in touch with his mother. The police won’t expect him to go back to the bakery. So why don’t we go over after dark and see if we can see anything?”
“It may be dangerous,” protested James.
“It’s surely more dangerous to leave Agatha like a tethered goat, waiting for Walt to attack.”
“All right,” said Agatha. “We’ll go after dark.”
* * *
That evening, the three of them crept along the dark lane at the back of the bakery. James located a high wooden door. It was fastened by a large padlock. He took a ring of skeleton keys out of his pocket and got to work. It took him twenty minutes to pick the lock.
They found themselves in a backyard where piles of discarded junk lay in heaps.
James turned round and whispered to Agatha, “You should stand by the back gate on lookout and I and Toni will see if we can hear anything from the bakery.”
“Why me?” asked Agatha.
“Oh, don’t argue.”
Agatha retreated sulkily to the gate.
The village had old-fashioned lights in the main street so there was no orange sodium glare to blot out the stars. It was a beautiful, tranquil evening.
Then she became aware of a feeling of menace. She decided to go and join James and Toni. She was just going forwards when something cold and metallic was pressed against her neck and a voice in her ear said, “You will do exactly what you are told or I will blow your brains out.”
Agatha nodded dumbly.
“Shout out loudly that you are going home. Do it!”
Agatha called out, “I’m going home!”
At the back of the house, James cursed. Lights came on at the back of the bakery and Gwen’s voice could be heard calling, “Who’s there?”
James and Toni crouched down behind two large bins. A door opened and the light from a powerful torch played across the garden. Toni shivered and worried. Agatha’s voice had sounded peculiar. At last the torch was switched off and they could hear the back door close.
They hurried down the garden. No Agatha stood at the gate. At first they assumed she had gone into hiding when she had heard Gwen’s voice. They ran up and down the lane, calling, “Agatha!” in soft voices, and then, throwing caution to the winds, yelled her name out.
“Something awful has happened,” said Toni. “I’m calling the police.”
* * *
Agatha had been forced into a wheelie bin, which was tipped over and rolled onto a wheelbarrow. Her mouth had been taped shut. Her hands and feet were bound. She had caught a frightened glimpse of Walt’s face before being incarcerated in the bin.
Soon she was conscious of the bin being wheeled upwards. Doors were slammed shut and then the sound of an engine starting up.
Whatever vehicle she was in seemed to drive through the night for a long time.
Exhausted with fear, she nearly fell asleep when the vehicle came to an abrupt stop and she could hear the sound of rushing water.
The falls on the River Mir, thought Agatha. He’s going to tip me over.
She heard the doors at the back open and then felt herself being wheeled out.
Agatha made strangled sounds of distress behind her gag a
nd kicked against the sides of the bin.
Walt wheeled the bin to the edge of the bridge over the falls.
He heard a man shout, “Here! You! You can’t dump stuff in the river.”
Walt swung round and saw a man who had been walking his dog, staring at him. Heaving the bin over, Walt turned round and raised his gun.
Before he could fire, the dog, a powerful Alsatian, leapt for his throat. Walt was driven back against the low parapet of the bridge and sent flying over into the falls. A bullet fired from his gun shot harmlessly into the air.
He went down and down. His head struck a rock and his body whirled round and round into the pool below the falls and slowly sank.
Above, on the bridge, the dog owner called the police.
* * *
The bin survived the falls and sailed lazily round in the pool below. Just as it was about to sink, a little current carried it over to the bank and it wedged under the bank of a willow tree.
Inside the bin, Agatha shivered and prayed. She was sure that any moment now, Walt would descend and put a bullet through the bin. She had heard that shot and assumed Walt had shot the man who had accosted him.
* * *
Police were scouring the village of Winter Parva and the surrounding countryside. A police helicopter hovered overhead. Wilkes was furious. He knew there would be an enquiry as to why he had not given Agatha police protection.
Gwen had been interviewed and had said through her tears that she had not seen her son.
James and Toni had been joined by Simon, Patrick and Phil. Suddenly they heard Wilkes shout something and the police cars stared to race off.
“Let’s follow them!” shouted Toni.
* * *
As someone once pointed out, there are no agnostics on the battlefield. Slumped in the bottom of the bin, Agatha started to do deals with the God she never quite believed in. She was just saying, “If you get me out of this, I’ll never smoke again,” when she heard the sound of police sirens. Car doors slammed. She could soon hear bodies crashing down through the undergrowth. Agatha made frantic moaning sounds from behind her gag.
A man’s voice said, “Get a knife. The lid of the bin’s shut. Are you in there, Mrs. Raisin?”
Frantic mumbles from Agatha.
The lid was lifted and concerned police faces looked down. The bin was heaved up onto the bank and tilted on its side. Agatha screamed in pain as she was pulled out. “I think I’ve broken something,” she gasped as soon as her gag was removed and her feet and wrists untied.
She was placed on a stretcher and carried up to a waiting ambulance. Before she was loaded in, Wilkes glared down at her and shouted, “You stupid woman. It’s all your own fault.”
“Now, then,” said Bloggs, pulling him away. “That’s enough of that. We’ve got Simple.”
“Are you sure?” gasped Agatha. “What if he escapes?”
“He won’t,” said Bloggs. “He’s dead.”
“Thank God,” said Agatha Raisin.
Epilogue
It turned out that Agatha had two broken ribs. She got herself moved to a private room at the hospital, observing cynically that there was a police guard outside now that she did not need one. She did not know that the police guard was there to stop any members of the press from interviewing her.
One of her visitors was Roy Silver, who, Charles informed her later, was holding press conferences outside the hospital.
“What I wonder,” said Agatha to Mrs. Bloxby when the vicar’s wife called, “is why Walt went to all that elaborate business of taking me up to the falls.”
“He wanted you to suffer. He thought of you as rubbish to be disposed of. His murders were always elaborate.”
“I sometimes wonder if I should retire and let Toni run the agency,” said Agatha.
“You’d get bored quickly,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “But why don’t you take a holiday somewhere?”
“I might. I’ve had lots of visitors, except for Jeremy Rutherford.”
“And who is Mr. Rutherford?”
“He runs an antique shop. We had a couple of meals together. Oh, well, he’s obviously not interested. I’ll be glad to get home. They are releasing me tomorrow. My ribs are strapped up. In fact, I wonder why they keep me in here so long.”
“Perhaps the police don’t want you to leave until the press have lost interest,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“What I cannot understand,” said Agatha, “is why Gwen has not been charged with anything, or so Patrick tells me. I mean, wasn’t she around when her son was cutting up a dead body? At least Jed is now only charged with Crosswith’s murder. They’ve got Walt for the murder of Hale and they’re pretty sure he killed his father and George Southern.”
“My husband was called over to comfort Mrs. Simple,” said Mrs Bloxby. “She’s in a terrible state. You see, they always made their own meat pies. A carcase would be delivered from the butcher and cut up at the bakery. Walt, like his father, was trained how to butcher meat. She said that latterly she left all the baking and pie making to her son.”
“I think she’s a slimy, devious woman,” said Agatha, “and I bet she knew something.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Have you seen Sir Charles or Mr. Lacey?”
“Yes, that nearly finished basket of fruit is from James. It’s nearly finished because Charles ate most of it. Oh, I would like to go home.”
“I’ll wait until you see a doctor and find out if it’s all right,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Then I can drive you home.”
* * *
Later that day, Agatha sat in Mrs. Bloxby’s little car as the vicar’s wife drove her down the green lanes to Carsely. The day was sultry with great black clouds looming up in the west.
Agatha refused to go to the vicarage, saying she would be all right on her own. The fact was that she craved a cigarette, although she remembered uneasily promising God to give up smoking if she were saved.
Her cleaner had delivered her cats. Agatha sat down on the floor and patted them. She found her hands were beginning to shake. She still had nightmares about her brush with death. She let the cats out into the garden, made herself a cup of strong black coffee and went and sat at the garden table.
Opening a packet of Bensons, Agatha lit a cigarette. A great flash of forked lightning stabbed down, followed by a drum roll of thunder.
Agatha was struck by superstitious dread. She hurriedly stubbed out the cigarette as the rain came down in sheets and her cats scampered indoors for shelter.
There was a pile of mail on the kitchen table. Agatha sat down and flicked through it. One large square envelope caught her eye. She opened it up.
At first she thought it was a wedding invitation but on reading the curly embossed script, she found it was an invitation from Jeremy Rutherford to a party at his home. She quickly checked the date. The party was due to take place in three days’ time on Saturday evening.
All Agatha’s fears left her as she began to plan what to wear.
* * *
In the next few days, she was too busy getting her face done at the beautician’s and her hair freshly tinted to wonder overmuch why James had not called on her.
By Saturday, the weather was glorious again. Agatha set out wearing a scarlet silk chiffon dress cut on the bias so that it seemed to float around her when she walked.
Jeremy Rutherford’s house turned out to be a large Georgian building set in its own grounds. There were a lot of cars already parked outside the mansion. Someone rapped on her window as she hesitated, wondering where to find a space. She lowered the window to find herself confronted by a young man wearing a parking attendant’s hat, a black leather thong, high boots and nothing else.
“There’s a space over there beside that Jag,” he said politely.
Agatha moved her car into the space. He might have told me it was fancy dress, she thought.
She went into the house. There were two rooms off a large square hall and all seemed to be
filled with men. There were men over at a buffet in the hall, men in one of the rooms dancing together, men hugging each other, and a few women. Oh, no, thought Agatha. They’re not women, they’re men in drag.
Jeremy emerged from the crowd. He was wearing a black T-shirt and tight black trousers. “Listen up, folks!” he shouted. “This is the famous Agatha Raisin you’ve all read about.”
Faces crowded around Agatha. They’re all looking at me as if I were some strange beast, thought Agatha.
“Jeremy,” she said firmly, “this is not my scene and you should have known that. I don’t want to be on display.”
She turned and marched out the door, followed by cries of, “Ooh! Temper. Temper.”
Jeremy caught up with her as she was getting into her car. “I’m sorry, Agatha. Do come back in. Everyone’s dying to meet you.”
“Maybe another time,” said Agatha, and drove off.
* * *
She found Charles waiting for her when she arrived home. He laughed when she told him about the party. “Antiques, Agatha. You should have known.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” snapped Agatha. “I know a lot of heterosexual antique dealers. I might have stayed if it hadn’t been obvious that he’d only invited me along as some sort of curiosity. What a waste! A lot of the fellows were very good-looking.”
“How are you feeling now that you’re home?” asked Charles.
“A bit shaky but I’ll get over it. Gareth Craven sent a large cheque. I’m still bothered about Gwen.”
“Yes, she got off, didn’t she?”
“If mother and son were so unhealthily close as to make Walt want to bump off her fiancé, then it stands to reason she must have known something. Stop reading my mail.”
“I like reading other people’s mail. So much more interesting than mine. Oh, look at this. Carsely’s got its own therapist. Maybe you should go.”
“Let me see. Jill Davent, qualified therapist. Leave your troubles with me. Yack, yack, yack. Bound to be a charlatan.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s working from home. Ivy Cottage.”
