by M C Beaton
“Did Jessica know Burt had already done time for armed robbery?”
“None of us knew,” said Fairy. “Cool.”
“Did you know that Jessica had at least one evening out with your maths teacher?”
“Yeah,” said Trixie. “Like she told us. Said he was an awful old ponce, bitching about the wine and trying to get into her knickers.”
“And you didn’t think to tell the police?”
“Don’t tell the fuzz everything.”
“Look, if you know anything at all, you should tell us. We know Burt had an affair with Joyce Wilson, the secretary at Smedleys. Did Jessica know about that?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Did you ever see him with any other woman?”
“No, but he had a reputation around the factory as a lady-killer. We told Jessica to get him to have a test before she let him get his leg over,” said Trixie. “I mean, these days, you never know where they’ve been.”
Oh, the innocence of youth! Where has it gone? wondered Agatha.
“Is that the lot?” asked Trixie.
“I suppose so,” said Agatha, feeling defeated. Not only was she never going to solve Jessica’s murder, she thought wearily, but her investigations on the other two were going nowhere as well.
Harry was about to give up watching Joyce, but then, towards evening, she emerged from her house and got into a taxi. He ran to the end of the street where he had parked his motorbike and set out in pursuit. He followed the cab out along the Fosse until it turned off down a country lane. She’s going to Ancombe, thought Harry. Maybe a break at last.
The cab went straight to Mabel Smedley’s house—or what Harry assumed must be Mabel’s house. He thrust his bike into some bushes and waited until the cab had left and wondered how to get near the house without being seen. He shinned over the garden wall and crept through the shrubbery. There was a short tarmac drive up to the house, but it was bordered on either side with yew and laurel.
He eased closer to the house and parted the branches of a laurel bush. Both women were standing in the living room. There were no curtains at the window. He was to wonder later why the significance of that small detail didn’t mean more to him at the time. They were talking seriously. He wished he could hear what they were saying. Then they both rose and came out of the house and got into Mabel’s car. He hurried back to where he had left his motorbike. Agatha and Phil had told him how Mabel had spotted them following her to the cinema. He’d need to be careful.
He shrank into the bushes by his motorbike as Mabel’s car roared past. He got on his bike and followed after waiting impatiently. There were two roads out of the village. One led to Carsely and the other to the Fosse. He dared not get close enough to see which one they took and opted for the Fosse.
Sure enough, when he reached the top of the road and swung out onto the Fosse, he could see Mabel’s car ahead in front of two others. He followed at a careful distance. Mabel swung off before the place where Jessica’s body had been found. He realized she was taking Joyce home. Sure enough, she dropped Joyce at her house and then drove off again.
Phil phoned Mabel later that evening. “We didn’t make another arrangement,” he said. “I would like to see you again.”
“How nice,” said Mabel. “I’m pretty tied up this week. What about next Tuesday? We could have lunch.”
“Excellent,” said Phil. “I’ll pick you up at twelve-thirty and take you somewhere nice.”
Bill Wong called on Agatha that evening. She told him about the missing engagement ring. Bill gave an exclamation of annoyance. “You should have told me right away. Wait until I phone this information in.”
Agatha waited until he had finished. “I haven’t seen the pathology report,” said Bill. “We’ll need to ask the pathologist if there was any sign of a chain being ripped from her neck. We’ll also need to send men back out to the murder site to comb the area and look for that ring. Then we’ll need to check all the jewellers in case someone tried to sell it.”
“What did Mabel say when confronted about that diploma?”
“She insists that all she learned were the basic skills of computing and the college bears that out. She said that when we first asked her and she said that she knew nothing about computers, she thought they meant was she expert in computing.”
“Sounds like a load of cobblers,” said Agatha cynically. “There’s someone at the door. Wait a minute.”
She came back followed by Harry. “Bill, Harry’s been following Joyce. He says that earlier today she took a cab to Mabel’s, the two women talked and then Mabel ran Joyce home.”
“Interesting,” said Bill. “But maybe innocent. After all, Mabel would know Joyce from the business.”
“But why would she want to talk to the girl her husband had been having an affair with?”
“I’m sure she’ll have some perfectly innocent explanation.”
“That one always has some perfectly innocent explanation.”
“What I’m interested in,” said Harry, “is that milk bottle. The missing one. Say Joyce popped it in her handbag. I’m sure the police didn’t search it. Or maybe there was somewhere in her little office where she hid it.”
“The police searched everywhere.”
“If only I could get inside that office and have a look around,” said Harry.
“Don’t!” ordered Bill. “I’ve had enough of your unorthodox methods.”
“Jealousy,” said Agatha suddenly. “And blackmail. Have you found that teller who took the deposit yet?”
“Yes, she said a rather scruffy man deposited the money on both occasions.”
“What about the security tapes at the bank?”
“We were too late getting to them. The ones for the dates of the deposits had been reused.”
“Let me see,” said Agatha. “Burt had been having an affair with Joyce. He knew about Joyce’s affair with Smedley. Say he threatened to tell Mabel. It turns out everything was in Mabel’s name. She could have sold the business from under him. It’s a wonder he didn’t murder her. And why was everything in her name? I got the impression she was a bullied wife.”
“Evidently she has a great deal of money of her own. She was the one who funded the business to get it started on the understanding that everything was kept in her name. And if Smedley was being blackmailed, then he could have paid someone to deposit the money.”
Harry sat lost in thought. He had hit upon a plan to get into that office.
The next day, Phil phoned in and said he was feeling poorly and would like the day off. What he really wanted to do more than anything was to call on Mabel. After a lot of thought, he had decided that there was surely an innocent explanation for that diploma. He was beginning to fantasize about marrying Mabel. He was years older than she was, but he was sure she was not indifferent to him.
Patrick had left early for the office, so he did not have to pretend to be sick. Phil decided to walk the two and a half miles to Ancombe.
The day was fine but unseasonably chilly, all the sunny promise of that glorious spring having disappeared. Perhaps he might rnn into her in the village. When he got to Ancombe, he went into the village shop in the hope that she might be there. Then he remembered she often did the flowers at the church, but the church was empty.
Surely it would be all right just to call at her home. They were friends, after all. He walked to Mabel’s home and rang the bell. There was no reply, but he could smell smoke coming from the back garden.
He walked around to the back of the house. Mabel was standing over an oil drum from which black smoke was pouring. Something made him retreat to the comer of the house, put his head round and watch. She went back into the house and shortly afterwards came back out with a pile of video cassettes. She threw them into the drum and poured what looked like petrol on top of them. She stared down into the drum and then gave an exclamation of annoyance and went back into the house.
Gone for matches, t
hought Phil. He never knew later what prompted his next action but he nipped across the back garden and seized one of the videos out of the drum and scampered back to the shelter of the house just as Mabel reappeared with a box of matches. She struck a match and threw it into the drum and backed away as the contents went up in a sheet of flame.
Phil hurried off. By the time he reached home, he had a stitch in his side and was feeling his age.
He went into his house and took out the video, which he had stuffed in the poacher’s pocket of his waxed coat. Then he smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned. Brief Encounter. That’s the film Harry took Joyce to see,” he said aloud. Mabel must be cleaning out the house. But then he wondered why such a do-gooder as Mabel had not sent her videos to a church sale or to some old folks’ club.
May as well see it anyway, he thought. I’m supposed to be ill. Funny how some people still have video cassettes. I thought everyone had DVDs these days.
He dug out his old video recorder, glad he hadn’t thrown it away, fixed it up and slotted the video in.
He leaned back in his armchair. Then he sat up straight and gazed at the screen in horror.
He fumbled for the phone and dialled Agatha. “You’d better come to my cottage immediately,” he said in a quavering voice. “There’s something you’ve got to see.”
Agatha and Patrick eventually arrived to find Phil looking white and shaken. “You really do look ill,” said Agatha.
“It’s not that. I went to see Mabel. She was burning videos in her back garden and didn’t see me. I don’t know why, but when she went indoors to get matches, I stole this one. Look!”
They stared at the screen. Jessica, Trixie and Fairy were cavorting on what they now knew to be Burt Haviland’s bed.
“It was in a Brief Encounter container,” said Phil. “But there must be some innocent explanation. She might not know what was really in there.”
“Oh, she did,” said Agatha. “Deep down, although you may not know it, Phil, you never really misted her, or you wouldn’t have behaved the way you did.”
“I thought I adored her,” said Phil in a low voice.
“Anyway,” said Patrick, “we’d better tell the police.”
“Not yet,” said Agatha. “She’ll plead innocence and that will be that. Mrs. Bloxby said she thought jealousy held the whole thing together. This Burt seems to have been prepared to lay anything in sight. Oh, yes, he does seem to have been in love with Jessica, although he had a strange way of showing it. What if… I mean, just what if Burt had indulged in an affair with Mabel? He must have seen her around often enough. What if two jilted women had it in for Burt? Burt may have supplied Smedley with those videos. Mabel found them and that added to her hatred of both Burt and her husband and Jessica. Do you still have those photographs of Mabel, Phil?”
“Yes, of course,” said Phil, thinking sadly of how many times he had taken them out and looked at them. He still couldn’t believe his behaviour in stealing that video but came to the conclusion that ever since he had found that diploma, somewhere inside him he had begun to mistrust her.
“The plan is this,” said Agatha. “We’ll all need photos of Mabel and Burt and we’ll go around every hotel and restaurant in the whole area to see whether they’ve ever been seen together. Maybe that’s why Smedley wanted his wife followed. Burt may have been blackmailing him and he may have suspected his wife was close to Burt.
“I’ll phone Harry and get him on to it as well.” But there was no reply to Harry’s phone.
Harry, who had found out the name of the new owner-manager, presented himself at the front desk of Jensens Electronics, gave the fictitious name of John Macleod, and said he had an appointment with Mr. Jensen.
The receptionist picked up the phone and talked into it. Then she said to Harry, “Mr. Jensen’s secretary says she has no record of any appointment, and furthermore Mr. Jensen is absent on business, so he has no appointments for today.”
“There must be a misunderstanding,” said Harry. “May I talk to her?”
The receptionist picked up the phone again. Then she replaced the receiver when she had finished talking and said, “Take a seat. Miss Morrison will be out in a moment.”
Harry had hoped for some girl he could charm, but Miss Morrison turned out to be middleaged, Scottish, and with a brisk no-nonsense manner.
“Mr. Macleod? You’re wasting your time, young man.”
“But I have a letter here from Mr. Jensen himself!”
The rubbish bins from the firm had been placed out on the road the night before for collection in the morning. Harry had rummaged through them until he found a letter which had not been shredded. He had carefully copied the letterhead on his computer and then had written a letter supposed to be from Mr. George Jensen saying he was impressed by his qualifications and asking him to call at eleven-thirty that day.
Miss Morrison read the letter with raised eyebrows. “He said nothing of this to me. Follow me, young man.”
Harry followed her through to her office. “Take a seat,” she ordered. “I’m just going to check the boss’s appointment book.”
Harry looked quickly around. Two filing cases, desk and computer, one typing chair and one for visitors. A large cheese plant. There was a small kitchen off the secretary’s room with a sink and a coffee machine beside it.
He did not have time for anything but a quick look, because she came back in and said, “There’s nothing in his appointment book. Leave your number and I’ll phone you when he gets back.”
Harry got to his feet and thanked her. He looked at the cheese plant. “Fine specimen you’ve got there,” he said, playing for time, hoping to engage her in some sort of conversation so that he could have a better look at the office.
“Oh, that,” she said with a dismissive snort. “Wouldn’t like it, would you? The last people left it. It blocks out the light from the window.”
“No,” said Harry, “you’re welcome to it. Not going to be a very nice summer by the looks of things.”
“Off with you. I haven’t got time to chat here all day. I’ll phone you. What’s that number?”
Harry made up a phone number for her and then left.
He stood outside the gate, his brain busy. He thought about that cheese plant. Could the police possibly have missed it? Could Joyce have dug a hole at the base of the plant and put the milk bottle in there? And if she had, wouldn’t she have dug it up again when things had calmed down and got rid of it?
Harry decided to try to see Bill Wong and put the idea to him. He got on his motorbike and went to police headquarters, only to be told that Bill was out.
He retreated to a cafe across the parking lot in front of the building where he could watch the comings and goings. He took off the baseball cap and the glasses. Bill would ask how he knew about the cheese plant. But he remembered from all the notes that Agatha had been in that office with Charles, asking Joyce for addresses.
He took out his mobile and phoned Charles. Unlike Agatha’s usual phone calls, where she was blocked by either Gustav or the aunt, Charles himself answered the phone.
“When you were in Joyce’s office,” asked Harry, “was there a cheese plant there?”
“Can’t remember. Why?”
“Nothing. Just checking my notes.” A young woman’s voice could be heard in the background calling, “Where are you, Charles?”
Poor Agatha, thought Harry, ringing off. Hope she isn’t keen on him.
He looked across the square again just in time to see Bill getting out of a car.
Harry ran across the square and accosted him on the steps of police headquarters.
“What are you all smartened up for?” asked Bill crossly. “If Wilkes gets a look at you, he might begin to wonder again about the young man who was seen with Joyce.”
“Never mind that. There’s a whopping great cheese plant in Joyce’s old office in a big pot.”
“So?”
“She could have burie
d a milk bottle in there easy.”
“I think someone would have looked. I’ll check up on it.”
Bill thought hard as he went into the station. He went to see Wilkes. He knew Wilkes would not give the matter much serious thought if he learned it came from what he termed “that stupid amateur agency.”
“I’ve had an idea, sir,” began Bill.
“All right, then. Spit it out.”
“In Joyce Wilson’s office, there was a large cheese plant.”
“What’s a cheese plant?”
“Great big green thing like a young tree in a large pot. If by any chance Joyce Wilson is guilty, could she have hidden the missing milk bottle in there?”
“A team of forensic experts went over every single thing in that office. Besides, if it’s such a monster, the new secretary has probably got rid of it.”
“Wouldn’t do any harm to phone and ask, sir.”
“Look here, we’re overloaded with cases. Three murders and a spate of burglaries. Leave it.”
Agatha managed to get Harry on his mobile and asked him to join in the search of hotels and restaurants to see if Mabel had ever been spotted with Burt. She said they had left photographs of Mabel and Burt for him at the office.
Phil had received a text message from Mabel cancelling their date but suggesting the week after next. Part of him couldn’t help still hoping that there would be an innocent explanation for everything to do with Mabel.
Harry picked up the photographs at the office and stood lost in thought. Where would Mabel and Burt go for a liaison—that is, if they ever went anywhere together?
He decided to ask his father. His father was a successful architect. Harry’s parents’ marriage had nearly broken up two years ago when Harry’s mother found out that her husband had been having a fling with his secretary.
That evening, Harry went to his parents’ home. His father, Jeremy Beam, welcomed him. “Your mother’s gone out to her Women’s Institute meeting. Still working for that detective agency?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here. If a married woman was having an affair with a young employee of her husband’s, which hotel or restaurant around Mircester would they go to?”
