The Love from Hell ar-11

by M C Beaton

“Why?”

  “Because I’m not a quitter and neither are you.”

  “Couldn’t you say it was because you loved me?”

  “Oh, Agatha, you know what I’m like. I never was any good at that lovey-dovey stuff.”

  “All right. I’ll try again. But you have to stop seeing Melissa.”

  “She’s a friend.”

  “I’ll stop seeing Charles or any other man, if you stop seeing Melissa.”

  “Very well.”

  Agatha suddenly smiled at him. “What a pair of chumps we are,” she said happily. “Wait there until I put some make-up on. It’s all right for you, James. The thing I love about you is that you always seem so fit and healthy.” She went out of the kitchen. I should have told her, thought James. But we’ll have dinner this evening. I’ll tell her then.

  ♦

  Happiness is a great rejuvenator. Agatha returned to work that afternoon looking fresh and businesslike. The rambling song was a jaunty whistle-along tune. Delly Shoes proclaimed themselves delighted with Agatha. She was to arrange a concert in Mircester to launch the new boot and the new song. She bought herself a dark blue dress ornamented with glass beads and pearls. It had a square neckline and a very short hemline. She then bought sheer stockings and a garter belt, the latter being an item of clothing which Agatha despised, but she planned a hot night and was prepared to sacrifice her comfort.

  She carried her purchases home and proceeded to prepare herself for the evening ahead. James was to drive them into Oxford for dinner at a French restaurant on Blue Boar Street.

  She bathed and made up her face with care and then brushed her hair until it gained some of its lost shine. Then she put on the dress and stood in front of the mirror.

  And scowled.

  The sequins and beads had glittered in the electric light of the shop and had looked beguiling. In the late sunlight streaming through the bedroom window, it looked vulgar, tasteless, and middle-aged. And that same cruel sunlight fell on her face, showing Agatha Raisin that she had an incipient moustache. She tore off the dress and left it on a crumpled heap on the floor. In the bathroom, she applied depilatory to the area between her nose and her upper lip and then went to her closet to rake through her clothes to find something suitable. Five try-ons later, she realized she had forgotten all about the depilatory and was only reminded by a burning sensation on her face. She went back to the bathroom and washed it off. Above her upper lip there was now a scarlet line. “I hate being old,” howled Agatha at the mirror.

  She returned to the bedroom and gloomily selected a white satin blouse and a short black velvet skirt. Now to do something about her face. She had planned to wear only a little light make-up, but heavy foundation cream would be needed to cover that red mark.

  ♦

  When she finally got into James’s car, although he glanced at her without comment, she could sense his disapproval. She should tell him what had happened, but somehow to confess that she had reached the shaving age seemed impossible.

  James actually thought Agatha had put on too much make-up as an act of defiance. His cancer treatment was to start the following week. He would start to lose his hair and men he would need to tell her something. He had meant to tell her that evening, imagining a soft and sympathetic and womanly Agatha. But Agatha, he thought sourly, had never been soft or womanly.

  So on the road to Oxford and throughout dinner, he talked about his new book, which was to be about the Normandy landings in World War II. Agatha ventured that surely enough had been written on them already and then promptly realized that, once again, she had said the wrong thing. As usual with James, she felt she was facing an unbreakable wall of resentment.

  “We should be talking about what we really need to talk about,” said Agatha abruptly, cutting through one of James’s history lessons. “I can assure you, Charles is just a friend. Nothing has been going on. What about you and Melissa? What prompted you to take her for a drink in the first place?”

  That usual look of distaste and weariness which always crossed James’s face when confronted with any intimacy of conversation was back again. “I told you, I happened to meet her in the pub. Then I knew Charles was with you, and so…Do we really need to go through all this?”

  “Yes, we do,” said Agatha. “Did you sleep with her?”

  “No,” said James. He despised the euphemism. What he had done with Melissa could hardly be described as sleeping.

  “Do I have your word on that?”

  “I have to trust what you say about Charles and you have to trust what I say about Melissa, or there is no point in going on.” He suddenly smiled at her. “Let’s forget about the whole sordid quarrel.”

  Agatha melted before that smile. “About my job. The concert is next week and after that I will be a lady of leisure again.”

  “Good,” said James. I should tell her about the cancer, he thought. Maybe tomorrow.

  ♦

  They made love that night. Pillow talk had never been James’s forte and yet Agatha tried. “It seemed a good idea keeping our separate cottages, James, but now I don’t think it very sensible. Why don’t we sell our cottages and buy somewhere bigger?”

  James thought of Agatha being perpetually underfoot, Agatha with her bad cooking and her smoking. He manufactured a faint snore.

  Agatha rose on one elbow and peered in the moonlight al his apparently sleeping face, and then fell back on her pillow with a little sigh. Perhaps she should settle for a James-type marriage. James, it appeared, would rather they lived separately and dated. She had this job to finish. Yes, perhaps she would try things his way.

  ♦

  For the next couple of days, harmony reigned. James worked al his computer and Agatha worked at her public relations. In the evenings they met up for dinner, and then retired to bed and made love. I’ve cracked this marriage business, thought Agatha gleefully.

  But on the third day, she decided to take her washing along to her own machine and check on her garden. She had just put the first load in when the doorbell rang. If that’s Charles, thought Agatha uneasily, I’ll need to tell him to go away. But when she opened the door, it was to find her friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, standing on the step. Bill was a young man in his twenties, with an oriental cast of face inherited from his Chinese father. Normally chubby, he was looking trim and fit, and so Agatha led him into the kitchen and said, “You’ve got a new romance.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re looking fit and you always look fit when you’re in love. Who is she?”

  “She’s a saleswoman. Works in that Miranda boutique.” I’ve been in there, thought Agatha, and was served by a hard-faced redhead. “Not the one with red hair?”

  “That’s her. My Mary.”

  “She’s a lot older than you, surely.”

  “A bit. I like mature women. So how’s marriage?”

  “It’s okay. We had a few rocky bits but we’ve settled down nicely. Any juicy murders?”

  “Nice and quiet. Just the usual drug busts, car thefts, and burglaries. Why have you kept on your cottage?”

  “It’s a modern marriage, Bill. We like our own space.”

  “The pair of you could afford a big house and have all the space you need.”

  Agatha bit her lip in vexation. She had ventured her suggestion again that they buy one big place, but James had stonewalled it by murmuring, “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  “Oh, we’re happy as we are.”

  The doorbell rang again. “I wonder who that is?” Agatha went to answer it and found herself facing Melissa Sheppard. She made to slam the door in the woman’s face, but Melissa cried, “We need to talk. Poor James.”

  Agatha hesitated and then said curtly, “Come in.” She led the way into the kitchen, introduced Melissa to Bill, and then said to the detective, “I think it’s a private matter, Bill.”

  “All right. I’ll phone you and we’ll have lunch sometime.” Agatha saw him o
ut and reluctantly returned to the kitchen. Melissa was wearing a tight tube top which exposed her tanned midriff. Her skirt was short and her bare tanned legs ended in high-heeled sandals.

  “What?” demanded Agatha.

  “I had to see you. I wondered how poor James was getting on with his treatment. He won’t speak to me.”

  Agatha sat down slowly. In that moment, she felt as if part of her had floated to the ceiling and was looking down at two women sitting at a cottage kitchen table.

  “What treatment?” she asked. Her voice sounded dry and dusty to her ears.

  “For his cancer, of course.”

  “Oh, that,” said Agatha. Her heart was hammering hard and blood was drumming in her ears. “Very well.”

  “I’m so glad. You must have been devastated when you heard the news so soon after you got married.”

  “I’ve got used to the shock. Do you mind leaving?”

  Melissa got to her feet. “We should be friends, Agatha. We have so much in common.”

  Agatha looked up at the hard, tanned face above her and said, “Look, sweetie, we have bugger-all in common. Just move your scrawny arse out of my kitchen and never come here again. And stay away from James!”

  “If James will stay away from me,” mocked Melissa. She stood for a moment, but Agatha sat, rigid and unmoving.

  Melissa shrugged and walked out. Agatha heard the front door slam shut.

  James. Cancer. James. Cancer. Over and over it sounded in her head. And he hadn’t told her. He had told Melissa.

  The doorbell went again. She rose like a robot and went to open it.

  “Christ,” said Sir Charles Fraith. “You’re as white as a sheet.”

  “Something terrible has happened,” said Agatha. “Come in.”

  “James?”

  Agatha nodded dumbly.

  In the kitchen, Charles pressed her down into a chair and went and fetched a goblet of brandy. “Drink that.”

  “I don’t understand.” Agatha began to cry, great gulping sobs racking her body.

  Charles took one of her hands in his and waited patiently until she recovered.

  “Tell me about it, Aggie.”

  So, in a halting voice, Agatha did, ending with a wail of “He told her. He didn’t tell me.”

  “The main point, Aggie, is that the man has cancer. It must have been a hell of a shock to him. Shock makes people behave in strange ways. Maybe it was easier to tell someone who wasn’t close. Maybe he felt that telling you would somehow confirm the horror.”

  “I’ll kill him,” said Agatha. “I’ll kill the bastard.”

  “He might already be on his way to death. What kind of cancer?”

  “I don’t know! Oh my God, if it’s cancer of the lung, he’ll blame my smoking!”

  “Aggie, this is silly. Please just walk next door. I know it must have been awful hearing the news from Melissa, but the chap’s got cancer, and surely that cancels out any jealousies or resentments. Look, I’ll wait here and if you’re not back in an hour, I’ll take myself off. But I’ll wait here in case you need me. Go on.”

  “I’ll just put some make-up on.”

  “It’s hardly the time for make-up. Go on!”

  ♦

  James was in the local village store. He reached up and took down a packet of coffee. “How are you, darling?” cooed a voice beside him.

  He turned and saw, facing him, Melissa. His face darkened. “Just leave me alone, Melissa. I told you, I made a mistake. I just want to get on with my marriage.”

  “Agatha seems very upset about your illness.”

  He stared at her in dismay. The packet of coffee fell to the shop floor.

  “You told her!”

  “You wouldn’t talk to me and I was worried about you, so I went to ask Agatha how your treatment was coming along.”

  “You silly bitch,” he roared. “I could kill you, strangle you, shut that malicious gossipy mouth of yours.”

  The listening, shocked silence behind them in the shop was almost tangible.

  Melissa gave a nervous little laugh. “You didn’t tell her. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  James walked straight out of the shop. When he turned into Lilac Lane, the first thing he saw was Charles’s BMW parked outside Agatha’s door.

  ♦

  “He wasn’t home,” said Agatha miserably to Charles when she returned. “And this is the day of the concert. I’ve got to rush to Mircester. I don’t know how I’ll cope.”

  “Let’s get it over with. I’ll take you. You’re in no fit state to drive.”

  Agatha wearily went upstairs and made up her face and put on a charcoal-grey business suit and a striped cotton blouse. She did not know what to do. She had promised not to see Charles again, but the news about James’s cancer had shaken her.

  As Charles drove her to Mircester for the concert, he suddenly said, “You know, Aggie, James is a weird bird, but a good sort. Forget, please, about the fact that he told Melissa. Help him cope with this cancer business. If you love him, you’ll do that. Aggie?”

  But Agatha stared numbly at the passing scenery and did not reply.

  Once they arrived at the marquee where the concert was to be held, Agatha threw herself into her work, chatting to the press, to the representatives of record companies. The group already had a recording company, which was, in Agatha’s opinion, pretty small beer.

  The weather had held up and it was a perfect evening. Agatha had urged Delly Shoes to charge as little as possible for the tickets. Midlands Television was setting up its cameras and Agatha wanted as large a crowd as possible.

  Only once she had taken her seat in the front row and the concert had begun did a great wave of dark misery engulf her. Stepping Out ended their show with the new rambling song. It was effervescent and jaunty. “Got a winner,” whispered Charles, but Agatha sat like stone.

  The group played encore after encore. Then the managing director of Delly Shoes, Mr. Piercy, took the microphone. He talked about the glories of the new boot, and then he said, “I’m glad you all enjoyed yourself. I am sure we would all like to put our hands together and thank the organizer of this evening, Mrs. Agatha Raisin. Agatha, come on up.”

  Charles nudged her to her feet. Like a sleep-walker, she walked up the steps at the side of the stage.

  “I think you should make a short speech,” hissed Mr. Piercy.

  Agatha looked out over the crowd in a dazed way. Then she adjusted the microphone.

  But before she could speak, a voice called from the back of the hall, “Police! Make way, there.”

  Agatha shielded her eyes and peered out over the audience. Police and detectives were making their way down the centre aisle.

  “It’s another stunt, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Piercy.

  Agatha felt the world had just come to an end. She was sure they had come to tell her James was dead.

  Detective Inspector Wilkes of Mircester CID came up to her and took her elbow. “Come with us, Mrs. Raisin.”

  She let him lead her down the steps, through the now silent crowd and out into the night.

  “What is this?” she asked, aware that Charles had appeared beside her.

  “If you will accompany us to Carsely, Mrs. Raisin.”

  “Put her out of her misery,” shouted Charles. “Is James dead?”

  “We don’t know,” said Wilkes. “He’s missing and there’s signs of a fight.”

  Agatha was never to forget the journey home. She seemed to be moving through some sort of black nightmare. She prayed to a God she only half believed in, promising everything she could think of, doing deals, anything, if only James would turn out to be still alive.

  ♦

  They went to Agatha’s cottage because the Scene of Crimes Operatives were busy at work in their white overalls behind the taped-off front of James’s cottage.

  “The situation is this,” began Wilkes. “A certain Mrs. Melissa Sheppard was passing Mr. Lacey’s cottage and saw t
he door open. She was going to walk past, when she saw a dark stain on the front step. She went to examine it, touched it, and found it was fresh blood. She looked inside and saw furniture overturned. She called us. Mr. Lacey’s car is missing. We are searching the countryside for any trace of him. Preliminary questioning reveals that you had been heard threatening to kill him, Mrs. Raisin. I also learn that you preferred to keep your previous married name and that you and Mr. Lacey, although recently married, preferred to live in separate cottages. Mrs. Sheppard also tells us that Mr. Lacey was about to undergo treatment for a brain tumour and that he had told her but not you. Is that the case?”

  “I threatened to kill him because I was jealous of what I believed to be a relationship with Mrs. Sheppard,” said Agatha. “But James, who does not lie, assured me that he had not slept with her. We were reconciled.”

  “Mrs. Sheppard, who has been very frank, tells us that she had sexual relations with Mr. Lacey twice since his marriage to you.”

  “That’s not true,” said Agatha flatly.

  “I must ask you for your movements today.”

  Agatha felt some other woman was answering all these questions. She described her day and Charles said he had been with her all afternoon and all evening. Agatha had been in full view of press and television all evening.

  “It looks as if there was some sort of fight. We cannot establish yet whether the blood belongs to Mr. Lacey or his assailant. We will need to take your fingerprints and a blood sample, Mrs. Raisin. You too, Sir Charles. Mr. Lacey was heard threatening Mrs. Sheppard in the village shop. He was overheard saying he could strangle her.”

  Did I ever really know James? wondered Agatha. Could he have been in love with Melissa?

  “Are you charging Mrs. Raisin with anything?” asked Charles.

  “Not at present.”

  “Not at present,” jeered Charles. “She has an excellent alibi. She was in full view of several hundred people. Can’t you see she’s nearly dead with shock? She’s not going anywhere. Leave her alone.”

  But Agatha and Charles had to give blood samples and fingerprints and promise to report to police headquarters the following day before they were left alone.

  “You’d better go, Charles,” said Agatha.