by M C Beaton
“Sure? You’re not going to do anything silly?”
Agatha shook her head. Charles would have insisted on staying had not the vicar’s wife arrived.
“You poor thing,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“I can’t believe it. He has cancer and he never told me.”
“He talked to me about that,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“Of course he did. He probably told the whole world!”
“He said he did not want to tell you because telling you would make it real.”
Agatha put her head in her hands. “What am I going to do?”
“He appears to have driven off, which means he was not badly hurt. The blood in the cottage may not even be his.”
“Who would attack him? James didn’t have any enemies.”
“I am afraid the police are going to be concentrating on you for a bit.”
“Why me?”
“You’ve been heard threatening him.”
“What about Melissa? God, that woman says she slept with James twice since we were married. How could James do such a thing?”
“I think the fright of cancer made him behave most oddly. I’ve brought a bag. I’ll stay with you tonight.”
“But I should be out there looking for him!”
“Come, now. There is nothing you can do. The police will be searching everywhere. He took his car, so he’s still alive.”
Agatha allowed herself to be led upstairs. Mrs. Bloxby ran her a bath and sat on the bed until Agatha emerged from the bathroom.
“Now, into bed with you,” said the vicar’s wife. “I’ll only be next door. Call me if you need anything.”
Agatha lay awake a long time, clutching the duvet, horrors racing through her mind. She began to blame herself. Somehow, if she had been a better wife, then James would have confided in her. Something told her that James had indeed lied to her, that he had slept with Melissa. Melissa had no reason to lie to the police. And James would not have gone to Melissa for comfort if she, Agatha, had treated him better. Just when she thought she would never sleep again, she plunged down into a nightmare where she was searching the lanes and woods for James, dressed in her nightgown.
The next thing Agatha knew, Mrs. Bloxby was shaking her by the shoulder and saying, “The police are here again, Agatha. They insist on seeing you. James’s car has been found.”
Agatha struggled out of bed, tore her night-gown off and began to scramble into clothes. “And James? Have they found him?” she asked.
“No sign of him, yet.”
Agatha went downstairs. Wilkes was there with Bill Wong and a woman police constable.
“You’ve found his car,” said Agatha. “Where?”
“Up in the woods, just before you reach the A-44,” said Bill.
“Was there any clue in the car?”
“Only more blood-stains,” said Wilkes, and Agatha groaned. “It does look as if he was injured.”
“May I see the car?”
“No, it’s been taken away for examination. Do you know of anyone with any reason to attack him?”
“None whatsoever,” said Agatha. “I’ve thought and thought.”
“You had better come with us to Mircester and make a full Statement.”
“I’ll just phone my husband,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I’m coming with her.”
♦
As Agatha was driven past James’s cottage, she could see men in white overalls dusting for prints and searching everywhere. A numbness had settled on her. Once at police headquarters, she answered all questions like a dutiful child while Mrs. Bloxby sat beside her and held her hand.
The vicar’s wife wondered if Agatha realized how odd her story sounded. Yes, she had tried to marry James before but had forgotten to tell him that she did not know whether her husband Jimmy Raisin was alive or dead. Yes, Jimmy had turned up and cancelled the wedding ceremony. Yes, Jimmy was subsequently found murdered. No, relations between herself and James had not been very amicable. No, she did not know he had cancer. Mrs. Bloxby did not know that, numb and shocked as she was, Agatha was not going to admit she had learned of James’s illness from Melissa.
Mrs. Bloxby knew that videos of the concert would be scanned and people interviewed to establish Agatha’s alibi. Could they establish from the blood-stains when James was attacked? Villagers often walked their dogs along Lilac Lane. If the attack had taken place in daylight, surely someone would have seen something or heard something. Melissa was more of a suspect than Agatha. She was the other woman. What did anyone in the village know of her? She was a fairly recent incomer. She must have been very keen on James to have had an affair with him in such a small village.
The questioning went on and on. Agatha’s in bad shock, thought Mrs. Bloxby. They must know that.
At last, Agatha signed her statement and the interview was over. She was cautioned not to leave the country and to hold herself in readiness for further questioning.
When they emerged from police headquarters it was to find Charles waiting for them. “I’ve been grilled as well,” he said cheerfully. “Fancy some lunch?”
“I must get back,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Alf will be wondering what’s happened to me.”
“That’s all right,” said Charles. “I’ll take her home. We’d better talk.”
Mrs. Bloxby looked doubtful. She drew Charles aside. “Be very careful,” she whispered. “Mrs. Raisin has had a bad shock.”
“I’ll deal with her.”
He took Agatha’s arm and she allowed herself to be led across the square and into Mircester.
“When did you eat last?” he asked Agatha.
“I can’t remember. I meant to have a late supper after the show.” She plucked nervously at his arm. “The concert! I should get the newspapers.”
“Forget it. We’ve got more important things to talk about.” Charles suddenly saw Melissa walking in front of them. “In here,” he said, dragging her into a place called Pam’s Pantry. “I’m sure the food is good.”
They sat down at a corner table. “I’ll order us something,” said Charles. The menu was of the snack variety. He ordered two club sandwiches and a bottle of mineral water.
“Now, Aggie,” he said. “What on earth could have happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Agatha. “I’ve thought and thought. I’m sure if I had been a better wife, he would have told me things. He didn’t even tell me he had cancer.”
“Absence is making the heart grow fonder,” said Charles brutally. “Snap out of it. We won’t get anywhere if you start blaming yourself for everything. The trouble is that James is a tight-arsed tick. That was what caused the problems in your marriage. It would help if you could get angry. I was asked if I knew anything about his affair with Melissa. Was he really having an affair with Melissa?”
“She says he slept with her a couple of times since we were married. I asked James if he had slept with her and he denied it.”
“So he’s an adulterer and a liar. You worked on some murder cases with James before. Anyone from the past likely to have surfaced?”
“I thought about that. They’re all still locked up or dead.”
“Maybe relatives? Friends?”
“Could be.”
“Here’s your sandwich. Eat.”
“I can’t.”
“So what are you going to do to help James? Sit wallowing in some unreal world where it’s all your fault?”
“Charles!”
“Snap out of it, sweetie. Martyrdom is ruining your looks.”
Agatha glared at him. “My husband is missing, maybe dead, and all you can do is insult me?”
“That’s what friends are for.”
Agatha proceeded to tell him between bites of sandwich exactly what she thought of him.
Charles listened amiably and, seeing she had finished eating, called for the bill. “We’d better get back,” he said. “There may be more news.”
♦
James Lacey stumbled
in a daze along the waterfront at Bridport in Dorset. Night was falling. His head throbbed and he had no idea how he had got there, only that he seemed to have been wandering for days.
Suddenly a squat little woman wearing a yachting cap appeared in front of him. “Why, it’s James, James Lacey! You look a mess.”
Somehow his dazed mind registered her identity. “Harriet,” he said.
“We’re about to set sail for France. Tubby’s on the yacht. Look at your head. There’s dried blood in your hair. What have you been up to?”
“Bar fight,” said James, fighting away a memory of a swinging hammer and crashing furniture. “I’ll be all right.”
He knew some awful memories of what had so recently happened to him were about to come flooding back. And in that moment he remembered a monastery he had visited once in Agde, in the south of France. He remembered the cloistered peace, the sun slanting through the cloisters. He suddenly felt if he could get there, he would be safe.
“Can you take me to France?”
“I think you should go to a doctor and get that head examined.”
“It’s just a bit of blood. Worse than it looks. I’d really like to get away, Harriet.”
“Got your passport?”
James searched in the inside pocket of his jacket. “Yes, I have,” he said with something like surprise. He tried to remember why he had his passport but could not.
“Luggage?”
“No luggage. I sent it on ahead,” said James, improvising.
“You look as if you’ve been sleeping in those clothes. It’s a good thing I know you to be a respectable gentleman or I would start to think you were on the run from the police.”
“Not from them,” said James. Harriet looked up at him curiously and then gave a little shrug.
“Come along, then. We’re nearly ready to set sail.”
∨ The Love from Hell ∧
3
THREE weeks had passed since the disappearance of James. Agatha had railed at the police. In these days of modern communications, someone must have seen him somewhere. He had not packed any clothes, although his passport was missing. He would have to buy clothes somewhere, draw money. There must be a trace of him.
But there was nothing.
It had been established that the blood in the cottage and in the car belonged to James. Bill told her they were still waiting for the results of further tests on hairs and threads and other bits and pieces carefully scooped up by the forensic team, but these days, he said, the lab was overloaded.
It is not only the police who suspect the nearest and dearest of murder. When Agatha went to the local pub or shopped in the village store, she could sense an atmosphere when she walked in.
She sank even deeper every day into depression. She had barely the energy to get out of bed, and when she did, she wandered around in a shapeless house-dress. From time to time, she would feel with a stab of deeper pain that she should be out roaming the countryside, looking for James. Then she would remember that the police were looking for him with all their resources, and sink back down into helpless misery again.
James’s relatives had given up phoning. His sister and his aunts all seemed to imply that such a worrying, disgraceful thing would not have happened if he had refrained from marrying Agatha. She had finally unplugged the phone from the wall.
At the end of the third week, Agatha reluctantly answered the summons of her doorbell. “I’ve been trying to ring you,” said the vicar’s wife, pushing a strand of grey hair away from her mild face. “No reply. I thought you’d gone away.”
“Come in. Like coffee?”
“Tea, please.”
In the kitchen, Mrs. Bloxby looked anxiously at Agatha. “I just wondered if you had had time to clean up James’s cottage.”
“I haven’t had the heart,” said Agatha dully.
She placed a mug of tea in front of Mrs. Bloxby, who picked it up, and then put it down, untasted, and said, “I really think, my dear Mrs. Raisin, that you should take some sort of action or you are going to make yourself really ill.”
“What can I do that the police can’t?”
“You’ve never let that stop you before. You see, I could help you tidy up the cottage next door. You could go through James’s papers – oh, I know the police have been through them – but there might be something there that they have missed.”
“Still can’t see much point in it,” said Agatha, lighting a cigarette.
“I cannot see much point in you letting yourself go to seed. One would think James was dead.”
“How do you mean, go to seed?” demanded Agatha.
“I shall put it bluntly. There are bags under your eyes, you have a moustache and hairy legs.”
A small spark of humour gleamed in Agatha’s bearlike eyes. “It’s women’s lib,” she said. “We only shave ourselves because of men.”
“I shave my legs because they get scratchy and itchy when the hair grows,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I thought your friend, Charles, would have been round to help you.”
“He tried, but I didn’t feel like seeing him.”
“Mrs. Raisin, are we going next door, or what? I haven’t got all day. There are other people in this parish in need of my help!”
Agatha blinked at her in surprise. She had hardly ever heard her friend speak to her sharply before.
“Okay. I’ll get the keys.”
“Clean yourself up first, there’s a dear.”
Agatha trudged upstairs. For the first time, it seemed, in ages, she took a good look at herself in the long mirror in her bedroom. She was appalled at the ageing mess that looked wearily back at her.
♦
Downstairs, Mrs. Bloxby waited patiently. If Mrs. Raisin was taking a long time, then it meant she was tidying herself up, and Mrs. Bloxby was still shocked by the deterioration in Agatha’s appearance.
At last, Agatha appeared, neat and tidy in a shirt blouse and skirt, her smooth legs in tights and her smooth face under a light mask of make-up. “Thanks for waiting,” she said gruffly. “Let’s go.”
“Haven’t you been to James’s cottage before?”
“Just on and off,” said Agatha, remembering nights she had cried into his pillow and days where she had sat with her face buried in his favourite old sweater. “I just couldn’t get round to straightening things, although the police did quite a good job after they had finished.”
They walked out into the sunshine. How odd that the world should look so normal, thought Agatha. Fluffy clouds, like clouds in a child’s painting, hung in a deep-blue Cotswold sky. The first roses were tumbling over hedges and the air was sweet and fresh.
Agatha unlocked the door of James’s cottage. Mrs. Bloxby stood back and looked at the roof. “The thatch needs done,” she called. “I can put you in touch with a thatcher. You might want to wait and see if he comes back. It’s an expensive job.”
She followed Agatha in. “I’ll draw the curtains back and open the windows.”
Soon sunlight was flooding the cottage. Mrs. Bloxby looked round. There was a thin layer of dust on the furniture and the carpet was still marked with blood-stains. “Perhaps if you start with his papers,” she said, “I’ll begin with the cleaning.”
Agatha went to the old roll-top desk in the corner where James kept his accounts and letters. The police had taken everything away to examine and the plastic bag holding all the papers they had returned lay on top of the desk. The fact that Agatha had taken some sort of action was beginning to send a little surge of energy through her.
Behind her, she heard the reassuring clatter of cleaning implements as Mrs. Bloxby fetched what she needed from the kitchen and got to work.
Agatha began going through piles of bills to make sure they had all been paid. Then she began on the little pile of mail which had been lying on the doormat when she walked in. New bills. Electricity, gas, water. Junk mail. One letter addressed in large looped handwriting addressed to James. She took up Jame
s’s silver letter opener and slit open the envelope.
It was dated the Friday of the previous week. “Dear James,” she read. “We really must sit down and talk. I hope you’re back by now. I’m sorry I told Agatha about your illness, but how could I possibly guess you had not told her yourself? You must come and see me. We have been intimate together, you’ve made love to me, you can’t just walk away and not see me again. Do please ring me, darling, or come round. Your Melissa.”
Agatha’s hands shook as she read the letter. A great wave of fury swept through her. She had almost been sanctifying James since his disappearance, crediting him with affections and little tendernesses that he had never demonstrated, blaming herself bitterly for everything. Despite what she had previously said, she had come to the conclusion that James had never been unfaithful to her. Such a straight, upright man would not. But now here it was. Proof. She forgot about his cancer. She only thought that he had cheated her. By God, she had to find him and tell James Lacey exactly what she thought of him. He could even be lying about having cancer! The police had checked every hospital in Britain without finding a sign of him.
“Everything all right?” called Mrs. Bloxby. “Yes, sure,” muttered Agatha. “Just some bills to pay.”
“You do those and I’ll get on with this.” Mrs. Bloxby thought it would be better if she scrubbed out the blood-stains herself.
Agatha took out James’s cheque-book. No reason to pay the damn bills herself. But of course she could not sign one of his cheques. They didn’t have a joint account. Bastard. She should let his gas, water, and electricity get cut off.
She went to her cottage and collected her own cheque-book and returned. “Don’t you think James would need money?” she called over her shoulder. “I mean, the police must have been watching to see if he cashed any cheques or used one of his credit cards.”
“Mmm,” was the only reply she got. Mrs. Bloxby scrubbed busily, thinking sadly that if James did not need money, then James was dead.
Agatha finished signing cheques and joined Mrs. Bloxby in cleaning and dusting.
Then they went back to Agatha’s cottage for a coffee. “Have you seen anything of Melissa lately?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.
