by M C Beaton
“Oh, well,” sighed Agatha. “I need the exercise.”
She and Charles returned to her cottage. Agatha typed off a flier on her computer and ran off several hundred copies and then she and Charles split up, agreeing to meet at the Red Lion later.
As Agatha trudged from door to door, she felt a sudden sympathy with the lazy schoolchildren. It would be so easy just to hide a bunch of fliers or shove a hundred through the one letterbox and then be finished with the wretched things. She just hoped the same idea wasn’t occurring to Charles.
She took a break for lunch and noticed from an egg-smeared plate lying in the sink that Charles had taken a break as well. Back out she went, ending up by posting the last flier in the village store’s window. People she spoke to grumbled that they had told the police all they knew, and yet all seemed intrigued by the idea of the meeting.
Agatha wearily made her way along to the pub, where Charles was already sitting. She eyed him suspiciously. “You didn’t cheat?”
“No, sweetie, as my aching feet will bear testimony. I ran like the wind from door to door. You would leave me to do the council estate. Loads of houses there. Oh, and I had to call the police.”
“Why?”
“I was bending down – all the letter-boxes in those council houses are practically at ground level – when I heard a woman screaming. “Leave me alone,” she was shouting, and then there was the sound of a thump and then another scream. So I called Fred Griggs.”
“Was it a Mrs. Allan?”
“That’s the one. Fred tried to get her to lay charges. The man is called Derry Patterson, a big rough fellow.”
“But she wouldn’t lay charges?”
“Nope.”
“Why does she do it? She’s just got rid of one brutal man.”
“Seems they go for the same kind. Anyway, what next?”
“I think we should try to get Bill to tell us the name of Melissa’s solicitor and also tell us how much she left in her will.”
“Aren’t wills published in the newspaper? We could ask that editor in Mircester. He might open up a bit. I know, we’ll tell him about the village hall meeting, get a bit of publicity for it.”
“Good idea.”
♦
The following day, the editor of the Mircester Journal, Mr. Jason Blacklock, surveyed them wearily. “You two again,” he said. “You’re not very good at supplying us with stories. It’s just as well we don’t cover Worcester, although I did get reports you’ve had the police out twice.”
“The next thing that happens in your area, we’ll let you know. I mean, I did send you an invitation to the fête,” said Agatha. “I looked at your paper and you didn’t cover it.”
He sighed. “I decided to give Josie a break and sent her.”
“What? Mircester’s finest example of anorexia?”
“Yes, her.”
“So what happened?”
“She told us nothing happened. She said it was just a tatty little village fête. When I read in the Gloucester Echo that an antique doll had gone for two thousand, I fired her.”
“I suppose she didn’t even bother to go.”
“You suppose right. Now, what are you after?”
“Do you know how much Melissa left in her will?”
“Somewhere in the region of two and a half million.”
Charles let out a low whistle. “That’s surely an amount to die for.”
“You mean to kill for,” said Agatha.
“You think it was the sister?” said Blacklock. “But I gather she’s got a cast-iron alibi.”
“Seems that way,” said Agatha. “Why we’re here is we’d like to know how we can get hold of Melissa’s lawyer.”
“That would be Mr. Clamp of Clamp, Anderson and Biggins. They’re round the corner in Abbey Way, number nineteen.”
Agatha and Charles rose. “So, any story?” he asked.
“Not yet,” said Agatha. “We’ll let you know.”
When they were outside the newspaper office, Charles said, “You’ll never guess who I saw.”
“Who?”
“The fair Josie, over in a corner of the office.”
“But he said she was fired!”
“Maybe she’s working out her notice, or maybe Blacklock doesn’t want us to know he’s got a soft spot for such a loser. Let’s go and see this lawyer anyway. He’ll probably give us the usual spiel, can’t reveal details of my clients, blah, blah, blah.”
“Worth a try anyway. Come on.”
They entered the law offices and left the busy world behind. It was an old building and they were immediately shrouded in dusty quiet. An elderly receptionist listened to their request and then creaked off into an inner office. Had she been with the firm a long time? wondered Agatha. It would be nice to think she had been employed recently. It would be great to think that one could still find work in one’s declining years. Again she felt the pang of regret that she had not married Jimmy. She would need to see out the rest of her days on her own. Even cats did not last forever, and she knew that if anything happened to Hodge and Boswell, she would not replace them. And then she realized she had not thought of James. It was if she had finally accepted that she would never see him again.
The receptionist returned and inclined her grey head. “Mr. Clamp will see you now.”
Agatha, because of the age of the receptionist, had expected an elderly man, but Mr. Clamp was small and round and comparatively young. He looked more like a young farmer than a lawyer. His face was a healthy outdoor red and he had very large, powerful hands.
“I have read about you, Mrs. Raisin,” he said after Charles had made the introductions. “I gather you have come to inquire about Mrs. Sheppard’s will.”
“Not quite,” said Agatha. “I am puzzled as to why she left everything to a sister whom she had not seen in years and did not even like. I wondered if you could tell me her state of mind.”
He frowned and looked down at his desk.
“We are not asking for state secrets,” urged Agatha. “And your client is dead.”
He raised his eyes. “I suppose there is no harm in telling you. She was agitated, nervous. She said, “I always thought I would live forever.””
“Did she say anything about Julia, her sister?”
“No, she just said something like she may as well make it easy and leave it all to the one person and then she laughed and said, “I’d love to see Julia’s face.” It was a very straightforward will. Everything to the sister.”
“Something must have happened to make her think she had not very long to live,” said Charles.
“I think that’s perhaps being wise after the event,” said Mr. Clamp. “She appeared in good health. A very attractive and charming lady, I thought her. As a matter of fact, she asked me out to dinner.”
“Did you go?” asked Agatha.
“No, there is a Mrs. Clamp who would not look favourably on me going out for dinner with an attractive woman.”
“You could have said you were working late at the office,” said Charles with a grin.
Mr. Clamp was not amused. “I never lie to Mrs. Clamp.”
He could not help them further. They walked back to the car-park, turning over in their minds what they had heard. “I’m damn sure someone threatened her,” said Agatha at last. “I think that’s why she made a will and left everything to Julia, of all people.”
“Considering her treatment at the hands of Dewey, I’m surprised she didn’t make out a will before,” said Charles.
“Maybe it isn’t Dewey. Maybe she knew Dewey so well that she knew he wouldn’t really hurt her,” said Agatha.
“I find that hard to believe. I mean, he certainly terrified Roy.”
“But Roy hadn’t been living with him. Besides, Dewey’s tale of how he threatened Melissa may have only been a fantasy. Maybe the fact is she just got bored with him and got a divorce. Maybe she did threaten to attack his pet doll and so he agreed to a divor
ce without any protest.”
“If that’s the case, bang goes suspect number one. And what about James? Are we ever going to find James?”
“I think he’s dead,” said Agatha. “Look, his council tax bills and water bills would go unpaid unless I paid them and James was always fussy about paying his own debts. He would have returned to clear things up if he could.”
“I think if he was dead, he would have been found by now. The police don’t give up easily. They’ll have been looking all along. Did you get all his papers?”
“I suppose so. I dealt with the unpaid bills. He hardly ever got any personal correspondence, except from his publisher.”
They both stopped and looked at each other.
“I never thought of his publisher or agent,” said Agatha. “But the police wouldn’t have missed that.”
“Who’s his agent?”
“Some woman called Bobby English, one-woman show, office in Bedford Street in Bloomsbury.”
“The hunt is on again,” said Charles cheerfully. “We’ll go to London.”
♦
Agatha had never met Bobby English before and was taken aback when she saw her and then stabbed with jealousy. She was a tall willowy woman with a cloud of dark hair, very white skin, large dark eyes and a sensual mouth painted deep-red. She was wearing a power-suit and very high heels.
“Terrible for you,” she said briskly, “but I don’t think I can help you any more than I have helped the police.”
Charles looked around at the framed book jackets on the office wall. Some of the covers were quite lurid. He pointed to one, entitled The Beckoning of Desire, which showed a voluptuous blonde with her dress down around her waist and said, “Forgive me for saying so, Bobby, but you don’t seem the sort of agent to deal with dry military history.”
“No, I’m not. But I met James at a party and we took a fancy to each other.” Agatha scowled. “It amused me to push his book and he was delighted when I found a publisher for it.”
“That’s Greive Books, isn’t it?” asked Agatha.
Bobby nodded.
“What is the name of his editor there?”
“Robin Jakes.”
“I assume Robin is a woman,” said Agatha sourly. Bobby nodded again. Agatha had always disapproved of women who affected men’s names. Now she was beginning to positively hate them. Had James had an affair with Bobby?
She eyed the agent. “No, I didn’t,” said Bobby, “if that’s what you’re thinking. We were just friends.”
“Did James ever let slip some part of the world that he particularly liked?” asked Charles. “I mean, do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“No, he had travelled widely. I don’t think he had any tie to any particular place. I really can’t help you. When we met, we would talk about books, markets, possibility of sales, that sort of thing. You can try his editor, but I don’t think Robin can tell you any more than I can.”
♦
To Agatha’s relief, Robin Jakes turned out to be a pleasant, middle-aged woman with sandy hair and thick glasses. “I am so sorry,” she said, shaking Agatha’s hand. “It must be an awful time for you.”
Agatha blinked back sudden tears. No one else, apart from Mrs. Bloxby, seemed to have thought that she might be suffering. To their questions, Robin said sadly that she had no idea where he could have gone. “He had travelled so much,” she said. “I once suggested he might try writing a travel book, but his passion was military history. I was just his editor, you know. We weren’t friends.” She frowned in thought. “There’s something he said, oh, about a few months before he disappeared. What was it? Oh, I have it. I was asking him again to consider writing a travel book. He was…is…a good descriptive writer. He laughed and said he had an old diary of his travels. He said he might dig it out and have a look at it.”
“A diary!” exclaimed Agatha. “The police said nothing to me about a diary.”
“We’d better get on to them,” said Charles. “They may have held it back.”
♦
Outside the publishing office, Agatha took out her mobile phone. “Better make sure you get Bill,” said Charles. “If they have it, anyone else might not want to release it.”
Agatha was told Bill was out and so, after a meal in London, they travelled back. Once home, Agatha got Charles to phone Bill at home, guessing that the formidable Mrs. Wong might be more prepared to bring Bill to the phone for a man.
When Bill answered, Agatha snatched the phone from Charles. “Bill, it’s me, Agatha. I’ve just heard that James kept a diary of his travels. Do the police have it?”
“They kept back some papers, Agatha. It might be among them.”
“Oh, Bill, I’ve got to see that diary. There might be something in it that would mean something to me and wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
“I’ll ask. Call at headquarters – let me see – at ten tomorrow morning.”
Agatha thanked him and replaced the receiver. “We’re to go to Mircester in the morning,” she told Charles. “He’ll see what he can do.”
“So you’re beginning to hope again that James is alive?”
“Yes, damn him,” said Agatha. “If only I knew one way or the other.”
♦
In the morning, as they travelled to Mircester, Agatha was half-dreading seeing James’s diary, that is, if she was allowed to see it. What if it contained awful things about her? At last, as they were approaching the town, she voiced her worries to Charles.
“I should not think dear James has one deeply personal thought in the whole of that diary,” said Charles. “Probably observations he made on his travels.”
They waited in an interviewing room at police headquarters for what seemed, to Agatha, like ages, but was in fact only half an hour. At last Bill appeared carrying a small, thick, leather-bound book. “I can’t let you take it away with you,” he said, “but you can have a look at it and call me when you’re ready to leave.”
Agatha and Charles sat side by side at a plain wooden table, the top scarred with cigarette burns and coffee-cup rings. Agatha opened to the first page, feeling a pain at her heart as she recognized James’s small, crabbed handwriting. “Oh, it’s an old diary,” she said. She flipped to the last entry. “And it finishes five years before I even met him.”
“You should be relieved there’s nothing about you in there,” said Charles heartlessly. “Let’s start reading. Maybe there’s somewhere he liked more than anywhere else.” Patiently they read descriptions of Nepal, of Cyprus, of Saudi Arabia, even a long description of a trip to China. Prices were marked down, lodging houses and hotels. Then he had taken a walking tour of France. Agatha stifled a yawn as her eyes skittered over descriptions of chateaux and vineyards. She was about to turn the page, when Charles put a restraining hand on hers. “Back to that page,” he said. “At the bottom.”
I was tired and thirsty [Agatha read]. I had been walking from early morning. I saw a monastery in front of me. I knocked at the gate and pleaded for somewhere to rest and for some water. A monk told me it was a Benedictine closed order, Saint Anselm, but he let me in and said I could sit in the shade of the cloisters for a little and he brought me a jug of spring water. I don’t suppose I’ve ever had a very strong faith in God, but while I sat there, I could almost feel a spiritual presence. After resting for an hour, I went on my way and…
She turned the page and then looked at Charles impatiently. “What?”
“James was interested in this business of mind over matter. Miracles do happen to cancer victims. He might have gone back there,” said Charles. “He was in the valley of the shadow of death. A closed order. That might explain why nobody can find him.”
But Agatha did not want to believe it. Somehow a James closer to God seemed to her to mean a James farther away from one Agatha Raisin. “Read on,” she said. “There must be something else.” But the diary finally finished with a description of a tour of Turkey which ended in mid
-sentence.
“Nothing there,” said Agatha, closing the book with a sigh.
“I can’t help thinking about that monastery,” said Charles. “Want to check it out?”
“He doesn’t say where it is.”
“Here. Give me that diary again.”
Charles flipped back through the pages. “Here we are. I had just left Agde and had decided to head south towards the Spanish frontier.”
“Where’s Agde?”
“South of France, on the Provence side.”
“Too long a shot,” said Agatha. “Besides, we’ve got this meeting on Saturday.”
Charles looked at her curiously. “Don’t you want to find James?”
“Of course I do.” But Agatha did not want to think for a moment that he was in a monastery. “Maybe after the meeting,” she said. “But don’t tell Bill about your idea. A bunch of British flatfeet descending on the south of France might alert him.”
“They’d just send the French police to check the place out.”
“Leave it at the moment, Charles. I’ll think about it after Saturday.”
♦
Charles went home for a couple of nights, leaving Agatha alone with her thoughts. She made notes about everyone they had interviewed, and found she could not build up a clear picture of the murderer. She found she was pinning her hopes on Saturday’s meeting too much and tried to depress them. What if the end result was pages and pages of things like, “Didn’t see anything. Watched telly. Went to bed.” And always at the back of her mind, Charles’s suggestion that James just might be at that monastery nagged at the back of her mind. James in a monastery would be as lost to her as if he were dead. On the other hand, were he there, he could surely tell them who had attacked him. She decided it was time to take her appearance in hand while she waited and had her hair cut and styled at the hairdresser’s and had a facial at the beautician’s and a leg wax. Then she took a trip into Oxford and bought some new clothes. It was a sunny day and shopping was enjoyable.
She found herself wishing the case were solved. She was beginning to think that a life without James might be quite pleasant. She could begin to feel good about herself, be her own woman again.
