The Witches' Tree--An Agatha Raisin Mystery

by M C Beaton

  He led the way up rickety stairs and flung open a door and ushered Agatha into what estate agents call a studio flat. It was comprised of mainly one shabby room, haircord carpet, vintage fifties and three occasional chairs. It was more like student digs with a poster of Venice on one wall and a poster of singer Robbie Williams on another. A bookshelf by a gasfire was made up of planks on bricks.

  “Sorry it’s so poor,” said Guy. “Alimony. Goes on and on. But she’s getting married next month. Celebrations all round.”

  “Because of J. K. Rowling, I always think writers are rolling in money,” said Agatha.

  “Only four and a half percent of the writers in the world can support themselves on what they earn. I’ll be okay after the bitch’s wedding. Drink?”

  “Yes, please. What have you got?”

  “Just wine. Got some nice Merlot.”

  “Fine. What happened to the vodka?”

  “What vodka?”

  The answer to that was the stuff you are smelling of. “Just joking,” said Agatha.

  Guy went to a box of wine on the counter and poured a glass, handed it to Agatha and then stooped down and switched on the imitation logs on the gasfire.

  “I thought it would be cosy to have a little supper here.”

  Agatha looked at the card table over by the small window set for two. She felt claustrophobic. She felt trapped in a time warp of a student’s room. She thought Guy had probably rented it furnished. The piles of books spilling off the bookshelves, she was sure, were the only things belonging to him.

  “I’m surprised your brother didn’t ask you to move in with them,” said Agatha.

  “I did ask. But he said they wanted time together. I don’t think Molly likes me, to be honest.”

  Made a pass at her and got turned down, thought Agatha gloomily. And why is it that women like me have been schooled not to bruise the male ego? If only I could say, “I really, really want to go home.”

  * * *

  Charles was walking to where he had parked his car in Mircester. He looked down the narrow lane where Agatha had her office and saw a light shining from the window. He decided to go up and see her. But only Toni was there.

  “I’m just about to phone Agatha,” said Toni. “She’s out on a date.”

  “Who’s the lucky man?”

  “Guy Harris, the vicar’s brother.”

  “I’ll wait while you phone.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Agatha was saying, “Look, I’m sorry you’re broke. Let me take you for dinner and you can ask me in the future when you’re more comfortably off.”

  Guy hesitated and then said, “That’s most awfully kind of you.”

  “What was for dinner anyway?”

  “Indian Summer Tikka Masala.”

  “I know that one well,” said Agatha. “Five minutes in the microwave?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I’ve eaten too many of those. Let’s go!”

  * * *

  “There’s no answer,” Toni was saying. Now, I’m worried.”

  “Have you got his address?”

  “Maybe. I’ll check on Agatha’s computer. She usually logs everyone’s address when she’s on a case.”

  Charles strode up and down, waiting. “Ah, here it is,” said Toni. “Number 50B Swan Lane. Not far.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Charles.

  But they did not get any reply when they rang that bell marked HARRIS. Charles went round to the shop and explained that they were worried about his sister who was subject to epileptic fits and was on her own as Guy had gone to a book signing and, oh, please, did Mr. Patel have a key? Telling a dainty creature in a sari to mind the shop, a worried Mr. Patel hurried with them round to the entrance to the flats.

  But once in the studio flat, they quickly discovered there was no sign of Agatha. “Dreary dump,” commented Charles.

  “Don’t you go taking that tone with me,” said Mr. Patel. “It’s cheap. Other people make it nice, bit of paint, but not him. I tell him, ‘Mr. Harris,’ I say, ‘I tell you like the son I don’t have. Keep out of that betting shop.’”

  “Oh, dear. My paws and whiskers,” muttered Charles. “Where can the silly moo have gone?”

  “He invited her for dinner so maybe they’ve gone to a restaurant,” said Toni.

  “We could walk about and look in a few places.”

  “You’d never make a detective, Charles. I’ll go back to the office and phone round.”

  At the office, Toni phoned several places without success while Charles put his feet up and read the local paper. “Try this one,” he called. “It’s a new Italian place.”

  * * *

  Agatha had been enjoying herself. Guy had told her amusing stories about a writer’s tour he had done in America.

  “I gather you suggested that Rory takes the vicar’s job down here,” said Agatha. “Poor Molly certainly needed to get as far away from the place as she could.”

  “Listen. She asked to be raped. She begged to be raped.”

  “What in hell’s name are you talking about?” shouted Agatha.

  “She flaunts herself.”

  “She … Oh, for God’s sake.” Agatha looked regretfully at her plate of spaghetti Bolognese for one split second before picking it up, standing up and tipping the contents over Guy’s head.

  The manager came rushing up.

  “Get the police,” shouted Guy.

  “I have pressed the panic button,” said the manager.

  Charles and Toni arrived at the same time as the police. Guy was unlucky in that the police only that day had received a lecture on sensitivity to rape victims. He was also unlucky in that delighted diners had snapped multiple pictures of him covered in spaghetti. The manager was thawing rapidly. Agatha had promptly promised to pay for any mess. He had heard of the famous Mrs. Raisin. He realised what great publicity it was for his restaurant and refused to press charges.

  “I will then,” shouted Guy.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, sir,” said a tall policeman. “You said that a vicar’s wife who was gang-raped deserved to be raped!”

  Overcome with drink and fury, Guy burst into tears. The police led him away, saying, “We’ll get you home and you should go straight to bed.”

  * * *

  Charles ran Agatha home. “I won’t come in,” he said. “Get some sleep.”

  “I’ll try. But I’m hungry. I didn’t have time to eat it.”

  After she had let herself in, Agatha petted her cats and fed them and then rummaged in the freezer and brought out a packet of Indian Summer Tikka Masala. Irony, she thought, the gods are laughing at me. Oh, well, I can’t be bothered looking for anything else.

  But as she finally sat down at the kitchen table, her fork hanging over a plate of what looked like orange paste with lumps, Agatha had a sudden thought. Money was surely the motive behind the murders. Those witches had probably been released. Guy lived in poor circumstances. Had Margaret waved the promise of riches in front of him only to snatch them away?

  Agatha ate only a few mouthfuls before tipping the contents of her plate into the rubbish bin. She was tired but was sure James would arrive soon. Forensic teams had been working next door in James’s cottage. She decided to ask them when James was expected to arrive.

  “Mr. Lacey has been here today with the insurance people,” said one of the anonymous white-coated figures.

  “So will he be back?”

  “He said he had work to do abroad and now was as good a time as any even though the insurance company gave him the use of a flat in Mircester.”

  Agatha let herself back into her cottage, feeling low. Somehow, she was beginning to be plagued with more feelings of loneliness than she had ever known.

  Telling herself and the cats not to be such a wimp, she showered and went to bed.

  She was awakened by a strange noise at two o’clock in the morning. Agatha walked to the window, pulled aside the cu
rtain and drew back with a gasp of horror. Five women were walking in circles bearing holly branches and chanting some weird unearthly song. Green smoke was rising from a brazier.

  Agatha found to her fury that she was shaking. She marched into the bathroom and filled up a bucket of water, returned to the window, opened it and hurled the contents down on the singers.

  “Ye be damned, damned!” they howled just as a police van drove up and they were arrested.

  Agatha went downstairs to answer the door to a policeman who asked her politely if she wished to charge them with harassment. “Oh, sure,” said Agatha wearily. “If you’ve got to take a statement, come into the kitchen.”

  “And, madam, don’t catch cold. Better put something on,” he said, addressing the ceiling.

  Agatha threw a coat over her mini pale blue silk nightie and led the way into the kitchen. The doorbell rang after a few moments but to Agatha’s relief, it was Mrs. Bloxby.

  “It’s all round the village,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Do you know these silly women are all members of the Rural Female Institute? Sumpton Harcourt used to be a nice village.”

  “I’ll just finish taking this here statement and then you ladies can have a natter,” said the policeman.

  “Patronising git,” muttered Agatha, but fortunately in too low a voice for the policeman to hear. At last he left. “Come through to the living room,” said Agatha. “I’m having a stiff drink. What about you?”

  “Wouldn’t sweet tea be better?”

  “I’m sure it would but I want to sleep tonight.”

  “All right. If you have any sherry, I’ll join you.”

  Agatha told Mrs. Bloxby about her unfortunate dinner date and then about the witches. She ended up by asking, “What causes it? Don’t they know how daft they look?”

  “They are usually on some sort of drug. I went to an interesting lecture about how the tale of witches flying on broomsticks came about. Rye mould is ergot fungi and ergot is similar to LSD. Applied with a broomstick to you-can-guess-where, it gives the effect of flying. I mean people still talk about being on a high.”

  “I wonder if I’ve been very silly,” said Agatha slowly. “Okay, to us they are a silly bunch of women, but I feel sure that they could be really dangerous when they are full of drugs. I mean, they spat in my food. I should have reported them and got that café closed down, but I didn’t want to get involved in long statements and so on so I let Charles persuade me to leave it alone. You see what I mean? I was already regretting charging them with harassment because I thought they weren’t worth the hassle.”

  The vicar’s wife stifled a yawn. “Better go, or do you want me to stay?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.”

  Mrs. Bloxby turned on the doorstep as she was leaving. “I’ve just thought of something. Perhaps you should leave your cats with Mrs. Simpson. They might try to hurt you that way.”

  Agatha repressed a shudder. “I’ll get Doris to take them tomorrow.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning, Agatha took her cats round to Doris. Then she returned home and packed a suitcase.

  Toni arrived as Agatha was loading her suitcase into the car. “Bill Wong phoned,” said Toni. “He’s worried about you. Says the witches were haunting your cottage last night. Are they mad?”

  “Not that mad,” said Agatha. “I heard one of them on the radio this morning. They feel they’ve become celebrities and can’t get enough of it. So I’m off to stay at the George. It’s only a matter of time before the press start gathering in the village again. I feel hunted and hounded and Charles is a fat lot of use these days.” Agatha’s eyes filled with tears.

  Toni began to really worry. When had Agatha ever shed a tear over Charles before?

  “You settle in at the George,” said Toni. “I’ll bring any stuff you want from the office. As Simon is still smitten with Molly, you could use it and send him to watch the vicarage. I mean, somehow all this seems to hinge on the new vicar.”

  * * *

  When Toni came back with the files from the office, Agatha was settled in to a comfortable room which was unusually large; older expensive hotels in the Cotswolds usually boasting rather small rooms.

  Agatha ordered coffee for both of them and began to read quickly through the files on the murders. “I think I should go and see that couple, Bengy and Brenda Gentry. They were at that dinner party and they were in the pub the day Tiffany disappeared. I’ve got an address for them. Fox End in the witch village. Did you send Simon to suss out what’s going on at the vicarage?”

  “He scampered out the door and roared off on his motorbike. Did Patrick have any interesting information?”

  “Not much.”

  “It is so annoying,” said Toni, “not to have even a little bit of the power of the police. It’s only on television that people tell the police to shove off. In real life, they turn a guilty colour and invite them in for tea. We don’t have their forensics.”

  “But we don’t have all the other unsolved cases they have to deal with,” Agatha pointed out. “When you’ve finished your coffee, come with me and see what you think.”

  * * *

  Fox End was a “twee” cottage on the opposite side of the pond from the witches’ tree. It was painted pink. It had plastic gnomes in the garden. The door knocker was in the shape of a grinning devil.

  “We should have come here before,” whispered Agatha. “They must be really weird.”

  “I think it’s a sign they are ordinary,” said Toni. “Unlike you, I am not so far from the world of plastic gnomes. My mother loves them.”

  There was a white bell push beside the door. Agatha pressed it. It tinkled out the tune “English Country Garden.”

  The door was suddenly thrust open and Brenda Gentry stared at them. “I’m not buying anything,” she said harshly.

  “And I’m not selling,” countered Agatha. “It’s me, Agatha Raisin.”

  “Oh, come in. Discovered anything?”

  She led the way through to the kitchen at the back. “Sit down,” she commanded. “I’ll make coffee. You must try my rock cakes. They’re famous. Rory says they are unbelievable.”

  “Where is your brother?” asked Agatha.

  “In his den. He’s writing a book about the Sumpton Harcourt witches. He really should have had it finished long ago. We could have sold it to all those rubberneckers crowding this village. Could do with the money and that’s a fact. Those damned unbreakable family trusts. I mean, you start off comfortable and no incentive to get a job and then living goes up and up and the pay stays the same.”

  “You could still get a job,” said Toni. “Train for something.”

  “Got to look after Bengy. He’d be lost without me.” Her face glowed with a sort of maternal love.

  “That night of the dinner party,” said Agatha, “did you feel anything strange?”

  “Only the effects on my stomach of cheap wine. Food was lousy as well and poor Edward has lost a few marbles.”

  The door opened and Bengy strolled in. Toni thought he looked quite attractive with his thick fair hair. Agatha thought he looked effeminate. She wondered what it would be like to be married to such a man. Perhaps someone not so masculine as Charles or James would be better. “Oh, yeah!” jeered a voice in her head. “You could shop for gnomes together.”

  “What did you think of Margaret Darby?” asked Agatha.

  “Not a lot. She had a big crush on me and then she transferred it to the new vicar. Wouldn’t leave Rory alone. ‘I’ll kill that old bitch if she doesn’t stop haunting me,’ he said. Ooops! Shouldn’t have said that. But he’s too attractive to be a vicar and his wife is a prick teaser.”

  “You’ve got a dirty mind,” said Agatha coldly. “I bet she turned you down and that’s why you are being so vicious. Rubbish! I’ve a good mind to tell Rory what you are saying about Molly.”

  “I was joking,” he said shrilly. “I won’t try to help if you’re going to threat
en me.”

  “Sorry,” said Agatha, looking at him curiously. He suddenly smiled at her: a charming smile that lit up his face, and Agatha found herself smiling back. I wonder if he’s gay, she thought. I wonder what it would be like living with a gay man. I wouldn’t need to worry about all that sex stuff, shaving my legs, moisturising my body, all that lot. But he would want a sex life. Maybe someone like Bengy could turn out to be asexual. He’s got a sort of androgynous face.

  “Look, my dears, I’ve got to get back to my writing,” said Bengy. “Why don’t I meet you for dinner tonight, Mrs. Raisin?”

  “Tell you what,” said Agatha, “I’ll treat you and your sister. What about that new trattoria in Mircester?”

  “Just me,” said Bengy firmly. “Brenda’s got lots to do.” Brother and sister looked at each other as if communicating telepathically. “I’ll treat you.”

  “All right,” said Agatha. “I’ll see you there at eight.”

  “Scruff’s order?”

  Agatha looked blank so Toni translated for her. “He wants to know if casual dress is okay.”

  “Yes, fine.”

  * * *

  “I think we might have hit on something,” said Agatha outside the cottage. “Let’s go to the dreary pub.”

  As they approached the pub, they saw Simon just going in and followed him. Agatha ordered a round of drinks and they sat at a table by the window. Outside, a pale sun shone down on shards of ice beginning to form at the edges of the pond.

  “Who’s been hacking at the tree?” asked Agatha, noticing for the first time raw white places on the branches.

  “Souvenir hunters,” said Simon.

  Then he turned a dark red colour as Agatha began to sniff the air. “Sex!” she said. “I smell sex. It’s not me, it’s not Toni, so what have you been up to, Simon?”

  “It’s your nasty imagination,” said Simon.

  “Don’t you see it’s important?” howled Agatha. “Guy said something about her leading men on. If a siren like the vicar’s wife is screwing around, that could be cause for murder. What if Margaret Darby knew something?”

  Simon’s jester face looked suddenly sad. He heaved a sigh. “I just called in to worship at her feet,” he began. “I know I was supposed to try to see if I could get information out of her but she was smiling at me and serving coffee. Then she cleared the kitchen table and stood up and looked at it. ‘I always wanted to try that,’ she said. ‘Come on. Get your kit off.’ It was brief and violent and afterwards she patted her hair and said she was off to do some shopping and just shut the door behind me. And so she went off, pulling up her trousers and knickers as she went.”