The Witches' Tree--An Agatha Raisin Mystery

by M C Beaton

  “I am being paid a big amount of money to marry her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “You shock me. You have to be paid to give your child your name?”

  “Not my child. Some Spanish waiter called Angel. They met in Benidorm.”

  “Benidorm! She can’t be classy.”

  “Common as muck. Father is a self-made man. Scrap yards all over the country and a chain of supermarkets.”

  “Wouldn’t this Angel be delighted to take the money instead of you?”

  Charles sighed. “He didn’t stay around to hear any offers. The minute he got a letter from her with the news, he disappeared. The restaurant is called A Little Bit of Blighty.”

  “Look, Charles, don’t do this. I’m a rich woman.”

  “It’s signed, sealed and delivered, Agatha. I am such a fool. I can’t get out of it now. They’d take me to court. I’m off.”

  * * *

  I was sick of these murders anyway, thought Agatha defensively, as she hailed a taxi at Alicante Airport to take her to Benidorm. All she knew about Benidorm was that it was overcrowded with tourists and possibly one of the most unfashionable tourist spots in the world despite its popularity.

  Her hotel was on the beach and called The Brit Experience. It turned out they were doing special rates for old-age pensioners and Agatha felt almost young as she passed through a foyer full of creaking oldies. The young man who carried her bags up to her room was slim, Spanish and attractive with a definite come-hither gleam in his eye. Poor sod. Probably makes a bit on the side screwing the tourists, thought Agatha cynically.

  She tipped him generously and asked, guessing he spoke perfect English, “When is your evening off?”

  “Why, this evening, madam. Would madam like a tour, a little dinner, a…”

  “No. I am sure everyone in this dump speaks and understands English but I had better have an interpreter. What time?”

  “Eighteen hundred hours.”

  “Meaning six o’clock. I’ll meet you downstairs, we’ll go for a drink and I’ll tell you what I need. Here is a hundred euros in advance.”

  He took the money, kissed her hand and gazed deep into her eyes.

  “What is your name?” asked Agatha.

  “Manuel.”

  “I am not interested in sex, Manuel. I am a private detective.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “You may call me Agatha.”

  “Sure thing, babes.”

  Agatha blinked but decided to let it go.

  * * *

  She was to find later that the fact she was a detective had prompted Manuel to use American cop show phrases.

  When Manuel joined her in the hotel foyer, an old lady with the largest false teeth Agatha had ever seen, shouted, “Got yoursel’ a good ’un there!” Her geriatric friends all cackled and grinned and nudged each other.

  Agatha glanced sideways at Manuel’s handsome face. Surely he couldn’t service old ladies.

  “Where is this place?” asked Agatha. “Shouldn’t we get a cab?”

  “No, pardner. It’s round the corner.”

  A cold wind was blowing off the sea and Agatha was relieved when they turned in to the shelter of a side street. “Let’s have a drink first,” said Agatha. “In case you have to interpret, I’d better explain the situation.”

  They stopped in a small bar-cum-café. Agatha ordered a gin and tonic and winced when she tasted it. It seemed to be one part tonic to three parts gin. Manuel ordered an espresso for himself. “Drink affects the performance,” he said.

  “The only performance you are going to perform for me is that of a translator,” said Agatha.

  He grinned and shrugged and obviously did not believe a word of it.

  Agatha told him what she wanted to do. He listened carefully. Then he said, “I know this Angel. I am better looking, yes? So she marries me, yes?”

  “No. With any luck she marries the father of her child.”

  “Perhaps we cannot find him,” said Manuel sulkily.

  “Then perhaps you will get no more money,” remarked Agatha, her bearlike eyes boring into him.”

  He raised his hands. “Cool it. You’re the boss, lady.”

  * * *

  A Little Bit of Blighty turned out to be a dark little bar draped in Union Jacks. “Is this run by a Britisher?” asked Agatha.

  “It was,” said Manuel, “but they went broke so Angel’s brother bought it cheap. Started doing the all-day breakfast with lots of chips and ketchup. Big earner. His name is Eduardo Perez.” He led the way into the bar where a hairy man in a tank top was polishing glasses.

  Manuel began to speak in rapid Spanish. How sullen his face is, thought Agatha. When he brightens up I’ll know when Manuel’s got to the money bit. There we go. Expansive smile. Walk round the bar. Kiss my hand.

  “Dear lady,” crooned Eduardo. “Let’s share a jug of sangria. I have the best in Benidorm. You see, as it stood, Angel did not yet have the means to support a wife and child and, lady, I tell you from the heart, she swore she was on the pill. The father, he swore revenge so we decided to hide Angel. But if this Patreecia has found an English lord, why will she want my Angel?”

  “He’s not a lord. He’s only Sir Somebody. Let Angel come to Britain with me. I will pay all expenses.”

  “You wait here and I’ll tell you. You want the full English? On the house?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Okay. Manuel, pour the lady some sangria. I come back.”

  Evidently Manuel could not believe that his sexual services were not going to be welcome that evening. He pressed Agatha’s foot and then yelped when she kicked him in the shins.

  “There’s a table outside,” said Agatha. “The smell of frying is choking me. Who is that poor woman I can see slaving in the kitchen?”

  “She’s British. Married to the previous owner. Sleeps with Eduardo when his wife won’t. Cooks the breakfasts. See? Those two men are eating them.”

  They found a table outside. The visitors here have either got tattoos, shaved heads or Zimmer frames, thought Agatha.

  At last Eduardo returned followed by a man whom he introduced as Angel Perez. Agatha had expected someone like Manuel but Angel was in his forties, a small, wiry man with a figure like an acrobat. She demanded his identity papers and then began to lay down the terms. Angel would come with her to England to meet Patricia. If it didn’t work out, then Agatha would pay him five hundred euros and his airfares and expenses.

  The brothers haggled for a long time until Agatha stood up and said impatiently, “You are a waste of time.” They promptly accepted her terms. Agatha said she would collect Angel at lunchtime the following day and take him to the airport.

  Outside the hotel, she paid Manuel another hundred euros and then had to stop him from following her up to her room. She sat on the edge of the bed and eased her feet out of a pair of high-heeled sandals. She began to wonder whether she had run mad. Charles was mercenary, Charles was a cheapskate. Why wasn’t she letting him just get on with it?

  * * *

  Sir Charles Fraith sat alone in the library of his home with the door firmly locked. His fiancée and her parents were in residence. He had been frankly quite horrible to Patricia but she hardly seemed to notice, she was so taken up with being fitted for her wedding gown.

  This evening was to be his engagement party. There was so much of her, he thought viciously. She had an arse as big as the Ritz and great big bosoms. She was five feet, ten inches in her stocking soles and tried to counteract it by stooping so she was round shouldered. Charles was drinking brandy to try to face up to the evening ahead. He knew if he broke off the engagement that Patricia’s father would most certainly sue. He would get some top psychiatrist to say his daughter’s self-esteem had been damaged. He had tried to phone Agatha, realising he had forgotten to invite her—or, said his conscience—deliberately forgotten to invite her. He wished she would arrive
and bring that caustic view of things to maybe give him some courage. Agatha would surely point out that there was nothing up with the girl’s appearance and he had no right to demand perfection in someone when he was so far from perfect himself.

  Lulled by the brandy he had drunk, he fell into a deep sleep and only awakened when Gustav, his manservant, opened the library door with a spare key, woke Charles up and told him it was time to dress for the party.

  “It is still possible to travel to France this evening.”

  “I know. But I would be miserable everywhere with the thought of a lawsuit hanging over me.”

  Gustav tenderly helped his master upstairs to his bedroom and then began to take out his evening clothes. “You know, sir,” said Gustav, “we should have thought of Agatha Raisin.”

  “You can’t stand her.”

  “Now, the Hugginses over on the other side of Ardens Grafton hired a public relation’s officer for help in promoting their estates. It was some years ago, but they are doing very well, practically outselling the Duchy of Cornwall when it comes to goods baked or made on the estate.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “It was only brought to my mind owing to the present miserable circumstances.”

  “Well, too late now. Nothing left to do but face the firing squad. At least the announcement is first thing and then I can get really, truly drunk.”

  * * *

  When Charles mounted the steps to the platform at the end of the ballroom he wondered why it felt like mounting the steps of the scaffold. Patricia was waiting for him, dressed in white silk, draped and tucked and gored around her generous body. She had a great moonlike face and, to his irritation, she was chewing gum. He was seized by a great wave of physical revulsion. Her father, Sydney Brent-Arthurton, joined him on the platform. A sea of faces stared at them, Patricia’s friends and family on one side and Charles’s on the other. Down one side was a long buffet and bar.

  Sydney lowered a microphone to his own mouth level and then signalled to the leader of the small band behind him. There was a drumroll.

  “Folks,” began Sydney.

  The double doors at the other end of the ballroom crashed open and a voice called, “Patreecia. It’s me. Your Angel.” Behind him stood Agatha Raisin.

  Good heavens! She can look beautiful after all, thought Charles. For Patricia’s face was lit up with love, illuminated with love as she held up her skirts and ran down from the platform, down the hall to throw herself into the Spanish waiter’s arms.

  Charles had only known Sydney as bullying and pompous but now he looked crushed. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  But the efficient Gustav was there to seize the microphone and announce, “The buffet is open. Please help yourselves.

  “Perhaps we should all adjourn to the library?” suggested Gustav.

  * * *

  Agatha had fled. She felt she must have run mad. What girl was going to jilt Charles for a Spanish waiter? If Angel had looked like Manuel, it might have been possible.

  Inside her cottage, she looked around for her cats and then remembered Doris had them. The loneliness seemed to press in on her. Outside, a November gale was blowing and leaves tapped at the windows and things skittered about in the thatch.

  It was only nine o’clock in the evening but all she wanted to do was pull the duvet over her head and go to sleep.

  She was just about to go up the stairs without supper although she was hungry when the doorbell rang. She had recently had installed one of those video doorbells where you can see and speak to whoever is outside the door. Gustav was standing there.

  “May as well get it over with,” muttered Agatha, opening the door.

  Gustav followed her through to the kitchen, sat down on a chair and said solemnly, “I must speak with you.”

  “And here beginneth the first sermon,” snapped Agatha. “Get on with it.”

  “I have a proposition to put to you.”

  “Out with it.”

  “I do not want my master to make another unfortunate engagement. So he must make the place pay. You must tell him how to do it.”

  “So he got out of the engagement?”

  “Oh, that. Yes. Miss Patricia is in love with the Spaniard. Papa is going to buy them a restaurant in Benidorm. I managed to get the father to pay for the engagement party. Most difficult.”

  “Okay. That’s a relief. So about this plan of yours, I know bugger all about crops and sheep and other beasties.”

  Gustav’s eyes, those black eyes that gave nothing away, fastened on her face. “You could learn. How does Sir Charles get the public to pay for something?”

  “You’re a sort of butler, aren’t you?” said Agatha. “So buttle. Get me a coffee and a toasted cheese sandwich and maybe I might get an idea.”

  Gustav took off his jacket and got to work. “I am not a butler exactly,” he said over his shoulder as he switched on the coffee machine. I am a man of all trades. In other words, in these cheap days, I am several servants rolled into one.”

  “You could earn a fortune in America.”

  “I am allowed a lot of time off and Sir Charles bought me a Harley-Davidson which I love more than any woman, so why should I leave?”

  He slid a mug of black coffee in front of Agatha followed by a toasted cheese sandwich which he had made in the sandwich machine.

  “What made you think of me?” asked Agatha.

  He told her of the landowners who had hired a public relations officer.

  “Even if I pulled you out of the red, what’s in it for me?”

  “One percent of all the takings for life.”

  “That house of his is Victorian and ugly. What was there before it?”

  “A Tudor building which belonged to Cater Thompson.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He was a member of the Hell Fire Club and held black masses and orgies.”

  Agatha lit a cigarette. “You wouldn’t happen to have a portrait of him?”

  “In the attics.”

  “Look, Gustav, I know just how to get the ball rolling but you will get Charles to take me to a lawyer and I want the deal signed and delivered before I do any work.”

  “Yes. But the idea must be the best.”

  Agatha grinned. “When it comes to PR, I am the best. Now shove off.”

  Chapter Ten

  But it turned out to be several weeks before Agatha met with Charles’s lawyers to hammer out the deal. The agency became flooded with work and both Charles and the murders were forgotten. The cases were bread and butter, being the usual mix of divorces, lost pets, lost children, industrial espionage and shoplifting. Finally it was Patrick who saved the day by bringing in two moonlighting detectives who, having access to police files, cleared up a lot of cases for Agatha in record time. When she was finally able to relax, she phoned Gustav and asked him to set up a meeting. He promptly arranged it for three o’clock the following afternoon.

  Agatha thanked the two detectives for all their good work and gave each of them a small bonus. Before they left, she asked them, “Any tips to help me with those murders over at the witches’ tree?”

  The elder of the two scowled in deep thought. Then he said, “There’s always that one question you forgot to ask, that one question which could solve the whole case. Try to think of the question, Agatha.”

  * * *

  Agatha was beginning to feel annoyed with Charles as she set out to meet his lawyers at his home the next day. She felt she had already spent too much time and money on him. As she drove up the long drive to his ugly mansion, she couldn’t help remembering how impressed she had been when she first met him, how she had fretted over what to wear, terrified that some of her old Birmingham accent would poke up its common head through her carefully enunciated vowels.

  When Gustav ushered her into the library and her eyes ranged from two lawyers, or who she thought from their appearance must be lawyers, to the factor, Jam
es Blessop, whom she had met before and then back to Gustav, she said, “Where’s Charles?”

  “Sir Charles,” said Blessop, “took off this morning, saying he had an awful hangover, and had to get away.”

  “Then tell Sir Charles,” said Agatha, “that he will receive a bill from me for a wasted morning getting out here and also for my Spanish expenses. The cheek of it!”

  In vain did Gustav try to plead with her to wait while they tried to contact Charles. Agatha marched out and drove steadily to Oxford. Forget Charles. What question had she not asked? Well, she hadn’t just asked Laura if she had killed her sister. Why not? Unless Laura had a tame assassin hidden in the back room, she was not strong enough to overpower her. Agatha brushed away a tear. She had hoped that a grateful Charles would have been there. Was that too much to ask?

  But her innate sense of the ridiculous came to her rescue. Life was not like romances. Did she expect him to change because of the love of a good woman? And she, Agatha Raisin, wasn’t even what you would class as a good woman? She gave herself a mental shake. Forget Charles. Out there in the whole wide world was a man for her. Romance was not dead. It was hibernating. Like winter.

  Feeling much more cheerful, she finally parked outside Laura’s house and rang the doorbell. She waited and waited. An empty beer can rolled along the street chased by swirl of autumn leaves. Agatha recognised Laura’s car. What if Laura was not a murderer but a murderee? What if she were lying mangled and dead on the floor?

  Agatha tried the door handle. The door was locked. It had two stained-glass panes on the upper part. She went back to her car and took a tyre iron out of the boot, went back to the door and smashed one of the panes, put her hand gingerly through the broken glass and unlocked the door. She searched downstairs, in the living room, dining room, kitchen and office, before mounting the stairs. A bathroom, what looked like a guest bedroom and then another door. Agatha pushed it open and let out a gasp of dismay.

  Laura was lying on her bed, fully dressed, her hands folded on her bosom. Her death mask of a face was clay white. Agatha stumbled down the stairs and once outside, phoned the police. Although it only took the police five minutes to arrive, it felt like half an hour to Agatha.