by M C Beaton
* * *
The questioning was every bit as wearying as Agatha had expected it to be. Unlike previous cases, she held nothing back, feeling there was nothing to hold back, although at one point she guiltily remembered those letters Burt had written to Jessica.
It was with a feeling of relief that she found Charles waiting for her. Dear Charles. Always so loyal, thought Agatha, quite forgetting that Charles had happily dropped her in the past whenever a pretty girl came into his life.
“I’ll phone everyone and get them all into the office,” said Agatha. She took out her phone and while Charles waited, told everyone to head for the office. She rang off after the last call and said, “We need to plan some sort of strategy. Where’s your car?”
“Off to the garage with Gustav. Something up with it. I’ve been thinking of something,” said Charles.
“What?”
“Phil, despite his age, is a likeable and attractive man.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” said Agatha huffily, wondering if Charles was trying to set her up with this geriatric.
“Well, he is. And has Joyce Wilson ever met young Harry?”
“No, where’s this going?”
“Mabel knows Phil’s on the case, so it would be natural for him to call on her, maybe get close to her. She may know more about her husband’s enemies than she’s told us. Joyce hasn’t met Harry, has she?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“If he could shed some of his studs and smarten up a bit, he could maybe ask her out. Now that one, I am sure, knows something. You told me about the missing milk bottle. Before the forensic team arrived, it would be easy for Joyce to hide it somewhere and dump it afterwards.”
“Do you think she did it? I thought you had Mabel down as first murderer.”
“She is the obvious suspect.”
“What about Jessica’s murder? And Burt? Surely they’re tied up?”
“Think about it. Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate all the forces on dealing with one murder at a time? The newspapers are still putting the police under pressure over Jessica’s murder, so they’ll still be concentrating all their efforts over solving that one, and Burt’s as well.”
“All right. We’ll try it your way. I’ll tell them.”
“And no doubt take all the credit for having thought of it,” murmured Charles, but Agatha pretended not to hear.
Later that day, Harry, with not a stud or earring in sight, and dressed conservatively in a soft brown suede jacket, Tattersall shirt and tailored slacks, sat in his parents’ Audi at the end of Joyce’s street. His parents were well-to-do, and as Harry was their only child, they indulged him with a generous allowance.
He knew there was a supermarket nearby, within walking distance, and hoped Joyce would go there. But she came out of her house at last and got into a battered Mini parked outside and drove off.
Harry followed. Joyce drove into the centre of Mircester and parked. Harry parked as well and followed her at a discreet distance. She went into the Abbey Tea Rooms. Harry waited a few minutes and went in as well. The tea room, famous for its cakes, was crowded. Joyce was sitting at a table in the comer by herself. There were no empty tables. Blessing his luck, Harry approached Joyce. “Do you mind if I sit here? Seems to be the only seat.”
“No, go ahead,” said Joyce. The waitress came up. Joyce ordered a pot of tea and a slice of carrot cake and Harry ordered coffee and a toasted teacake. He knew he would have to go carefully. Joyce had taken out a paperback romance and started to read, so he unfolded the newspaper he had originally bought to hide behind when he was watching her house, and pretended to read.
The waitress came up with their orders. Now what? Harry had thought of spilling his coffee on her as a way to break into conversation but rejected the idea almost immediately. All that would do would make her furious.
The table was very small. Joyce’s tea was served in one of those metal pots that always seem to pour anywhere but in the cup. Her saucer filled with tea and she gave an exclamation of dismay.
Harry summoned the waitress with an imperious wave of his hand. “The young lady’s teapot is not pouring properly. Please get her a good one.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Joyce. “But you really shouldn’t have bothered.”
Harry smiled. That smile he used so rarely but when he did, it lit up his face. “Least I can do for a pretty lady.”
Then, so that he wouldn’t appear so pushy, he picked up the paper again.
When her new pot of tea and clean cup and saucer arrived, he lowered his paper and said, “Allow me.” He reached over and deftly poured a cup.
“Thank you,” said Joyce.
Harry began to drink his coffee and eat his toasted teacake. Let her make the first move, he told himself.
Then Joyce spoke. “Are you new to Mircester?”
“No, I live with my parents out on Bewdley Road.”
Joyce was impressed. She knew Bewdley Road. That was where the most expensive villas in the town could be found. Her eyes took in the expensive suede jacket.
“It’s odd to find a young man living with his parents these days.”
“I’m taking a gap year before I go to university,” said Harry. He had decided not to try and cover up his age. Joyce would probably be flattered that a young man was interested in her.
He was about to pick up the paper again, but Joyce’s curiosity had been awakened. She noticed he was wearing a Rolex. Joyce was attracted by any show of wealth.
“And what are you doing in your gap year?” she asked.
“I’m doing freelance computer programming work.”
“And will you do that when you leave university?”
“Maybe. I’ll be studying physics.”
Joyce let out a sigh. “I wish I’d gone to university instead of being just a secretary.”
“Where do you work?”
“Smedleys Electronics.”
Harry let his eyes widen. “Good heavens! Wasn’t there a murder there?”
“My boss.” Joyce began to cry.
“Oh, don’t cry.” Harry edged his chair round next to hers and handed her a large white handkerchief.
He put an arm lightly round her shoulders until she gave a final gulp. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It’s all been such a strain.” She tried to hand him back his handkerchief, now liberally smeared with make-up. “Keep it,” said Harry. Seeing she had recovered, he moved his chair back.
With bent head, she picked at her carrot cake and sipped a little tea.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Don’t be,” said Harry bracingly. “You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”
“It’s worse. One of our sales reps has been found murdered.”
“Really?”
“Isn’t it in the paper?”
Harry silently cursed. He hadn’t really been reading the paper. “I was looking for something else. Let me see. You’re right! Here it is. Front page. Oh, you poor thing.”
“I’m so frightened,” said Joyce. “What if someone is out to murder the lot of us?”
“I shouldn’t think so for a moment. Did Mr. Smedley have any enemies?”
“Everybody loved him,” said Joyce and began to cry again.
He waited patiently until she had again recovered and said, “Look, you need something to take your mind off things. I bought two tickets for the production of The Mikado that’s on tonight. But my girlfriend’s just broken off with me. Would you like to come along? Cheer you up. No strings.”
She gave him a watery smile. “I’d like that. I hate being in the house on my own.”
“There you are then. That’s all set. Let me get the bill. No, I insist.” Harry called over the waitress and paid, extracting a note from a wallet stuffed with money. He left a generous tip on the table.
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“You don’t know where I live. Or my name. I’m Joyce Wilson.”
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“And I’m James Henderson.”
Harry leaned across the table. “Fact is, I feel I’ve known you for ages. What’s the address?”
“More tea, Mr. Witherspoon?”
“Yes, please. Do call me Phil. I must say these sponge cakes of yours are as light as a feather.”
“I like a man with a good appetite.”
Phil had found a particularly flattering photograph of Mabel he had taken at the Ancombe sale of work. It showed Mabel behind the jam counter standing in a shaft of sunlight from the high window above her. The light had cast an aureole around her head. He had used that as an excuse to call on her.
He felt so relaxed and at ease that he did not want to talk about murder. Her sitting room was so pleasant and her baking superb. She was everything he thought a woman should be. He sometimes had to confess to himself that Agatha Raisin could be very intimidating.
But mindful of duty, he asked, “Have you any idea who could have murdered Burt?”
“I’ve been thinking and thinking about it. The only thing is those dreadful videos the police told me about. People who look at things like that on the Internet are sick and dangerous. I think one of his weird customers found out where he was and killed him in a rage.”
“The police are interviewing all the men who checked into the Web site. Maybe they’ll come up with something.”
“Of course, I heard at one of the staff parties that he had a bit of a reputation as a philanderer. Maybe some jilted female.”
“I thought he was deeply in love with Jessica.”
“My dear Phil. If you really love someone you don’t have them cavorting on some dirty Web site.”
“I thought at first that Burt might have killed Jessica, but he had a cast-iron alibi.”
“I really don’t believe in cast-iron alibis. But let’s talk about something else. Tell me about yourself.”
After half an hour, Phil reddened and said apologetically, “You must forgive me. I usually don’t talk about myself much. You are such a good listener.”
“And you are such an interesting man. Do you like Gilbert and Sullivan?”
“Very much.”
“I am on the board of the Mircester Operatic Society. They are putting on The Mikado. Would you like to see it?”
“Very much.”
“If you call here for me at, say, six-thirty, I’ll take you along. I always have tickets left for me at the box office.”
Agatha and Charles had spent an exhausting day interviewing all the neighbours in Burt’s street. She called all the staff into the office for five-thirty. She and Charles planned to go back out when Burt’s immediate neighbours came home from work. She hoped the police had found out where the neighbours worked and had already interviewed them, or they would not appreciate her presence.
“How did you get on?” Agatha asked Phil.
Phil did not want to tell Agatha about his proposed visit to The Mikado. He felt Agatha was jealous of Mabel’s reputation as a domestic paragon. He said he hadn’t got much further except that Mabel seemed doubtful about Burt’s alibi.
“Is she, now?” said Agatha. “Maybe we should look into that alibi ourselves. What about you, Harry?”
He told them how he had engineered the meeting with Joyce and how he was taking her to see The Mikado. Phil was horrified. He could not now tell Agatha he was going himself. He cursed himself. After all, the whole point of his visit to Mabel was to get friendly with her. Now it was too late. Agatha would wonder why he had held that bit of information back. He’d need to have a private word with Harry.
“See you all here at nine in the morning,” said Agatha.
“I won’t be in,” said Patrick. “I got the names of the men who checked into that Web site. Better you don’t know how. I’m going to try to see some of them tonight, so it’ll be a late evening for me. I might be a bit late in the morning.”
“Fine,” said Agatha.
Harry left quickly, and, with surprising agility, Phil raced after him down the stairs. “Wait, Harry,” he said. “You can’t go to The Mikado.”
“Why?”
“Mabel’s taking me there and she knows what you look like and of course she knows Joyce.”
“Why didn’t you say something upstairs?”
“Don’t know,” mumbled Phil.
“Damn, I’ll think of somewhere else to take her.”
NINE
HARRY rang Joyce’s doorbell. She appeared dressed in a cashmere stole under which she wore a little black dress, sheer stockings and very high heels. She appeared to have drenched herself in an overpowerful and very cheap scent.
Harry complimented her on her appearance while helping her into his car and all the time thinking she had such a rabbity face.
“I hope you won’t be too disappointed,” said Harry. “But The Mikado is off.”
“Oh, why?”
“Well, I like the traditional stuff and someone told me this production is set in a modem-day factory with the whole chorus dressed in denim overalls. So what I thought instead is the Classic Cinema. They’re showing Brief Encounter. Did you ever see it?”
“No.”
“I thought we’d go there and then have dinner at the Royal afterwards.”
Joyce’s protuberant eyes widened. The Royal was Mircester’s best hotel and the restaurant was very expensive. She had tried several times to get Robert Smedley to take her there, but he’d always refused.
“Sounds lovely,” she said.
Harry had taken the precaution of bringing two large handkerchiefs with him. Joyce cried her way through the whole blackand-white film.
“You must think me very silly,” she said outside the cinema, “but it brought back a lot of sad memories.”
“You mean you were in love with a married man?” asked Harry lightly.
“Oh, no, nothing like that. When we get to the hotel, I’ll just go to the ladies’ and repair my make-up.”
So she wasn’t going to admit to having an affair with Smedley, thought Harry.
Joyce came back. She picked up the large menu. “I always like fish,” she said. She ordered avocado stuffed with prawns to start and then a whole grilled lobster. Harry had a feeling she was choosing by price rather than taste. Perhaps Smedley’s attraction for her had been nothing more than money. He ordered pate followed by boeuf bourguignon and also a half bottle of red wine for himself and a half bottle of white for Joyce.
She said coyly that she always liked to have a dry martini before eating. “Could you make it a large one?” she asked. “I’m quite nervous.”
Harry expected the meal to be a fairly silent one. Joyce obviously did not want to talk about Smedley and he wanted to tell as few lies about his background as possible, but Joyce turned out to be loquacious enough for both of them. She prattled on about her parents, father now dead and her mother in care in Bath. She talked about a previous job as secretary to a supermarket manager—”I didn’t even get a discount on my groceries”—and Harry tried not to let his eyes glaze over with boredom.
He kept trying to turn the conversation back to the murder and Joyce always kept on talking about something else.
She finished her meal with crepes Suzette, then brandy and coffee. Harry paid the bill with cash. He did not want to use a credit card in case Joyce could read the name on it, which wasn’t the one he’d given her.
When he drove her home, she asked him if he would like to come in for a coffee. Harry reluctantly agreed.
Perhaps he might have a chance for a quick search.
“Now just relax,” said Joyce, “and I’ll put the kettle on. Be back in a tick.”
Harry moved quietly about the room, searching here, searching there, seeing if there was anything that might provide some lead on the case.
Phil had enjoyed his evening immensely. At times he felt guilty that he had not found out anything at all but consoled himself with the thought that such a fine woman as Mabel had nothing to hide.
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By the time she had invited him home for coffee they were talking like old friends, and it was with great reluctance that he finally got up to leave. Suddenly as shy as a schoolboy, he hesitated in the doorway. “I’ve enjoyed myself so much. I’d like to do this again.”
Mabel smiled. “What about Saturday? We could take a drive in the country and have a picnic.”
“I would love that.”
“Let’s make a day of it. Pick me up about ten in the morning.”
“Wonderful.”
Meanwhile, Harry realized that the seconds were ticking into minutes and still Joyce hadn’t appeared.
“Joyce!” he called.
“Here,” she said huskily.
He swung round. Joyce was standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a transparent black nightie. She held out her hand. “Let’s forget about the coffee.”
Oh, Agatha Raisin, mourned Harry inwardly. The things I do for you!
He allowed himself to be led upstairs to the bedroom. Joyce was staggering slightly, all she had drunk evidently just having begun to hit her.
“Where’s the bathroom?” asked Harry, stalling for time. “I need a shower.”
“Just out of the door and rum right. I’ll be waiting.”
Harry went into the bathroom and locked the door. He ran a bath instead. He undressed and tried to relax in the warm water. He wished he were one of those fellows who could get excited at the prospect of sex with any woman.
He soaked as long as he could and then got out and dried himself. He picked up his clothes and went into the bedroom.
Joyce was fast asleep and snoring lustily. With a sigh of relief, he quietly got into his clothes.
He was about to make a smart exit. Then he noticed a bureau against the wall farthest away from the bed.
He tiptoed over and softly began to pull out the drawers. He didn’t expect to find any letters because nobody, surely, wrote letters in these days of email and text messages.
There were bank statements and credit card receipts. He was about to give up when he saw an envelope tucked at the back of the bottom drawer. He drew it out. Joyce had left lamps burning on either side of the bed.
