by M C Beaton
“You might at least thank us,” said Agatha.
Bill paused in the doorway. “Agatha, wasn’t life safer in public relations?”
Agatha grinned. “Dog-eat-dog, I assure you. Knives in backs all round.”
“And stale metaphors by the dozen,” murmured Charles as Bill left, slamming the door behind him.
Her mobile rang again. Agatha listened and said, “We’re all in the office. You’d better come in until we figure out what to do about this.”
She rang off and said, “Patrick’s found out something about that maths teacher.”
Patrick arrived half an hour later. He looked weary. He sank down on the sofa and said, “Could someone make me a cup of coffee? I’m beat.”
“I’ll do it,” said Harry. “Detective work wearing you out?”
“No, it’s my home life. We’d both agreed on a divorce, but she wants me out of the house now. I sold my flat when we got married. Prices have gone sky-high, so I don’t know if I can afford to buy anything, and rents are pretty steep as well.”
“You can move in with me until you find a place,” said Phil. “I’ve got a spare room.”
“Phil’s very neat,” cautioned Agatha. “You’re not messy, are you, Patrick?”
“Not in the slightest. That’s what her indoors was always complaining about. She said I tidied things away so much, she couldn’t find anything.”
Agatha cynically reflected that Miss Simms—as she always thought of her—had probably found a new gentleman friend and wanted rid of Patrick as soon as possible.
“Thanks a lot, Phil,” said Patrick. “We’ll get together later and agree on the rent.”
Harry handed Patrick a cup of instant coffee.
“Now,” said Agatha impatiently, “what’s this about that maths teacher? Charles, what are you looking at?”
Charles was staring down from the window. “I’ve just seen Laura Ward-Barkinson. Back in a minute.”
He rushed off.
Agatha felt a pang on jealousy and then reminded herself firmly that Charles was only a friend. In any case, this Laura might simply be a friend of his aunt.
“So what’s it about, Patrick?” Agatha moved to the window and looked down. Charles was talking animatedly to a tall, leggy brunette. Then they moved off together.
“I don’t think you’re listening,” said Patrick sharply.
“Sorry.” Agatha moved away from the window.
“I was saying that Owen, the maths teacher, was seen one evening several weeks before Jessica was murdered out at the Pheasant restaurant on the road to Pershore. It’s very posh, but I know the owner from the days when I was in the force. I met him by chance in Evesham when I was getting my hair cut—what’s left of it. We went for a drink and I began discussing the case. Funnily enough, I’d quite forgotten I’d once asked Phil to wait outside the school and take a photo of Owen Trump, that teacher. He was in the notes, Agatha, but no picture. Anyway, my friend, John Wheeler, he said to me he might look at photos because he knew so many people in the area and he might recognize someone. I had a whole set of prints in my briefcase and he went through them. He picked out Owen Trump. He remembered him because he’d made such a fuss about the wine and then complained about the food. He hadn’t recognized Jessica first time round, so I showed him a photograph of her again. He said she’d had her hair up and was wearing a lot of make-up and looked much older. He said she seemed embarrassed by Owen’s behaviour and was drinking rather a lot.”
“Let’s look up the phone book and find out where he lives,” said Agatha.
“Already got his address.” Patrick produced a thick notebook. “He’s got a flat in the centre of Mircester.”
“All right. Patrick and I will go. Phil, you may as well see if you can make another date with Mabel. Harry, I think you should keep out of sight for the moment. Oh, if Charles comes back, tell him about this latest development.”
After they had left, Harry paced up and down the office, corning to a halt before the mirror behind Mrs. Freedman’s desk. He suddenly thought he looked ridiculous. Why had he ever thought all this piercing and leather cool? He decided to go home and change, make up some sort of disguise and follow Joyce. In Harry’s mind, all roads led to Joyce. She had had affairs with both Burt and Smedley. She had served the lethal coffee. If he followed her, she might betray herself in some way.
Owen Trump was at home. He gave them a supercilious glare when he saw who was standing outside his door.
“We want to ask you a few questions,” said Agatha.
“If there are any questions to answer, I will speak to the police. Now, go away.”
“All right,” said Agatha. “We’ll go straight to the police now and tell them about your dinner with Jessica Bradley at the Pheasant.”
He had half closed the door. He opened it wide again and said, “You’d better come in.”
I can practically see the wheels turning in his brain, thought Agatha. The living room reeked of stale cigarette smoke and there were empty beer cans on the coffee table.
“It’s like this,” began Owen. “Oh, do sit down.”
Agatha and Patrick sat down on a battered sofa. He took an armchair opposite. He steepled his fingers and gave a stagey little sigh. “I was worried about Jessica’s school work. She used to be such a brilliant pupil. I thought if I took her out for a quiet meal somewhere, I could find out why her work had been falling off.”
“Did you call for her at her home?”
“Well, no. I thought something in her home life might be to blame. I arranged to meet her on the steps of the abbey in Mircester. She looked much older. She was wearing a lot of make-up and had her hair up.”
“And what did you find out when you weren’t complaining about the wine?” asked Patrick.
He flushed angrily. “I had every reason to complain. I know my wines. I have a very good palate.”
Agatha and Patrick looked pointedly at the beer cans on the table. “It’s a ridiculously pretentious restaurant.”
“Does your head teacher know that you were allowing a pupil to drink wine?”
“It was only one glass. I mean, children drink wine in France.”
“This is not France.”
He stood up. “Get out of here, you moralizing old bag.”
Agatha stood up as well and her hip gave a nasty twinge. Old, indeed. Her face flamed with anger.
She stalked out followed by Patrick. “Why didn’t you ask him more questions?” asked Patrick. “I mean, he might have known more about her affair with Burt.”
“Jessica wasn’t having an affair with Burt. She was a virgin, remember?”
Agatha pulled out her phone. “Who are you calling?”
“The police.”
“We won’t operate very well as a detective agency if you keep handing over every lead we have to the police.”
But Owen had called Agatha old and she was out for revenge. Bill Wong wasn’t there, so she asked for Wilkes. For once he sounded pleased with her.
“Excellent,” he said. “We’ll get on to it right away.”
Agatha told Patrick they should take the rest of the weekend off and start again on Monday. Patrick’s normally lugubrious face looked even more disapproving than usual.
“I’ll still try to see what I can find,” he said.
Agatha went home and entered her cottage. There was no sign of Charles. She went up to the spare room. His bag was gone.
She trailed downstairs in the morning feeling lonely. She went out into the garden, followed by her cats, and sat down. The day had so far been showery, but now puffy white clouds raced across a sky of washed-out blue. The leaves on the trees were already turning a darker green. All too soon it would be the longest day and then the nights would start drawing in, reminding Agatha of her age and the passing of time. She went through to her office and began working on the notes on her computer.
A ring at the front doorbell roused her from her gloomy th
oughts. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “I called round to find out how your cases were going,” she said.
“Come in,” said Agatha, glad of the company. “We can go into the garden.”
“Where is Charles?” asked Mrs. Bloxby, looking around.
“He saw some girl from the office window and went scuttling off. His bag’s gone.”
“He’ll be back. He comes and goes. So what has been happening?”
“It’s all very complicated. There are three murders and I feel they are entwined in some way.”
“Tell me all about it from the beginning.”
“Would you like coffee?”
“No, I would like a sherry. I am feeling tired.”
“Here! Sit down at the garden table and I’ll get you a sherry.” Agatha looked at her anxiously. “You do too much. Can’t you leave the parishioners to get on without you until you get a rest?”
“Maybe.” Mrs. Bloxby leaned back in her chair and raised her face to the sun.
Agatha came back with a decanter of sherry and two glasses. “You don’t usually drink.”
“This is a special occasion.”
“What’s that?” asked Agatha, pouring two glasses.
“I rarely take time off from my duties. But this is one of those times. Go on, tell me all about it.”
“You know a lot of it already,” said Agatha, “but I’ll begin at the beginning.
Mrs. Bloxby sipped her sherry and listened intently.
When Agatha had at last finished, she asked, “Did you ever read Kipling?”
“No. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“He wrote: ‘When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride/ He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside,/ But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail/ For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.’”
“I’ve heard the last bit. I didn’t know it was Kipling.”
“Oh, the man’s full of quotations. You see, you said that Trixie and Fairy were bullying Jessica. She was a bright student. Maybe they were jealous and wanted to bring her down to their level. Then it may be that Burt was genuinely in love with Jessica. Surely the fact that she was still a virgin bears that out. But he had been having a fling with Joyce. Joyce could have felt bitter and rejected. Mabel Smedley turns out to be computer-literate. Maybe she found something in her husband’s emails showing he was having an affair with Joyce.”
“And yet,” said Agatha slowly, “I still have a feeling that these murders are all linked.”
“You’ve been thinking too hard. Why don’t you take a train up to London and walk about the city or go to a gallery?”
Agatha squinted at her watch. “It’s two o’clock and I haven’t had lunch.”
“You could still make the train.”
“I’ll do that. Finish your sherry. I’ll just run up the stairs and get a few things.”
But when Agatha returned to the garden, the vicar’s wife was fast asleep. Agatha slowly lowered herself into a chair next to her. Somehow, she did not have the heart to wake her.
So she sat beside her while the cats climbed on her lap, feeling the peace that Mrs. Bloxby seemed able to exude even when asleep.
Jealousy, mused Agatha. Now there was a thought. She remembered when she had come across her ex-husband, James Lacey, entertaining a blonde in the pub, and how she had thrown a terrible scene. She remembered also how corrosive her jealousy had been, how it had taken her over completely. One murder fuelled by jealousy, she could understand. But three! And what did poor Jessica have to do with Smedley? If there had been any record of him visiting that Web site, then Mabel might have done it in a rage. But Patrick had checked carefully and Smedley had never been one of the subscribers. She wondered what Mabel had said to the police about her computer diploma.
The sun sank lower in the sky and Agatha’s stomach rumbled. Mrs. Bloxby let out a snore and Agatha smiled. Nice to know the saintly vicar’s wife could make vulgar human sounds.
Mrs. Bloxby snored again, choked and came suddenly awake and looked around startled. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Couple of hours.”
“Mrs. Raisin, you should have awakened me. You’ve missed your train.”
“It’s all right. You needed the rest. I’d changed my mind about going to London anyway.”
Mrs. Bloxby struggled up. “No, you didn’t. You let me sleep out of the kindness of your heart. I feel so much better. I’d better get back. My husband will wonder what’s become of me.”
Agatha looked at her curiously. “Have you ever been jealous?”
“Oh, many times. It’s an ordinary human feeling. But it’s when ordinary human feelings run riot that the danger starts. Thank you so much.”
When she had gone, Agatha was rummaging in her deep freeze looking for something to microwave when the doorbell rang.
She went to answer it and found Roy Silver standing on the step. “Oh, Aggie,” he moaned and burst into tears.
“Come in. What’s up?” asked Agatha, shepherding him into the sitting room and pressing him down onto the sofa. She handed him a box of Kleenex and waited patiently and anxiously. Roy at last blew his nose and gulped and said, “I’ve been fired.”
“You! Not possible. What happened?”
“It was all because of that pop group I was representing. I decided to get Gloria Smith of the Bugle to do a piece.”
“Roy! She’s poison!”
“But she took me out for dinner and said she’d always admired me, the way I could cope with some dreadful clients. I thought we were getting friendly.”
“Oh dear.”
“I told her that the pop group were the worst clients I’d ever had to cope with, about them sniffing coke up their noses, wrecking hotel rooms, seducing teenagers, you name it.”
“God!”
“She wrote the lot. Two pages. I denied the whole thing, but she’d taped everything. I’m mined. You see, despite their weird appearance, I’d sold the story that underneath they were all just regular home boys.”
Agatha sat back beside him and thought hard. Eventually, she said, “So they’re mined as well.”
“That’s it.”
“Where are they now?”
“Holed up in the Hilton.”
“All right. Let’s go and sort this out.”
“How?”
“Don’t ask.”
Two hours later Agatha was facing the Busy Snakes in their suite at the Hilton. To Agatha’s relief, the lead singer was relatively sober.
“I am here to save your career,” she said. “Are you prepared to listen?”
“Do anythink,” he said, scratching his crotch nervously.
“Then this is how we’ll play it. I will get the Daily Mail to run an exclusive about how you really are all the decent boys you were supposed to be. You will tell a pathetic story about how fame and late nights and tours ruined you, but that you are all going into rehab to show young people how they can come about as well. It’s the only way you’ll get back in public favour. You must say you owe it all to Roy Silver. How he’d tried so hard to help you.”
“We don’t want to go in no rehab,” said the drummer.
“So what do you do?” snarled Agatha. “Sit on your scrawny bums and watch your fame disappear? No one wants you now.”
They stared at her. Then the lead singer said, “Wait outside.”
Agatha went out into the corridor and waited, aware the whole time of Roy fretting in the lounge downstairs. At last the door opened.
“Come in,” said the lead singer. “Okay, we’ll do it.”
* * *
Agatha worked like a fury most of that night and all the following day, with a bewildered but grateful Roy helping her as best he could.
She drove back to Carsely on the Tuesday morning after having read with pleasure the huge article in the Daily Mail. Roy was hailed by the band as “our saviour” and all about how he had t
ried time after time to straighten them out, until he had unfortunately given that interview to a newspaper. Roy said he had sacrificed his career and done it deliberately because he could not bear to see such fine young men killing themselves. There was a good photo of Roy and one of the band at the gates of a fashionable rehab.
She felt weary when she let herself in. Doris Simpson, her cleaner, had already fed her cats.
Agatha switched off her phone and went to bed. Murder could wait.
ELEVEN
HARRY Beam had diligently followed Joyce without finding her doing anything sinister or, for that matter, anything interesting. She went to the shops, she went to rent videos, she went to the library and then she spent her evenings indoors.
His disguise consisted simply of glasses and a baseball cap pulled down over his face. Joyce certainly showed no signs of being frightened she was being followed or observed by anyone.
One day, he broke off from following her to drive to Smedleys Electronics, which was now called Jensens Electronics. Like Smedleys, Jensens did not appear to want to use an apostrophe. He saw Berry at the gate. He knew it was Berry by the name tag on his overalls and remembered Agatha describing meeting him. Obviously some of the old staff had got their jobs back. Why had Joyce not applied?
Then it dawned on him that the business had been sold very quickly. Didn’t wills take longer to process?
He telephoned Agatha. She said that they had just recently been asking themselves the same question, and Patrick had found out through old police contacts that everything had been in Mabel Smedley’s name.
He stood looking at the factory, wondering if Joyce had killed Smedley and if she had done so, what she had done with that milk bottle. Joyce carried a capacious handbag. Maybe she had slipped it in there. She said she had scalded it out and put it in the rubbish, but the police had not been able to find it in the bin in her office or in any of the outside garbage bins.
So, thought Harry, if she had it and took it home, would she keep it? Hardly. All she had to do was drop it in a bin in the city centre. Police would have searched the office thoroughly.
He decided to get back to following Joyce for another couple of days.
