by M C Beaton
“Oh dear. That means white wine,” said Nigel. “I was hoping to order a good Merlot.”
“Order away,” said Agatha. “I can drink red with fish.”
Nigel ordered a dozen snails to be followed by steak tartare. He chose a bottle of Merlot for himself and a small decanter of the house white for Agatha.
When the waiter had left, Nigel leaned across the table. “The moment we met, I felt there was a certain je ne sais quoi between us.”
“That’s good,” said Agatha briskly. “It means you are willing to help me find out who murdered Peta.”
The look of a sulky child crossed his face. “I mean,” pursued Agatha, “was she the type to make someone want to murder her?”
“Peta saw herself as a wild child,” he said. “At first that charmed me. But I had political ambitions, and when she turned up on the terrace at the Houses of Parliament dressed as a goth, I knew I had to get rid of her.”
“Get rid of her?” echoed Agatha.
“I don’t mean, ‘bump her off.’ I hired a private detective and found out she was being unfaithful to me, so she got nothing out of the divorce.”
“Who was she having an affair with?”
“Some bit of rough who worked at some bespoke furniture business.”
“Name?”
“Dear me, what a persistent lady you are. I can’t remember. But the furniture place was in Camden, somewhere at the back of the market.”
“What was the name of the detective agency?”
“Atkins Enquiries. Margaret Street, Oxford Circus area. Ah, here’s our first course.”
Agatha stared in dismay at her smoked salmon. It looked like a thin slice of raw salmon swimming in olive oil. “I didn’t think any restaurant could bugger up smoked salmon,” said Agatha. She summoned the waiter. “I can’t eat this. Have you any soup?”
“We have cream of asparagus or minestrone.”
“Take this away and bring me the minestrone,” ordered Agatha.
“And don’t put that salmon on the bill,” said Nigel quickly.
“Don’t wait for me,” said Agatha. “Enjoy your snails.” She remembered when she had been in France with Charles, and he had ordered snails for himself. They had been much larger than the tiny whelk-like creatures on Nigel’s plate and had been swimming in garlic butter. Nigel’s looked dry. When Agatha’s minestrone arrived, she found it consisted of a shallow plate filled with weak broth in which floated a few vegetables. No tomatoes, no pasta, and it was lukewarm. She reminded herself sternly that she had not come for the food.
“Did Peta ever meet Lord Bellington?” she asked.
Nigel suddenly stabbed at a snail, which shot across the table into Agatha’s soup.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” he gabbled.
“Don’t worry.” Agatha fished it out and put it in an empty water glass. “Lord Bellington,” she prompted.
“A few times. She flirted like mad, but then, Peta flung herself at anyone in trousers.”
“Get anywhere?”
“Not after the last meeting. It was at a party in Bellington’s house. Lady Bellington threw a drink in Peta’s face and called her, as I remember, ‘a conniving little whore’ and threatened to kill her. I was gathering information for a divorce at the time, so I didn’t care.”
Their next course arrived. The waiter made a great fuss preparing Nigel’s steak tartare, mixing it up and breaking a raw egg over it. A large pot of mussels was placed in front of Agatha. “Aren’t you afraid of getting mad cow disease?” she asked Nigel. “I mean, all that raw meat?”
“’Licious,” he mumbled, his mouth full. Agatha found that her mussels, subtitled on the menu as being ‘Scottish rope mussels,’ had not been left down in the sea for long enough. These mussels were barely out of the cradle, tiny little things. She began to feel uneasy. Nigel was drinking his bottle of wine at a great rate.
“You know, Agatha,” he said. “I feel this is the start of something special.”
I must nip this in the bud, thought Agatha wearily. “I felt that when Charles proposed to me,” she said.
“What! You’re engaged? You might have told me.”
“Why on earth should I?”
“Well, for a start, why did you think I asked you out for dinner?”
Agatha sighed. “As you are a married man, I assumed you were anxious to help me with my enquiries.”
His face assumed the look of a sulky, thwarted child. Agatha thought quickly. He might come in useful.
“Not that I don’t find you a very attractive man,” she said.
The sun visibly rose on Nigel’s ego. “Can’t compete with a single baronet though, can I?”
“Alas, no,” smiled Agatha. She began to ask him about his life as a member of Parliament. He began to chat easily, although his voice was becoming slurred. Agatha refused any pudding, but Nigel ordered the cheese board so he had an excuse to go on drinking. He loosened his tie and took off his jacket.
At long last, after a cup of truly dreadful coffee, he called for the bill. He scanned it closely and then let out an exclamation of dismay. “I’ve left my wallet!”
“Oh, let me see the bill,” said Agatha wearily. The restaurant was so dark that she took a small torch out of her handbag and began to scan it. “I’ll powder my nose first,” she said. She forgot to switch off the torch as she rose to her feet, and the light flickered on Nigel’s jacket hanging on the back of his chair. That was when she saw the edge of a wallet poking out of his inside pocket. As she passed him, she reached down and took out the wallet. “Why there you are!” said Agatha, handing it to him. “Now you can relax.”
When she returned, Nigel was in a bad temper. Outside the restaurant, he choked out a curt “Goodnight” and staggered off to his car.
I hope the police pull him over, thought Agatha.
As she walked round to the restaurant car park, she saw Nigel sitting in his car with the window open. He was speaking on the phone. She moved behind the shelter of a parked car and listened. “Yes, officer. Agatha Raisin is the name. Don’t know the registration but you should have it on your records. You don’t need my name. I’m just a concerned citizen. These drunks have to be kept off the road.”
“Snakes and bastards,” muttered Agatha. “Let’s see. One small carafe of wine and a gin and tonic. Better get a cab. But two can play at that game.”
As another ‘concerned citizen,’ she waited until Nigel had driven off, having taken a note of his car registration, walked to the nearest phone box and reported him for drink driving.
Then she hailed a passing taxi and gave the driver her address.
As the cab pulled up outside her door, she saw the lights were on in her living room. Charles! It must be Charles. No one else had the code to the burglar alarm apart from her cleaner.
As she opened the door, she could hear the sound of the television set. Charles was lying on the sofa, fast asleep. She shook him awake.
“Oh, Agatha,” he said. “Been out gallivanting?”
Agatha knocked his legs off the sofa and sat down next to him. “I have just endured an awful evening with Nigel Farraday in a lousy restaurant.”
“What else did you expect?”
“I expected some more details on Peta. He came on to me, so I told him we were engaged.”
“This is so sudden. I thought you would be experienced enough to freeze him off without lying.”
“I didn’t want to turn him off completely until I got some information out of him. He even tried to get me to pay for the meal by saying he had left his wallet. But I saw his wallet in his jacket and handed it to him. Was he mad! In the car park, I heard him reporting me to the police as a drunk driver, so I reported him and took a cab home. What an evening!”
“But did you find anything out?”
“Only that he had hired a detective agency and found she was having an affair with someone who worked in a bespoke furniture shop. I’d better go up to London tomorrow.
I wouldn’t bother, but I feel Peta’s murder is connected to Billington’s.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Charles, stifling a yawn. “Bed, I think. Feel like giving your fiancé a good night?”
“No. We’ll leave at nine.”
When Charles had gone to bed, Agatha phoned Toni and gave her instructions for the following day.
Chapter Six
The next morning, Agatha and Charles left the car in a car park outside London, took the tube to Oxford Circus and walked to Margaret Street. The detective agency was above a dress shop. A small girl with pink hair and long pink nails sat in the reception area reading a film magazine which she reluctantly put down.
“We would like to see Mr. Atkins,” said Agatha.
“Ain’t one.”
“What! Who’s in charge here?”
“Mrs. Atkins, that’s what.”
“Are you a temp?”
“Yeah.”
“I gathered that from your sod-off-don’t-care attitude,” snarled Agatha. “Tell Mrs. Atkins that Agatha Raisin and Sir Charles Fraith are here to see her. Hop to it!”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” she mumbled and went through a frosted glass door and slammed it behind her.
The girl came out a few minutes later and held the door open. “You’re to go in.”
Mrs. Atkins had tinted blond hair, one of those wind-tunnel facelifts, and she was wearing a black two-piece suit with broad lapels decorated with black sequins. She was heavily made-up, and her small red-painted mouth was surrounded by a radius of wrinkles.
No ashtray, thought Agatha cheerfully. All that stuff about smoking causing wrinkles around the mouth is rubbish. Her face fell as Mrs. Atkins took a large glass ashtray out of her desk drawer and asked, “Mind if I smoke?”
“Knock yourself out,” said Agatha bleakly, thinking, I’ll give up today.
“I’ve heard of you,” said Mrs. Atkins. “So what do you want?”
“Quite a time ago you were investigating Peta Farraday. Would you still have the records?”
“That would be in my husband’s time. Poor Frank died two years ago and left me the business.”
“Have you got your licence?”
“Don’t need it. I employ a couple of detectives who have theirs.”
“So,” said Agatha, “would it be possible to find records on the investigation into Peta Farraday, requested by her husband, Nigel Farraday?”
“A search will be two hundred pounds … cash.”
Agatha bit back the angry retort that rose to her lips. “All right.”
Mrs. Atkins smiled, revealing yellowish teeth stained with lipstick. “Call me Frankie. We were a pair, me and my old man: Frankie and Frank.” She switched on an Apple computer on her desk. “What date?” she asked.
“I’ve left my iPad in the car,” said Agatha.
“Never mind. The wonders of modern science. Ah, here it is. I’ll just print it off for you.”
Frankie seemed to be amazingly efficient although ash from her cigarette fell onto her keyboard. I must stop smoking, Agatha vowed again and for about the thousandth time. She had deliberately left her cigarettes at home. Most people these days are nauseated by the smell of cigarette smoke, but that thin line of grey smoke drifting from Frankie’s cigarette wafted towards Agatha like a siren’s beckoning finger.
When the printer had finished churning out the file, Frankie gathered up the papers and then said, “That will be three hundred.”
“You said two hundred!” shouted Agatha.
“In fact,” said Charles, “I even have it on tape.”
“My mistake,” said Frankie crossly. Agatha paid over the two hundred and seized the papers.
“Shabby little office,” commented Agatha as they walked down the stairs. “She can’t do much business.”
“She must,” said Charles, “to keep an address like this. Let’s find a pub, have a snack and go through these papers.”
But a thin cold rain was falling, and the lunchtime pubs were busier than usual. “I’ll try the Ivy,” said Agatha, taking out her phone.
“At this late date?” protested Charles. “They only take celebrities.”
“Watch and listen,” said Agatha.
“This is Penelope Bryce-Sandringham of Tatler,” Charles heard Agatha cooing into the phone. “I’m secretary to our new restaurant reviewer, Agatha Raisin. She would be most grateful if you had an available table for, say, one o’clock. Yes, I’ll wait. Oh good. Splendid!”
Agatha rang off and hailed a taxi.
In the expensive quiet of one of London’s most famous restaurants, Agatha ordered a gin and tonic and began to read the notes, passing each page to Charles after she had finished, only breaking off to order food. The restaurant prided itself on traditional British cooking. They decided to skip the starters and both ordered steak and kidney pie.
The food was so good that they put aside the notes to eat, only going back to them over coffee.
“Right,” said Agatha. “The furniture man is called Toby Cross. I’ve got the home address and the address in Camden Town of the furniture place. It’s called You Would, Wood You? There’s also a Peter Welling, Harlestone Place, Kensington. No mention of work. He was knocking her off as well.”
“Dear Agatha,” murmured Charles. “Always the romantic.”
“We’ll try the Camden address first.”
Agatha had envisaged a large workshop, open to the street and smelling of wood, but You Would, Wood You? had a shopfront with a plate glass window displaying one Sheraton-type chair with a drape of blue velvet over one arm.
A young man was seated behind a Regency table which served as a reception desk. On the table was a phone of the old-fashioned type where you talk into it and hold the other bit to your ear. It was in white and gold vulcanite.
The young man rose to meet them. “How can I be of assistance?” he asked in a public school accent.
Agatha quickly summed him up, from his mop of curls to his square face and broad figure clad in an oatmeal sweater and plum-coloured cords, as a “posh rugger-bugger.”
“Have you still got a chap called Toby Cross working for you?” asked Agatha.
“Would you like to order some shelves or something?” he asked wistfully. “I’d like to justify my existence.”
“Surely they don’t expect you to go on like a double glazing salesman?” asked Agatha, momentarily diverted. “I mean, they can’t expect you to push bespoke furniture, can they?”
“My father knows old Bonlieu who owns this business. So he gives me this job because he says they haven’t time to teach me woodworking.”
“So why don’t you pack it in?” asked Charles.
“Because Pa says he’ll disinherit me if I lose this one like I did all the others.”
“But why…?” began Agatha, but Charles said firmly, “Toby Cross.”
“Okay. Follow me. I’m Jake Lisle.”
“Agatha Raisin and Charles Fraith.”
So they followed him through a door at the back of reception and found themselves in a huge workplace, full of the sound of sawing and planing. “He’s got his area at the back,” yelled Jake. “I can’t see him, but he’s probably brewing up tea in his cubbyhole.” He pointed off to a small partitioned area at the back of the shop. “Wait here. I’ll go in and get him.” He pushed open the flimsy door.
They waited. “What’s up with the boy?” complained Agatha.
She and Charles pushed open the door and then stood, frozen with horror. Jake was standing there, holding a bloody severed head. The young man’s face was greenish-white, and he looked ready to faint. Later, Agatha thought if she had not been so concerned to preserve the crime scene, she might have fainted herself.
“Put the head down where you got it,” she shouted, “and walk away.”
Numbly, and as if sleepwalking, Jake put the horrible head on a small table littered with tools. The decapitated body was sitting in a batter
ed armchair, and the flimsy wooden walls of the cubbyhole were drenched in blood.
“Get the police, Charles,” said Agatha. “I’ll try to help Jake. Then see if you can get someone in charge to cordon off the area.”
A man walked up to Agatha. “What’s up with him?”
“Toby Cross has been murdered,” said Agatha. “We’re waiting for the police. Can someone get this boy tea or brandy?”
A man who seemed to be the manager joined them and listened in horror to Agatha’s discovery. He started shouting out orders. Soon, the cubbyhole was fenced off with lengths of wood. Jake was given brandy, and some colour began to return to his cheeks.
“It’s a joke, isn’t it?” he pleaded.
“Don’t think so,” said Agatha.
“I thought it was, you see. That’s why I picked up the head. I was going to carry it out and bowl it at them, and then I saw my hands were sticky with blood and … and … there was this smell of shit and blood and…”
“There, now,” said Agatha. “Have another swig of brandy. Here comes a nice policeman.”
“‘To put you to bed, and here comes a chopper to chop off your head,’” murmured Charles behind Agatha, making her jump.
“What a long day,” sighed Agatha. Detectives had followed police and then a forensic team, photographer, pathologist had arrived. She and Charles gave long interviews until Agatha felt she could scream.
As they left the police station, they saw the dejected figure of Jake sitting on the steps. “I thought you would be in hospital being treated for shock,” exclaimed Agatha.
“It’s awful. Pa arrived with Mr. Bonlieu and Bonlieu said he would have to fire me. He said I had been a disaster. He got to hear I had told some customers that maybe they’d be better off at Ikea. So Pa says it’s either the army or I get out and make my own way.”
“You’d better come back with us. I’ll find you work,” said Agatha.
Charles groaned.
“But first,” went on Agatha, “I think we should book into some hotel. I’ve got to try to see that other chap in Kensington tomorrow.”
After a fortifying all-day breakfast, Agatha said to Jake, “Feel like talking a bit about it? The police wouldn’t tell me anything. Didn’t they offer you victim support?”
