by M C Beaton
Charles introduced them and asked if it were possible to see Mr. Welling. The maid held open the door to a drawing room, which ran from front to back of the house, and told them to wait.
“Odd,” whispered Agatha. “I didn’t think anyone had a parlourmaid anymore. It’s like finding yourself in the middle of a costume drama.”
The door was held open and a tall grey-haired figure swept in wearing a long lace gown and carrying a glass walking stick.
“We hoped to speak to Mr. Welling,” said Agatha.
“I am he. I think tea would be nice. Jeremy. Tea.”
Jeremy bobbed a curtsey and went out. Two transvestites, marvelled Agatha.
“Mr. Welling…”
“Do call me Peter.”
“We are investigating the murder of Peta Currie,” said Agatha. “I believe you knew her.”
“Oh, Peta. What larks we had. Mind you, when I read about her murder, I was not surprised.”
“Why?” asked Charles.
“She wasn’t above a bit of blackmail, sweetie, and so I tell you. You see, my parents were still alive, and if they had known I was a trannie, I would have been disinherited, and this house and all the spondulicks would have gone to creepy cousin Alwin. Peta was fun. She wanted an escort she didn’t have to go to bed with for a change, and I wanted a glamour puss to show to the parents. Well, one evening she ups and demands money or says she will go to the parents and tell them, and she’s sneaked the photos to show them. I could have strangled the bitch. I mean all I had was a small allowance from a trust and a mews house. She says to sell the mews. So I hold her off by saying I’ve put it on the market. Then the parents died in that Paris air crash, so I told her to say anything she wanted. I’d never thought of killing anyone before, but I used to lie awake at night and dream of ways to kill Peta. When I read about her murder, I wondered what poor bastard she had driven to do it.
“Ah, tea and muffins. Splendid. And put a match to the logs, Jeremy. It’s a teensy bit cold in here.”
Charles wondered uneasily if Agatha were psychic. The only things missing were the slippers put on the hearth to warm.
“You may join us, Jeremy,” said Peter, inclining his head.
“Ever so kind, I’m sure, mum,” said Jeremy. “I’ll serve first.”
They were indeed like a pair out of a costume drama, thought Agatha. Peter had a high-nosed aristocratic face, and Jeremy had the harsh plain looks of a downtrodden class.
Charles asked, “Did Peta ever say anything about anyone wanting to kill her husband?”
“Not that I can recall. I read a lot about it in the newspapers. Someone murdering Peta, now, that I can understand. Bellington? I am sure there is no connection. In these cases, it is always about money. Cherchez le dosh, as I always say.”
Agatha suddenly felt claustrophobic. The room, like its occupants, was designed to fit the period. The mantle over the fireplace was draped with gold silk. Stuffed birds in glass cases stood on little side tables. Antimacassars decorated the backs of the sofa and easy chairs.
“I am afraid we must go,” she said firmly, refusing a buttered muffin.
“Call again,” said Peter grandly. “Jeremy, show them out.”
“You know,” said Agatha when they headed for the tube to take them out to where the car was parked, “when I worked in London, I wouldn’t have been taken back or surprised by that pair. I’ve become countrified.”
“Too right,” said Charles amiably, “Nothing like down-to-earth poisons and chucking people down wells.”
Agatha stopped short in the Gloucester Road. “I must phone Patrick. Maybe Mrs. Bull has told them who tried to kill her.”
Charles waited while Agatha talked urgently into her phone. When she had rung off, she said, “Mrs. Bull says she bought a bottle of beer from the local shop, drank it, and that’s the last she remembered until the pain of being chucked down the well. Once the grill had been wrenched off the top, it seems that slab was propped to one side and could easily have been levered up and onto the top.”
“But if someone drugged her beer, it must have been someone who called at her home,” said Charles.
“She says no one called, but the police think she may be too frightened to mention any name. I now wonder if that business with the diamonds has anything to do with the murders. Patrick said it’s all gone hush-hush.”
“Oh, the dark corridors of power will be diplomatically sorting that out. But they’ll need to produce a murderer because it’s been all over the newspapers. I’ve just thought of something, Aggie. What do we know about Gerald? We know he worked for Scotland Yard, but that doesn’t make him a saint. What if Peta had something on him? Maybe she knew him from her days in London? And why settle in the Cotswolds?”
“I’ve been interviewed by detectives from Scotland Yard before, including this last lot,” said Agatha, “and I can’t think of even one who was in any way friendly. Signed the official secrets act and threatened. I know the crime reporter of the Sketch. Let’s go and see him. Taxi!”
Agatha phoned from the taxi and found that Alex Cameron, the crime reporter, was drinking in El Vino’s, that favourite watering hole of journalists in Fleet Street.
He was on his own, sitting at a table with a bottle of wine in front of him. He was a squat, paunchy man with a face criss-crossed with little red broken veins, a loose mouth, and dyed-brown hair combed over a freckled scalp.
They sat down at his table, and he eyed them blearily. “Fleet Street’s not the same since all the newspapers left,” he said. “This is the last bit of it. If you want a drink, buy your own.”
“Just a bit of info,” said Agatha. “Ever hear of a detective inspector called Gerald Devere?”
“Something there. Need to get back to the old files. Can’t be bothered.”
“I’m officially investigating Lord Bellington’s murder,” said Agatha. “You help me, and I’ll make sure you’ll get an exclusive.”
“Now, you’re talking. Let’s go.”
Agatha was amazed at the seemingly small number of staff in the offices of the Sketch and commented on it. “Not like the old days,” said Alex. “Most done by agencies and freelancers. I’m for the chop soon. I know it. Got me a cubicle. Can’t call it an office. Squeeze in.”
“Don’t you keep everything on a computer?” marvelled Agatha as the old reporter scrabbled in a large filing cabinet. “Could never get used to the things,” he grumbled. “I’m a paper man, me. Ah, here we are. I ’member him now. Had to give that one backhanders for every bit of information.”
He heaved his bulk onto a small typing chair and opened a dusty file. “Ah, knew there was something. You heard of Mad Max?”
“The gangster. Yes. Found shot in his garden five years ago.”
“I was on that. His missus, Gloria, claimed Devere raped her. Hell of a scandal. Finally hushed up. Devere resigned but with an honourable discharge as they say in the army. Wouldn’t have got away with it now with all this new puritanism.”
“I wouldn’t call all these recent allegations of sexual harassment puritanism,” said Agatha.
“Well, you wouldn’t. Bloody women!”
“Run me off a copy,” said Agatha, “and get me Gloria’s current address, and, yes, I’ll remember you when the story breaks.”
“You’d better.”
* * *
Mad Max Harrison’s wife lived in a flat in Chelsea Harbour. “It’s very quiet here,” commented Agatha, “and most of the apartments look empty.”
“I heard somewhere that very rich foreigners buy them as investments,” said Charles. “It’s been an odd day so far. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find that Gloria has turned into a fellow. How did you get to know a crime reporter? Surely in your PR days, you dealt with fashion editors and so on.”
“My first client ever was a murder suspect,” said Agatha. “Oh, here we are. I’ll tell you about it someday. Thank goodness, the woman’s on the ground floor.
Do you ever watch the Montalbano series on television? I always want to book a holiday in Sicily every time I watch it, but then Inspector Montalbano always seems to be running up and down steep steps and my legs ache just…”
“Agatha! Stop babbling and ring the bloody woman’s bell.”
She ran the doorbell, which chimed out the theme from The Godfather. Agatha had envisaged a stereotype of a gangster’s wife: leopard-print top, backless mules, face paint so thick you could skate on it and dead black hair scraped up on top of her head. So Gloria, who looked pretty much like that, came as no surprise.
But her voice was. In a glacial upper-class voice, Gloria demanded, “Who are you and what do you want?”
Agatha introduced them and explained they were investigating the background of Gerald Devere.
“You’d better come in,” she said. “The salon’s through here.”
The salon, as she had called it, had been designed by a soulless expert. No curtains. White linen blinds at the window. White nubbly material sofa and armchairs. Glass-topped coffee table. A huge stone vase of autumn leaves, dipped in glycerine to preserve them, stood in front of the empty grey stone hearth. Weak sunlight shone on the marina outside where yachts bobbed at anchor. Little sunlight waves flickered across the ceiling.
She ordered them to sit down and asked, “What do you want to know about Gerald? It’s all old hat.”
“We have learned,” said Agatha, “that you accused him of raping you.”
“So what’s that got to do with anything?” asked Gloria. She had a heavy pendulous face and thick-lidded eyes.
“We’re investigating the murder of a woman in the village of Carsely, where Mr. Devere has just moved to. If he did indeed rape you, then it follows that he’s capable of violence.”
“Get your drift.” Gloria lit a cigarette. “Fact is, he was set up. Max wanted him to stop snooping around, and Gerald had this reputation for being after anything in a skirt. So I was told to come on to him, and the minute he got my knickers off, to start yelling rape. Well, Gerald got off the charge, and Max was furious because he had told me to get him to rough me up first and so there was no real evidence. But Gerald had such a reputation with the ladies that his bosses never quite believed him, so Max got rid of him after all.”
“So Gerald was not capable of being violent?”
“Don’t think so. But Max used to say a lot of coppers become like villains, know what I mean?” Traces of a Cockney accent were beginning to show through.
“It’s very quiet here,” said Charles. “I would have thought you would have preferred somewhere livelier.”
“Billy likes it. He likes a bit o’ posh. Here! I’m forgetting, he’ll be home soon. I wear my own sort of clothes when he’s not around, but I’d better change. Can you stay a bit? You’re a ‘Sir.’ He’ll be ever so pleased to find a sir here. The bar’s through that door over by the windows. Help yourselves.” She hurried out of the room.
“I’m going to have a gin and a cigarette,” said Agatha. “What a weird day.”
“I’ll join you,” said Charles. “When in Looking-Glass Country, always fortify yourself. What do you think Billy will be like?”
“Probably another gangster or used car dealer,” said Agatha. “What a well-stocked bar!”
Just as they were carrying their drinks back into the salon, they heard the scrape of a key in the front door. “Billy,” whispered Agatha. “Wonder what he’s like?”
Billy walked into the room. He came as a surprise. He was a small fussy man dressed in pinstriped trousers and a dark jacket, striped shirt and silk tie. He was about fifty or so: thick grey hair, sharp nose, small mouth and eyes.
Charles and Agatha explained who they were and why they had called. “Ah, Max,” said Billy. “Used to be a client of mine down at the Old Bailey.”
“You are a barrister!” exclaimed Agatha.
“William Baxter, ma’am. All sorts of villains defended. So you want to know about Devere? I wouldn’t mind having been on the prosecution for that one, but I’m strictly defence.”
Gloria came quietly back into the room. She was wearing a pale blue cashmere twinset over a tweed skirt. She had loosened her hair and tied it back with a thin velvet ribbon.
“Get me a drink,” ordered Billy. “The usual. Hop to it.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I heard about Gerald. Nothing unsavoury except a habit of seducing his fellow officers’ wives. Max was always as thick as pig shit, and if Gerald had kept it in his pants, he would have kept his job as well.”
Gloria came back with Billy’s drink on a little silver tray. “Nuts!” he barked. “Where are the nuts?”
“Right away.” Gloria scuttled off, head bent, figure slightly to the side, reminding Charles of a geisha.
When Gloria came back with a bowl of nuts, Charles and Agatha decided to leave. At the front door, Agatha whispered to Gloria, who had been ordered to see them out, “You have my card. I can help in divorces.”
“We aren’t married.”
“Then walk, girl!”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Gloria!” came Billy’s peremptory voice.
“Gotta go,” she said.
Outside, a blustery wind was rocking the boats in the marina. “Why?” asked Agatha.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Charles. “Maybe it’s the same as getting a bride from the Philippines or the Ukraine. Looking for the old-fashioned idea of the domestic slave. I guess some villains’ wives have to be like that.”
“What a day!” said Agatha. “Thank goodness there aren’t so many weirdos in the country.”
“You mean all those people bumping each other off is normal?”
Back in Carsely, Agatha was overtaken by a desire to beg Charles to stay the night. But he pecked her on the cheek and scampered off to his own car before she could summon up the courage. She told herself it was a relief, that she was not into casual sex, although a jeering voice said, “Oh, really? These days, you’re not into sex at all!”
She went in and let her cats out into the garden. The doorbell rang. It was Jake. “Mind if I have a word,” he said.
“Come in. I could do with a coffee. What about you?”
“Fine.”
Agatha switched the electric kettle and spooned instant coffee into two mugs.
“So what’s your problem?” she asked. “I gather you do have a problem.”
“It’s this supermarket job with Simon. I caught two shoplifters today, and on each occasion when I was about to march them up to the manager’s office, Simon said, ‘You stay on lookout.’ When we were finishing for the day, the manager shook Simon’s hand and said, ‘Well done, young man.’ Simon gave me no credit whatsoever.”
Agatha put a cup of coffee down in front of Jake. “Simon had a thing for Toni, and although I believe it’s over, he will still be jealous of you and not want you to get the kudos for anything. I should have thought of that. I’ll give you something to start doing on your own tomorrow. Okay?”
“Thanks. How did you get on today?”
Agatha began to describe her adventures, and Jake began to laugh and laugh until Agatha joined in. “It was all so weird,” said Agatha. “First the transvestites and then the villain’s missus.”
Then Agatha asked him why he had failed at so many previous jobs. “I was a bit of a rebel, but then, Pa is very controlling. I got a good second in English Literature, but, I mean, that doesn’t qualify you for a job, so I said I was going to be an apprentice plumber and learn the trade, and Pa hit the roof. I said plumbers made a lot of money, and I wanted my own money. He bullied me into several jobs in businesses belonging to his friends, and like a spoilt brat I just behaved as badly as possible until they sacked me. I think I could be good at this detective job, but not with Simon.”
“I’ll put you with Toni tomorrow. Don’t get any ideas there.”
“I won’t. But why?”
“Talking about co
ntrolling parents,” said Agatha with a sigh. “I suppose I look on Toni as a daughter, and I don’t want to see her getting hurt. Now, have you eaten?”
“No.”
“We’ll go to the White Hart Royal in Moreton. They do a very good lamb and mint pie.”
* * *
Mr. and Mrs. Ian Frimp were new to the village of Carsely. They were dining that evening in the White Hart Royal. Ruby Frimp scowled over her menu at Agatha. “There’s that detective woman,” she whispered. “She flirting with a boy!”
“Good luck to her,” said her husband.
“But she’s corrupting a minor!”
That made her husband put down his menu and take a look. “Ruby, that chap is in his late twenties, I should guess, and good luck to the woman. Now, choose something to eat and shut up. It was your idea to move from Manchester to this living grave. No one bothers about the neighbours in Manchester. But all you do is poke and pry.”
“The vicar’s wife shall hear about this,” muttered Ruby.
Agatha and Jake were enjoying each other’s company enormously. They drank two bottles of wine. Jake began to think Agatha was the sexiest thing on two legs he had seen in a long time.
They decided to take a taxi to Carsely because they were over the limit. In the taxi, Jake put an arm around Agatha and kissed her on the cheek. Agatha fought down her rising conscience. What had she got to feel guilty about? She was free. He was free. Okay, she was a bit older. Years older, screamed her conscience. Agatha’s conscience and hormones joined in the battlefield of her mind, and her hormones won. Then she began to take inventory. Her legs were shaved. But should she have had a Brazilian? Nope. They said that men who liked women shaved down there were latent paedophiles.
As the taxi drew up outside Agatha’s cottage, she saw with a feeling of acute disappointment mixed with relief that the lights were on in the living room.
“We’ve got company,” she said. “Charles is here, which means the spare room will be occupied. You’ll need to sleep on the couch.”
“Suits me,” said Jake. “Then I’ll drive you down in the morning to pick up your car.”
Charles rose to meet them. He had been at a dinner party at a mansion nearby and had decided to drop in on Agatha on his road home. But one look at the tipsy pair made him decide to stay. There was nothing for Agatha in an affair with that young man but hurt, he thought.
