Dishing the Dirt

by M C Beaton

  “Bitch. Nosy. Jealous. Spinster.”

  “Right. She spied on you. She may have known who went to consult Jill. Just maybe she fancied herself as a sort of Poirot and went around accusing Jill’s clients, saying, you are the murderer. If it hadn’t been for the Chicago connection, you would have concentrated on this village. I mean, wolfsbane suggests someone with a good knowledge of plants.”

  Agatha was feeling more and more attracted to Mark. But there was one thing she had to get clear. She told him about the few in the village that she knew had gone to Jill. “Why did you lie to me when you said you knew nothing of the murders? Gwen got her hooks into you when she called to invite you to her party. She told you all about her son and how this private detective was persecuting her. You were even acting as host at her garden party. Like a knight errant you probably phoned her from your car on the road here and told her you were on the case.”

  He gave a reluctant laugh. “Now you’ve made me feel like a fool. Gwen told a pathetic story and I was sorry for her. I thought I was going to scare off some hard-faced bat instead of a woman with shiny hair and smelling of summer. Look here, let’s forget about Gwen and be friends.”

  His hair was thick and red with threads of silver shining in the sun.

  “Are you married?” asked Agatha.

  “No. My poor wife died of cancer three years ago. And you?”

  “Divorced. Any children?”

  “No. And you?”

  “None either.”

  He smiled at her across the table and Agatha’s treacherous heart gave a lurch. “You didn’t answer my question. Friends?” He held his hand across the table.

  Agatha shook it. “Friends,” she echoed.

  “Why don’t we have dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Perhaps,” said Agatha cautiously. “Give me your card and I’ll phone you. I often have to work late.”

  “We haven’t drunk much of this wine,” said Mark. “I’d better get back to the party.”

  “And what will you report?”

  “That a charming lady such as yourself can have no evil intentions. I’ll phone you.”

  * * *

  As soon as he had gone, Agatha lit up a cigarette. The bottle was almost half full but she did not feel like drinking any more. She could feel a rising bubble of excitement. Agatha often had dreams of being married. Would she need to remove to Dubai? But then reality took over. Men such as Mark did not want to marry middle-aged women. They usually wanted some young charmer of child-bearing age. She wondered what tales of persecution Gwen was regaling him with.

  A shadow fell across the table. Agatha looked up. “Drinking alone?” asked James.

  “No, I had company,” said Agatha. “Get yourself a glass and you can have some of this wine before it gets too warm.”

  When James returned and poured himself a glass of wine, he asked, “Have you got over your fright of having been nearly killed?”

  “Mostly. I feel I should maybe rent a flat in Mircester. My cottage just does not seem safe. But I don’t like to think of my cats being stuck in a city flat.”

  “Then let Doris have them.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Drink is not the solution. Unlike you to order a whole bottle.”

  “I didn’t order it. As I said, I had company. He’s just left.”

  “Who’s ‘he,’ Agatha?”

  Agatha proceeded to tell him the whole story, about how she had been caught spying on Gwen and how she had become friends with Mark.

  “Go carefully,” counselled James when she had finished. “I’ve got contacts in Dubai. I’ll check on him.”

  “He put an idea in my head,” said Agatha. “If Gwen has nothing to do with it, then perhaps the Oxford murders and the sophistication of bugging my house has turned me away from the people in Carsely. You know how it is these days with Cotswold villages. There are London people who only use a cottage for week-ends. Any of them you know about?”

  “I’ve talked to some of the wives who are left down in the village all week, waiting for their husbands to come home at week-ends. They have to find amusement to pass the time. Going to a therapist when you don’t really need one is an ego trip. Just sit or lie there with a captive audience and talk about yourself.”

  “Any particular one you can think of?” asked Agatha.

  “There’s Bunty Rotherham. She’s married to Oran Rotherham, who has an electronics factory in Slough.”

  “What sort of name is Oran?”

  “It means pale green in Irish Gaelic.”

  “Whereabouts is his house?”

  “It’s just outside the village on the Ancombe road. You can’t see it from the road. There is a disused gatehouse with bricked-up windows at the foot of the drive, about half a mile from Carsely.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I was invited there to a party one week-end. They’ve got the lot: swimming pool, hot tub, tennis courts and croquet lawn.”

  “What sort of man is Oran?”

  “Powerful and belligerent. Strong Irish accent except when he forgets to use it and bits of Cockney start creeping in. Suspected a few years ago of selling remote control devices to the Iranians, but the intelligence services couldn’t find anything to charge him with.”

  “I’ll go and call on him now,” said Agatha.

  “I’d better go with you,” said James. “I gather you were rude to the trophy wives one evening.”

  “Well, let’s hope Bunty wasn’t one of them. I’ll pay for this wine. Charles has me well trained.”

  But the landlord told her that Mark had paid for the wine. When she thought of him, a rosy, warm feeling enveloped her.

  James suggested they take his car as Agatha confessed to having drunk two glasses of wine.

  * * *

  To Agatha’s dismay, James had just bought a white Morgan sports car, difficult to get in and out of. James turned in past the deserted lodge and cruised up a long drive bordered on either side by tall pine trees. The house finally came into view. It was a large white fairly modern house which resembled a bathing lido. “Looks like something out of Poirot,” said James. “I would guess it was built in the thirties by some architect trying to copy Lutyens. Funny, isn’t it, that anything round here built in the thirties we think of as modern.”

  James parked the car beside a large Bentley and a Porsche. “At least they don’t seem to have guests,” he said.

  Agatha tried to get out of the low-slung sports car and ended up landing on her bottom on the gravel.

  “Bloody car,” she grumbled as James helped her to her feet.

  “There is nothing up with my car,” said James. “If you would stop wearing tight skirts and those ridiculously high heels, you wouldn’t have any trouble.”

  “That was what was up with our marriage,” said Agatha furiously. “Always running me down and criticising my clothes.”

  “Oh, shut up,” snapped James. “Do you want to visit this man or not?”

  He marched towards the front door and rang the bell, not looking round to see if Agatha was following.

  Agatha tottered after him, the thin heels of her sandals finding it difficult to cope with the gravel.

  James turned round when she caught up with him. “Maybe there’s nobody home.”

  A female voice suddenly sounded tinnily over the intercom beside the door. “Who is it?”

  “James Lacey.”

  “Oh, darling James. Wait a moment.”

  The sun beat down. Looking up at the building, Agatha noticed that it consisted of a lot of curved balconies and many plate glass windows.

  The door swung open and a butler stood there in a black suit, black tie and white shirt. He looked thuggish, what Agatha privately damned as a knuckle dragger. “They’re at the pool,” he said in a raspy voice. “Follow me.”

  They passed through a hall with white walls. A curving stone staircase, also white but with a black wrought iron banister, led up
wards. Then into a large room where everything seemed white from the leather sofa and armchairs to the white walls on three sides, the fourth being large windows. A coffee table held copies of the latest glossy magazines. A white nude sculpture of a woman dominated the room. The windows were open onto a terrace. The man trotted in front of them. Agatha noticed that despite the formality of his dress, he was wearing trainers. Maybe he wasn’t really a butler but some sort of strong-arm man. They walked down steps from the terrace to the back of the house where a man and a woman were sprawled in their swimming costumes on loungers beside a table. Bunty was wearing a skimpy bikini over her salon tan. Agatha realised thankfully that she was not one of the women she had insulted in the pub. Oran rose from his lounger and sat on the end of it. His chest was covered in a thick mat of black hair. He had a black beard and moustache. Even the backs of his powerful hands were hairy.

  Bunty was the picture of a trophy wife from her pout mouth, collagen enhanced, to her painted toenails. “Roger,” she said, “bring chairs and we’ll all sit round the table and have drinkies.”

  Had Roger really muttered a four-letter word before he turned away? He certainly didn’t seem to like taking orders from Bunty. But he came back in a few moments, pushing four fold-up chairs on a trolley. He opened them up and set them round the table. Bunty uncoiled from the lounger and sat at the table, waving a hand at Agatha and James, diamond rings flashing in the sun, to indicate they should do the same. Oran heaved his powerful bulk into another chair. “What’ll yiz be havin’ in the way o’ a drink?”

  “Nothing for me,” said James. “I’m driving and I’ve already reached my limit.”

  “Not for me, either,” said Agatha.

  Bunty pouted and called to Roger, “Fix me a tequila.”

  Roger scowled but disappeared inside the house.

  “So what’s the reason for the visit?” asked Oran.

  “My cottage was recently bugged,” said Agatha. “Do you or your wife know of anyone in the village with the knowledge to do it?”

  His eyes were suddenly hard. “Apart from me, d’ye mean?”

  “Of course,” said James quickly.

  “Not a clue,” said Oran. “If that’s all you came about, you’d better clear off. Roger!”

  Roger promptly appeared. “See them out,” said Oran. He returned to the lounger and closed his eyes.

  “That man’s a villain, if ever there was one,” said Agatha, after she had shoe-horned herself into James’s car.

  “I think he’s just a rather bluff self-made man,” said James.

  “No, he’s a villain,” protested Agatha, “and that Roger is enough to give anyone the creeps.”

  “Okay,” said James, swinging the car out of the drive and onto the Carsely road, “let’s say you’re right. Can you imagine him consulting Jill?”

  “No, but Bunty might,” said Agatha. “She’s stuck in the country all week. You have to be pretty narcissistic to get all the body work she’s had done. Did you notice those breasts?”

  “Couldn’t take my eyes off them,” said James, and Agatha glared at him.

  “Silicone if I ever saw it,” said Agatha. “And that wind-tunnel face-lift. So she trots along to Jill to talk about herself and maybe talks too much about the shifty side of Oran’s business. He gets alarmed and bugs my cottage to find out what we know.”

  “Agatha, I went to one of their parties and it was full of the great and the good of the Cotswolds.”

  “And did anyone ask about me?”

  “Several people. You are by way of being a village celebrity.”

  “Did Bunty or Oran ask about me?”

  “Not that I can remember. Here we are. I am sure you are sober enough to drive home.”

  This time, James came round and hauled Agatha out of the passenger seat.

  “I may see you tomorrow,” he said, “but I’ve got a lot of writing to do.”

  Agatha remembered Mark Dretter’s invitation to dinner. “Don’t force yourself,” she said. “I’m going to be too busy.”

  * * *

  Instead of going home, Agatha drove to the vicarage, reflecting that living in the country made one lazy. In London, she had walked miles. In the country, she had developed the habit of driving even short distances.

  The vicar answered the door and glared at her. He turned and walked away but he left the door open. Agatha followed him in and heard his voice shouting, “That Raisin woman is here again. Why don’t you just invite her to stay?”

  Mrs. Bloxby appeared. “Oh, let’s go into the garden. The day has turned quite humid and there’s not a breath of fresh air. What can I get you?”

  “Nothing,” said Agatha. “I want to talk.”

  Agatha sank down into a garden chair and eased her tortured feet out of her sandals. “James and I went to see the Rotherhams. I think he’s a thug.”

  “A very generous thug,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “He gave five thousand pounds to the village sports club and two thousand to the church repair fund.”

  “I didn’t even know that house of theirs existed,” said Agatha.

  “They bought it six months ago,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “It was nearly a ruin and they must have spent a fortune repairing it.”

  “Do they have any servants apart from a thug called Roger?”

  “They get the cleaning done by a firm in Evesham and engage a catering company if they are entertaining. He has the most peculiar stage Irish accent.”

  “I wonder if he ever went to Chicago,” said Agatha.

  Mrs. Bloxby leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She looked tired. Who would be a vicar’s wife? thought Agatha. Dogsbody, nurse, therapist, always kind, always tactful. No pay and very little thanks.

  “Isn’t it nearly your birthday?” she asked.

  Mrs. Bloxby opened her eyes. “It’s tomorrow.”

  “Going out to celebrate?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Alf always forgets.”

  “I’ve got to go. Remembered something. Don’t get up. I can see myself out.”

  * * *

  Once back in her cottage, Agatha sat down at her computer and wrote out a flier and printed off a pile of copies. The flier said, “IT IS MRS. BLOXBY’S BIRTHDAY TOMORROW. SEND A CARD TO OUR HARDWORKING VICAR’S WIFE.”

  Putting on a pair of flat walking shoes, she set out round the village, shoving fliers through letter boxes until she felt too tired to go on.

  Returning to her cottage, she remembered she had an unopened bottle of Chanel No. 5 that James had given her for Christmas last year. She found some fancy wrapping paper in a drawer in the kitchen and wrapped it up. Then back to the computer to send an e-mail gift card. She would leave the scent on the doorstep of the vicarage in the morning before she went to work. It was a Sunday and most of the shops now closed. She could only hope that some people in the village could manage to send birthday wishes.

  * * *

  Mrs. Bloxby was preparing her husband’s breakfast the following morning when the doorbell rang. Before she could open the door, she had to clear away a great pile of mail. When she did open the door, a florist’s van was parked outside. “You’ve got a lot of bouquets,” said the deliveryman. “I’ll carry them inside for you. You’d better move all these parcels off the doorstep so I don’t trip.”

  Mrs. Bloxby stood amazed as he carried bouquet after bouquet into the vicarage.

  The vicar appeared. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “It’s my birthday,” said his wife. “Look at all the flowers! And can you help me get all those parcels that are on the doorstep? I’ll take most of the flowers to decorate the church. How lovely. Interflora must have been working overtime.”

  The vicar stood staring at his wife like a deer caught in the headlamps. Then he said, “Back in a minute.”

  He rushed to his study. He had recently been at an auction with a friend and on impulse had bid for a pretty gold Edwardian brooch inlaid with moonstones and small
chip diamonds. He had planned to give it to his wife on their wedding anniversary in November. It came in a red morocco leather box. He took it out of the locked drawer at the bottom of his desk and hurried back with it. His wife was reading the cards on the flowers. “Here,” he said gruffly. “Happy birthday.”

  “Oh, Alf,” said Mrs. Bloxby, opening the box. “It’s beautiful. How on earth did everyone know it was my birthday?”

  “I think I said something,” lied the vicar. He was suddenly sure Agatha Raisin was behind it and he was damned if he was going to let her take the credit. “Let’s get all these parcels in.”

  Because the shops had been closed on Sunday, the presents were things like cakes and homemade jams.

  The phone rang. Mrs. Bloxby answered it. It was Agatha to say happy birthday.

  “The vicarage is full of flowers,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I feel like a film star.”

  Agatha’s voice was suddenly sharp with concern. “Make sure all the bouquets are from the florist and no one has sneaked a homemade one in. Don’t want you dying of wolfsbane.”

  When she rang off, Mrs. Bloxby told her husband what Agatha had said. They searched the bouquets, reading the cards, but all had come from the florist. “What a lot of thank you letters I am going to have to write,” said Mrs. Bloxby.

  The vicar realised for the first time that, even though it was morning, his wife looked tired.

  “Look, someone’s even sent a bottle of champagne. I’ll open it now and then I’ll help you open the presents. And I am taking you out for dinner tonight.”

  Mrs. Bloxby’s eyes filled with tears. “You are so good to me, Alf. Isn’t it too early for champagne?”

  “Not on your birthday. I’ll get the glasses.”

  * * *

  In her office that morning, Agatha allocated jobs for the day. “You haven’t got one for yourself,” said Toni.

  “I would like a quiet day so that I can go over my notes,” said Agatha. The real truth was she wanted to be beside the phone in case Mark called. Of course, he could call her on her mobile number but Agatha was already fantasising about marrying him. Also, her secretary, Mrs. Freedman, had taken the day off to visit her niece.