Dishing the Dirt

by M C Beaton

  “Well,” said Charles cautiously, “what on earth can you do about it?”

  “Teeth often survive a fire. I wonder if the body was buried? I should talk to Bill.”

  “And he will consult his superiors and Wilkes will tell you to stop interfering in police business.”

  “I wonder what’s in the Tweedy garden?”

  “Agatha, the police searched all the gardens looking for wolfsbane.”

  “Snakes and bastards. And it could all have been uprooted.”

  “What about the allotments?”

  The allotments were those strips of land just outside Carsely rented by various villagers to grow vegetables and flowers.

  “I seem to remember they searched those as well,” said Agatha gloomily.

  “Just suppose I go along with this mad idea of yours,” said Charles. “Could she have got an allotment in a nearby village? Mrs. Bloxby would know if there were any available.”

  Agatha’s face cleared. “Let’s go and ask!”

  * * *

  Mrs. Bloxby’s gentle face looked bewildered as Agatha poured out her new theory and then demanded to know if Mrs. Tweedy could have rented an allotment in any nearby village.

  “Do have another scone, Sir Charles, while I think,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I’ll ask Alf.”

  She went along to her husband’s study but unfortunately left the door open. “You mean that pesky woman is here again?” they heard the vicar demand. “Hasn’t she got a home of her own to go to?” Then the study door was shut.

  Charles grinned. “Doesn’t like you much, does he?”

  “That man is not a Christian,” snapped Agatha.

  Mrs. Bloxby came back. “There is a village called Upper Harley. It’s about ten miles from Carsely. They had allotments available last year. It’s little more than a hamlet so they might allow outsiders to rent.”

  “I’ll go over there tonight,” said Agatha. “Don’t want to be snooping around in the daytime.”

  “I can’t come with you,” said Charles. “Got a dinner engagement. You’d better take someone with you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Agatha.

  “Don’t be silly,” snapped Charles. “There’s nothing to think about. Don’t go alone.”

  * * *

  That evening, Charles talked politely at dinner while all the time his mind raced. Damn, Agatha. If her mad conjectures were right, she was putting herself in serious danger. He looked anxiously at the fading light of the evening beyond the long windows of the dining room. It would be dark soon.

  At last he couldn’t bear it any longer. He made a muttered excuse and found his way to the lavatory. He sat down on the pan, took out his phone, where he had all the numbers of Agatha’s detectives listed. He rapidly told them where Agatha was going and begged them all to get over there. Then he phoned Bill Wong and managed to get him at home. Bill listened in amazement as Charles rapidly told him about Agatha’s theory and where she had gone.

  “I think that attack on her life upset her,” said Bill, “or she would never have come up with this load of rubbish.”

  “There’s something awfully convincing about it,” pleaded Charles. “Can’t you just get out to that allotment and check?”

  “It’s my night off,” protested Bill. “Oh, all right. But I am really going to give her a blast.”

  * * *

  As soon as it was dark, Agatha set out, listening to the irritating voice on her sat-nav directing her to Upper Harley. Despite the Cotswolds being such a tourist attraction, there are little Cotswold villages like Upper Harley, buried away in the wolds and seldom visited.

  She kept checking in her rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed, but there were several cars behind her until she swung off the main road. Her way took her down dark twisting lanes where overhanging trees blotted out the moon.

  Finally she arrived, parked in the centre and got out and looked around. Upper Harley appeared to consist of a huddle of houses beside a pond. There was no evidence of a shop or pub. Agatha marched up to the nearest house and knocked on the door, demanding to know where the allotments were. “No use you wanting one,” said the woman who answered the door. “Thems bin sold off for housing.”

  Agatha’s heart sank, but she pursued with, “Where are they anyway?”

  “You come by car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take that liddle lane t’other side of the pond. Drive slow, mind. Do be sheep sometimes. Quarter mile up on the left.”

  Agatha thanked her. Got into her car and drove slowly off, hoping the sheep would have gone to sleep.

  There were no trees over the lane and she was grateful for the bright moonlight, thinking that otherwise she might have missed the allotments, hidden as they were behind a straggly hedge. It was only when she was driving at a snail’s pace and coming to a break in the hedge that she noticed through the back a few strips of land. She collected her camera and a powerful torch and made her way through the gap.

  Because, probably, of the incipient sale, many of the former allotments had been left to run wild. But there were a few sheds and a few cultivated strips. One had beans, another marrows, but Agatha was looking for flowers.

  A little wind sprang up, making urgent whispering sounds. Agatha suddenly wanted to forget the whole thing and go home. She wished she had brought Toni or Simon with her. She realised dismally that for once her nerves were in bad shape.

  Telling herself severely not to be such a wimp, she made her way carefully past the beds, shining her torch to left and right. At the far wall, she saw a shed behind a garden strip of flowers: hollyhocks, late roses and some early chrysanthemums. She shone the torch over the flowers. No wolfsbane. Time to go home. She was about to turn around when Agatha saw a gleam of glass behind the shed. She made her way round and found a small greenhouse. The door was padlocked. Agatha shone her torch in the window.

  The beam picked out a healthy clump of what she recognised to be wolfsbane.

  She grinned in triumph and took out her phone to call the police.

  That was when a heavy blow from a spade struck her right on the back of the head and she slumped down on the ground.

  Agatha fought desperately against the blackness trying to engulf her. Above her, she heard a sneering voice say, “You interfering old cow. I enjoyed watching you bumbling around. You’re cleverer than I thought. So you just lie there while I dig you a nice grave.”

  Agatha’s head swam. She’s going to bury me alive, she thought. Let her think I’m unconscious. Or is it him? I bet it’s that brother, Anthony.

  She could hear sounds of digging. Blood from the wound on her head was seeping into her eyes as she made an effort to see if she could move. But that was when her strength failed her and she blacked out.

  * * *

  Bill and Alice Peterson were racing through the night. Bill ruefully had to admit to himself that he had been glad of the distraction. He had long fancied Detective Alice, although relationships with colleagues were frowned on. Nonetheless, he had invited her home for supper, but his mother had been singularly rude, not that Bill saw it as such because he adored his mother and thought she was perhaps not feeling well.

  “Do you really think Agatha might be onto something?” asked Alice.

  “Not for a moment,” said Bill. “This is just one very far-fetched idea.”

  “She’s come up with far-fetched ideas before,” said Alice.

  “But this one’s a stinker. Don’t worry. We’ll sort her out and have a coffee on the road back.”

  * * *

  They had just parked outside the allotments when another car drew in behind them and Toni and Simon got out.

  “Charles really panicked,” said Bill. “Come on, you two. Let’s get it over with and we can all go home.”

  They walked into the allotments, all shouting “Agatha!” at the tops of their voices.

  A man emerged from a shed and shouted, “Wot you bleeding
lot doing, stomping my prize marrows? I’ll ’ave the law on yer.”

  “We’re looking for a friend,” said Bill.

  “Ud that be old Mrs. Tweedy?”

  Bill froze for a moment. “Where’s her allotment?”

  “Up back. But you’re going to pay for that marrow wot you stood on.”

  They hurried up, Bill and Alice shining their torches. They came across a deep hole in the ground. With a spasm of terror, Bill shone his torch into it and saw, under a pile of earth, a woman’s foot sticking out.

  He shouted to Alice to phone headquarters and get help, and then he and Simon eased themselves down into the hole and frantically began to clear the earth away from the body underneath until Agatha was revealed, her face covered in blood.

  He felt her neck. “There’s a pulse,” he said. “I daren’t move her. Toni, there’s some of that silver stuff we use for shocked people in the back of my car. Get it and we’ll wrap her up until the ambulance comes.”

  A voice behind him made him jump. “Is she dead?” Charles stood there, his face white in the moonlight.

  “No, but she’s in a bad way,” said Bill.

  “Where’s the Tweedy woman—or man, if Agatha’s got it right?”

  “We haven’t had time to look. But Alice has phoned headquarters. They’ll be a nationwide search for her.”

  Villagers had got wind of a fuss up at the allotments. Alice got police tape out and cordoned off the area. The marrow man was driven outside, still grumbling about his prize vegetables.

  To Bill’s immeasurable relief, an air ambulance helicopter soared round overhead and landed in the field opposite. Paramedics came rushing up with a stretcher.

  Unconscious, Agatha was lifted up and taken to the helicopter. Charles was allowed to go with her, but Toni and Simon were told to wait behind until their statements were taken.

  * * *

  The surgeons estimated that Agatha’s thick hair had saved her skull. When she recovered consciousness, Agatha found Bill and Inspector Wilkes beside her bed.

  She gave a feeble grin. “So I’m alive?”

  “We would like to take a few notes,” said Wilkes. Then, as if it were being forced out of him, he said, “That was a good piece of detective work. Tell me how you figured it out.”

  In a weak voice, Agatha told him about meeting Bob Dell and how his remark about not being alone and his subsequent murder had started her to think of Mrs.—or as they now suspected—Mr. Tweedy. But soon her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

  The next day, she was stronger and able to give a full account. When she had finished, Mrs. Bloxby came in, her kind face creased with worry. “I should never have told you about those allotments,” she said.

  “Just as well you did,” said Agatha. “Is there a police guard on my room?”

  “Of course. They haven’t caught Tweedy yet.”

  “I bet they’ve been too slow to freeze the bank accounts. He could be anywhere.”

  “Why did we never think Mrs. Tweedy might be a man?” asked the vicar’s wife.

  Agatha sighed. “She appeared old and rude. Some old people lose sexuality or femininity, or whatever and people never really look at them properly. I wish they would catch her. And how did a woman who’d never had a job know how to bug my cottage? Oh, I suppose it was easy with all those little gadgets you can buy. Once she’d got in, all she had to do was spread them around. I keep saying ‘she.’”

  Agatha looked around the room. “No flowers?”

  “Hospitals don’t allow flowers these days,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “People have sent chocolates, fruit and cakes but the police took them all away for forensic examination in case they contained poison.”

  “Where’s James?”

  “He’s in Thailand, but he phoned to find out about you. The press have been trying to get in to see you.”

  “Do you know,” said Agatha wearily, “I can’t for once face them. And look at my poor head! All done up in bandages and shaved underneath. I’ll need to wear a wig until it grows back in again.”

  The door opened and Charles came in carrying a brown paper bag, which he dumped on the table in front of Agatha. “Double cheeseburger, chips and coffee,” he said.

  “You’re an angel,” cried Agatha. “The hospital food is rubbish.”

  “Oh, Sir Charles,” protested Mrs. Bloxby. “Couldn’t you have brought something a little healthier?”

  “She thrives on junk food,” said Charles. “Look, Aggie, you’d better clear off on holiday somewhere when you get out of here.”

  “Nonsense. The solving of this case will bring the agency a lot of work. Can’t wait to get back.”

  But worried Mrs. Bloxby noticed that the well-manicured hands holding the cardboard container of coffee trembled a little.

  * * *

  After two weeks, and on Agatha’s last day in hospital, Bill Wong called to say that the body of the supposed Anthony had been exhumed and it had been established that it was in fact the sister, Lavender, who had perished and that Anthony had taken her identity.

  “I’m surprised there was enough left to get DNA,” said Agatha.

  “Enough in a surviving molar,” said Bill.

  No one had told Agatha that her police guard had been told not to allow Roy Silver admittance, everyone being annoyed that he had arrived as soon as the attempt on Agatha’s life had reached the newspapers, because he had held press conferences on the steps of the hospital, bragging about how he helped Agatha with her cases. All her detectives had called daily with their reports. Charles and Mrs. Bloxby would have liked to keep them away but Agatha insisted on being kept up to date.

  * * *

  When she got home, Doris Simpson was waiting with her cats and watched anxiously as Agatha petted them and then burst into tears.

  “Now, now, my love,” said Doris. “You’ve got to take it easy.”

  “Sure,” said Agatha, mopping her eyes. “I’ll be all right in a day or two.”

  “That wicked man won’t dare to come near you,” said Doris.

  “I hope not,” said Agatha. “I suppose he didn’t bump me off at the beginning because he thought I was a fool. He must have told Jill Davent something and she tried to blackmail him and set all the murders in motion. They do say that after the first murder, the others come easy.”

  * * *

  Charles was hosting the annual village fete on the grounds of his estate. He felt his face stiff with smiling and he was bored to tears. At the end of the day, he retreated into his house and into his study while Gustav brought him a beer. He put his feet up and then remembered he had bought a lottery scratch card for a pound. He fished it out of his pocket along with a coin and began to scratch busily. He could hardly believe his eyes. It appeared he had won seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Found money, he thought. This demands a special treat.

  Then he thought of Agatha. She badly needed a holiday. What if he bought her one? What kind of holiday would she feel compelled to take? But the elderly aunt who lived with him and Gustav should have something. He called them in.

  Gustav wanted a new motorbike and his aunt wanted a big donation to a cancer society. When Gustav had left to pore over catalogues, Charles asked his aunt, “I’d like to send Agatha Raisin on holiday, a holiday she can’t refuse. Any ideas?”

  “Oh, that Miss Marple of yours. What about the Orient Express to Venice?”

  “Brilliant!”

  * * *

  It almost didn’t happen because the day after, Charles’s stinginess took over. The upkeep of the estate swallowed money and he was already regretting his generosity. But he could hardly tell his aunt or Gustav that he had changed his mind. The Orient Express would be expensive. On the other hand, he thought Agatha was a nervous wreck, and he wanted the old Agatha back to amuse him. Still, he thought hopefully, maybe she’ll turn it down.

  Epilogue

  At long last, after a month, Agatha decided to accept Charles’s offer and, f
or once, all her friends were glad to see her go. She had been snappish and irritable, throwing herself into her work, slaving away long hours, and refusing all social invitations. Bill Wong had pleaded with her to go to Victim Support, which got the furious reply, “There is nothing up with me.”

  It was almost as if Agatha felt that living in some sort of perpetual rage might keep her fear of Anthony Tweedy coming back to murder her at bay.

  Concerned for her welfare, Charles had hired a limo driver, an ex-member of the police force, Dave Tapping, to take her to Victoria Station in London. He was a powerful-looking man and Charles felt reassured that Agatha would have a bodyguard as well as a driver.

  On the road to London, Dave talked amiably about the family holiday he had just returned from in Florida with his wife, Zoe, and his two children, Harry and Hannah. He broke off as Agatha began to cry and handed her a pile of tissues. Agatha had suddenly been overwhelmed with regret that she had never managed to get married to some sensible man and have children.

  “George Clooney’s getting married in Venice,” said Dave, trying to cheer her up. “Is that why you’re crying?”

  Agatha gave a reluctant laugh. “Not one of my fantasies,” she said.

  At Victoria, she asked Dave if he would mind parking the car and walking her to the Pullman train, which was to be her transport for the first part of her journey. She was to join the Orient Express at Calais.

  As she settled in the dining car, Agatha thought bitterly that she must face up to the fact that she had lost her nerve and that her days of detecting were over.

  But the smooth rolling of the train and a superb meal slowly roused her spirits.

  At Folkstone, the passengers were met by a traditional jazz band. One matron, carried away, was bopping to the music. Oh dear, thought Agatha, Middle England out to play.

  Then they were informed that because of a French rail strike, they were all to board buses to take them across the Channel by the tunnel and on to Arras, halfway to Paris. The bus was one of those with tables to seat four without enough leg room.