Agatha Raisin 04 (1995) - The Walkers of Dembley

by M C Beaton

  She shrugged. “It’s a job. Gets a bit boring.”

  “I suppose it does,” said James, thinking she must be only in her early twenties. “Who are your favourite authors?”

  “I don’t read much. I prefer the telly.”

  James tried to hide his shock. “But my dear girl, what’s the point of becoming a librarian if you have no interest in books?”

  “Mum said it was a good job,” said Mary. “It’s like this: I’ve got ever such a good memory, so I did well at school. Mum said being a librarian was nicer than working in a shop. With a memory like mine, I’m good at it. I can remember where everything is.”

  “But don’t some of the people who come in ask your advice on what books to read?”

  “I turn them over to old Miss Briggs. She reads everything, but she can’t remember where the books are, so we make a good team.”

  “So what would you like to do?” asked James, becoming bored.

  “I’d like to be an air hostess. See a bit of the world.”

  “Another drink?” asked James.

  “Yes, please. I’m ever so hungry.”

  For the first time, James thought uneasily of Agatha. “Do they do food here?”

  “They do a good steak-and-kidney pie.”

  “All right. I’ll make a phone call first.” James went and dialled the flat but there was no reply. Agatha was probably out investigating. He returned to the table. He might as well have something to eat. Then he might get rid of her and go and join the walkers. That’s what Agatha would do.

  “I still say there’s something odd about the Laceys,” said Alice. “That’s the girl from the library he’s with, and I’ll tell you something else. He doesn’t look married. Do you think they could be police infiltrating our group in order to spy on us?”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” said Deborah. She suddenly wanted to go home. Charles might be calling her. In her mind, it was no longer Sir Charles. She was unnerved by the conversation about the ‘Laceys’. What if they were challenged by the group and confessed that it was she who had brought the vipers into their midst? A thin film of sweat formed on her upper lip. Kelvin thumped another drink down in front of her and she groaned inwardly. As soon as she had finished it, she would make her escape.

  Agatha stood outside the library. But it was firmly closed for the night. Where could James be? She turned and looked about her. There was a pub across the road called the Grapes. She registered in her mind that that was where they were to gather on the Saturday for their ramble and then wondered if James had gone there for a drink.

  She walked across the road to the pub and pushed open the door of the lounge bar. The first sight that met her eyes was that of James sitting with a pretty blonde. Both were eating steak-and-kidney pie. The blonde threw back her head and laughed at something James was saying. Her short skirt had ridden right up. Black rage boiled up in Agatha. She was to reflect ruefully afterwards that she must have gone insane. For in that moment, she became Mrs Lacey.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing here, James?” she demanded in a loud voice. There was a silence in the pub.

  “Oh, hello, dear,” said James, his face flaming. “This is Miss Sprott, the librarian. Miss Sprott, my wife.”

  Determined to get revenge on James and hating every inch of Mary Sprott, from her long legs to her blonde hair, Agatha departed into the realms of fantasy.

  “Have you forgotten our anniversary?” she demanded. “I prepared a special dinner. I slaved all day over it, and what do I find? You sitting here having ghastly pub grub with some tart.”

  “How dare you, you old bat?” screeched Mary.

  Agatha’s bearlike eyes bored into Mary’s. “Just get this straight, sweetie,” she said. “This is my husband, so you keep your grubby little hands off him.”

  Mary burst into tears, scrabbled for her handbag on the floor beside her chair, seized it, and fled the pub.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said James, his face grim. “No, not another word, Agatha. You’re a disgrace.”

  The walkers, open-mouthed, watched them go.

  “Well,” marvelled Kelvin, “if they’re no’ married, then I’m a Dutchman’s uncle.”

  “Poor bugger,” said Jeffrey. “Let’s be nice to him on Saturday.”

  Deborah heaved a tiny sigh of relief, excused herself, and slipped quietly out of the pub and went to phone Sir Charles.

  Agatha had never seen James so angry. In vain she did try to say that she had simply been putting on an act. “And,” raged James, “I am packing up and leaving. I will not tolerate such behaviour.” Agatha, now completely at a loss for words, followed him upstairs to the flat. As they entered, the phone was ringing. James answered it. It was Sir Charles Fraith.

  “Congratulations to Agatha Raisin on a great performance,” chuckled Sir Charles. “She’s turning out to be as good as you said she was.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded James sharply.

  “Deborah’s just called me. Those ramblers were talking in the pub about how you two didn’t look married and that they thought you were both police spies, and then our Agatha turns up and puts on the best angry marital scene Deborah says she’s ever witnessed. Went down like a charm.”

  “Oh,” said James, looking round in amazement at Agatha. “I didn’t realize…I mean, yes, she’s very good at it.”

  “Call me when you learn anything,” said Sir Charles cheerfully. “I am still suspect numero uno.”

  When James had said goodbye, he turned to Agatha and said in a mild voice, “I am so sorry, Agatha. I should have let you explain. I didn’t know you were acting. That was Sir Charles. Deborah told him that the walkers didn’t think we were man and wife and were beginning to think we were police spies, but after your scene, they were convinced we were what we claimed to be. You knew this, of course. I should have let you explain.”

  “Of course,” said Agatha weakly. She waved her hand at the table. “I don’t suppose you want any dinner.”

  “On the contrary,” he said cheerfully, “you didn’t give me time to get more than a few mouthfuls in the pub.”

  “Be back in a minute,” said Agatha and scurried off to the bathroom, where she indulged in a hearty bout of tears caused by a mixture of shame and relief.

  When she had served dinner, she was so sensible and composed that James was once more intrigued by the investigation. They both decided to try to find out from the walkers’ neighbours anything they could about Jessica – had she been seen with any of them – or rowed with any of them – before the murder?

  James said he would try Kelvin, and Agatha said she would check on Deborah.

  “Why Deborah?” asked James.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Agatha, “she might have called us in to divert suspicion from herself.”

  “Seems a bit far-fetched, but I suppose we have to try everything.”

  Later that night, Deborah sat in Burger King in the main street of Dembley with Sir Charles Fraith. He had suggested a late supper. Deborah looked around her and thought of all the posh restaurants people ate in, hoping to dine alongside people like Charles.

  But he listened with such interest when she talked of her work in the school and of the pupils. “That’s an odd bunch you’ve got in with,” remarked Sir Charles.

  “Oh, you mean the Dembley Walkers. It’s something to do.”

  “Are you going out this Saturday?”

  “Yes, I have to keep an eye on our detectives.”

  “Pity. I’ve got people at the weekend and wanted to ask you over.”

  Deborah spilled some coffee from her polystyrene cup. Damn the walkers. Should she say she would drop going with them? Would that look too eager? Would…?

  “Of course, if you’re all through by the evening, you can come for dinner,” she realized he was saying.

  “What time?”

  “Oh, eight or eight thirty.”

  “Thanks awfully”
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br />   “My pleasure. Only hope you don’t find it a bore. Gosh, I’m tired. Have you got your car?”

  “No, I live quite close by”

  “Then I’ll walk you home.”

  Dembley was an old market town which no longer boasted a market but sometimes on calm evenings still held a flavour of the old days. The market hall with its splendid arches and clock tower now housed an Italian restaurant and an auction room. The beautiful seventeenth-century house opposite had a garish neon sign in one window flashing out Chinese take-away. Concrete blocks of shops nearly obscured the view of the thirteenth-century church. White-faced youths leaned against lamp-posts at street corners and jeered at the world in a tired way, their speech liberally sprinkled with obscenities.

  As they passed one group, a thin teenager shouted out, “Getting your leg over tonight, guv?” and the rest sniggered.

  To Deborah’s horror, Sir Charles stopped dead in his tracks. “Why did you say that?” he demanded, addressing the teenager.

  The boy looked at his shoes and muttered, “Sod off.”

  Sir Charles stared at him curiously. Then he turned to Deborah and took her arm. “It’s not that they suffer from material poverty,” he said. “It’s a poverty of the mind, wouldn’t you say?”

  Deborah, head down, murmured, “Oh, ignore them. They might have knives.”

  Sir Charles turned back. “Have you got knives?” he asked.

  For some reason, his simple, almost childlike curiosity appeared to embarrass the youths more than a stream of insults would have done.

  Muttering, they slid off, still in a group, used to being in a gang since they were toddlers, frightened to break away from each other and become vulnerable individuals.

  “Here’s where I live,” said Deborah, stopping in front of a dark doorway between a dress shop and an off-licence. “Would you…would you like to come up for a cup of coffee?”

  Unnoticed by Deborah, who was studying her shoes, a predatory gleam entered Sir Charles’s eyes. He fancied her a lot, he thought. She was different from the girls he usually escorted. There was something so pliant and appealing about her thinness and whiteness. He was not used to shy women and found Deborah a novelty. “Not tonight,” he said. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips. “See you Saturday. Would you like me to send Gustav for you?”

  “No!” said Deborah. “I mean, I know the way.”

  “And so you do. Bye.”

  Deborah scurried up the stairs, her heart beating hard. She was going to be a dinner guest at Barfield House. She telephoned her mother in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mrs Camden, a tired, faded woman, worn out with years of work in looking after Deborah and her two brothers because Mr Camden had shot off for parts unknown shortly after Deborah, the youngest, had been born, listened to Deborah’s excited voice bragging about how she was going to be a dinner guest at Barfield House.

  “Make sure your underwear’s clean,” cautioned Mrs Camden. “You never know what might happen.”

  And Deborah knew her mother did not mean that her daughter should be prepared for a night of lust but was simply expressing an old fear that one of her children might meet with an accident and arrive at the hospital in dirty underwear.

  The next morning Agatha did not rush to get to the kitchen first to make a wifely breakfast. She was appalled at her behaviour of the night before. She was determined to back off and play it cool. So she mentally shelved all her earlier plans of cooking up breakfast in a hurriedly bought satin nightgown and negligee, and bathed and dressed in a plain skirt and blouse and sensible shoes.

  When she arrived in the kitchen, James was cooking eggs and bacon. “I put some on for you,” he said over his shoulder. “Sit down and I’ll serve you. There’s coffee in the jug.”

  Agatha saw the morning newspapers lying at the side of the table and looked hurriedly through them all. But there was no news of the rambler murder.

  James served her and himself, ate hurriedly and then settled down to read a newspaper, allowing Agatha to reflect that this was probably more like real married life than any of her wild imaginings.

  She finished eating and cleared away the dirty plates into the dishwasher. The flat, although expensively furnished, depressed her. It was the sort of place that reminded her of her London days, when she had allowed decorators to do the job for her and never revealed any of her own personality in the furnishings. She wished suddenly she had brought her cats with her. They were back in the care of Doris Simpson. Perhaps she would take a run home and collect them. She was sure James would not mind.

  “So what are you going to do today?” asked James finally.

  “I’m going to where Deborah lives,” said Agatha. “I’ll take a clipboard and say I’m a market researcher.”

  “That’s a good idea. But don’t you think it might be easier just to question Mrs Mason?”

  “I want to find out Deborah’s movements before the murder. Mrs Mason won’t know that.”

  “But won’t people think it odd that a market researcher would want to know about Deborah Camden?”

  “Not the way I go about it. Look, you represent some product and suggest there’s going to be a prize. They invite you in for a cup of tea. Once in, you start talking about the murder.”

  James looked thoughtfully at Agatha, as if debating whether she was the type of woman that people asked in for a cup of tea, but he said, “I’ll see what I can find out about Kelvin. We’ll meet up back here early evening, swap notes, and then go to that restaurant where Peter and Terry work.” He retreated back into his newspaper while Agatha’s feverish mind planned what to wear to dinner.

  Seeing she was going to get no more conversation out of James, Agatha found a clipboard among her belongings, attached several sheets of paper to it, and set out.

  When she arrived at the doorway between the shops which led to the flats above, one of which was Deborah’s, Agatha longed for the pre-security days when one just opened the street door and walked in. She studied the names on the bells: D. Camden, Wotherspoon, Sprott – her eyes narrowed – and Comfrey.

  After a little hesitation, she rang the bell marked ‘Wotherspoon’. No intercom. The buzzer went and Agatha quickly pushed open the street door and walked in and up a shabby flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs. An elderly man leaning on a stick was standing on the landing peering down at her as she made her ascent.

  “I don’t know you,” he said. “If you’re selling something, I’m not interested.”

  Agatha pinned a bright smile on her face and went resolutely on up. “I am doing some market research about the tea-drinking habits of the English. It will only take a moment of your time.”

  He had a grey, very open-pored face, loose dentures, and thin hair greased in streaks across a narrow head. He was wearing a grey shirt and grey trousers and carpet slippers of a furry plum-coloured fabric, very new, probably a present from some grandchild, thought Agatha.

  “Questions, questions,” he grumbled. “I don’t want to answer damn-fool questions.”

  “We are paying ten pounds to each person who helps us,” said Agatha, all bright efficiency.

  “Oh!” His truculence melted. “Come in. As a matter of fact, I was just about to have a cup of tea.”

  Agatha followed him into a sparsely furnished living-room. There was a photograph of him in an army uniform taken during World War II, when he was a young man. He had been very handsome. Age, it comes to all of us, thought Agatha, repressing a shudder. There was another photograph, a wedding one.

  “That your wife?” asked Agatha, pointing to it.

  “Yes, she passed on fifteen years ago. Cancer. Odd, that,” remarked Mr Wotherspoon, peering blearily at the photograph. “I always thought Madge would see me out.”

  “You must miss her.”

  “What’s that? Oh, no, she was an old bitch.”

  Agatha blinked but tactfully said nothing. He poured two dark cups of tea into chipped mugs. He added tinn
ed sweetened condensed milk to his own and held the tin over Agatha’s cup. “No, no,” she said hurriedly. “Now just a few questions.”

  “Where’s the money?” he asked.

  Agatha fished out a ten-pound note and gave it to him. She was sitting down at a scarred living-room table as he bent over her to take it. It was then she smelt him. He smelt very strongly of rum.

  He sat down next to her and put a gnarled hand on her knee. Agatha picked it up and said roguishly, “Naughty, naughty.” He leered at her and put his hand back again.

  “I’ll take that money back if you don’t behave yourself,” said Agatha sharply. The hand was removed.

  Agatha asked a few questions – age, job, taste in tea, how many cups, where did he buy it, and so on. At last she felt she had put on a good-enough act and said, “I would love another cup of tea, if you can spare the time. I don’t get to meet very many interesting people.”

  “No, there’s not many good uns left,” he said. He poured her another cup of tea and then sank into an old man’s reminiscences, his voice droning on in the stuffy room like a fly trapped against the glass of a window.

  When he said, “Ah, young people these days…” Agatha interrupted with, “That rambling murder, talking about young people these days. You’ve got one of them living next door.”

  “That skinny little thing! At least she didn’t murder anyone. Couldn’t say boo to a goose, that one couldn’t.”

  “Many boyfriends?”

  He leaned forward and winked. “Not her. She’s one of them homosapens.”

  Agatha digested this and translated it quickly in her brain.

  “Do you mean she’s homosexual…I mean, a lesbian?”

  “I caught the pair of them in each other’s arms. I’m telling you. I’ve seen a thing or two. I ‘member when we was in Tunis – ”

  “Never mind Tunis,” interrupted Agatha. “What pair?”

  “Her, Deborah, and that one wot was killed, arms round each other, they had.”

  “Where was this?”