Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wykhadden

by M C Beaton

  ‘May as well go then,’ said Agatha, but already regretting her impulse.

  Agatha went upstairs to get her coat. She decided to wash and blow-dry her hair before she went out and then apply some more of that lotion. She shampooed her hair and then examined her scalp. On the bald patches was now growing a faint fuzz of new hair. It’s a miracle, thought Agatha. When I get back to Carsely, I’ll get this hair lotion analysed and I might be able to make a fortune if it really works.

  Feeling quite elated, she wound a pretty chiffon scarf around her head in a sort of Turkish turban, put on her coat and headed out of the hotel. It was very cold and windy, but Agatha was determined to exercise and return to Carsely a new, thin Agatha. She set out in the opposite direction she had gone before, to the east rather than the west. She kept away from the sea-wall, for the tide was high and occasionally a great wave would break over the wall. The air was full of the sounds of screaming sea-gulls and crashing sea. Reaching the end of the promenade in that direction, she turned back and headed west, past the hotel. She turned up into the centre of the town where she found an elegant little boutique. In the window was a short black silk chiffon dress, cut low and with thin straps. Bit chilly for Wyckhadden in winter, thought Agatha. But she knew she still had smooth shoulders and a good bust. Wouldn’t do any harm to try it on.

  She emerged twenty minutes later with the dress in a bag. It was too good for the pier dance, but for a candle-lit dinner with James Lacey . . .

  Agatha found her steps leading her to that pub where she had first met Jimmy. It was just about lunch-time and he might be there.

  She pushed opened the door of the pub and went in. It smelt like all dingy pubs, of stale beer and Bisto gravy.

  No Jimmy. A couple of business men at one table, the adulterous couple at another, three youths propping up the bar.

  She went over to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. She took out her wallet to pay for it when a voice behind her said to the bartender, ‘I’ll get that, Charlie. And half a pint of lager for me.’ She turned quickly and saw Jimmy smiling down at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Agatha. ‘How are things going?’

  He paid for the drinks and then they sat down at a table. ‘The motive seems to have been robbery,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Oh.’ Agatha was disappointed. She had been nursing a dream where it would turn out one of the residents at the Garden had committed the murder and she would solve it.

  ‘Her daughter, Janine, says she kept a large amount of cash in a padlocked metal box. The box was found this morning on the beach where it had been thrown. It was empty.’

  ‘Forced?’

  ‘No. Her keys were missing as well. Janine said she kept a key to the box with her car keys.’

  ‘So it was not just some ordinary burglary. I mean, it wasn’t some lout off the street. Someone knew where she kept the money.’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘Any sign of what struck her?’

  ‘Some sort of poker or cosh or bottle. Forensic are still working on that. Been shopping?’

  ‘I found a pretty dress in a boutique in the town. I think it’s too good to wear tonight, however.’

  ‘What’s happening tonight?’

  ‘I’m going with Daisy Jones from the hotel to the pier dance.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘I wish I’d never agreed to it,’ said Agatha gloomily.

  ‘We haven’t ruled out that it might be one of them at the hotel, although it seems farfetched.’

  ‘The colonel’s very fit,’ said Agatha. ‘Come to think of it, apart from old Mr Berry, they’re all pretty fit.’

  ‘Find out anything about them and Francie Juddle?’

  ‘Only from Daisy Jones so far. She says she went to Francie to get in touch with her dead husband.’ Agatha leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with excitement. ‘Here’s a strange thing. She said that the voice she heard at the seance sounded like that of her dead husband, Hugh, but she said Francie never knew Hugh.’

  ‘She did, you know. She logged everything in her yearly appointments books and kept them all. We’ve got police going through them. Hugh Jones did go to her.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A cure for impotence.’

  ‘So she would know what he sounded like!’ said Agatha.

  ‘By all accounts, our Francie was a great mimic.’

  ‘But a man’s voice!’

  ‘She could have had an accomplice. We’re going on Crime Watch tonight to appeal to people who consulted her to come forward.’

  ‘What did old Mr Berry go to her for? Oh, you said it was rheumatism.’

  ‘He also wanted to get in touch with his dead wife.’

  ‘It’s a cruel business, that,’ said Agatha, ‘conning people that way.’

  ‘Oh, there are a lot of believers. They can’t let go of the dead.’

  ‘Did you ever feel that way . . . about your wife?’

  ‘No, you see much as I missed her dreadfully, I didn’t and I don’t believe in seances. From my experience, people have to mourn and get it over with or they can go crazy. There’s a lot to be said for a good old Irish wake.’

  ‘No hope of you being at the dance tonight, Jimmy?’

  He rubbed a weary hand over his face. ‘I’m working flat out. I only nipped in here –’ he flushed slightly – ‘well, just for a break. I’ve got to be going.’

  That love potion must really work, thought Agatha. She knew he had meant that he had come to the pub in the hope of seeing her.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ said Agatha.

  ‘I don’t think that’s wise,’ said Jimmy awkwardly. ‘You’re still a suspect and I got a bit of a rocket from the force crime officer over at Hadderton when he saw us both on television. They’re digging up a lot of colourful stuff out of your past, Agatha. I mean your husband being murdered, and all.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Who’s this chap, Lacey, you were thinking of marrying?’

  ‘Just someone. I mean, it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Not still carrying a torch for him?’

  Agatha stared at the table. ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ He patted her hand.

  Agatha sat smiling to herself after he had left. She liked his thick white skin and his sleepy eyelids and his tall figure. What would it be like being married to a police inspector? She began to imagine their wedding, but when she got to the bit where James Lacey asked for a dance with the bride and told her he had always loved her Agatha snapped out of it. It would be typical of such as James Lacey to tell her he loved her when there was no chance of doing anything about it.

  She left the pub and bought the newspapers and then went to the café she had gone to with Jimmy for lunch, not wanting to return to the hotel for one of their mammoth meals.

  She sat and read the newspapers. On the front of two of them was a photograph of Janine Juddle. In an interview, she said she would be moving to Wyckhadden to carry on her mother’s business of helping people. She said she would ask the spirits of the dead to rise up and find the murderer of her poor mother. Janine was a hard-faced blonde. Beside her in the photograph was a surly-looking man with close-cropped hair. The husband. Now he could have done it, thought Agatha. Janine might hold the purse-strings, but ready money had been stolen and who better to know that it had been there than the son-in-law.

  Agatha wondered how long it would be before Janine started her business in Wyckhadden.

  She went for another long walk and then back to the hotel. She felt she ought to go into the lounge and see if she could grill any of the residents, but she was suddenly very tired. She would see enough of them later.

  Agatha went down for dinner wearing a red satin blouse and a long evening skirt. She had tried on the little black dress but decided again that such glamour was definitely wasted on Wyckhadden.

  Daisy Jones was resplendent in an evening gown of pink net covered with sequins. When had she last seen
a gown like that? wondered Agatha. The fifties. But it was the sight of the others that made Agatha blink. Old Mr Berry was wearing a greenish-black evening suit and the colonel was also in evening dress and black tie. Jennifer Stobbs was wearing a black velvet trouser suit and Mary Dulsey was exposing a lot of wrinkled skin in a strapless green silk gown.

  ‘We’re all going,’ Daisy shouted over. ‘Isn’t this fun?’

  Just what I need, thought Agatha bitterly. A night out with a bunch of wrinklies. That was the awful thing about socializing with the old. You could no longer keep up the pretence that you were young and dashing any more. Let me see, thought Agatha gloomily. I’m in my fifties; Daisy, about mid-sixties; Mary and Jennifer the same; the colonel, oh, about seventy-odd; and Mr Berry, definitely in the seventies. And the way time rushes by these days, it won’t be long before I’m one of them and the tragedy is that I’ll still feel about twenty-five.

  But after dinner, as they all set out together into a calm frosty night, Agatha felt her spirits rising. They were all like excited teenagers. But their spirits were dampened as they walked along the pier past the closed shops and amusement arcades to come up against a poster advertising that it was disco night. Young people were already walking along the pier in the direction of the dance hall.

  ‘Dear me,’ said Daisy in a little voice. ‘I suppose we may as well all have a drink and just watch. But I did so want to dance.’

  They left their coats and, crowding together, they walked into the ballroom and gathered round a table at the dance floor. The colonel took their orders for drinks and went off to the bar.

  ‘They look like a lot of savages,’ growled Jennifer. She really should shave that moustache, thought Agatha impatiently. No reason to let herself go like that. She did not feel exactly glamorous herself with her hair tucked up under a red scarf to match her blouse. She had arranged it in the Turkish-turban style but she still felt like an old frump. The colonel returned bearing a tray with their drinks.

  ‘This isn’t a good idea,’ whimpered Mary. ‘I can hardly hear myself think.’

  A group of youths were sniggering and staring at them from the other side of the floor. Then one, a tall youth in a leather jacket and jeans, detached himself from the group. He walked over to their table and then, turning, winked at his friends, and said to Agatha, ‘Want to dance, sweetheart?’

  Dammit, I will not be old before my time, thought Agatha rebelliously.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, getting up on the floor.

  Agatha was a good disco dancer. Her long black skirt had a long slit up the side which opened as she danced, showing the world that Agatha Raisin had a smashing pair of legs. She gave herself up to the jungle beat of the music, forgetting that this young punk had only asked her for a joke, although he was a superb dancer. She was dimly aware that people were cheering, that people were clearing a space around them.

  When the dance finished, Agatha returned to the table, flushed and happy.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ marvelled the colonel.

  ‘Come on and I’ll show you,’ teased Agatha, not for a minute expecting him to take her up on her offer.

  ‘I would be honoured,’ said the colonel formally.

  As the colonel started to throw himself about, hands waving, legs kicking with abandon, Agatha was reminded of James. James danced like that. At one point, she looked over the colonel’s shoulder and saw with glad amazement that Daisy and Harry Berry had joined the dancers, as had Mary and Jennifer.

  After that, various young people asked them to dance. They were no longer oddities. They were regarded as fun, and Agatha thought it was amazing that young people with noserings and spiky hair and terrifying clothes, when you got to know them, mostly always turned out to be nice and ordinary.

  They stuck it out gamely to the last dance. ‘Well, I’m blessed,’ said the colonel as they walked along the pier. ‘I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself so much in ages.’

  Highly elated, old Harry was performing dance steps along the pier. Daisy caught Agatha’s arm. ‘Could I have a quiet word with you when we get back?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Agatha, stifling a yawn. ‘But not too long. I’m beat. Come up to my room.’

  In Agatha’s room, Daisy looked at her pleadingly. ‘I was jealous of you tonight, Agatha.’

  ‘Oh, why?’ Agatha unwound her turban and peered at her scalp. By all that was holy, her hair was growing.

  ‘Well, the colonel paid you a lot of attention.’

  ‘You’re keen on the colonel?’

  ‘Yes, very.’

  ‘But what can I do?’ asked Agatha. ‘He’s not keen on me, I can tell you that. He just wanted a bit of fun.’

  ‘My clothes are very old-fashioned. I realized that tonight. And my hair. I wondered if you could go shopping with me tomorrow and sort of make me over.’

  ‘Gladly,’ said Agatha. ‘We’ll set out after breakfast. It’ll be fun.’

  And so it will, she thought in surprise. Agatha had run her own successful public relations firm but had taken early retirement. But taking someone in hand and improving their image had been part of her job. Life had suddenly acquired colour and meaning again. And what was more, she hadn’t had a cigarette. She took a full packet out of her handbag, opened it, broke up all the cigarettes and threw them in the waste bin.

  In the morning, after breakfast, Agatha found that Mary and Jennifer wanted to join the shopping expedition. She led them through to the lounge. ‘We’d better prepare a plan of action first,’ she said. ‘Are you game?’

  They all nodded. ‘Well, for a start, you’ve all got old-fashioned hair-styles,’ said Agatha, ‘but fortunately you all seem to have strong, healthy hair that will take tinting. I think I need to start off with taking you all to a good hairdresser and getting you all styled. Then a beautician. Face and skin are important.’

  ‘You can’t do anything about wrinkles,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Oh, yes, you can,’ said Agatha, ‘and I’m not talking face-lift. Do you know of a good hairdresser? I mean, one you haven’t gone to?’

  ‘We all just go to Sally’s in the High Street.’

  ‘I’ll ask the manager.’ Agatha went through to the office. Mr Martin listened to her request and said, ‘There’s a retired couple in Wyckhadden. He was a hairdresser and she was a beautician. They still do some work privately.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ began Agatha doubtfully.

  ‘He used to be Jerome of Bond Street.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Agatha faintly. ‘I forget how old I am myself. I used to go to Jerome. He was very good. Can you give me his number?’

  Supplied with the number, Agatha phoned up. Jerome was delighted to hear from her. She could bring her ladies along and he and his wife would get to work.

  In all her crusading zeal, Agatha had quite forgotten about the murder. By the end of the morning, Daisy’s hair was a shining honey-blonde and her wrinkles had been smoothed out with a collagen treatment. Jennifer had a short smart bob and her moustache had been removed and her eyebrows shaped. Mary had a pretty arrangement of soft curls and a smoother face.

  Chattering happily, they all had lunch in a restaurant on the promenade and then Agatha led them round the shops. ‘I hope you all can afford this,’ she said guiltily.

  They all said yes, they could. Agatha’s mind returned to murder. Jennifer had paid for all her purchases from a wallet bulging with cash while the rest used credit cards, and Jennifer was a powerful woman. And as her mind returned to thoughts of murder, so did the craving for a cigarette return with force. ‘No, not pink, Daisy,’ she said as Daisy held up a blouse for her inspection. ‘Blue, maybe. And you need a different size of bra.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the one I’ve got on?’

  ‘It’s too tight. It’s giving you bulges where you shouldn’t have bulges.’

  I mean it’s not as if I gave up smoking, Agatha argued with herself. It gave me up, so to speak.
I didn’t sign the pledge. Just one puff would be heaven. Well, maybe later.

  ‘Somehow the idea of Scrabble seems a bit flat,’ said Jennifer in her deep voice. ‘But I suppose that’s all we’ve got on the cards tonight.’

  But when they returned to the hotel, it was to find that the colonel had taken the liberty of booking seats for them all at a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado and had arranged an early dinner.

  This is like a girls’ dormitory, thought Agatha in amusement as Daisy and Mary and Jennifer called in at her room to ask her to vet what they were wearing.

  They all went downstairs together. ‘By George, ladies, you’ve youthed,’ said old Harry, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘That blue suits you, Daisy,’ said the colonel, ‘and your hair’s pretty.’ Daisy’s eyes shone and she squeezed Agatha’s arm.

  The theatre was an old-fashioned one bedecked with plaster gilt cherubs and a large chandelier.

  The colonel, who had been carrying a large box of chocolates, passed it along, and there was much fumbling for spectacles as they tried to read the chart of flavours.

  Agatha had never seen a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta and feared it would all prove to be a bit arty-farty, but from the overture on, she was riveted. In that evening, for a brief time, she became the child she had never really been. It was a novelty to her to have the capacity of sheer enjoyment. Pleasure for Agatha had always been bitter-sweet, always had a this-won’t-last feeling. But that evening, the glory of escapism and warmth and security seemed to go on forever.

  As they filed out after the performance, the colonel could be heard saying to Daisy, ‘The Lord High Executioner could have been better,’ but Agatha could find no fault with anything.

  They went to a nearby pub for drinks. The colonel told an amusing story about a Gilbert and Sullivan performance in the army. Jennifer made them laugh by saying she had once played Buttercup in Pirates of Penzance and had forgotten all the words and so had tried to make them up.

  It was only when Agatha was undressing for bed that she suddenly thought it curious that not one of them had mentioned the murder, or was curious about the murder. Maybe they considered it bad form. Maybe their elderly brains had already forgotten about the whole thing.