by M C Beaton
She drove down to the back of the supermarket. The bottles went into the bins with the satisfying sound of breaking glass. Must be a hooligan inside all of us, thought Agatha.
Then she got rid of the tin cans. She drove carefully round to the cash machine, bumping over the ruts of frozen snow. Supermarket car parks were private property, and she had been told that if they cleared them themselves and someone slipped and fell, they would have to pay compensation. But if someone slipped and fell in the uncleared car park, it was their own bloody fault.
She parked in front of the cash machine. Beside the cash machine and beyond a stack of supermarket trolleys were two rides for small children. One periodically emitted bursts of supposedly childish laughter, but Agatha thought it sounded more like malicious elves watching someone come to grief.
She drew out a hundred pounds and was just tucking it away in her wallet when her eye caught what looked like a heap of clothes lying between the two small rides for children.
Why me? wondered Agatha. If that’s some drunk sleeping it off, I’ll need to get help for the poor sod.
She walked round the row of trolleys and bent down. Whoever it was was completely covered by a blanket. Agatha pulled the blanket away from the face.
The moon shone down. The hellish children’s voices cackled out. And Agatha stared down at the dead face of Amy Richards.
Inside the supermarket, although it was closed, she could see the shelf stackers at work.
She hammered on the glass doors. Faces turned towards her. A security man came to the door and waved at her to go away.
Agatha took out her notebook and printed in large letters: DEAD BODY IN CAR PARK.
Chapter Six
Agatha had to stop the security guard from trying to resuscitate Amy. ‘Leave her,’ she yelled, dragging him off. ‘Any idiot can see she’s stone dead. You’re tampering with evidence.’
Feeling sick and shaken, Agatha, who had phoned the police, heard the wail of sirens, and then police cars, marked and unmarked, poured into the car park. A grim-faced policewoman whom Agatha did not know began to question her and then said she was to go in a police car to headquarters and wait there to make a statement.
Agatha phoned her lawyer, a mild man called inappropriately Bill Sykes, and told him to meet her at headquarters. Agatha had previously used him to make out her will. He protested that he did not handle criminal law, to which Agatha snapped, ‘Then get down here and learn.’
Agatha ploughed on through the questioning with little help from her timid, sleepy lawyer. She had taken the precaution of summoning him, knowing well that the police would consider this one coincidence too far – that she had suddenly decided to dump trash in the middle of the night after watching Amy’s house and had conveniently found her dead body. Over and over her story she went while the asthmatic clock on the wall above her head wheezed out the minutes.
At last, she held up her hand. ‘Do you mind telling me how she died?’
Wilkes, who had been conducting the interview, scowled at her. A thickset detective sergeant by the name of Briggs asked nastily, ‘Don’t you know?’
‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you,’ howled Agatha.
‘As far as we can gather, she was stabbed through the heart,’ said Wilkes.
‘What with?’ asked Agatha.
‘What do you think?’ asked Briggs sarcastically.
Mr Sykes, the lawyer, was tired. He found a reserve of bad-tempered courage he did not know he possessed.
‘Answer Mrs Raisin’s question,’ he snapped, ‘and stop wasting time with your bullying.’
Briggs looked as if a rabbit had just bitten him in the ankle. Wilkes said heavily, ‘Some thin-bladed knife, we think.’
‘Are you charging my client with anything?’ said little Mr Sykes, glaring through his thick glasses.
‘Not at this moment,’ said Briggs heavily.
‘Then you are free to leave, Mrs Raisin,’ said Mr Sykes, wrapping a long muffler around his neck. ‘Come along.’
‘Hold yourself ready for more questioning,’ Wilkes called after their retreating backs.
Outside the interview room, Agatha hugged the startled Mr Sykes. ‘Oh, well done. I am so tired, I didn’t know how to stand up to them, and believe me, that’s something that hardly ever happens to me.’
‘Where is your car?’ asked Mr Sykes.
‘I left it at the supermarket.’
‘I shall take you there. And,’ said Mr Sykes, quite overcome by the memory of his own bravery, ‘you can smoke if you like.’
When they got to the car park, a tent had been erected over the body. But all Agatha wanted to do was to get home and go to sleep. She thanked her lawyer again, got into her car and set off over the whitened landscape. The snow had ceased, and the road down into Carsely was slippery again. She cruised down it in second gear, finally turning into Lilac Lane with a sigh of relief.
As she climbed out of her car, she found her knees were trembling. She clicked the lock on the car. She heard a voice call, ‘Agatha!’
She swung round. The moon had disappeared behind a bank of clouds, and she saw a tall, dark figure approaching her. She was just opening her mouth to scream when a once loved voice said, ‘Are you all right? I heard about the murder on the radio.’
‘James?’ said Agatha in a wondering voice. ‘Is it really you?’
‘Who else?’ replied her ex-husband, James Lacey.
‘Oh, I am so glad to see you,’ said Agatha, and burst into tears.
Inside Agatha’s cottage, James waited patiently in the kitchen while Agatha fled upstairs to repair her make-up. He looked just the same, she thought, with his thick hair going only a little grey at the sides and those intense blue eyes of his.
Satisfied at last that she had done as much to her face as was possible, she sprayed on Coco Mademoiselle and went down the stairs.
‘When did you get back?’ she asked.
‘Today . . . late. I was listening to the radio news when I learned a body had been found in the car park at Tesco’s supermarket. I thought it better to wait in Carsely for you to get back rather than miss you on the road. I’ve poured you a brandy. I suppose hot sweet tea would have been better, but you look as if you need something to cheer you up.’
Agatha nodded. He went through to the sitting room and returned with a goblet of brandy. Agatha took a gulp and smiled at him mistily. ‘It’s very good to see you. It seems I am now the number one suspect in the murder of Amy Richards.’
‘If you’re not too tired, tell me about it.’
‘I would like to,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m exhausted, but too strung up and nervous to sleep. Oh, I should have phoned Toni. They’ll have questioned her as well. Toni’s another problem. I’ll tell you all about it.’
James produced a small notebook and pen while Agatha talked and talked. He occasionally made notes.
When she had finished, James prompted, ‘You said there was some trouble with Toni. What is it?’
Wearily, Agatha outlined the situation and finished by saying plaintively, ‘Don’t look so severe. I’ve made a mess of things and I don’t know what to do.’
‘Simon was very young,’ remarked James. ‘And he certainly didn’t have undying love for Toni or he wouldn’t have fallen for this new girl so easily. The trouble is that you cannot possibly do anything about it. Toni will need to make her own mistakes from now on. She may come round. She is, you know, fiercely independent.’
‘But she’s so young!’
‘As you were once, Agatha, and I bet you were a bulldozer compared to Toni. I could try to have a word with her.’
‘Would you? She always respected you.’
‘Now, you’d best get off to bed. We’ll meet tomorrow, say, for lunch at the George. Have a long lie-in. I’ll phone the office for you.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘I still write travel books, but I’ve moved on to the large glossy type, exploring more
remote parts of the world.’
‘Are there any remote parts left? I thought even the top of Everest was getting overcrowded.’
‘Oh, there are a few places. Lock up after me and go to bed.’
When he had gone and Agatha was drifting off to sleep, she was glad to find her old obsession for him had not returned. But I’m so weary of being on my own, she thought. Charles is like my cats, self-sufficient, and Roy would drop me like a shot if he got a good PR assignment.
But Agatha got only a few hours’ sleep. She was awakened at nine o’clock by her cleaner, Doris Simpson, telling her that Bill Wong and some female detective were downstairs waiting to talk to her.
Agatha gloomily surveyed her face in the bathroom mirror. She applied a cream that was supposed to remove bags and dark circles from under her eyes. It didn’t work. She put on a thick layer of make-up and decided she looked awful. Why was foundation cream either ghostly white or brown? She washed off the whole lot and put on a thin layer of tinted moisturiser instead. She could hear water dripping from the thatch on her cottage roof. A thaw had set in.
Wearing a pink cotton blouson over cashmere slacks, she started down the stairs, remembering only on the bottom step that she hated pink.
Bill and Alice were in the kitchen. Doris had served them coffee and biscuits.
‘Sit down, Agatha,’ said Bill.
‘Of course I’m going to sit down,’ said Agatha crossly. ‘It’s my own bloody house. I can sit on the damned chimney if I feel like it.’
‘I know you’re tired,’ said Alice soothingly. ‘But we would like to go over a few points again.’
‘Wait until I get a black coffee and a cigarette,’ said Agatha grumpily.
‘By the way,’ said Bill, ‘Toni’s dropped the charges against Paul Finlay.’
Toni was already awake and getting carefully dressed for an interview with Mixden, a rival detective agency. Dressed in a neat tailored trouser suit, worn under a scarlet puffa jacket, she set out.
Mixden was located on the outskirts of Mircester. She drove out through the slushy roads, trying to fight down an odd feeling of disloyalty to Agatha. Agatha had behaved disgracefully, she told herself as she parked in front of a square pebbledash building with the legend MIXDEN over the front door.
She recognized the receptionist as a girl she had gone to school with – Chelsea Flitter – although Chelsea had become a blonde and was wearing such thick make-up, she looked like a character from a Japanese Noh production.
‘Hiya, Tone,’ she said. ‘Coming to join us?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’re to go right in. Mr Mixden is through that door on the right. Have a chat when you come out. We should get together.’
Toni nodded and walked through into Mr Mixden’s office. He was a very small man with thin hair combed over his bald patch, where it lay in oiled streaks like seaweed on a rock at low tide. He had gold-rimmed glasses, a large nose and a wide mouth turned down at the corners. He smiled at Toni, revealing a pair of dazzlingly white dentures, and waved her into a chair opposite his desk.
‘You’re as pretty as your photos,’ he said. ‘You’ve had quite a bit of publicity for so young a lady. Why do you want to join us?’
‘I feel I’ve been getting stale working for the one agency,’ said Toni. ‘Agatha Raisin has been very good to me, but she feels she has a right to control my private life as well as my work.’
‘I see.’ He made a rapid note on a pad in front of him. Then he looked across at her. ‘The Raisin agency is very successful. So you could be of great use to us and earn a lot of money into the bargain. First of all, how do I know you are not here just to act as a spy and report the cases we have and then try to get the Raisin woman to take them away from us?’
‘I would not even dream of it,’ said Toni evenly, to hide her rising temper.
He tapped the pencil on the pad. ‘We could look at it another way. You could go on working for La Raisin and report to us on her cases. That way you could earn double. What do you say?’
Toni simply rose to her feet and walked straight out the door, slamming it behind her. She got into her car and sat there for a moment, feeling small and grubby.
The wind howled about her small car. She could hardly believe that Mixden had suggested such a thing. Well, courage! There was one other detective agency, FindIT, in the centre of town. Surely with her record they would be glad to get her.
She parked her car in the main square, trying to fight off the uneasy feeling that she was being watched.
James Lacey had gone into Mircester that morning to shop for some new winter boots. Along the narrow street in front of him, he recognized Toni’s blonde head. Then he noticed that as she occasionally turned, as if suspecting she was being watched, a man with a beard dived into a doorway.
James followed and phoned Agatha, keeping an eye all the time on Toni. Agatha had just reached her office when she got James’s call on her mobile. ‘It’ll be that sod Paul Finlay,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right over.’
‘No, stay where you are,’ said James. ‘He’ll recognize you.’
James remembered Agatha telling him about Paul Finlay the night before. But surely the man would not attack Toni in broad daylight and on a busy street. Toni turned in at the entrance to the FindIT detective agency.
The bearded man went into a café opposite and took a seat by the window. James followed him in.
Inside the agency, there was no reception desk, only a waiting room with easy chairs and a low coffee table.
Toni was just beginning to wonder how to get hold of anyone when a door at the side opened and a tall woman asked, ‘Can I help you?’
The woman was mannish, with thick grey hair worn in a French pleat. Her eyes were very large and black, and her nose curved over a thin mouth. She was wearing a purple sweater, so tight that it revealed pendulous breasts underneath. She reminded Toni of a witch she had seen pictured in a children’s book.
‘I am looking for a job,’ said Toni.
‘Ah, yes, Miss Gilmour. I recognize you. Fallen out with our dear Agatha?’
‘I would like to see the boss,’ said Toni firmly.
‘I am the boss, my sweeting. Not a very good detective, are you? My name is Dolores Watchman. Come into my office.’
Said the spider to the fly, thought Toni. There was something overpowering and quite threatening about Dolores.
The office was tastefully decorated. Dolores sat behind an antique mahogany desk. Toni sat in an upright chair in front of it. There were several of what looked like good abstracts on the wall and a framed print of an Aubrey Beardsley drawing.
Dolores lit a cigar and leaned back in her chair. ‘So when did you and Aggie split up?’
‘We didn’t . . . we haven’t,’ said Toni. ‘I wanted a change of scene.’
‘I don’t mind giving you a trial for a few months. Like a drink?’
‘No, thank you. A bit early for me.’
‘Never too early for me.’ Dolores opened a bottom drawer in her desk and took out a bottle of whisky and a glass.
Toni laughed. ‘I thought detectives only did that in books.’
‘Get one thing straight, my child, you never laugh at me. I demand absolute respect. Now I’ll start you with the small stuff and see how you get on. You cannot expect me to pay you a full salary until I decide you are worth it.’
‘I’ve made a mistake,’ said Toni, getting abruptly to her feet. ‘Good day.’
‘Why, you snotty little bitch!’ shouted Dolores as Toni darted out the door, out of the office and out into the street.
James saw Toni emerge from the office opposite just as the man he was sure must be Paul Finlay threw down some money for his bill and exited the café. Paul followed Toni, and James followed both.
Toni was standing, irresolute, beside her car when a voice behind her said, ‘This is Paul. I have a knife. Get into your car. If you scream, I will kill you.’
The
next thing that happened was a shriek rending the air. James had twisted Paul’s knife arm backwards so viciously that he had dislocated Paul’s shoulder. Paul fell to the ground, shouting and writhing in pain. James called the police. ‘If you try anything again,’ he hissed at Paul, ‘I’ll break your neck.’
James sat in the reception area of police headquarters and waited for Toni to emerge. He had stopped Agatha from coming, saying it would be better if he had a word with Toni on his own.
At last she emerged, followed by Bill. ‘I’m just going to take her for a drink,’ said James. ‘I’m sure she needs one.’
‘All right,’ said Bill. ‘You do suddenly seem to pop up at the right moment. Seen Agatha?’
‘Of course.’
When they were seated in the pub, Toni thanked James for having rescued her.
‘I think you should phone Agatha and take the rest of the day off,’ said James. He added gently, ‘You know, Agatha is terribly upset about the mistake she made regarding Simon Black. She had no right to interfere in your life, and she knows that now. She had one of her intuitions about Simon. Probably wrong. Can’t you withdraw your notice and just get on with her?’
‘I’ll have to,’ said Toni miserably. She told James about her attempts to find work at two other agencies.
‘There you are,’ said James. ‘There’s worse than Agatha around.’
Toni gave a weak laugh.
‘That’s my girl. Tell her you’ve decided to stay.’
‘All right. What if she tells me to get lost?’
‘Agatha’s too big-hearted to do that. Also, she does appreciate your work.’
