Agatha Raisin The Deadly Dance

EIGHT

AGATHA and Charles were taken straight to Mircester Police Headquarters and put in an interviewing room.

Then Detective Inspector Wilkes appeared with another man whom he introduced as Detective Inspector William Fother of the Special Branch. Another man followed them into the room and leaned against a wall, his arms folded.

“What have the Special Branch got to do with this?” asked Agatha.

“We’ll ask the questions,” said Fother.

He was a dark-skinned man with thinning brown hair and large ugly hands which he folded on the table in front of him. His first question surprised Agatha.

“Mrs. Raisin, when did you last visit the Republic of Ireland?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Please just answer the question,” he rapped out.

Despite his unremarkable appearance, there was something menacing about Fother.

“I haven’t,” said Agatha. “I mean, I never got around to going there. On holidays, you know, I think of sun.”

“And Northern Ireland?”

“Never been there either.”

“We can check.”

“Oh, please do,” said Agatha, her temper beginning to rise. “Have you heard of a man called Johnny Mulligan?” “No. Who is he?”

“He is the dead gentleman on your kitchen floor. He was a foot soldier with the Provisional IRA. He was in the Maze Prison for murder but released under Tony Blair’s famous amnesty.”

“Could he have got the wrong house?” asked Charles. “I mean, Agatha’s got nothing to do with anywhere in Ireland or politics.”

“We’ll get to you later, Sir Charles. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you would remain silent.”

Fother fastened his gaze on Agatha again. “Mulligan was killed by some sort of poison. There was an empty coffee-cup on the table. The contents are being analysed, as is the jar of coffee. So far, we know the jar of coffee did not have any prints on it, which looks as if someone doctored it with poison. Perhaps someone who expected a visit from him?”

“I used the coffee I left in the kitchen before I left for Paris. I had a cup of it. Are you feeling well, Charles? You’ve gone rather white.”

“What if,” said Charles, “someone not connected at all decided to try to poison Agatha and whoever this Mulligan was drank it instead?”

“Who, for instance?”

Should I tell them about Emma? wondered Charles desperately. It would be awful if she turned out to be completely innocent. He rallied, “Maybe someone from one of Agatha’s cases.”

“Police are going through her files at the moment. You look upset. Are you sure you have no idea who put the poison there?”

“No idea,” said Charles.

Fother turned back to Agatha. “Why did you go to Paris?”

“I felt like a break,” said Agatha, “and Charles wanted to look up a friend’s daughter who works at the couture house Thierry Duval. Her name is Felicity Felliet. We were told she was on holiday but due back the next day.”

“And you decided to sacrifice the price of two plane tickets just to wait and see this girl?”

“Not really. As we were in Paris, we thought it might be a good idea to double-check Mr. Laggat-Brown’s alibi. Mrs. Laggat-Brown hired me to work on the attempted shooting of her daughter.”

“We’ll leave that for the moment.” Fother clasped his large hands together and leaned forward. “Before he turned terrorist, Mulligan was an expert burglar. It was said he could get in anywhere. Yet the pane of glass on the kitchen door was smashed by a rock. If you had been at home, you would have heard the noise, believe me.

“That makes me think again about Sir Charles’s idea. We may have two people here. One wants to poison you and the other to shoot you. Perhaps the poisoner came back to see if he had left anything incriminating and finds the dead body. Panics and wants it to look like a break-in. Takes the poisoned coffee away and replaces it with a new jar, wiping it for fingerprints first. Now, DorisSimpson had the keys to your house. The fact that the burglar alarm did not go off when Mulligan got in looks as if it was not on at all but was reset later.”

“Doris would never do anything to hurt me!” exclaimed Agatha.

“We'll see. She is making a statement at this moment.”

There was a tap at the door. Bill Wong's head appeared around it. “A word with you, sir.”

Wilkes, who was sitting next to Fother, made as if to rise, but Fother stood up and went out of the room.

“I wish, Mrs. Raisin,” said Wilkes, “that you would behave like the retired lady you're supposed to be.”

“The tape's still running,” said Charles.

Wilkes rose to switch it off but sat down again as Fother came back into the room.

“Doris Simpson says in her statement that a Mrs. Emma Comfrey, who works for you and lives next door to you, asked her for your keys, saying it would save Doris the trouble of coming and going to look after your cats. Then Mrs. Simpson changed her mind and demanded the keys back, saying that as you were paying her for the work, she would feel she was cheating you if she did not do it herself. What have you to say to that?”

But Fother turned his gaze on Charles, not Agatha.

“Sir Charles? I believe you think you know who might have tried to poison Mrs. Raisin.”

“I took Emma Comfrey out for lunch a couple of times,” said Charles in a flat voice. “I think she got a crush on me. She had started stalking me. I think she may have been jealous of my friendship with Agatha. And yet I find it hard to believe she would have gone to such lengths.”

“We'll see. We're bringing her in. I will question her myself. Now we will begin at the beginning again. Your exact movements, Mrs. Raisin, starting with your journey to Paris.”

Emma sat in the back of the police car, her mind going round and round. At times she felt her very brain was spinning with fear in her head.

She was sure they couldn't have found out anything. Then she realized that Doris must have told them about her having the keys. Well, she thought breathlessly, she would simply say that she had not gone in before Doris had claimed the keys back again. She must keep her nerve. She had worked long years for the Ministry of Defence. She was a respectable woman. No one could believe her capable of attempted murder.

The day had turned chilly and grey. The long Indian summer was over and the leaves were turning red, brown and gold.

She expected to be interviewed by Bill Wong, who had taken her initial statement.

Emma was led to an interviewing room. Courage, she told herself. You survived the Superglue investigation. You'll survive this one.

It was not Bill Wong who entered, but the men who had broken off interviewing Agatha and Charles to see what they could get out of her.

She paled slightly when Fother introduced himself. It must be serious. What was someone from the Special Branch doing in Mircester?

The tape was switched on and Fother began. “You are Mrs. Emma Comfrey. You live in Lilac Lane next door to Mrs. Agatha Raisin.”

“That is so,” said Emma, feeling a great calmness descending on her now that the interview had begun.

“Lilac Lane is a dead end and there are only the two cottages in it.”

“Yes.”

“Now, you went to Mrs. Raisin's cleaner and asked for the keys to Mrs. Raisin's cottage. Why?”

“I thought I would save her the time by looking after Agatha's cats myself.”

“You are employed by Mrs. Raisin's detective agency. Why weren't you at work?”

“I had been working very hard and decided to take a day off.”

“But you had also taken the previous day off to go to the fete at Barfield House.”

Emma's calm deserted her. “I did not,” she said in a trembling voice.

“According to both Sir Charles and his manservant, Gustav, you were seen there. The manservant was disguised as Madame Zora. You consulted him.”

“Oh, I should have been working, I know,” said Emma, rallying all her forces, although she was reeling inside from the shock that Gustav had been Madame Zora. “But Charles and I are friends and I happened to be in the area looking for … for a lost dog. The day was fine after the rain. Charles had told me about the fete.”

“Yet you did not approach him.”

“He was very busy. I stayed for a little and then went back to work.”

“It is Sir Charles's opinion that you were stalking him.” Emma suddenly did not care any more what happened toher. “That's ridiculous,” she expostulated. “The vanity of men never fails to surprise me. You make a friendly gesture and they all think you are chasing them.”

“We'll leave that for a moment.” Fother leaned across the table towards her. “So when exactly did you enter Mrs. Raisin's cottage?”

“I didn't,” protested Emma. “I did not have time. Doris claimed the keys back before I had time.”

“Had you seen the dead man before? You joined Mrs. Simpson while she was waiting for the police.”

“No, never.”

“When were you last in Ireland?”

“Fourteen years ago. On holiday. We went to Cork.”

The questioning went on and on while Charles and Agatha waited nervously in the adjoining room.

“This is serious, Aggie,” Charles was saying. “That dead man in your kitchen was connected to the Provisional IRA. He was a hit man. Someone wanted you out of the picture.”

“I can't stop thinking about Emma.” Agatha ran her fingers through her hair. “I mean, do you think she might have tried to poison me?”

“I tried to warn you. There's something not right about her.”

“If she's used rat poison, they'll find traces of it somewhere. Where would she hide it? In her garden?”

“I would think she'd want to get it out of her house and garden and as far away as possible. If it were me, I'd dump it in the woods somewhere—you know, in the undergrowth.

“Anyway,” Charles went on, “what on earth can the Irish connection be? Was Peterson working for them in some capacity, bagman or something?”

“In that case you would think the terrorists would be after whoever killed him.”

After an hour and several cups of bad coffee supplied by a policewoman, their interrogators came back.

Detective Inspector Wilkes took over the interview. When the tape was switched on, he said, “Mrs. Raisin, were you aware that your phone was being bugged?”

“No!” Agatha's eyes widened in shock.

“I want you to tell us all you know about the shooting at the Laggat-Browns.”

Agatha marshalled the facts, leaving out the all-important one that Patrick Mullen had phoned her to tell her where Harrison Peterson was staying and that he wanted to talk.

Questions, and more questions. The day wore on. At last Fother said, “We have arranged a safe house for you, Mrs. Raisin. I suggest, also, that you do not go to your detective agency for the next few days. Sir Charles, I suggest you stay in the safe house with Mrs. Raisin for your own protection. We will call on you tomorrow for further questioning. Before you leave, we would like to check your mobile phones to make sure they are secure. Then tell us what clothes you want us to collect for you.”

While they waited for their phones to be checked, Agatha thought again about Emma. Just to be on the safe side, she'd better phone her solicitor and get that codicil taken out.

Mrs. Bloxby had endured an exhausting day. Angry villagers kept calling at the vicarage, wanting Agatha Raisin expelled from the village. Somehow it had got out about the would-be killer having had a gun and a Balaclava. By setting up as a detective agency, Agatha Raisin had brought terror to Carsely, they said.

The vicar's wife answered each as patiently as she could, pointing out that several murderers would still be roaming free if it hadn't been for the work of Mrs. Raisin. At last she told her husband that she was not going to answer the door that evening. She poured herself a rare glass of sherry and took it out to the garden. She was just sitting down at the garden table with her drink when the doorbell went again. Ignoring its shrill summons, she sipped her sherry and watched the light fading over the churchyard at the end of the garden.

And then a plaintive voice from the churchyard hailed her. “Mrs. Bloxby!”

“Who's there?” she demanded sharply.

“It's me, Emma Comfrey. I must talk to you.”

Mrs. Bloxby sighed. “Come round to the door.”

When she let Emma in, she thought the woman looked on the edge of a breakdown. Her eyes were red with weeping and her hands trembled.

“Come into the garden,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Would you like a sherry?”

“No, thank you. I've just got to talk to someone.” No sooner were they seated than Emma burst out with “They think I tried to poison Agatha!”

“Did you?” asked Mrs. Bloxby quietly.

“Of course not. I wouldn't dream … Oh, it's worse than

that.”

“I can't think of anything worse. Go on.” “Charles told the police I had been stalking him.” “And had you?”

“No, I hadn't!” shouted Emma. And then, quietly, “It's all adreadful mistake. I went to the fete at Barfleid House, that's all.”

“Why did you go there when you should have been working?”

“I was working in the area. Charles is … was … a friend of mine.”

“What did he say when you saw him?”

“I didn't approach him because he was so busy.”

“If there is nothing in it,” said Mrs. Bloxby, “then you have nothing to worry about. All you need to do is to keep well clear of Sir Charles Fraith in future.”

“But don't you see, I have to talk to him. I have to ask him why he said such a dreadful thing. I was interrogated for hours.”

The doorbell shrilled again. “I'd better answer that.” Mrs. Bloxby was suddenly anxious not to be alone with Emma.

She opened the door.

“Police,” said a plainclothes officer. “The forensic team have finished with Mrs. Raisin's cottage for the moment and would like to go into Mrs. Comfrey's cottage. Is she here?”

“Yes, I'll fetch her.”

Mrs. Bloxby went back into the garden. “Mrs. Comfrey, a forensic team wishes to examine your cottage.”

Emma turned pale. “Can't I just give them the keys and stay here?”

“I'm afraid not. But just let's hope nothing happens to Mrs. Raisin, because if it does, Mrs. Comfrey, I'm afraid you might find yourself the first suspect.”

Emma clutched her arm. “You think I did it!”

Mrs. Bloxby pulled her arm away. “Please go, Mrs. Comfrey. I must get my husband's supper and the police are waiting for you.”

“I always wondered what a safe house would look like,” said Agatha. “Not much, is it? It's not a house anyway. It's a flat.”

The flat was situated in a block on the outskirts of Mircester. The flats had been newly built and several were still vacant. Theirs was sparsely furnished with the bare essentials. There were three bedrooms: one for herself, one for Charles, and one for their minder, a burly individual in plainclothes who answered to the name of Terry.

Agatha went into the kitchen. There was milk in the fridge and teabags and ajar of instant coffee were on the counter.

“What about food?” asked Agatha.

“I've got list of food deliveries,” said Terry. “Tell me what you want and I'll phone for it. There's Indian, Chinese, pizza— you name it.”

“What about drink?” asked Charles. “I could do with a stiff

one.”

“I can get the local supermarket to deliver. They're open twenty-four hours.”

“I'll give you a shopping list,” said Agatha, “because we'll need stuff for breakfast as well.”

When Terry was on the phone, Charles drew Agatha aside and whispered, “Say we're going to share a bedroom.”

“Honestly, Charles, at such a time!”

“Pillow talk. We need to talk and we can't do it with him listening.”

“Okay.”

After they had eaten and watched several programmes on television, Charles said he and Agatha were going to bed.

Terry said he thought it would be better if he slept on the sofa, “just to be on the safe side.” He added the caution, “Don't go using your mobiles and telling anyone at all where you are.”

Once Agatha and Charles were in bed, he snuggled up to her. “Get off!” whispered Agatha fiercely.

“We've got to talk,” he whispered. “Let's start with Emma. Let's just suppose she tried to poison you. She'd be clever enough to get rid of the stuff. Where would she put it? Where would you put it?”

“Same idea as you … in the woods somewhere.”

“She'd be frightened of anyone seeing her, maybe meeting a gamekeeper. The woods around are criss-crossed with paths for ramblers and people walking their dogs. Think again.”

“There's something at the back of my mind,” said Agatha slowly. “I know. It was one day in the office. Emma said there was some rubbish in the shed at the bottom of the garden she wanted rid of. A broken chair, a table with one leg missing, that sort of thing. Miss Simms said, 'Why don't you take the lot out to the council tip on the old Worcester Road,' and gave her directions. As soon as we get out of here, let's go and have a look.”

“I wonder how long they mean to keep us here?” said Charles.

“God knows. It's going to be like being in prison. There must be some connection between the hit man and the killing of Peterson.”

“Wait a bit,” said Charles. “Wasn't there something you said about Laggat-Brown changing his name from Ryan? Ryan's an Irish name.”

“It can't be him,” said Agatha impatiently. “He's a charming and civilized man. Besides, he can't have had anything to do with the attempted shooting. His own daughter, too! And we've double-checked his alibi.”

“You've got a soft spot for him, Aggie.”

“Well, he took me out for dinner and he paid the bill, which is more than you ever do.”

They grumbled and discussed the case and grumbled again until they both fell asleep.

Terry, who had pressed his ear against their bedroom door, quietly retreated and picked up the phone. He suggested the forensic team should check the council tip on the old Worcester Road.

Emma had moved into a hotel in Moreton-in-Marsh for the night. She tossed and turned, wondering whether she was safe or not.

She felt that she should check the council tip in the morning and try to find out when the containers were taken away. Until she knew that, she felt she could not rest.

The morning dawned cold and misty. The only colour in the bleached countryside was the red of the autumn leaves. She drove steadily and carefully, although her hands on the steering wheel were damp with nerves.

She turned off the old Worcester Road and headed for the tip. She was just about to turn in at the entrance when up ahead, through the swirling morning mist, she saw the white-coated figures of a forensic team.

Emma reversed slowly, and once out on the road, put her foot down on the accelerator and sped to the hotel.

She hurried to her room and packed up the few belongings she had taken for her overnight stay. She paid her bill and estimated she had a very short time before they found the coffee jar and the rat poison. She had not left fingerprints but knew that the very fact they were searching the tip meant they thought she was guilty.

Emma got in her car, wondering whether to risk going home and collecting some more things, but then decided against it. She had arrangements to draw money on a bank in Moreton, but if she wanted to clean out her account she would need to go to the head bank in London. An hour and a half to London. She might just make it.

There was an agonizing wait at the bank while they dealt with her request to draw out twenty thousand pounds. When she at last got the money, she went to the nearest hairdresser and got her heavy hair cut to a short crop and dyed dark brown. Then she went into a shop and bought jeans, sweaters, T-shirts and an anorak and trainers. She changed into a new outfit in the fitting room, where she left the clothes from her suitcase and filled it with the new purchases. A shop assistant, finding the clothes later, did not think to report the find to the police. She took the clothes home to her mother.

Emma knew she needed a new car, one that would not be traced for some time. She abandoned the car in a side street and took a taxi to Victoria Station and put her suitcase in the “Left Luggage” and then took the tube to the East End.

She found a shady-looking car dealer and paid cash for a small Ford van, then drove into central London, leaving it near Victoria in an underground car-park. Emma had a frightening time at the station, hoping any police there would not recognize her. She had bought a rain hat in the East End and had the brim pulled well down to shadow her face.

She got back to the van and slung her suitcase in the back. Now where? At first she thought of driving north and into the wilds of Scotland, but she had read stories of people who did that and found they were more noticeable out in the Highland wilderness than they were in a town.

Scarborough, she thought. A seaside town which would still have a lot of end-of-season visitors. She drove steadily north out of London. By the time she reached Yorkshire, the van engine was making strange clanking sounds. She thought of abandoning it on the Yorkshire moors and then decided against it. The police would be called to any abandoned car. She drove instead into York and parked in a suburb. She took out her suitcases and left the keys in the van, hoping someone would steal it.

Emma then caught a bus to the railway station and took a train to Scarborough. She longed to take a taxi into town because she was beginning to feel weary, but decided, despite her altered appearance, that it would be safe to take the bus. She then found a small, anonymous-looking bed-and-breakfast and checked in.

Only when she was in a small dingy bedroom with the door shut and locked did she collapse on the bed and feel anger like poison bubbling up inside her. Charles had betrayed her. Charles had humiliated her. He had called her a stalker and he should suffer for it if it was the last thing she did.

It was decided after four days to release Agatha and Charles from the safe house. “It's not as if they're prime witnesses to appear in court,” said Fother, “and it's costing the state money.”

“But someone might kill Mrs. Raisin,” said Detective Inspector Wilkes, to which Fother replied sourly, “Good. I can't stand amateurs.”

Fother went to the safe house to tell them they were now free to go about their business. “Emma Comfrey is still missing,” he said. “We found rat poison and the jar of poisoned coffee at the council tip on the old Worcester Road.”

Agatha glared at Terry. “You've been listening at doors.”

“You underestimate the intelligence of the police,” said Fother coldly. “I suggest, Mrs. Raisin, that in future you leave the Laggat-Brown case alone and concentrate on divorces and missing cats.”

Agatha and Charles were driven in a police car to Agatha's house. Charles collected his own car. “I'm going home,” he said to Agatha.

“Aren't you going to help me any more?” asked Agatha.

“I think we need a break from each other,” said Charles coldly. “All you've done in the last few days is pick on me when they weren't interrogating us over and over again.” Agatha had indeed taken her frustration at being cooped up out on Charles but would not even admit to herself that she was guilty of anything.

“Just like you,” she snapped. “Selfish to the bone.”

“You should know,” retorted Charles, getting into his car. “You wrote the book on selfishness.”

He drove off. The police car followed him. Agatha stood forlornly on her doorstep and watched them go. Then she put her key in the lock and went inside.

No cats came to greet her. She phoned Doris Simpson, who said, “I've got them. They've been playing with my cat, Scrabble. I'll bring them around. I didn't want to leave the poor things there. When the police were finished, I scrubbed everything clean.”

“I'll give you a bonus,” said Agatha. “See you soon.”

She phoned the agency. Patrick Mullen answered the phone. “Don't worry about a thing,” he said. “Everything's been running smoothly. There's no such thing as bad publicity and we've got as much work as we can handle. I took the liberty of getting a girl from a temp agency to answer the phones because your MissSimms is a dab hand at detecting. Got a natural bent for it. Are you coming in?”

“I'm waiting for my cats,” said Agatha, “and then I'll be with you in about an hour.”

When Doris arrived, Agatha, suddenly lonely, tried to get her to stay but Doris said she was working a shift at a supermarket in Evesham and couldn't wait.

Agatha sat on the kitchen floor and petted her cats. Then she rose and took some fish out of the freezer, defrosted it and cooked it for them. After they were fed, she patted them again and then left for Mircester.

When she entered the agency and saw Patrick sitting behind her desk she couldn't help thinking he looked like the real thing compared to herself.

“I need some lunch, Patrick,” she said. “Join me and fill me in.”

Patrick said he wanted sausage, bacon and eggs. Agatha, aware that the waistband of her skirt was uncomfortably tight after her days of inactivity in the safe house, opted for a salad.

“As far as I can gather, this Mulligan is known to Special Branch from the days he worked for the Provisional IRA. They are trying to figure out why he came after you. The only case you have, they say, which involved a shooting was the Laggat-Brown one.”

“Laggat-Brown changed his name from Ryan,” said Agatha. “Why?”

“The cynical cops think it was because he wanted to marry Mrs. Laggat-Brown and all that money from dog biscuits, and she didn't think his name was grand enough. But he seems to be squeaky-clean. He left the firm of stockbrokers he was workingfor with a clean bill of health. He runs an import/export agency selling electronic parts here and there. Mainly a one-man operation, but he was trained in electronics. He also got a first in physics from Cambridge University. Parents both dead. Lived in Dublin but moved with young Jeremy to England when he was fifteen. Mother, housewife; father, a plumber.”

“A plumber! Can't have been much money in the family.”

“Then you don't know much about plumbers. They can earn a mint.”

“I had dinner with Jeremy Laggat-Brown. He was charming.”

Patrick looked at her with his lugubrious eyes. “If he asks you out again, don't discuss the case with him.”

“Why not? You say he's squeaky-clean.”

“That's what the police say. But better to be careful. As to Harrison Peterson's death, it seems that he was given a massive dose of digitalis, not in the vodka but in some coffee. He had a dicky heart and that's what killed him. The pathologist who performed the first autopsy said he had missed the real cause of death because he was overworked and it looked from the police report like an open-and-shut case of suicide. They found traces of coffee in his stomach. They think when he passed out that the murderer heaved him onto the bed.”

“So his murderer must have known about his medical condition?”

“Right. So take time off and forget about the Laggat-Browns for the moment.”

Agatha gave a little sigh, thinking that an evening out with a handsome man like Jeremy Laggat-Brown was just what she needed. She suddenly wondered about Patrick. Did he have a wife? A family?

He was in his sixties, tall with stooped shoulders, oily brown hair and a faintly unkempt appearance. “Are you married?” asked Agatha. “I was. But my hours of work broke up the marriage.” “Children?”

“A son and a daughter, both married with children of their own. Let me fill you in on the business we've been doing while you were away.” He crisply outlined new cases, what Miss Simms was following up and what Sammy Allen and Douglas Ballantine were doing.

Agatha began to feel superfluous. “I'd better start doing some work,” she said.

“Why don't you take a couple of days off?” suggested Patrick. “But it would be better to leave the Laggat-Brown case alone until things cool down.”

Agatha was about to protest. She took a mirror out of her handbag to repair her lipstick and noticed with dismay that she had an incipient moustache.

“Maybe just one day,” she said.

She drove to Evesham and to the Beaumonde Beauty Salon where she secured the services of her favourite beautician, a pretty woman called Dawn. After her moustache had been removed and her eyebrows plucked, she indulged in a non-surgical facelift and emerged an hour and a half later feeling like a new woman.

She drove home and played with the cats and then remembered she hadn't checked her phone for messages.

There was one from Roy Silver, asking excitedly about the poisoning and then one from Jeremy Laggat-Brown, saying that he was worried about her and suggesting that they meet.

Roy could wait. She phoned the mobile phone number that Jeremy had given her.

His pleasant voice said, “Agatha! What about dinner?” “What about your wife?”

“She's gone off with Jason to the funeral parlour. The body's being released. What if I pick you up in half an hour?”

“Can you make it an hour? I need a shower.”

When she had rung off, Agatha leaped up the stairs, noticing there was that twinge in her hip again. Probably strained it, she thought. She had a quick shower and chose a simple black wool dress and black court shoes. That, with a light coat, would not make her look so overdressed as she had been last time.

Emma was sitting at the moment in a pub in Scarborough working her way through an enormous steak pie and chips. She was deliberately putting on weight and noticed with satisfaction that her face was already fatter and that, combined with her cropped hair, made her look very different from the Emma Comfrey the police were looking for.

There was little to do with her days but eat large meals, change her boarding-house, and walk along the promenade watching the surging waves and plotting revenge.

Her hate focused on Charles Fraith, who had deliberately led her on, only to betray her. It was because of him that she was on the run. The fact that she had tried to poison Agatha Raisin did not cause her one pang of guilt. It was all Charles's fault. She had seen her photograph flashed up on the television news programmes, but it was an old one from her Ministry of Defence days and she knew that her new appearance bore no resemblance to the face on thescreen. She also deliberately “commonized” her accent, adopting the singsong tones of Birmingham.

In the past two days, her name and photograph had disappeared from the newspapers. A few more days, and she might make her way south when she had formulated a plan about what to do to Charles.