Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

∨ The Day the Floods Came ∧

3

Sharon Heath lived in a modest terrace house off Port Street, near the income-tax office. The day had turned warm and Agatha’s head was once more itching under the blond wig. “Wait a minute,” said Roy, seizing Agatha’s hand as she was just about to ring the bell. “We haven’t decided what we’re going to say. We’re supposed to be doing research into youth in the provinces in general. Not ask about Kylie in particular.”

“We’ll ask the usual boring questions and then just slip it into the conversation,” said Agatha impatiently. Roy gave a resigned shrug. Sometimes, he knew from bitter experience, Agatha had all the tact of a charging rhino.

Agatha rang the bell. They waited quite a few minutes and Agatha was raising her hand to ring the bell again when the door was opened by a blowsy-looking woman wrapped in a dressing-gown. “Whatever it is, we don’t want any.” She made to shut the door.

“We’re from television.”

Oh, the magic of television. The woman’s hand fluttered up to the rollers in her hair.

“Oh, my! I’m Mrs. Heath. Whatever must you think of me? Give me a moment.”

The door slammed.

“What’s that all about?” demanded Agatha crossly.

“We’re from the telly, so she’s gone to pull the rollers out of her hair and cram her nasty, floppy carcass into a body stocking,” said Roy waspishly.

Agatha lit a cigarette. Above, the sky was pale blue, looking as if it had been scrubbed and washed by all the recent rain. The faintest of breezes blew along the street. Church bells clanged out over Evesham. From one of the neighbouring houses a baby set up a crotchety wail.

Finally the door opened and a transformed Mrs. Heath stood there, hair lacquered, floury make-up, and figure encased in a tight, imitation-silk dress of imperial purple.

“Come in,” she cooed. “Sharon was just telling us how you’d been at the club last night. Will my little girl be on the telly?”

“Possibly,” said Agatha briskly. “She did strike us as being an interesting subject.”

She craned her neck round Agatha. “Where’s the cameraman?”

“That comes later,” said Agatha briskly. “We have to do the research first.”

“Come in.” Mrs. Heath stepped aside. “The lounge is on your left.”

The lounge was a small room that showed all the signs of having been hurriedly tidied. Agatha sat down on an armchair which crackled because newspapers and magazines had been hurriedly thrust under the seat cushion.

“Now,” said Mrs. Heath, “can I get you some refreshment?” Her mouth was a thin lipsticked line turned down at the corners, and her eyes were hard. Agatha judged that when she was not smarming to visitors, Mrs. Heath could very well have a bad temper.

“Nothing for us,” said Agatha. “Where’s Sharon?”

“I’ll just get her.”

Mrs. Heath sailed from the room. Soon her voice came back to them, harsh and angry. “For Pete’s sake, move your arse, girl. They ain’t going to wait all day.”

A few moments later she reappeared, followed by Sharon, who was wearing a blouse of glittery material and a long skirt over a pair of platform-soled boots, the soles so thick they looked like diving boots. She had liberally applied tan make-up which stopped short at her jawline and contrasted sharply with the unhealthy whiteness of her neck.

“Now,” said Agatha, putting her clipboard on her lap. “We’re doing a feature on youth entertainment in the Midlands, but we are also interested in crime. There have been incidents of girls leaving discos late at night and never making it home.”

“I saw about them on the telly, but it ain’t happened in Evesham,” said Sharon, picking nervously at her red nail polish.

“There was that Kylie,” broke in Mrs. Heath eagerly. “‘S in the papers this morning. Says she died of a heroin overdose and the body was frozen first. Did you ever?”

Sharon’s plucked eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “Drugs! Kylie? Naw.”

“I asked you if she’d had any enemies,” pursued Agatha. “You said something about someone called Phyllis.”

“I dunno. If this goes on the telly, she’ll claw my eyes out.”

“I assure you it won’t,” said Agatha. “I’m just trying to understand how such a thing could have happened.”

“Promise you won’t say anythink.”

“Cross our hearts and hope to die,” said Roy solemnly. As if registering his presence for the first time, Sharon gave him a coquettish smile – although perhaps ‘coquettish’ was the wrong way to describe it, thought Agatha. Given that Sharon’s mouth was heavily painted with deep-purple lipstick, it had more of a vampire look.

“Well,” said Sharon eagerly and leaning forward to enjoy a now-sanctioned piece of gossip, “Zak was dating Phyllis. Phyllis is a big girl and ever so noisy when she’s had a few. What she didn’t know was that Zak was dating Kylie at the same time. One day, Kylie turns up in the office with an engagement ring. Phyllis goes ape-shit and tries to pull Kylie’s hair out and we had to separate them. She said, “You’ll never marry him. I’ll kill you first.” There, what do you think of that?”

“Very interesting,” said Agatha. “Where does this Phyllis live?”

“I can’t tell you that,” said Sharon, alarmed. “She might guess I told you.”

“No reason to,” said Agatha smoothly. “Is there any way I could interview all the girls she worked with at once?”

“There’s McDonald’s on the Four Pools. We mostly go there. ‘Bout one o’clock.”

“But the police will surely have interviewed Phyllis.”

“They come round to speak to all of us, but we’re all so frightened of Phyllis, nobody said a word.”

Feeling that she had got something to go on, Agatha then asked Sharon all about her interests and hobbies – which turned out to be going to the disco and watching soaps on television.

When she had finished, Mrs. Heath saw them out, saying, “You will let us know when the cameras are coming so we can get the place redecorated.”

Agatha, worried at putting the woman to unnecessary expense, said quickly, “We’ll be doing any filming or interviews at the disco.”

♦

John Armitage shifted restlessly in his chair, vowing to lock the cottage door and never leave it open again. For facing him was Mrs. Anstruther-Jones, who had simply walked in without knocking.

She broke off a lecture about her importance in the village as the sound of a car went past the windows of the cottage. “That’ll be your neighbour, Agatha Raisin, and her toy-boy.”

“Really?” he said in a bored voice. “Now, if you will excuse me – ”

“Not that she doesn’t occasionally do Good Work.”

“Like underwater basket weaving for the bewildered?”

She stared at him, her mouth open.

“And I really must get on. Got to write.”

She rose and picked up an enormous, shiny leather handbag. “Ah, your muse,” she said coyly.

“Exactly,” he said, ushering her to the door.

Once she was out, he locked the door behind her. He sat down at his computer and switched it on. He stared at the screen. Agatha Raisin. From village gossip, he gathered she was some sort of amateur detective and had been married to the chap who formerly had this cottage. There was one thing in her favour. She hadn’t come snooping around like almost every other woman in this village. He could only hope that when the novelty of his presence wore off, they would all leave him alone.

♦

Just before noon the following day, he heard the door of his neighbouring cottage slam shut. Suddenly curious to see what this Agatha Raisin looked like, he went to the window on the small landing at the side of his cottage where he could get a view of his neighbour’s front door.

A woman was just getting into her car. She had odd-looking blond hair – it looked like a wig – and ugly glasses. “Well, if that can get herself a toy-boy, good luck to her,” he murmured and went downstairs to start work.

♦

Agatha had run Roy to the London train the evening before, and had to admit she missed his support. She had given him money to buy her a more respectable blond wig, with instructions to post it to her. She could only hope that the excitement of television would stop the young women of Barrington’s from questioning her too closely.

Again, the weather was fine. Sun shone in the car windows and the resultant heat made her wig feel even more uncomfortable. She went to Tesco’s in Evesham to buy groceries and then arrived at McDonald’s at just after one o’clock. Sharon and four other young girls were seated round a table.

Clipboard at the ready, Agatha approached them. “I think I saw some of you at the disco the other night,” she began. “I am working on a television programme on the activities of youth in the Midlands. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?”

They eagerly made room for her. She took down their names as an opening gambit. As well as Sharon, the others were Ann Trump, Mary Webster, Joanna Field, and Phyllis Heger. They said only one, Marilyn Josh, was missing. She had a hair appointment. Agatha studied Phyllis. Everything about her was large, although she was not fat. It all looked like solid muscle. She had large brown eyes, a large full-lipped mouth, thick black hair, and a generous bust. Her eyes glared this way and that, as if she were in a perpetual temper.

Agatha proceeded to ask them the same general questions she had asked Sharon, and noticed that Phyllis mostly butted in with all the answers. They resented Phyllis’s hogging the limelight, Agatha could see that. When she herself had been working her way up, starting with lowly office jobs, Agatha had been amazed to find that each office seemed to contain one bully. She longed to put Phyllis down, but at the moment she was a suspect and Agatha didn’t want to alienate her. She decided not to ask any questions about Kylie, but to try to arrange a meeting with Phyllis and get the girl on her own.

So Agatha wrote and wrote and then said brightly, “You will get tired of all my questions, but this is simply the start. We do an awful lot of research before we actually start filming.”

They all said eagerly it was no trouble at all.

Agatha thanked them and went to her car.

She was about to get in when she heard the rapid clack of high heels behind her. She turned round and found herself confronted by Phyllis. “You should really talk to me,” said Phyllis. “I’ve got more sophistication than what them have.”

“What if I meet you after work?” suggested Agatha.

“That would be ever so nice,” said Phyllis in a sort of strangulated voice she seemed to imagine was upper-class. “Where?”

“There’s a pub called The Grapes in Evesham High Street. Know it?”

“Yes, but no one much goes there.”

“I know,” said Agatha. “It’s a good place for a quiet chat. I’ll see you there at, say, six o’clock.”

“Right you are,” said Phyllis, those large eyes alight with a sort of ferocious vanity.

♦

John Armitage was heading up the stairs of his cottage when he heard a car drive up to his neighbour’s cottage. Once more he looked out of the landing window. Yes, it was that Raisin female, all right. Then he stared. For Agatha Raisin jerked the blond wig off her head and threw it on the car seat and then took off her glasses. Had she been in disguise? Or did she really think, perhaps, that she looked younger in that dreadful wig? A pair of good legs emerged from the driving seat as she opened the car door. The sun shone down on her glossy brown hair cut in a fashionable style.

Curiouser and curiouser, thought John. I might just call on her.

♦

Agatha fed her cats. She was sure she had already fed them, but they looked hungry. She had cooked them fresh fish. She herself ate microwaved meals, but she went to a lot of trouble to see her cats had the best. She bent down and stroked their warm furry heads, feeling a wave of loneliness engulf her. Her cats, Hodge and Boswell, never really seemed to need her except as a source of food. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Time to get ready to meet the dreadful Phyllis. She remembered she had left her wig in the car along with her glasses and went out to fetch them.

Returning, she went upstairs to the bathroom and made up her face and put the wig and glasses back on. She wondered briefly why no one had called around to ask her why she was always going out in disguise. There was a ring at the doorbell.

Agatha went down and opened the door. A tall, good-looking man stood there. He had a lightly tanned face, green eyes and a strong chin. But he was carrying a Bible.

“No!” said Agatha, and slammed the door in his face.

Mormons, she thought, as she picked up her handbag. They always send the best-looking ones around.

♦

John Armitage retreated to his cottage. He had found the Bible in a cupboard with James Lacey’s name on it and thought if he took it along next door it would be a good excuse to meet his neighbour.

Well, at least he now knew there was one woman in the village who most definitely did not want to have anything to do with him. He went upstairs to pack. He planned to spend a few days in London visiting an old friend.

♦

Agatha opened the door to the musty interior of The Grapes. It had neither piped music nor one-armed bandits nor pool table and so was shunned by the youth of Evesham. Phyllis was already there, drinkless.

“May I get you something?”

“A dry martini,” said Phyllis, who normally drank vodka and Red Bull, but thought a dry martini sounded sophisticated.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Agatha. “They probably don’t know how to make one. What about a gin and tonic? That’s what I’m having.”

“All right, then,” said Phyllis ungraciously. “Make it a large one.”

Agatha came back to the table carrying two large gin and tonics. “Perhaps instead of asking you questions, you begin by telling me about your life,” said Agatha. “I’m surprised a pretty girl like you isn’t engaged.”

“I’m hard to please,” replied Phyllis. “I think someone like me should move to London. I’m wasted down here. Nothing ever happens here.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Agatha. “Floods. Murder.”

“Murder?”

“Kylie Stokes.”

“Oh, her. Load of rubbish, that. Take it from me. It was suicide.”

“How come?”

“Can I have another?” Phyllis had managed to gulp down her gin and tonic.

Agatha went back to the bar and returned with two more drinks.

“You were saying…?”

“Oh, about Kylie? If you ask me, that wedding would never have taken place.”

“Why? I mean, she had the wedding gown and everything.”

“Zak proposed to her on the rebound.”

“From whom?”

“From me.”

“So you had dumped him?”

“We had this row. We were always having rows. We were hot in bed. Let me tell you…”

Phyllis proceeded to give a description of her sexual prowess in anatomical detail.

Amazing, thought Agatha. It was all the fault of those women’s magazines which led young girls to believe that the only way to keep a man was to indulge in the tricks of the brothel. But, then, maybe she was being old-fashioned. The very word modesty, as applied to women, had gone out of fashion a long time ago. She averted her eyes from Phyllis’s thick red lips, trying to fight down a feeling of revulsion at what those lips had done, and said, “The body was frozen. You don’t commit suicide and then freeze yourself.”

“Police have got it wrong,” remarked Phyllis.

“Did you know she was on heroin?”

“Oh, sure.”

“No track marks.”

“She probably sniffed the stuff.”

“And were you very upset when Zak became engaged to Kylie?”

“I s’pose you’ll hear it from the other girls. I was furious. He was only getting married to her to spite me.”

“But there was some sort of hen party for her, was there not? Did you go to that?”

“Naw. Silly business. Then Kylie disappeared the day afterwards. The Stokes family had the police round at the office questioning us all. But the police seemed to think she’d had wedding nerves and had done a runner.”

“And what did you think?”

“I told Zak she’d only wanted a ring to show off to the other girls, but she didn’t care for him.”

“So you saw Zak? When was this?”

“‘Bout a day before she was found. He came round my house that evening.”

“And was he upset?”

Phyllis gave a coarse laugh. “Not after I’d seen to him, he isn’t.”

“You mean you had sex?”

“What d’you think?”

Agatha had a memory of Zak weeping at the club. She thought Phyllis was one horrible out-and-out liar.

“What’s all this about Kylie?” asked Phyllis suspiciously. “I thought we were here to talk about me.”

“And so we are,” said Agatha evenly. “Don’t you realize that to have known someone who was mysteriously murdered makes you newsworthy?”

“It was suicide,” said Phyllis mulishly. “Now let’s talk about me.”

She proceeded to brag. She had always fancied herself on television, she said, because she had a good personality and was a looker.

I hate you, thought Agatha as Phyllis bragged on. I bet you’re capable of murder. I bet you’re a narcissist, and a psychotic one at that. All the while, she pretended to take notes.

“And you live alone?” she asked when Phyllis finally paused for breath. “Let me see, 10A Jones Terrace, is that right? Where is your family?”

“Over in Worcester.”

I wish I were a policeman and I could ask her where she was on the days before the murder, thought Agatha. I must phone Bill and see if they know exactly when she was murdered. I must see Kylie’s mother. When exactly did she go missing? Did she return after the hen party? But she must have gone home to get the wedding dress. And why would she put it on and leave the house dressed in it? To show someone? To show Zak? If only she had not adopted this stupid television role, she could revert to herself and ask questions until Zak and his father threw her out, but at least it would be more straightforward. She missed James. Even Charles would have done. She needed someone as back-up. Of course, she could always go and see Worcester police, but she was well aware that they considered her an interfering busybody.

Phyllis’s voice was churning on, about how her family didn’t appreciate her ambitions and that was why she had left home. They had been dragging her down. I’ll talk to the others apart from Sharon and Phyllis separately, thought Agatha, and set her clipboard down on the table and said resolutely, “I think that’s more than enough for now.”

Phyllis looked disappointed, but Agatha said she had other people to interview. She took a note of Phyllis’s home phone number and with relief escaped out into the evening air of Evesham. She glanced at her watch. Only six-thirty. Agatha felt that Phyllis had been talking for hours. She hurried off. Phyllis had gone to the loo in the pub but might appear at any minute and start talking again.

She walked off rapidly along the High Street in the direction of Merstow Green where she had left her car. She was passing a bookshop when she suddenly stopped and stared in the window, which was still lit. The shop sold remaindered books, but the bookseller often had a few books by popular authors at knock-down prices. There was a display of one of John Armitage’s books, not the one Agatha had read, and one of them was turned round to show the picture of the author on the back.

Agatha found herself looking down at the face of the man she had mistaken for a Mormon. The man she had seen digging the garden must have been a gardener he had hired. Damn Mrs. Bloxby for a devious woman. That’s why she had looked amused when she, Agatha, had described the gardener instead of the author. Well, it all went to show what a rotten influence the church was on people.

Agatha forgot her burst of temper as she drove homewards. John Armitage was certainly attractive. She would call on him and apologize and they would both laugh over her mistake…and…and…

Wrapped in rosy dreams, Agatha dashed into her cottage, removed the wig and glasses, changed into a clinging red dress and high heels, after putting on fresh make-up, and rushed next door. No one. The cottage stood dark and silent. And his car wasn’t parked outside.

♦

The next day Agatha received a visit from Detective Inspector John Brudge of the Worcester police. “Come in,” said Agatha, delighted. She thought he had called to enlist her help, for had she not solved an Evesham murder before? He was accompanied by a detective sergeant and a detective constable.

“Mrs. Raisin,” said Brudge severely, “we are questioning everyone connected with the death of Kylie Stokes.”

“Yes,” said Agatha eagerly. “I know a bit about – ”

He cut across her. “And it has come to our ears that some woman, saying she is arranging a television programme, has been asking questions. We have checked with all the television companies and not one of them knows of this woman.”

Agatha’s heart sank.

“What’s her name?” she asked feebly.

“That is what’s so amazing. She didn’t give one. Everyone is so gullible when it comes to thinking they are dealing with someone who claims to represent a television company. This woman was described as middle-aged, blond and with glasses. Now, we haven’t got a search warrant but we can get one today to find if you have a blond wig and glasses in this house. Do you want to tell us the truth, or do I have to get that warrant?”

Agatha bit her lip. Then she gave a shrug. “Yes, that was me.”

“Before I consider charging you with obstructing police business, tell me what you have learned.”

Too worried to hold anything back, Agatha told them what she had found out, about Zak’s distress, about Phyllis’s story, about the other girls.

Brudge listened to her impassively and then said, “Would you mind waiting in the other room?”

He saw her across the hall and into the kitchen and then shut the door behind her.

“What do you think?” Brudge asked his detective sergeant, a young man called Norris.

“Interfering busybody,” said Norris. “I’d book her, sir, and get her out of our hair.”

“That’s what I should do. On the other hand, she’s capable of digging up stuff the people concerned wouldn’t tell a policeman.”

“But, sir, we’re dealing with a murder investigation. She could get killed.”

“Yes, she could, couldn’t she? I’ll give her a rap on the knuckles but I won’t stop her.”

He went and jerked open the door, fully expecting to find Agatha listening outside, but he found she was still in the kitchen. She was sitting on the floor, playing with her cats.

“I must give you a severe warning, Mrs. Raisin, about the penalties of interfering in a police investigation. But as a favour to you for having been of some little, very little, assistance to us in the past, we will not tell those you have interviewed your real identity. That will be all. Oh, one other thing. Anything else you do find out, you are to report to me immediately. Here is my card. It has my office number, home number and mobile phone number.”

“Thank you,” said Agatha meekly.

After they had left, Agatha turned over what he had said and then her face cleared. They weren’t going to stop her.

♦

Agatha was admiring a splendid blond wig which had arrived by special delivery from Roy when the doorbell rang again. She found a woman she did not know standing on the step.

“Mrs. Raisin,” she said. “I am Freda Stokes, Kylie’s mother.”

“Come in,” said Agatha. “Come through to the kitchen. Would you like a cup of tea? I am very sorry about your sad loss.”

Freda Stokes was a sturdy woman with round apple cheeks with a high colour. Her grizzled hair was frizzy and her hands rough and red. She had large eyes of an indeterminate colour.

She refused the offer of tea and settled her battered handbag firmly on her capacious lap and studied Agatha. “I’ve heard you’re a sort of detective.”

“In a way,” said Agatha.

“I’ll pay you to find out who killed my daughter. Won’t be much. I’ve a stall at the market. Glass animals. Don’t make much.”

“I’ll do it for nothing,” said Agatha.

“I won’t take charity.”

“I’m fairly well off and you aren’t,” said Agatha bluntly. “I’ll do it. Wait till I get some paper. I’ll need to ask you questions. Do you feel up to it?”

“I’m up to anything,” said Freda grimly, “if it’ll nail the bastard who killed my daughter.”

Agatha darted through to her desk and returned with a sheaf of papers.

“So tell me when you last saw her?”

“It was two days before she died. She’d been to some sort of hen party with the girls in her office. She was a bit tiddly when she came home, that would be around midnight. I told her to get straight to bed. She said she’d had a good time. She said that girl, Phyllis Heger, who was always picking on her, wasn’t there. As she was off work, I thought I’d let her have a long lie-in. My husband’s dead. There was only me and Kylie.” A fat tear slid down her cheek. Agatha handed her a box of tissues and waited until she had composed herself.

“I went to the market early as usual. I came back at dinnertime.” Agatha knew she meant lunch-time. They still had dinner in the middle of the day in Evesham. “The house was quiet. Lazy girl, I thought, and went to wake her. Her bed was empty. Hadn’t been slept in. I called Zak, I called her work, I called her friends, then I called the police. They didn’t take it seriously. They said brides always got nervous before a wedding and she’d turn up. Then I found her wedding dress was missing. I phoned them again. But again they wouldn’t take me seriously. That was until she turned up dead.”

“What about Zak?” asked Agatha. “Could he possibly have done it?”

“No, he adored her, and he and his father have been marvellous to me. I couldn’t have got through the last few days without them. Zak’s broken up.”

“And you never had any suspicion that Kylie might be on drugs?”

“My Kylie? Never! She was part of a youth group at the church. They’re very down on drugs.”

“So why do you think she took her wedding dress?”

“Like I said, she’d had a bit to drink. I think one of them girls said she wanted to see the dress. Kylie was ever so proud of it. I think she took it round to one of their houses. She might have been attacked on the road home. It’s hard to get a cab.”

“She’d change back into her ordinary clothes, surely,” said Agatha. “And whoever she had been visiting, if they had nothing to hide, then why wouldn’t they come forward?”

“Maybe whoever it was might be frightened of being suspected.”

“What about Phyllis Heger?”

“She wasn’t at the office party, like I said.”

“I don’t know if you know this, Mrs. Stokes – ”

“Freda.”

“Right, then, Freda. I don’t know if you know that Zak, according to Phyllis, was dating her.”

“Oh, Kylie told me about that. She said Phyllis hated her. Do you think it could have been her?”

“I’d like to think so,” said Agatha. “I don’t like her. But just think of the organization! Could Phyllis have injected her with heroin and then dumped her body in a freezer chest, and then somehow got it into the river? Was Kylie dating anyone before Zak?”

“She was engaged once before, to Harry McCoy.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s a machine-tool operator at Barrington’s. Steady chap. I liked him.”

“What’s his address?”

Freda gave it to her and Agatha wrote it down.

Agatha leaned forward. “I’d better tell you something in confidence. I’ve already been investigating your daughter’s murder. I’ve been going around masquerading as someone from television, wearing a disguise of blond wig and glasses. If you hear about such a person, you’ll know it’s me.” Agatha thought about Brudge. Had he really been encouraging her to go ahead?

“Worcester police are very good,” she said cautiously. “They’ll probably get to the bottom of it eventually. What about drugs? I didn’t think they’d be that much in a quiet place like Evesham. You work at the market. You must hear things.”

“Evesham’s like everywhere else, riddled with the stuff,” said Freda bitterly. “They found a pub dealing in the stuff and closed it down. Nobody knows where it’s coming from now.”

“The people who take drugs must know,” said Agatha. “Ever hear of anything connected to the club?”

“Not even one Ecstasy tablet. It’s been raided at least once. A few under-age drinkers, that’s all.”

“Give me your phone number,” said Agatha. “I’ll let you know anything I find out.”

“Bless you,” said Freda, tears now coursing freely down her cheeks. “I’ve been feeling so helpless.”

Agatha handed her a wad of tissues. When Freda had recovered, Agatha saw her out and then returned to the kitchen and sat down, feeling guilty. After all, she did not deserve Freda’s blessing for pursuing an investigation out of no higher motive than curiosity and a desire to allay the boredom of retirement in a country village. Mrs. Bloxby was the one with pure motives. Or was she?

By omission, she had deliberately led Agatha to believe the new neighbour wasn’t worth bothering about. She had some explaining to do.

♦

Some ten minutes later, Mrs. Bloxby found herself facing a truculent Agatha in the vicarage drawing-room.

“I shouldn’t try to manipulate your life,” said Mrs. Bloxby ruefully. “But I did not want to see you fall enamoured of another neighbour and get hurt.”

“Do you know what I did?” demanded Agatha wrathfully. “He came to my door carrying a Bible, and I thought he was a Mormon and slammed the door in his face.”

Mrs. Bloxby snorted with laughter.

“It’s not funny!” howled Agatha. “What was he carrying a Bible for anyway?”

“He left it with me,” said Mrs. Bloxby when she had stopped laughing. “It was James’s Bible. He found it in a closet. I’ll get it for you.”

She went out and then returned carrying the Bible. Agatha opened it and noticed James’s name written in his familiar handwriting inside. A wave of love and loss engulfed her and she clutched the Bible and stared at Mrs. Bloxby with miserable eyes.

“It’ll pass,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “All things pass.”

Agatha firmly put the Bible away from her. “So tell me about John Armitage.”

“I know very little. Just that he’s a successful writer. He seems very pleasant. I gather he was once married and is divorced. I think the Anstruther-Jones woman has been bothering him. I told him not to answer the door to her and she would soon get tired of calling on him.” Mrs. Bloxby looked at Agatha ruefully. “I’m afraid I told him not to answer the door to any of the women. They have all been pestering him, taking him cakes and home-made jam or copies of his books for him to autograph.”

So I can’t do any of those things, thought Agatha. Rats.

“I wish you had told me the truth,” she said severely. “I am not a child.”

“No, I shouldn’t have misled you, but the temptation was irresistible. I won’t do it again.”

“Sometimes I wonder about you,” said Agatha. “Anyway, that dead girl’s mother has just called on me. She wants me to investigate her daughter’s death. She even offered to pay me.”

“It must have made you feel like a real detective.”

“I am a real detective,” snapped Agatha, who had not quite forgiven the vicar’s wife for misleading her about John Armitage.

“Of course. How are you getting on?”

Agatha outlined her findings. Mrs. Bloxby listened carefully. Then she said, “Someone’s dealing drugs in Evesham. Could it be possible that Kylie stumbled across the source?”

“Then that would suggest the club.”

“Not necessarily. One of those girls could have said something, let something slip. They must all have had a bit too much to drink at that hen party. Maybe one of them panicked and told her supplier.”

“Far-fetched,” said Agatha grumpily because she had not considered such a possibility herself.

“Possibly. Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“You’ll need to forgive me sometime.”

“I have forgiven you,” lied Agatha and stumped out.

♦

When she got home, she went over her notes and then logged everything she had in the computer. Whom should she approach that evening? Perhaps she should start with Harry McCoy before going on to one of the other girls. She looked at her watch and remembered she had a Pilates class and rushed to change into tights and a T-shirt before driving fast to Evesham. By the time she returned home, she was feeling relaxed and refreshed. Still no sign of John Armitage in residence, she noted.

Later that day, she put on the new blond wig, tying it in a neat pony-tail. It looked much more natural than the old one, and the spectacles with the plain glass lenses really did make her look different. She hesitated before leaving. Was the disguise really necessary? Mrs. Stokes had asked her to investigate, so she could surely go as herself. But, then, Harry McCoy might be friendly with the girls. He might even be the villain!

So Agatha set off, feeling very lonely. She missed Roy’s chattering company. When she parked in Merstow Green, she took out a street map of Evesham and checked on Harry McCoy’s address. He lived not far from the car-park in Horres Street. She decided to walk. The streets away from the High Street seemed strangely deserted. No children played outside. Television flickered behind lace-curtained windows. The wind had risen, and fallen cherry blossoms swirled in front of Agatha. It had turned unseasonably cold. She located the small red-brick-terraced house in which he lived. It looked dark and empty.

There were two bells, one for upstairs and one for downstairs, but no one answered the summons of either.

Agatha retreated. She decided to go back to the car-park and then call back at the house from time to time. She had forgotten her clipboard with the addresses of the other girls and was reluctant to go all the way home to get it. She sat in her car, smoking and listening to the radio, venturing out once more to take the long walk back to Harry’s house. She wished she had decided to park outside, but there was not a single parking space left in the street and to double-park would draw unwelcome attention to herself.

By ten o’clock, she got wearily out of her car again. Just one more time. To her relief, there was a light shining in the upstairs window. She pressed the bell and waited.

No reply.

She pressed it again and stepped back and looked up. No curtain twitched. No face looked down at her. Should she try the neighbours? No, scrub that. She didn’t want him to know she was looking for him or to start lying to neighbours about some fictitious television programme.

Agatha wearily turned away. A wasted evening. Why not just forget the whole thing and leave it to the police? She began to walk slowly along the deserted street.

And then she sensed danger.

Afterwards, she could not say why or what had alerted her or where the sudden feeling of menace had come from. She heard a car approaching. She twisted her head, saw headlights blazing, and in one split second realized the car was rushing at her at full speed.

She threw herself over the garden hedge next to her, hearing the car roar past as it mounted the pavement where she had been standing and then hearing it lurch back onto the road. She lay in someone’s front garden, shivering and panting. A door opened.

The next thing she knew was that someone was standing over her. She straightened up, ridiculously relieved to find that her wig was still in place.

“What the ‘ell do you think you’re doing?” demanded a small, thin woman angrily.

Agatha struggled up. “I’m sorry. I must have had a fainting fit and fallen over your hedge.”

She swayed and then regained her balance. Despite her shock and fright, she did not want to say she had been nearly killed. Questions would be asked. The police called. And this time Brudge would really tell her to leave the whole thing alone.

“I know your sort,” said the woman wrathfully. “Drunk, that’s what you are. And at your age. You oughter be ashamed of yourself.”

Agatha made for the garden gate. One of her high-heeled shoes got caught in a loose brick on the path and she stumbled; and nearly fell. “Get out o’ here,” shouted the woman. “And I sober up!”

Agatha felt that the walk to her car was the longest she had ever taken. She did not even feel safe when she was in her car.

She accelerated out of the car-park at speed. John Armitage had cut short his stay in London and was making his way leisurely down the road into Carsely when a car he recognized as his neighbour’s shot past him and hurtled off in front of him. “Crazy driver,” he muttered.

He proceeded at a reasonable rate and then parked in front of his cottage. Before he switched off his headlights, he saw his neighbour’s car and that she was still in it, hunched over the wheel.

He was about to open the gate and go in when he hesitated. Maybe she was ill.

John approached Agatha’s car cautiously and then looked in the window. She had her face in her hands and her shoulders were heaving. He rapped on the glass.

Agatha straightened up and gave him a look of wild terror.

He opened the car door. “I’m John Armitage. Your neighbour. We haven’t really met. Is there anything I can do?”

Agatha took a tissue out of a box on the seat beside her and blew her nose. “I had a fright,” she blurted out. “They tried to kill me.”

“Was it road rage? I’ll call the police for you.”

Agatha shook her head. She had been crying because, unnerved as she was, she had been feeling terribly alone. No Charles or James or even Roy to comfort her.

“Would you like a brandy or something?”

Agatha gave a choked sob. Then she said, “Help me indoors and I’ll tell you about it.”