Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

∨ The Love from Hell ∧

3

THREE weeks had passed since the disappearance of James. Agatha had railed at the police. In these days of modern communications, someone must have seen him somewhere. He had not packed any clothes, although his passport was missing. He would have to buy clothes somewhere, draw money. There must be a trace of him.

But there was nothing.

It had been established that the blood in the cottage and in the car belonged to James. Bill told her they were still waiting for the results of further tests on hairs and threads and other bits and pieces carefully scooped up by the forensic team, but these days, he said, the lab was overloaded.

It is not only the police who suspect the nearest and dearest of murder. When Agatha went to the local pub or shopped in the village store, she could sense an atmosphere when she walked in.

She sank even deeper every day into depression. She had barely the energy to get out of bed, and when she did, she wandered around in a shapeless house-dress. From time to time, she would feel with a stab of deeper pain that she should be out roaming the countryside, looking for James. Then she would remember that the police were looking for him with all their resources, and sink back down into helpless misery again.

James’s relatives had given up phoning. His sister and his aunts all seemed to imply that such a worrying, disgraceful thing would not have happened if he had refrained from marrying Agatha. She had finally unplugged the phone from the wall.

At the end of the third week, Agatha reluctantly answered the summons of her doorbell. “I’ve been trying to ring you,” said the vicar’s wife, pushing a strand of grey hair away from her mild face. “No reply. I thought you’d gone away.”

“Come in. Like coffee?”

“Tea, please.”

In the kitchen, Mrs. Bloxby looked anxiously at Agatha. “I just wondered if you had had time to clean up James’s cottage.”

“I haven’t had the heart,” said Agatha dully.

She placed a mug of tea in front of Mrs. Bloxby, who picked it up, and then put it down, untasted, and said, “I really think, my dear Mrs. Raisin, that you should take some sort of action or you are going to make yourself really ill.”

“What can I do that the police can’t?”

“You’ve never let that stop you before. You see, I could help you tidy up the cottage next door. You could go through James’s papers – oh, I know the police have been through them – but there might be something there that they have missed.”

“Still can’t see much point in it,” said Agatha, lighting a cigarette.

“I cannot see much point in you letting yourself go to seed. One would think James was dead.”

“How do you mean, go to seed?” demanded Agatha.

“I shall put it bluntly. There are bags under your eyes, you have a moustache and hairy legs.”

A small spark of humour gleamed in Agatha’s bearlike eyes. “It’s women’s lib,” she said. “We only shave ourselves because of men.”

“I shave my legs because they get scratchy and itchy when the hair grows,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I thought your friend, Charles, would have been round to help you.”

“He tried, but I didn’t feel like seeing him.”

“Mrs. Raisin, are we going next door, or what? I haven’t got all day. There are other people in this parish in need of my help!”

Agatha blinked at her in surprise. She had hardly ever heard her friend speak to her sharply before.

“Okay. I’ll get the keys.”

“Clean yourself up first, there’s a dear.”

Agatha trudged upstairs. For the first time, it seemed, in ages, she took a good look at herself in the long mirror in her bedroom. She was appalled at the ageing mess that looked wearily back at her.

♦

Downstairs, Mrs. Bloxby waited patiently. If Mrs. Raisin was taking a long time, then it meant she was tidying herself up, and Mrs. Bloxby was still shocked by the deterioration in Agatha’s appearance.

At last, Agatha appeared, neat and tidy in a shirt blouse and skirt, her smooth legs in tights and her smooth face under a light mask of make-up. “Thanks for waiting,” she said gruffly. “Let’s go.”

“Haven’t you been to James’s cottage before?”

“Just on and off,” said Agatha, remembering nights she had cried into his pillow and days where she had sat with her face buried in his favourite old sweater. “I just couldn’t get round to straightening things, although the police did quite a good job after they had finished.”

They walked out into the sunshine. How odd that the world should look so normal, thought Agatha. Fluffy clouds, like clouds in a child’s painting, hung in a deep-blue Cotswold sky. The first roses were tumbling over hedges and the air was sweet and fresh.

Agatha unlocked the door of James’s cottage. Mrs. Bloxby stood back and looked at the roof. “The thatch needs done,” she called. “I can put you in touch with a thatcher. You might want to wait and see if he comes back. It’s an expensive job.”

She followed Agatha in. “I’ll draw the curtains back and open the windows.”

Soon sunlight was flooding the cottage. Mrs. Bloxby looked round. There was a thin layer of dust on the furniture and the carpet was still marked with blood-stains. “Perhaps if you start with his papers,” she said, “I’ll begin with the cleaning.”

Agatha went to the old roll-top desk in the corner where James kept his accounts and letters. The police had taken everything away to examine and the plastic bag holding all the papers they had returned lay on top of the desk. The fact that Agatha had taken some sort of action was beginning to send a little surge of energy through her.

Behind her, she heard the reassuring clatter of cleaning implements as Mrs. Bloxby fetched what she needed from the kitchen and got to work.

Agatha began going through piles of bills to make sure they had all been paid. Then she began on the little pile of mail which had been lying on the doormat when she walked in. New bills. Electricity, gas, water. Junk mail. One letter addressed in large looped handwriting addressed to James. She took up James’s silver letter opener and slit open the envelope.

It was dated the Friday of the previous week. “Dear James,” she read. “We really must sit down and talk. I hope you’re back by now. I’m sorry I told Agatha about your illness, but how could I possibly guess you had not told her yourself? You must come and see me. We have been intimate together, you’ve made love to me, you can’t just walk away and not see me again. Do please ring me, darling, or come round. Your Melissa.”

Agatha’s hands shook as she read the letter. A great wave of fury swept through her. She had almost been sanctifying James since his disappearance, crediting him with affections and little tendernesses that he had never demonstrated, blaming herself bitterly for everything. Despite what she had previously said, she had come to the conclusion that James had never been unfaithful to her. Such a straight, upright man would not. But now here it was. Proof. She forgot about his cancer. She only thought that he had cheated her. By God, she had to find him and tell James Lacey exactly what she thought of him. He could even be lying about having cancer! The police had checked every hospital in Britain without finding a sign of him.

“Everything all right?” called Mrs. Bloxby. “Yes, sure,” muttered Agatha. “Just some bills to pay.”

“You do those and I’ll get on with this.” Mrs. Bloxby thought it would be better if she scrubbed out the blood-stains herself.

Agatha took out James’s cheque-book. No reason to pay the damn bills herself. But of course she could not sign one of his cheques. They didn’t have a joint account. Bastard. She should let his gas, water, and electricity get cut off.

She went to her cottage and collected her own cheque-book and returned. “Don’t you think James would need money?” she called over her shoulder. “I mean, the police must have been watching to see if he cashed any cheques or used one of his credit cards.”

“Mmm,” was the only reply she got. Mrs. Bloxby scrubbed busily, thinking sadly that if James did not need money, then James was dead.

Agatha finished signing cheques and joined Mrs. Bloxby in cleaning and dusting.

Then they went back to Agatha’s cottage for a coffee. “Have you seen anything of Melissa lately?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.

Agatha flushed, well aware of that crumpled letter in her handbag. “No, and I don’t want to.”

“Perhaps she is feeling very guilty. She did not attend the ladies’ society meeting last night. And she’s usually always there. No one has seen her for over a week. Her car is still outside.”

“Why don’t you phone her?”

“I tried, but there was no reply.”

I’ll go and see her the minute I’ve got rid of you, thought Agatha, engulfed by a wave of anger.

The phone rang. Agatha looked startled and then remembered she had plugged it back in before they had left to clean James’s cottage as a sort of gesture to belonging to the world again.

“You answer it. I’ll be off,” said the vicar’s wife.

As Mrs. Bloxby waved good-bye, Agatha picked up the phone. “Hello, Aggie,” said Charles’s voice. “How are things? I’ve been trying to get you.”

“I’m all right,” said Agatha. “Still miserable and shocked, as a matter of fact.”

“No news?”

“None.” Agatha thought about that letter and the desire to tell someone overcame her. Sometimes she found Mrs. Bloxby almost too good. Mrs. Bloxby might have sympathized with Melissa and Agatha could not have borne that.

“Well, just one thing,” she said. “I went along to James’s cottage to clean up and found a letter from Melissa on the doormat. It was delivered last week. They had been having an affair.”

“I thought you’d accepted that.”

“No, I had not!” howled Agatha.

“Careful. You’ll break my ear-drum. You said – ”

“I know what I said. But James assured me they had not been sleeping together and I believed him. More fool me. I’m going to find him.”

“That’s more like the Agatha I know. I’m bored. I’ll be over in half an hour or so.”

“But – ” Agatha had been about to put him off because she was dying to confront Melissa, but he had rung off. May as well wait for him.

♦

When Charles arrived, he found the cottage door open and walked in. Agatha was in the back garden, playing with her cats.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, getting to her feet and brushing grass from her skirt.

“You don’t look too bad,” said Charles, surveying her critically. “I was afraid you might have gone to pieces. So where do we start? With James’s family?”

Agatha shuddered. “I’ve had enough of James’s family, what with his aunts and sister implying that if he hadn’t married me he would be all right.”

“So what about Melissa?”

“So what about her?” demanded Agatha truculently.

“I think you should swallow your pride and we’ll go and see her. I mean, he did tell her he had cancer and didn’t tell you. He may have told her other things.”

“I was going to wait until your visit was over and then go round there and give her a piece of my mind.”

“Won’t do. You’d never get anything out of her that way. I mean, do you want to find James or not?”

“I want to find him and ask for a divorce.”

“All right, then. Let’s go.”

“I hate this.”

“Better than not knowing. Come on, Aggie. Let’s get it over with.”

Agatha walked with him through the village, aware of twitching curtains at windows and curious stares. I am the victim, not James, she told the watchers silently. I have been betrayed and abandoned. Then she thought of the cancerous tumour in James’s brain and groaned inwardly.

Melissa’s cottage, like Agatha’s, was thatched. But where Agatha did not bother much about the little garden at the front of her house, Melissa’s was a riot of roses, pink and yellow and red, tumbling over a white-painted fence. The white-painted door had a brass knocker. Agatha noticed the knocker was dull. That’s odd, she thought. Melissa liked to pride herself of being a first-class housewife.

She seized the knocker and rapped loudly. As they waited, it seemed as if the whole village waited. It was very quiet. No cars drove along the road, no dogs barked, no tractors buzzed around the fields above.

Charles leaned round her and twisted the doorknob and gave the door a tentative push. It swung open.

“Agatha,” whispered Charles. “I don’t like that smell.”

“Drains?” suggested Agatha, although her face had turned white as she sniffed a sweet, rotting smell.

“I really think we should stop where we are and phone the police,” said Charles.

But a new burst of rage against Melissa engulfed Agatha. “Let’s see. She probably went away and left some rotting food in the kitchen. Damn it, the bitch probably knows where James is and has gone to join him.”

“Agatha, please stop…”

But Agatha walked straight into the cottage, calling, “Melissa!”

The smell was getting stronger but fury drove her on. She opened the kitchen door and stood stock still. Melissa was slumped over her kitchen table. Flies were buzzing about her dead body: heavy flies, sated flies. Charles peered over her shoulder. “Get the police, Aggie.”

“Police,” whispered Agatha through dry white lips. “She may just have died.”

“Under the flies, her head has been bashed in.” Charles gave her a push. “Go, phone.”

Agatha stumbled into the sitting-room. She dialled 999 and gasped out the address and demanded police and an ambulance. Then she lurched out into the front garden and took in great gulps of fresh air. “Morning,” said an old man, peering over the fence at her. “Lovely day.”

“Yes, lovely,” said Agatha. He looked at her curiously for a moment and went on his way.

Oh, James, thought Agatha, what have you done?

♦

They were gathered in Agatha’s sitting-room later that afternoon, Wilkes, Bill Wong, another detective, and a thin, serious policewoman.

Agatha gave them the letter and she explained her reaction and her desire to confront Melissa. She did not say anything about trying to find James herself. Asked about her movements during the previous days, she said honestly that until Mrs. Bloxby had called, she had been too depressed to move much at all.

“I’ve heard it’s almost impossible to pin-point the exact time of death,” said Charles.

“The corpse was cold but not stiff, which means she had been dead over thirty-six hours,” said Wilkes. “Of course, I’m sure the flies will give us some clue.”

“Flies?” asked Agatha.

The policewoman, who had not previously spoken, suddenly threw back her head, closed her eyes and began to recite, “After death the body begins to smell, and attracts different types of insects. The insects that usually arrive first are the Diptera, in particular the blowflies, and the flesh-flies, or Sarcophagidae. The females will lay their eggs on the body, especially around the natural orifices and in any wounds. Flesh-flies do not lay eggs, but deposit larvae instead.

“After about a day, depending on the species, the eggs hatch into small larvae. These larvae live on the tissue and grow fast. After a short time, they moult, and reach the second larval stage. They continue eating and moult to the third stage. This takes about four to five days. When the larvae are fully grown, they become restless and begin to wander. They are now in their pre-pupal stage, about eight to twelve days after the eggs were deposited. Typically it takes between eighteen and twenty-four days from the eggs to the pupae stage. The exact time depends on the species and the temperature in the surroundings, so by estimating the age of the insects, scientist can estimate the time of death.”

She closed her mouth like a trap. “Are you for real?” demanded Agatha.

“Thank you, Constable Morrison,” said Wilkes. “But I think this is neither the time nor place for a forensic lecture.” He turned to Agatha. “The hunt has now intensified for your husband.”

“You think James did it, don’t you?” said Agatha. “I thought so at first. But why?”

Constable Morrison threw back her head again. “Crime of passion,” she said.

“We don’t know who did it,” said Bill Wong. “We have to look into Melissa Sheppard’s background, see what, if any, enemies she had. Mr. Lacey’s disappearance and her death may not be related.”

♦

The following day, Harriet Comfrey, her rotund figure bulging over a swim-suit, was relaxing on the deck of the Sleeping Princess in the harbour at Honfleur.

She saw her husband coming along the harbour, clutching a sheaf of newspapers. When he joined her, Harriet said crossly, “You’ve broken our holiday agreement. No newspapers!”

“I didn’t mean to buy them,” said Tubby, “but James’s face is all over the front page. Look!”

Harriet picked up the Daily Express. There, sure enough, was a photograph of James Lacey. She quickly scanned the story.

Some woman called Melissa Sheppard had been found battered to death. Police were anxious to contact Mr. Lacey to help them with their inquiries. Mr. Lacey had disappeared some weeks ago after evidence of a fight in his cottage at Carsely, Gloucestershire. He was wounded and believed to be suffering from a brain tumour.

Harriet raised shocked eyes to her husband’s face. “And we helped him out of the country! We’d better go to the police. Anyway, we may do him some good. We can tell them he left with us before this murder.”

“Who’s to say he didn’t go back?” said Tubby gloomily. “I mean, he got me to row him ashore at that rocky beach down the coast. Imagine what the police will say. Why didn’t you come forward before? You say he had a wound in his head? Aiding and abetting a criminal. All that stuff. Bang goes our holiday.”

Harriet bit her lip. “Better say nothing about it, then. I mean, he didn’t go through any passport control.”

“But they’re bound to get him. Then they’ll ask him how he got to France and he’ll say it was us.”

His wife’s face took on a stubborn look. “Let’s just forget about it. We don’t want to be involved. And no more newspapers, Tubby.”

♦

The press and television had come and gone. Carsely settled into a summer torpor. James had not been found.

Agatha and Charles had tried to get information about Melissa out of Bill Wong, but all he would say was that it was more than his job was worth to tell them anything. His bosses said they had suffered interference from them in the past. He was instructed not to tell them anything.

“The newspapers might have something,” said Agatha, two weeks after the murder of Melissa. “I mean, I’ve got to get something. I’m still a suspect. Even Bill looks at me in a funny way. They say she must have been lying there dead for five days. We don’t have a milkman round here anymore, and she picked up her papers from the village shop. If we still had milk delivered around here, then people would have noticed bottles piling up on the step.”

“What do you mean, the newspapers might have something?” asked Charles. “We’ve read them all, day in and day out.”

“What I mean is this. A couple of days after Melissa’s murder, there was that awful shooting at Mircester School. Five children dead. Awful. But it wiped Melissa’s murder off the papers. Now some reporter may have been working away at the background and then gets told to drop it. We could go to die Mircester Journal and ask.”

“Sounds a bit far-fetched.”

“You forget, I worked with the press for years. Anyway, it’s better than doing nothing.”

Charles made a steeple of his fingers and studied them while Agatha waited impatiently. It was at times like this that she wondered if she really knew Charles at all. Self-possessed as a cat, expensively tailored, sensitive face, but unreadable eyes under smooth fair hair.

“All right,” he said. “It’s better than sitting here.”

♦

The editor of the Mircester Journal looked more like Agatha’s idea of an accountant than an editor. Mr. Jason Blacklock was dry and precise, with strands of brown hair combed neatly over a pink scalp and gold-rimmed glasses perched on die end of a long thin nose.

“I gather you want my help, Mrs. Raisin,” he said, addressing Agatha. “I agreed to see you because there might be a story in it for us.”

“If you help us,” said Agatha, “we’ll give you an exclusive when we’re ready. Deal?”

“All right. So what is it you want?”

“I gather you would have had a reporter or reporters working on the murder of Melissa Sheppard.”

“Of course.”

“And pulled them off it when the shooting at the school happened?”

“Yes.”

“We wanted to find out a bit about Melissa’s background and wondered if one of your reporters would have something.”

“Why? Are you playing at detectives?”, “We’re not playing at anything,” said Agatha sharply. “I am still a suspect, as is my husband. I want to know if there was anyone in Melissa’s past life who would want to harm her.”

Mr. Blacklock suddenly bellowed, “Josie!”

A skeletal girl appeared. She was wearing a purple spangled top over a long black skirt and huge boots.

“Where’s Colin Jaeger?”

“Down the pub,” said Josie laconically.

“Right. Will you take Mrs. Raisin here and Sir Charles Fraith down to the Ferret and Firkin and tell Colin he’s to fill them in on the background of the Sheppard murder.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Agatha and Charles followed the thin figure of Josie out and down the stairs. Out in the street, Agatha said to Josie, “You should eat more.”

Josie flicked back her lank hair and stared insolently at Agatha’s stocky figure. “You should eat less, Granny.”

“You insolent little pig,” snarled Agatha. “Why, I’d like to stuff your skinny, undernourished form down the nearest drain.”

“Ladies, ladies,” pleaded Charles. “It’s too hot for a row. Here is the pub. Josie, fetch this Colin and then you can go back to work.”

Josie muttered something under her breath but she thrust open the door of the pub and let it swing back in Agatha’s face.

“You asked for it, Aggie. Calm down. You should know better than to comment on someone’s personal appearance.” Charles opened the door for her.

Josie was talking to an untidy young man who was standing I at the bar holding a tankard of beer. She jerked a thumb in their direction and then walked away, brushing rudely past them.

“Colin Jaeger?” asked Agatha. He nodded. “I’m Agatha Raisin and this is Sir Charles Fraith. Did that drippy child tell you we need background on Melissa Sheppard?”

“Something like that.”

“So can we sit down at, say, that table over there, or have you got notes back at the office?”

Despite the heat, he was wearing a shabby tweed jacket. He pulled a notebook out of one pocket. “Got most of it here.”

Charles bought Agatha a gin and tonic and himself a whisky and they joined Colin at a table. He flicked through his notebook. “Look at that,” he said. “Perfect shorthand. ‘You need shorthand,’ says the editor. And what happens? Well, these days, everyone’s got a dinky little tape recorder. Still, must admit it’s a good way of keeping a lot of information.”

“So what have you got on Melissa?” asked Agatha eagerly. “Is there a Mr. Sheppard?”

“Easy, now. You paying me for this?”

“Paying your editor,” lied Charles quickly, seeing that Agatha was preparing to give him a lecture. “So you’d better get on with it.”

Colin sighed. “Where are we? Pages and pages of school shooting. Ah, here we are. Background. Married Luke Sheppard in 1992. Divorced a year later, amicably.”

“And did you talk to this Mr. Sheppard?” asked Charles.

“I was about to when the shooting started.”

“Address?”

“Parson’s Terrace, number fourteen, Blockley.”

Charles made a note. “Anything else?”

“When she married Luke Sheppard, she was a Mrs. Dewey.”

“Blimey. Two of them. What of Mr. Dewey?”

“Lives in Worcester. Turnpike Lane, number five.”

“And how long was she married to him?”

“Three years. Let me see, 1988 to 1991.”

“Are there any other husbands?” asked Agatha.

“None that I got around to finding.”

“Got anything else?”

“All the stuff on you, Mrs. Raisin, and your…er…unhappy marriage.”

“You mean, on Melissa?”

“No.”

“My marriage was not unhappy,” said Agatha through gritted teeth.

“Have it your way, but that ain’t what the neighbours say. Raised voices, flying plates, all that stuff.”

“Can we get back to Melissa?” said Charles. Agatha looked about to burst with rage.

“There’s not much to get back to. I say, you pair might at least offer me a drink.”

“First tell us about Melissa,” said Charles.

“There isn’t much more to tell. That’s about as far as I’d got. Got as far as previous husbands and addresses and got called off the story.”

“Come along, Agatha,” said Charles, pulling her to her feet. “Better get going.”

“What about my drink?” demanded the reporter.

“No time,” said Charles, urging Agatha out of the pub.

“You are cheap, Charles,” said Agatha. “I didn’t like the little ferret, but you could have at least bought him a drink.”

“Maybe next time,” said Charles vaguely. “Blockley first. That’s very near Carsely. He could have nipped over there and bashed her, after bashing James first in a fit of jealous rage.”

♦

James Lacey lay in a narrow white bed in the Benedictine monastery of Saint Anselm in the French Pyrenees, drifting in and out of sleep. He had arrived the day before, suffering from heat exhaustion. He knew from his previous visit that it was a closed order. Before, he had been allowed a cold drink of water and a rest in the cloisters before continuing on a walking tour. This time, to his request to join the order, he had been told he was obviously a sick man. He should rest and recover and then they would see.

After leaving Tubby and Harriet, he had slowly made his way south, resting in fields, eating little, always stumbling on, driven by worry and guilt, and fear of the monster he felt was growing in his brain.

He thought briefly of Agatha, but closed his eyes again and willed himself to sleep.