FIVE

WHEN Agatha went downstairs in the morning, she found a note on the kitchen table from James. It said briefly, “Gone off on some private business. Be back around lunch-time.”

Agatha cursed and crushed the note into a little ball and shied it into the rubbish bin. They were no longer a team, she thought bitterly. She made herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table and gloomily revised in her mind all James’s coldnesses, all his snubs, and all his lack of affection, until she was perfectly sure she had no feelings left for him at all.

Then she decided to go into Kyrenia and do some investigating for herself. The day was a washed-out milky grey, with wreaths of mist hiding the tops of the mountains. It was very warm and humid.

She parked in a side street and walked down to the Dome Hotel. English tourists with high fluting voices came and went outside the hotel. North Cyprus seemed to be living up to its reputation of being the last genteel watering-hole along the Mediterranean.

Neither Olivia nor the rest were in their rooms. She went to the dining-room. A few people were having a late breakfast but they were not among them. But over at the window sat Charles, holding a coffee-cup between his sum fingers and gazing dreamily out to sea.

Agatha hesitated and then, with a little shrug, she walked towards his table. He looked up.

“Morning, Aggie,” he said. “Where’s your guard-dog?”

“If you mean James, he’s gone off somewhere on his own. Have you see the Debenhams or the bereaved husband?”

“You’ve missed them. They had breakfast. Then they said something about going to Bellapais.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a place immortalized by Lawrence Durrell in his book Bitter Lemons. There’s a Gothic abbey there. I’ll drive you there. Got nothing else to do. In fact, I’m getting a bit bored. Thought of going home.”

Agatha sat down opposite him. “Why did you sleep with me?”

“How old-fashioned you sound. You mean, why did I have sex with you? Put it down to brandy and moonlight on the Med.”

Agatha looked at him curiously. “And the memory doesn’t embarrass you?”

He looked at her in surprise. “Not a bit of it, Aggie. I enjoyed myself immensely. Want coffee or want to go?”

“May as well go,” said Agatha somewhat sulkily. She felt a gentleman would have professed to have had some sort of affection for her.

Once in his rented car, Agatha fished out her guidebook and looked up Bellapais. “What does it say?” asked Charles.

“The Abbaye de la Paix was founded circa 1200 by Aimery de Lusignan for the Augustine monks forced to leave their Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by the Saracens. The abbey was sometimes called the White Abbey from the colour of their habits. King Hugues (1267 to 1284) was a major benefactor of the abbey, which grew in size and importance to the extent that the Archbishop of Nicosia had trouble asserting his authority over it, until the Genoese invasion of 1372. In that year its treasures were looted, and the abbey never regained its previous glory. Under the Venetians the abbey declined further, in both prosperity and morality. By the sixteenth century it is recorded that many of the monks had wives, in some cases more than one…”

“Enough,” said Charles. “I’ll find out the rest when I get there.”

“Did you hear what happened to me at Saint Hilarión?” asked Agatha.

“I heard someone tried to push you out of a window. Probably an enraged tourist, Aggie. Were you reading out of your guidebook at the time?”

“No,” said Agatha crossly. “I was in deadly peril.”

“This is becoming a tourist trap,” said Charles, as they entered the village of Bellapais. “Look at all those holiday villas. Where’s the abbey? I think I’ve missed a turn somewhere.”

Agatha consulted her book again. “It says here the ruins are reached by a turning to the right, signposted for Dogankoy and Beylerbeyi off the main coastal road in the eastern outskirts of Girne. Girne is the Turkish name for Kyrenia.”

“I know, dear heart. Lecture me no further. I will find it.”

Soon they were parked at the abbey in the shadow of a tourist bus.

They walked through the south-west entrance under an arched and fortified gateway.

“I forgot to look for their car,” said Agatha.

“Whose?”

“The Debenhams, friends and Trevor. That’s why I’m here.”

“Well, I want to see the cloisters,” said Charles, striding ahead, a very English figure in blazer and white slacks, white panama hat, white shirt and striped cravat.

Agatha followed slowly, not wanting to run after him like a pet dog.

Fragments of delicate arches surrounded the cloisters, warm and humming with insects in the heat. The mist had lifted and a golden sunlight flooded everything. Agatha, wondering idly where Charles had got to, was looking up at the carved bosses and corbels of the vaulting which featured human and animal heads, rosettes and the Lusignan coat of arms when a harsh voice behind her said, “So it’s you, snooping around as usual.”

Agatha gasped and swung round. Trevor stood there, his hands clenched into fists, his unhealthily pink face full of menace.

“Look,” he said, thrusting his head forwards, “it’s my wife that’s dead, gottit? And I don’t want no amateur busybody like you poking her nose in and getting under the feet of the police.”

Agatha took a step backwards. “See here, Trevor,” she said in the gentle tone of one who hopes to turn away wrath, “you are grieving and upset. But you must see that every bit helps. I have had some experience-”

Trevor took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Bug out,” he shouted, “or it’ll be the worse for you!”

“Leave her alone!”

Charles’s calm voice came from behind them.

Trevor released Agatha and turned and stumbled away.

“You all right?” asked Charles.

“A bit shaken,” said Agatha. “I thought he was going to punch me. He threatened me.”

“Did he now? Why?”

“He said if I didn’t stop investigating it would be the worse for me.”

“Was he drunk?”

“I don’t know,” said Agatha wretchedly. “I wish James were here.”

“Well, he isn’t. Where is he?”

“He’s angry with his old fixer, Mustafa. Mustafa cheated him over the rental of a house. He’s a brothel-keeper but James thinks he might be running drugs.”

“I say, this isn’t England. The silly man doesn’t want to get into that or he’ll end up floating in Kyrenia Harbour.”

“Oh, James can take care of himself. It looks as if it might have been Trevor who murdered Rose. For her money, you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

Agatha hesitated. Such background information as she had should only be discussed with James. James would be furious if she disclosed all their secrets to Charles. But she was shaken and Trevor had frightened her and James wasn’t there, only Charles, cool and inquisitive. So she told him all about Trevor’s financial difficulties, and how she wondered why Rose, who was rich, had not bailed his firm out of its difficulties.

“I think we should find Trevor and the others and ask him in front of them why he threatened you,” said Charles. “We’ll keep his financial difficulties in reserve. If he knows you’ve contacted the police about him, he’ll go ape.”

They wandered through the rest of the abbey, refectory, undercroft, chapter house and dormitories among throngs of tourists-British, German and Israeli. But of Trevor there was no sign.

“If he’s with the rest, they might have gone to some bar in the village,” suggested Charles. “We’ll look there.”

They drove back to the village of Bellapais, parking in a car-park next to the Tree of Idleness Restaurant and then wandering through the narrow streets until Agatha saw two rented cars with the Atlantic sticker on the rear window outside a café. She peered through the glass. “They’re all there. Maybe I should get back and find James before I say anything.”

“He’s not your husband, father or keeper,” said Charles, giving her a gentle shove in the back. “In you go.”

Trevor, pink and sullen, was drinking beer. Olivia and George Debenham, Angus and Harry were having coffees and pastries.

Agatha introduced Charles. Olivia beamed. “How nice to meet you,” she fluted. “We’re practically neighbours.”

Charles removed his panama and sat down after placing a chair at the table for Agatha. He smiled pleasantly at Trevor.

“Why did you threaten to kill Aggie?” he asked.

Olivia stared at Charles, her rather rabbity mouth falling open in surprise.

“Who’s Aggie?” demanded Trevor sullenly.

“Mrs. Raisin, Agatha. You seem to think she’s poking her nose into the investigation into your wife’s murder. When I saw you in the cloisters, you were shaking her and threatening her.”

All eyes turned to Trevor.

“I didn’t know what I was saying,” he mumbled. “I’d already had a bit to drink and it was so hopeless. Sorry.”

“Most off behaviour,” said Charles severely. “What if Aggie here had howled for the police, which she had every right to do? They’d have had you off to Nicosia in irons. Are you sure that’s all it was-grief and drink? Not frightened of our Aggie finding out who did it?”

Trevor jumped to his feet, knocking his chair backwards with a crash. “Leave me alone,” he shouted. He strode to the door, but stopped and turned and said in a quieter voice, “I’ll wait for the rest of you in the car. I’ve had enough of this.”

Olivia put a hand on Charles’s arm. “You must make allowances for poor Trevor,” she said. “We’re doing the best we can for him, but he misses Rose dreadfully, and I think it’s unhinged him.”

“But why accuse me of investigating the murder?” asked Agatha. “I’m not,” she lied.

“Oh, you told us all those stories when we first met about your investigations,” said George. “Didn’t she, Harry?”

Harry nodded and Angus said in his usual heavy manner, “Aye, we was talking about it the other night and Olivia here, she says to Trevor, she says, ‘I hope our Miss Marple isn’t getting in the way o’ the police investigation. She might put them on the wrong track althegether, her being an amateur, so to speak.’”

“Well, thanks a lot, Olivia,” said Agatha bitterly. “That’s what must have set him off.”

“It’s not all my fault,” said Olivia. “You added your bit, too, Angus. You said that the police would be so anxious to find someone, anyone, they could pin this on and get the press off their backs that they would take any daft suggestions from Agatha as gospel. And Harry, you said that it was only in books that amateur detectives were any help. You said in real life they were just people who waited until the police solved the murder and then claimed the credit.” She turned on her husband. “And darling, it was you who said to Trevor that someone should drop a quiet word in Agatha’s ear.”

“I am good at investigating,” said Agatha furiously. “If you don’t believe me, you’ve only got to ask the police at Mircester. Or ask James!”

Olivia gave a brittle laugh. “If you remember, dear, it was your James who suggested you just blundered about.”

“For your information,” said Charles, “Aggie is not investigating anything. And why should she? You are such a poisonous, dreary lot of people. Come along, Aggie.”

Outside the café, Agatha strode angrily away until they reached the car-park. Then she turned on Charles. “How could you? How could you insult them like that?”

“Come on, Aggie. They’d all just insulted you.”

“But don’t you see, I don’t want to make enemies of them! I’ve got to get close to them. Find out what makes them tick.”

“Why bother? Does it really matter who killed Rose?”

“Yes, it does!” said Agatha passionately. “It matters desperately who takes the life of another human being. They can’t be allowed to get away with it.”

“Suit yourself. But if you’re going to eat humble pie to that lot, do it on your own. I want lunch. We’ll go back to Kyrenia and find somewhere.”

“I’m going back to James. I said I would be back at lunch-time, or rather, he said he would be back at lunch-time.”

“Waste of space, Aggie,” remarked Charles. “He won’t care if you don’t turn up.”

“I shall find out who murdered Rose if it’s the last thing I do,” shouted Agatha.

“Oh, get in the car.”

Agatha took a step towards the passenger side. A rock sailed past her head and struck the rear window of the car, leaving a great jagged hole in the middle of the cracked and starred glass.

Charles, who had been unlocking the car door, stared at Agatha, white-faced.

Then he ran to the entrance to the car-park and looked wildly around. Groups of tourists laden with cameras wandered up and down the narrow streets. Agatha joined him.

“Let’s go back and see if they left that café.”

At the café, they were told that “their friends” had left a few minutes ago, got into their cars and driven off.

“It could have been kids,” said Charles as they emerged again. “But you’d better tell the police and then get the next plane out to England.”

“You forget. I’m a suspect, too. I’ve been told not to leave the island.”

“Well, I’ll need to report it anyway and get another car.”

They went into the Tree of Idleness and Charles asked the manager to call the police. Not only did the police arrive, but several detectives, and the road outside the Tree of Idleness was blocked by police vehicles with flashing blue lights.

Charles made his statement, which was duly recorded. They were told they would be contacted further. Police were fanning out to question tourists and locals if they had seen anything. It all took some time and so, when they finally drove back to Kyrenia and waited for Charles to get another rented car, Agatha realized she was shaken and very hungry. They went to Niazi’s, a restaurant famed for its kebabs and slow service, and ate a leisurely meal while Agatha went over and over it all again, debating that if the rock had been thrown at her deliberately, then it must be one of the English suspects.

Charles took himself off to the toilet as soon as the bill arrived. Agatha wondered whether to wait until he returned to see if he would pay it, but decided his sudden departure for the toilet was because he meant her to pay. And, indeed, on his return to the table he thanked her courteously for her “invitation to lunch,” said he would see her around, and drifted off.

Agatha drove back to the villa, feeling as she approached it like a guilty and adulterous wife-which was ridiculous, she told herself angrily.

She saw with a sinking heart that not only was James’s car outside the villa, but the long, low, official black one used by Pamir.

Agatha was suddenly very tired and upset. Her legs shook and her eyes filled with weak tears. She felt she had endured enough for one day.

James and Pamir were in the kitchen.

“What the hell have you been up to?” demanded James.

“Sit down, Mrs. Raisin,” said Pamir. “You have had an upsetting morning. It could have been children. A lot of the local children are very spoilt these days, just like in England. Videos and computers and no discipline. Perhaps some tea for Mrs. Raisin?”

James grumbled something under his breath but got up and switched on the kettle.

“Now, Mrs. Raisin,” said Pamir in a more gentle voice than he usually used, “perhaps you might begin at the beginning…?”

“I’m beginning to think if I ever hear those words again, I’ll weep,” said Agatha.

But she told him everything, about Trevor’s threats, which seemed to have been caused by the others’ frightening him into thinking that her investigations might cause the wrong suspect to be arrested, and then about the rock thrown at her.

James put a cup of tea in front of her and sat down again.

“And where does Sir Charles come into all this?” asked Pamir. “He was on the island at the time of the murder. I think I should ask him what he was doing.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” snapped Agatha. “He couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. He didn’t know any of them.”

“Nonetheless…”

“Nor is he magician enough to stand outside the car-park when he was already inside it and throw a rock at me.”

“Besides,” jeered James, “he’s a baronet, so he couldn’t possibly do anything wrong, could he, dearest?”

Pamir ’s black fathomless eyes flicked from one angry face to the other.

“Ah, jealousy,” he said. “What were you doing, Mr. Lacey, when all this was going on?”

“I was in Nicosia,” said James curtly.

“Doing what?”

James flashed Agatha a warning look. “Shopping.”

“Where? Which shops?”

“I haven’t any warm clothes with me and so I bought a couple of sweaters. I’ll probably still be here when the cold weather sets in.”

“Let me see.”

James went over to the kitchen counter and came back with a plastic bag. “You will find two sweaters in it and the receipt showing they were purchased today.”

“And that was all you did?”

“I went to the Mevlevi Tekke Museum near the Kyrenia Gate, had a look around and then came back here. I came back two hours before you arrived.”

Pamir turned and questioned Agatha again, taking her through her whole story, making various notes. Then at last he stood up.

“I would advise you to be careful, Mrs. Raisin. It would be as well if you kept away from the other suspects until this murder is solved.”

“I can’t be a suspect,” said Agatha. “Someone’s been trying to kill me.”

“Ah, if I were a cynical man, which I am not, I might say there is no evidence of that, only your word.”

“But the rock!”

“As I say, that could have been children. I will be talking to you soon.”

James saw him out. When he returned to the kitchen, Agatha said, “Before you start jeering about baronets: Like I told Pamir, I went to look for the others, heard they’d gone to Bellapais, and took Charles’s offer. I’m tired. Right now I want to forget about the whole thing. Maybe you’d better investigate on your own. Charles blew it for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Charles told them I wasn’t investigating anything. He called them a dreary, poisonous bunch of people.”

James smiled for the first time. “And so they are. I wouldn’t let that stop you. For some reason the Debenhams are staying friends with Trevor and Angus when they would, in ordinary circumstances, walk on the other side of the road if they saw them coming. You’ve only to show up and smile and apologize for Charles’s outburst and they’ll be all over you like a rash. Why didn’t you come back earlier?”

“I was shaken and hungry and I decided to take up Charles’s offer of lunch, only he turned it into my offer by skating off to the toilet when the bill arrived. He’s a cheapskate.”

James smiled again. “You’ll know to keep clear of him in future.”

“So what did you really get up to in Nicosia?”

“That’s my business. I don’t want you interfering in it.”

“All I’ve heard today is ‘stop interfering,’” said Agatha. “I’m going to have a bath.”

“There’s water,” said James, “and when you’ve had it, have a rest and then we’ll go and make friends with our suspects.”

“Are we going to confront Trevor with the fact we know he inherits-or probably inherits-Rose’s money?”

“Not yet. No point in driving them away from us. We’ll go along and charm them later.”

Agatha lay in the bath and stared up at the louvered window above it through which came the roaring sound of the Mediterranean. The events of the day remembered seemed small and bright and not quite real, as if they were all something she had seen in a film.

She was suddenly engulfed in a wave of homesickness. In Carsely she would have had her support group of friends: Mrs. Bloxby, Bill Wong and the members of the Carsely Ladies Society. The trees would be beginning to turn red and gold and the roads around the village would be full of pheasants who seemed well aware that the shooting season had not yet begun. She missed her cats. She hoped Doris Simpson was looking after them properly.

Above, all, she wanted to get away from James. The therapy-speakers would ask, “Why are you letting someone live rent-free in your head?” Well, the plain answer to that was that she still liked the lodger. She thought briefly of Charles and then her mind winced away from him.

She climbed out of the deep bath and dried herself. In the bedroom, she switched on the radio in her room, which was tuned to a local English-speaking station which played records. Then the remorselessly bright DJ, a woman with a nasal Essex voice, sang along with the records in a flat monotone, and the records were mostly rap. But as Agatha reached out to switch it off, the music died away and an interview with some member of the north Cyprus National Trust was announced. Agatha decided to listen while she chose something glamorous for the evening ahead. She picked up a little black dress and held it against her. Black could be very ageing. A well-modulated English voice on the radio was talking about snakes, explaining that the poisonous snakes were in the mountains and the harmless snakes at the coast. “But,” went on the voice, “the other day I found one of those harmless snakes in my kitchen sink in Kyrenia. I decided just to leave it and after some time it emerged with a rat in its mouth, which all goes to show you what useful creatures snakes are.”

Lady, I wouldn’t even have a cup of tea in your kitchen, thought Agatha with a shudder.

She tried on the black dress. It was a simple sheath and short enough to show plenty of leg. Perhaps some gold jewellery to brighten it up? Agatha sat down and carefully made up her face in her “fright” mirror, one of those magnifying ones which showed every pore. Then she walked through the bathroom and into James’s room where there was a long mirror. Her make-up looked like a thick beige mask and the dress was a mistake. She went into the bathroom and scrubbed off her make-up. Time to start again.

It was only when James shouted up the stairs, “Agatha, are you ready?” that Agatha at last made up her mind what to wear. She put on a white satin blouse and a black pleated skirt, high heels and restrained make-up, and hung some gold chains round her neck. Not exciting, but all she could think of in the final rush.

“I think we should take both cars,” she said when she joined James, who was waiting impatiently.

“Why?”

“In case we have to split up for some reason.”

“You mean, in case you go off with Charles.”

“Don’t be so silly.”

“It was a practical observation based on events, Agatha.”

Agatha felt herself beginning to blush, but she said, “I have no intention of going off with Charles But something may happen-we may become separated.”

“I don’t want to stand here arguing all night. Take your own bloody car if you want!”

They both left the villa in angry silence and went to their respective cars.

When Agatha got to the end of the road, she saw the petrol gauge was registering empty and so turned right towards Lapta to the nearest garage, instead of left towards Kyrenia. Two huge trucks were blocking the petrol pumps and she had to wait patiently until one of them left. Then she found, because she had taken a smaller bag for evening rather than the large one she usually carried, that she had left all her money back at the villa. She explained, apologized and hurried back to find some money. Then, when she got back to the garage, the proprietor was on the phone and so she had to wait again until he had finished his call. She paid and set out on the road to Kyrenia.

Somehow the homesickness she had felt earlier would not leave her. She longed to be driving down the winding country lanes that led to Carsely, to her thatched cottage, to all the comforts of home. She was almost beginning to dislike James, and yet somehow that craving for love from him would not go away. She hit the steering wheel angrily with her hand. “I wish he would die” she said out loud.

She parked on the pavement outside a house. A man opened his front door and stared at her car, which was blocking it.

“I’m sorry,” said Agatha, who had just got out. “I’ll move it.”

The man smiled, showing gold teeth. “No problem,” he said cheerfully.

How easygoing they were, marvelled Agatha. If someone drove up on the pavement and blocked my gateway back home, I’d give them a mouthful and call the police.

Bert Mort, the Israeli business man, was just checking out of the hotel when Agatha arrived. He threw her a guilty look.

“Where is your wife?” asked Agatha sweetly.

“Gone back home ahead of me. Look, Agatha, I’m truly sorry.”

Agatha relented. “What puzzles me, Bert, is how you could even look at an old bag like me with such a gorgeous wife.”

He gave a rueful smile. “Don’t put yourself down, Agatha. You’ve got great legs.”

“Agatha!” James stood there, glowering.

“Coming,” said Agatha meekly. “Goodbye, Bert. Safe journey.”

“They’re in the bar,” said James. “I thought we should approach them together.”

They walked through the lounge and towards the bar. “I feel nervous,” said Agatha.

“Just think of your great legs and you’ll feel better,” said James acidly.

Agatha bit back an angry reply, for they had now reached the entrance to the bar.

Olivia gave them a bleak look, Trevor looked surly and angry, and George Debenham put a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders as if to guard her from attack.

“I’m right surprised to see you here,” said Angus accusingly and Harry nodded in agreement.

“I owe you all an apology,” said Agatha humbly. “I was upset and Charles had heard you having a go at me, Trevor, and he was angry. But I don’t know Charles very well and I am not responsible for his remarks. I wouldn’t hurt any of you for the world.”

“It’s all right, Agatha,” said Olivia with a sudden warm smile. “We’re all rattled by this business and they are still holding the body and poor old Trevor can’t get on with the funeral arrangements.”

“Sit down and join us,” said George “Drink?”

That was easy, almost too easy, thought Agatha, but glad that her apology was over, she ordered a gin and tonic; James ordered a brandy sour.

“The reason we came looking for you,” said James, “was that Agatha wanted to take you all out for dinner.”

Agatha nearly cried out, “I did?” but bit the exclamation back just in time.

Instead she said, “Where would you like to go?”

“You suggest somewhere,” said Olivia.

“There’s a very good fish restaurant next to where we are living,” said James. “The Altinkaya.”

“The manager there is a friend of Jackie and Bilal, the couple who look after us,” said Agatha. It sounded like a good idea. The farther they were from Kyrenia, the less chance she had of running into Charles, for she did not want to see the unnerving and cheapskate Charles again.

Agatha was grateful that James did not suggest driving them there; she liked the independence of having her own car and the temporary freedom it gave her from all of them.

James said he would drive off first and all they had to do was follow him.

Agatha walked up the side street to her car. The others had all-managed to find parking places opposite the hotel.

As she was opening the door to her car, a familiar voice said in her ear, “Hullo, Aggie.”

“Hullo, Charles,” said Agatha without turning round.

“Where are you off to?”

“Mind your own business,” snapped Agatha, turning around.

“Now what have I done?” he said, looking hurt and bewildered.

“I’ll be honest with you, Charles. I don’t like tightwads. I don’t like fellows who invite me to lunch and then pull that old trick of going to the toilet and leaving me to pay the bill.”

He looked pained. “Did I do that? Am I to be blamed for a weak bladder? I thought you invited me, this being the twentieth century.”

“No, you invited me.”

“Oh, well, that’s easily repaired. I haven’t eaten. I’ll take you for dinner.”

“Can’t. I’m going to join my friends.”

He looked amused. “Not Olivia et al.”

“Yes.”

“No wonder someone keeps trying to bump you off, Aggie. You don’t know when to give up.”

“I didn’t give up on you.”

“No, that’s true. I owe you my life, Aggie.”

“Okay, I’d best get on,” said Agatha, already dreading imagined demands from James as to what had kept her.

He leaned against the car so that she could not get into it. “They were quarrelling this evening in the bar.”

“When?”

“I was there about an hour ago and they were all going at it hammer and tongs.”

“What about? Could you hear?”

“Trevor was accusing George of having made a pass at Rose. Olivia screamed at Trevor that he was drunk. Angus shouted that Rose was a saint and wouldn’t have made a pass at anyone. Harry says, ‘Well, she was a bit of a slut.’ Trevor tried to punch him. People stare. Waiters come running up. George suddenly mutters something and they all calm down. George offers drinks all round. Olivia coos something at Trevor, Trevor appears to apologize. End of drama.”

“Gosh, I wish I’d been there.”

“Anyway, Aggie, why don’t you just leave it to the police? Someone’s trying to bump you off and it must be one of them.”

“Mrs. Raisin?”

They both turned. Pamir was walking up the hill towards them. “I have been looking for you,” he said. “We found out who threw a rock at your car.”

“My car,” said Charles.

“The parents brought the boy in. Very bad child from Bellapais. His friends bet him he wouldn’t smash the window of a tourist car, so he did. Then he bragged about it.”

“Thank you for telling me,” said Agatha.

“Most unusual,” said Pamir, shaking his head. “We’ve never had a case like this before. But the boy is, I think, retarded.”

“How did you find me?” asked Agatha.

“I phoned your house. You weren’t there. I asked at the hotel. You had just left. I looked up this street and saw you here.”

“And what about the attack on me at Hilarión?”

“We are still looking into that.”

“Where were the Debenhams and the others at the time someone was trying to push me to my death?”

“Mrs. Debenham was lying down in her hotel room, as was Mr. Trevor Wilcox. But we have no proof of that. Angus King and Harry Tembleton were both out walking. They say they did not go into any shops, and with so many tourists about, we cannot find anyone to confirm their story. Mr. George Debenham was also out walking. The only person who was definitely up at Saint Hilarión was Mr. Lacey.” His dark eyes glittered oddly in the light from the street lamp overhead. “Do you think Mr. Lacey has any reason to be jealous?” His eyes flickered to Charles.

“No reason at all,” said Agatha firmly.

“We’ll see. Enjoy your evening. A report of the arrest has been giving to Atlantic Cars, Mr. Fraith.” He moved away, his tubby shadow bobbing before him.

“Charles, do move away from the car,” said Agatha urgently. “I’ve got to go.”

“So James is a suspect,” said Charles, sounding amused. “If you want another refuge for the night, don’t hesitate to call on me, Aggie.”

He had moved away. Agatha nipped into the car and drove away with an angry roar.

James and the rest were at a large table. Agatha saw Jackie and Bilal at another table by the window and went first to talk to them.

“Is everything all right with the villa?” asked Jackie. “If you want anything, you only have to phone.”

“Thank you,” said Agatha. They looked such a cheerful, such a sane couple, that she was almost tempted to join them and forget about the others. But she smiled and went over to where James was holding a chair out for her.

“What kept you?” he demanded.

“ Pamir found out who shied that rock.”

“Who?”

“Some kid. He’s been bragging about it, his parents heard and brought him in.”

“It just shows you,” said Olivia, “that the police have been wasting time looking in the wrong direction. It was probably one of the locals who tried to push you out of that window, Agatha, and yet we are plagued with police asking us to account for our movements.”

“Hardly likely to be a local,” said James. “They like tourists here, particularly the British, though having met some of them, God knows why. And there’s such a lot of British expats living here and more coining every year. The Turkish Cypriots are so busy blaming the mainland Turkish settlers for everything that they might wake up one morning to find they are outnumbered by elderly creaking old Brits on retirement pensions.”

“But surely the Turks are responsible for all the drugs in north Cyprus?” commented George.

“The Turkish mafia, yes,” said James, and added harshly, “with the help of a few Turkish Cypriote who have gone to the bad.”

Agatha wondered what he had done in Nicosia and what he had found out.

The manager, ümit, came up with menus. They all ordered various types of local fish. Waiters arrived with the meze, plates and plates of a bewildering array of delicacies. Bottles of wine were ordered by George. Agatha was amazed again at their capacity for alcohol, for, going by Charles’s account, they had all been drinking long before she and James had arrived in the bar at The Dome.

Agatha turned to Angus, who was on the other side of her from James. “How did you meet Rose and Trevor?” she asked.

“It was in London,” he said. “I’d just decided to sell up ma businesses and retire and take a wee trip. I’d never been south afore. I saw all the sights, you ken, Buckingham Palace, the Tower, all that stuff. But I got to feeling a wee bittie lonely. I was staying at the Hilton in Park Lane. I was in the bar three nights after I’d arrived in London.

“I saw Rose and Trevor over in the corner. I’d never been much of a ladies’ man but I couldnae take ma eyes off her. She was wearing a slinky sort of dress, but it was that laugh of hers and she kept looking over at me, as if inviting me to share the joke. I’d had a wee bit to drink, so I did what I’d never done in ma life afore. I called over the waiter and told him to give them a bottle o’ champagne. The next thing was they joined me.

“Well, it was friends from then on. For the rest of ma stay they took me round the pubs and clubs and I’d never had such a good time in ma life. So Rose says, ‘Why are you stuck up there in Glasgow? You should be down in Essex with us!’ Trevor said he could find me a wee place near to them and so I moved south. Now Rose is gone, and ah’m telling you this, Agatha, ma life is just one desert.”

A tear rolled down his old cheek.

“Why did you never marry?” asked Agatha.

“I came from poor people. I was very ambitious. I got a wee shop after working in the shipyards and saving every penny. It was just a shop selling sweeties and newspapers and things like that. But I made it work and saved everything until I was able to buy another, and then another. I ‘member when I got ma first big shop right in the middle o’ Glasgow… I did-nae have any time for romancing, and by the time I did, I was too shy to romance the ladies.”

“Sometimes your accent is very broad and sometimes almost English,” said Agatha.

“Oh, that was Rose. She said no one south could understand me and sent me to elocution lessons.”

“Didn’t think of taking any herself?”

“Rose had a beautiful voice,” said Angus, looking at Agatha in surprise.

Love is blind, thought Agatha, and deaf as well.

“What are you two talking about?” called Olivia.

“Rose,” said Agatha. “I was asking Angus how he had first met Rose and Trevor.”

“And did you tell her what great friends we all became?” demanded Trevor, seeming to rouse himself from the alcoholic stupor into which he had suddenly sunk.

“Yes, I was remembering how we had first met at the Hilton,” said Angus.

“That was Rose all right,” said Trevor. “‘Looks like a fat cat,’” she said.

“I don’t understand,” said Angus heavily.

“No? Well, my lovely Rose was the most mercenary bitch on God’s earth,” said Trevor viciously. “She liked money, so long as she never had to go out and earn it, but when it came to handing over any, she was tight-fisted. ‘Ask Angus,’ she kept saying. ‘He’s loaded.’ So I asked you, didn’t I, Angus? And you said”-here Trevor produced a terrible parody of Angus’s Scottish voice-” Ah’ve worked all ma Ufe, laddie, and stood on ma ain two feet and Rose will agree wi’ me that you should dae the same.’”

“But if Rose had any money, then you’ll inherit it,” said Agatha bluntly, and James kicked her furiously under the table.

Trevor thrust his face forwards across the table, half-rising, one hand pressing into a dish of olives. “Are you saying I killed my wife to get her money?” he shouted.

“No,” said Agatha. “Not at all. Please sit down, Trevor. It was a clumsy remark.”

Olivia stood up and went to Trevor. “There now,” she said. “No one could ever say our Agatha had any tact. Forget it, do. Have a drink.”

Trevor subsided. “I want to go home,” he said. “I feel I’ll never get home again.”

There was a long silence. Agatha could feel James’s eyes boring into the side of her face.

“Now, isn’t this food delicious?” cried Olivia brightly. “James, you said you were writing a military history. How’s it going?”

“Very slowly,” said James. “I sit down at the laptop and get out my research notes and then something will happen-the phone will ring, or I’ll decide I heard an odd noise in the kitchen that needs investigating, and by the time I return to the computer I don’t feel like doing anything.”

“Then why bother?” asked George. “You’re retired, aren’t you? Why not just say to yourself, ‘I’m never going to do this’?”

“Oh, I’ll get there in the end,” said James. “I don’t like to give up on anything.”

“Neither does Agatha,” said Olivia. “She pursued you here.”

“Can we change the subject?” said James frostily. “Here’s the fish.”

Agatha wanted to say something rude to Olivia but felt she was in such deep disgrace already that she was frightened to open her mouth. She suddenly remembered a married colleague in the public-relations business telling her that she dreaded going out on social occasions with her husband because of the post-mortem afterwards: “Why did you say that?” “Did you see so-and-so’s face when you said that?” “Couldn’t you have found something better to wear? God knows you spend enough on clothes.” And man-less Agatha had replied cheerfully, “Why don’t you stand up to him? Why don’t you tell him to go and get stuffed?”

And now here she was dreading the moment she would be alone with James and listening to his recriminations. The trouble was that she, Agatha, had been brought up in the pre-feminist years, in the “yes, dear” generation. And now that she had a man in her life, all the old patterns had re-emerged. Also men were born with an enviable ability to make women feel guilty about the smallest things, although, she admitted to herself drearily, that telling a man whose wife has just been murdered that her will should see him all right had been a crazy thing to do.

She asked George many questions about his life in the Foreign Office, hoping to repair the damage by being as pleasant and social as she could. George, it transpired, had been desk-bound in London, no glamorous foreign assignments. But he talked and talked. He seemed to miss his old life and his stories were all about more charismatic characters than he was himself. There is nothing quite so boring as listening to someone happily reminiscing about people one has never met, but it had the advantage of taking up most of the evening and deflecting everyone’s mind from Trevor’s outburst.

At the end of the meal Olivia suggested they should all have coffees and brandies at The Dome. Agatha still did not want to be alone with James, and so she said that was a good idea.

She bolted for her car before James could get to her and drove off, fumbling in her handbag for her cigarettes. She no longer liked to smoke in front of James because he flapped his hands and coughed angrily.

She drove slowly along the coast road. By the time she got to the hotel, she decided it would be better to take James aside and get the row over with. Otherwise it would be hanging over her for the rest of the evening.

She found James waiting for her by the reception desk. “Before you start,” said Agatha, “I’ve an interesting bit of news. Before we arrived in the bar this evening, that lot were having a terrible row. Trevor accused George of having made a pass at Rose and Harry called Rose a slut and Trevor tried to punch him.”

His eyes narrowed. “How did you find that out?”

“Charles told me,” said Agatha, and then wished she had said a waiter had told her.

“So that’s what kept you,” said James furiously. “Let me tell you this, Agatha: This is a small, gossipy place, and you are the one who’s getting the reputation as slut.”

“That’s unfair. He came up to speak to me when I was getting in my car and then Pamir arrived and that’s what kept me. “

“I don’t believe you,” shouted James. “And what about your behaviour this evening? We were going to approach the subject of Rose’s money tactfully, remember? But oh no, you just blurt it out. Damn it, Agatha,” he roared. “I could kill you.”

A girl and a man behind the reception desk froze and stared at both of them, as did several tourists.

James muttered something and turned on his heel and headed for the bar.

Agatha stood for a moment, numb. And then she began to feel very angry indeed. How dare James go on as if he owned her? Why was all his passion confined to bad temper? Well, she was not going back to the villa tonight. She would take a room here and enjoy some peace and quiet.

She fished in her handbag for her credit cards and booked a room for the night. Then, feeling as if she had at last asserted her independence, she walked along to the bar. There was a silence when she joined the others and she had an uncomfortable feeling that they had been discussing her.

She sat down next to Harry on the opposite side of the table from James, avoiding his eyes.

Agatha asked for coffee but refused brandy, saying she had drunk enough.

“Oh, come one, Agatha,” urged Olivia. “The night is young, even if we aren’t.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Agatha. “But I am tired of rotting what brain cells I have left with booze.”

“That’s put a damper on things,” said Harry.

Agatha waved the waiter over. “I don’t want any coffee,” she said firmly. “No coffee.”

She stood up again. “I’m going to bed. I want a nice comfortable hotel room, so I’ve booked in here for the night.” And before anyone could say anything, she walked off.

James’s remarks were beginning to hurt and hurt badly, so badly she had a mad idea that she might have bruises on her stomach. She hesitated a moment, wondering whether to go back to the villa to get her night-gown and toothbrush and a change of clothes, but suddenly wanted the oblivion of sleep.

She collected her key from the desk. “Staying here, Aggie?”

Charles again.

“I want a quiet night,” said Agatha.

“Fallen out with James?”

“Mind your own business.”

He got his own key and followed her to the lift. “Come for a drink.”

“No,” said Agatha firmly. “I am going to sleep.”

“I can lend you a pair of pyjamas. We’re on the same floor,” he said, squinting at the number on her key tag. “And I’ve got a spare toothbrush, never touched before by the human mouth, still in its pristine wrappings.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Agatha gruffly. “But I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Did I ask you?” he said mildly.

In his room, he took out the pyjamas Agatha had worn before, freshly cleaned and ironed by the hotel laundry, and a toothbrush.

“Drink?” he offered.

“Oh, why not?” said Agatha. “I’ve had so much already but I still feel wide awake. May I smoke?”

“Of course. I smoke occasionally myself. I’ll have one of yours.”

They sat out on the balcony. Charles leaned back in his chair and looked at the stars twinkling over the sea and did not speak.

Agatha watched him covertly, wondering what made him tick. He was a remarkably clean man, tailored and laundered. Even his neat features and well-brushed hair appeared tailored and laundered. Like a cat, she thought suddenly, neat and self-sufficient.

At last she finished her drink and stood up. “Thanks for the silence, Charles. I really mean it.”

“I can be silent any time you like, Aggie. See you around.”

And so she left, half-amused, half-puzzled that he could be so casual, so unembarrassed.

At the reception desk, James asked, “Which room is Mrs. Raisin in?” The receptionist told James. “Can you phone her for me?”

The receptionist phoned and then said, “There is no reply, sir, but Mrs. Raisin went upstairs with Sir Charles Fraith. Would you like me to try his room for you?”

“No,” said James furiously. “Damn her.”

Agatha curled up in her hotel bed and thought about James. She desperately did not want him to be angry with her. He surely must be jealous of Charles. But how could the man be so jealous and be living with her and yet not make any move to make love to her?

She suddenly plunged down into a deep sleep. The night was warm but pleasant and she had not switched on the air-conditioning but had left the windows and shutters open.

At around three in the morning, the lock on her bedroom door clicked softly open. Agatha slept on. A dark figure moved softly towards the bed. With one swift movement, the pillow was snatched from under Agatha’s head and pressed down on her face.

Agatha awoke instantly and began to fight for her life. She thrashed and fought and then suddenly, with a wrench of her head, found her mouth free and screamed and screamed. She heard her door slam.

She switched on the bedside light, phoned reception and babbled for help.

An hour later, feeling sick and shivering despite the warmth of the room, she faced Pamir.

She tried to protest that she had told her story to the hotel manager, to various policemen and detectives, but he took her through it again.

When she had finished, he said, “We have taken Mr. Lacey in for questioning.”

“What?” said Agatha dizzily. “What has James got to do with it?”

“Mr. Lacey was heard earlier this evening threatening your life. He subsequently tried to call your room and when you were not there, the receptionist volunteered the information that you had gone upstairs with Sir Charles Fraith and might be in his room and volunteered to phone that number, but Mr. Lacey went off in a temper. We must not be sidetracked by the unsolved murder of Rose Wilcox. We think that Mr. Lacey, overcome with jealousy, may have tried to murder you.”

“I was able to fight off my attacker,” said Agatha. “If James had tried to murder me, I wouldn’t have been able to fight him off.”

“He may have changed his mind at the last moment.”

“Oh, this is rubbish.”

“We think this is jealousy. Sir Charles is being questioned also. You are, I believe, wearing Sir Charles’s pyjamas.” Agatha blushed. She had been too shaken to change, to do anything more but sit on the edge of the bed and shiver.

“I told you. I had a drink with him. That’s all. He kindly lent mç the pyjamas. How did whoever get the key to my room?”

“Someone may have stolen a passkey. We are questioning the staff.”

Agatha clutched her hair. “I know James was not responsible. The whole idea is mad.”

Pamir questioned her further and then said she was free to leave. Agatha miserably washed and dressed. She bundled up Charles’s pyjamas and put the toothbrush in her handbag and then made her way downstairs and out of the hotel.

She drove back to the villa and let herself in. She felt she should really go to police headquarters and see if she could help James, but she felt too tired and shaken. She went up to her room and lay on the bed. Now every sound seemed sinister. Voices carried up from the beach. People chatting on the road outside sounded as if they were downstairs in the house.

She awoke two hours later with a start. Someone was inside the house. Someone was coming up the stairs.

Agatha was just looking wildly around for a weapon when her bedroom door opened and James came in.

“Oh, James,” said Agatha, flooded with gladness. “They let you go!”

He stood in the doorway. “They had no real excuse to keep me. The neighbours were questioned and two of them, returning from a casino at the time I was supposed to be trying to murder you, said they had seen my rented car parked outside the house and had seen me walking in the garden, which is fortunately what I was doing since I could not sleep.”

“James, who do you think tried to murder me?”

“Right at this moment, I feel too tired to care. It came out during the interviewing that you had sex with Charles.”

Agatha turned dark-red. “That man is no gentleman.”

“On the contrary. He lied gallantly, but unfortunately for you, the proof of your love-making was there on the sheets and the hotel staff bore witness to that. They had hitherto kept this interesting fact from me, because I think they were sorry for me. No, Agatha, don’t say anything more. You lied to me, as you lied to me about the existence of your husband.”

He went out and closed the door.

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