(15/30) The Deadly Dance (11 page)

“I was only being kind to the old bird. She’s had a rough life. Never mind her. I’m waiting for Aggie to get back to tell me all about the shooting.”

Emma waited on her chair on the landing. She saw Roy and Agatha return, and then Charles came strolling along Lilac Lane.

Once more she decided to wait five minutes and then go and join them.

She kept glancing down at her watch. How slow the second hand crawled around the dial! At last, she straightened up, went downstairs and marched next door.

Agatha opened the door. “Why, Emma. What can I do for you?”

“I thought I might join you for a coffee.”

“I’m afraid now is not a good time,” said Agatha firmly. “You’ve got the whole weekend off, Emma. Make the most of it. I’ll see you in the office on Monday.”

Emma marched back to her own cottage, back ramrod-straight, and two spots of angry colour burning in her cheeks.

She hated Agatha Raisin. Agatha must have sensed Charles’s growing interest in her and was jealously keeping him to herself.

“That was Emma,” said Agatha, joining Roy and Charles in the garden. “But I couldn’t ask her in because I want to tell you about the case and Emma mustn’t know about us finding the body before the police. So where was I? Oh, yes, the more I think about that suicide, the more worried I get.”

“Say it wasn’t suicide,” said Roy. “Who’s the murderer?

Jason is in Bermuda, although he’s probably heading back by now. Laggat-Brown has a cast-iron alibi. Who’s left?”

“Someone we don’t know about,” suggested Charles. “Might be an idea to get hold of Harrison Peterson’s wife.”

“I could phone Patrick,” said Agatha reluctantly. “But I told him to take a rest.”

“You could see if he’s dug up anything else and then he can rest while we do something about it,” said Charles.

Roy shifted uneasily in his chair. He resented the appearance of Charles, although he knew him of old. This was supposed to
his
weekend with Agatha.

“While you make your phone calls,” he said. “I’ll take a walk down the village.”

“Right,” said Agatha. “I’ll phone Patrick.”

Roy nipped upstairs and changed out of his white suit into an old pair of jeans, checked shirt and moccasins. He could see no reason to waste the glory of his best wardrobe on what he waspishly damned as “a bunch of sheep-shaggers.”

He was just strolling past the cottage next door when Emma, who had been pretending to weed her front garden, called out, “Are you visiting Agatha?”

“Yes,” said Roy, “but she’s got phone calls to make and I’m feeling bored.”

“Why don’t you come in and we’ll sit in my garden and have coffee.”

Roy brightened. “Just until she’s finished with her phone calls.”

He followed her through her cottage, looking about him as he passed through the living room. It had changed a lot since the days of James Lacey, Agatha’s ex. Where James had walls lined with books, Emma had shelves of ornaments: china cats, little pottery houses and glass animals. The wood-burning fire now had an electric fire with fake logs in front of it. A sofa and armchairs were covered in chintz. Roy thought it all charming.

“Now sit down,” said Emma brightly when they were in the garden, “and Ell fetch the coffee. Ell just move this umbrella so that you’re in the shade. It is rather hot.”

Nice old bird, thought Roy, stretching his feet out on the grass.

Agatha came back from the phone. “He’s working on the wife’s address, but I’ve got the doctor’s. It’s a Dr. Singh in Cheltenham. His surgery’s in Portland Lane just off the old Bath Road.”

“He won’t be there on Saturday. He might have an emergency surgery on Saturday mornings, but it’ll be over by now. You think someone else got these sleeping pills masquerading as Peterson?”

“Far-fetched, I know,” said Agatha, “but I’d like to check it out. I’m hungry. I’ll make us something to eat.”

“No, you don’t. Last time I was here it was the Swami’s extra-hot curry done in the microwave. We’ll get something in Cheltenham.”

“All right. We’ll drive round the village and pick up Roy.”

But there was no sign of the young man. He was not in the Red Lion or in the general stores or anywhere walking along the cobbled sun-baked streets.

“Let’s just go without him,” said Agatha.

“You’d better leave a note,” said Charles. “You’ve got a nasty way of cutting out your friends when it suits you.”

Agatha opened her mouth to apologize to Charles for having left him when she had gone with Patrick for lunch, but the apology died on her lips.

They drove back to Lilac Lane where Agatha scribbled a note for Roy and propped it on the kitchen table against a jar of instant coffee.

“I’d better get back,” Roy was saying reluctantly. “Maybe they’ve found out the address of that doctor.”

“What doctor’s that?” asked Emma.

“Well, Harrison Peterson took an overdose of sleeping pills, so they want to check up and make sure he really got them for himself.”

Emma saw her chance. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I am a detective, too.”

“Good idea,” said Roy. Emma had mothered him and fussed over him, something, he thought, that Agatha Raisin should learn how to do.

They went next door. There was no answer to the doorbell. Agatha had completely forgotten that Roy did not have a key.

Roy turned round. “Her car’s here but his has gone. I must say that’s a bit thick. And I’m hungry. Tell you what, I’ll take you for lunch.”

Emma brightened. This young man was obviously attracted to much older women. Although her heart ached for the missing Charles, it was flattering to be escorted around by Roy.

Roy’s boss, on hearing that he was going to visit Agatha, had suggested that he try to lure her back to London to do some freelance work. Roy knew he could take Emma out for a slap-up lunch and put it on his expense sheet as having entertained Agatha.

They drove into Oxford and parked at the Randolph Hotel.

He hoped people would think Emma was his mother. She looked such a lady. She looked like the type of woman one always wanted one’s mother to look like on school sports day. He remembered his own mother with a shudder. She’d been such a coarse, powerful woman.

Over lunch, Emma began a tale of her miserable life. Most of Emma’s life had indeed been pretty miserable, but a lot of it had been self-inflicted. She had taken revenge on people who had upset her at the office by spreading false rumours about them. She had nearly lost her job once. A pretty secretary had been rising up the ranks fast. She was popular with everyone. In a fit of spite, Emma had squeezed a tube of Superglue over the keyboard of her computer after erasing all the girl’s files.

As some of the files contained classified documents, the police forensic department had been called in. Emma had worn gloves, but someone had seen her coming out of the girl’s office, and although nothing could be proved against her, she had ended her years at the Ministry of Defence under a cloud. She still felt that it had been an extraordinary fuss about nothing. The files had been restored from the hard drive and a new keyboard found.

But of course she did not tell Roy about that particular crime. Roy listened, fascinated. Although Emma had been only a secretary, she told Roy that she had been a spy, sent to different countries on dangerous missions. She invented several colourful stories.

Then she realized that if Roy told Agatha or Charles anything about these stories, she might not be believed, and so she said, “Please don’t tell Agatha or Charles anything about my secret life. I shouldn’t have told you. But you are such a good listener, and”—she giggled—”such a very attractive young man.”

Roy beamed. He wished he had worn his white suit.

SIX

“WE’RE in luck,” said Charles. “God bless the Asians. He’s got a surgery at two o’clock this afternoon. We’ll have a quick bite to eat. How are we going to handle this? Ask him outright? Or are you going to pretend to be ill and then drop it into the conversation?”

“Ask him outright. I’ll phone Roy. I feel guilty about him.” Agatha rang her home number but there was no reply.

They had a sandwich in a pub and then went back to the surgery. There were already five people waiting. Agatha went up to the receptionist and handed her card over. “We would like a few words with Dr. Singh.”

The receptionist was an enormous woman. Her thighs spilled over the typing chair. Her huge bosom cast a shadow over the keyboard in front of her. Her head was surprisingly small despite triple chins. Agatha guessed she could not be any more than thirty yearsold. Her appearance conjured up memories of a seaside holiday where one got one’s photograph taken by sticking one’s head through a life-sized cardboard cut-out of the fairground’s fat lady.

“You’ll need to wait until all the patients have been seen to,” she said. “Take a seat.”

So they did and waited and waited. Agatha tried to contact Roy several times, phoning Roy’s mobile phone as well as her own home number, but failing each time to get a reply.

At last they were told that Dr. Singh would see them. Dr. Singh was a small neat man, dark-skinned, wearing glasses and a white coat, as thin as his receptionist was fat.

“I have already spoken to the police,” he began. “I see you are a private detective, Mrs. Raisin. I assume you wish to ask about the sleeping pills I was supposed to have prescribed.”

“Yes,” said Agatha eagerly.

“Mr. Harrison Peterson was a temporary patient. He suffered from high blood pressure. I prescribed high blood pressure pills. The police showed me the bottle. Someone had carefully extracted a label from another bottle, a bottle of barbiturates, steamed off the label—I should guess—on the bottle of high blood pressure medicine and then replaced it with the part that stated the medicine was sleeping pills. Then they pasted on the section with my name and the name of the pharmacy.”

“So it must have been murder,” said Charles.

Outside, Agatha said excitedly, “So the case is open again. How did the murderer get him to take the sleeping pills?”

“Can’t think. I wonder what the results of the autopsy were,” said Charles as they walked to the car-park. “I mean, he may not have taken sleeping pills. He knew his killer. No sign of forced entry. They have a drink. The murderer doctors Peterson’s drink with that date-rape drug, whatever it’s called, and then, when he passes out, smothers him with a pillow or pinches his nostrils and then sets the scene.”

“You know what this means? We’re back at the beginning,” mourned Agatha, “and I don’t know where to start.”

“Phone Patrick and see if he’s got an address for the wife.”

Agatha phoned Patrick and told him what they had found out. Then Charles heard her say excitedly, “You’ve found the wife? Where is she? Hang on a minute.”

Holding the phone under her ear, she took a notebook and pen out of her bag and wrote something down. “I’ll go and see her,” said Agatha. “The murderer was obviously someone that Peterson knew.”

When she rang off, she said to Charles, “She’s living in Telegraph Road in Shipston-on-Stour.”

“I think we should go back and get Roy,” said Charles cautiously. “He must be feeling a bit neglected.”

“I’ll try him again,” said Agatha. Again she tried her home number and Roy’s mobile phone number without success.

“He’s not sitting waiting for us,” she said. “Let’s just go and see this wife. It won’t take long.”

“It’s too bad of Agatha to leave you like this,” Emma was saying.

Roy shrugged. “She might have been trying to phone me but I left my mobile on the table beside the bed.”

“Why don’t you phone her?”

“I forget her mobile number all the time. Now that’s in my address book on the table beside the bed as well. You don’t have it, do you?”

Emma had one of Agatha’s cards with both home and mobile number on it. If she gave it to Roy, Agatha might come back with dear Charles. On the other hand, the longer she stayed away and the angrier Roy got, the more Agatha would be shown up in a bad light. Anything that might disaffect Charles as well was all to the good.

Roy was sitting in Emma’s living-room. He glanced out of the window and saw Agatha’s cleaner, Doris Simpson, walking past.

He shot up. “Mrs. Simpson. Ed forgotten about her. She’ll have a key.”

He rushed out, followed by Emma.

An hour later, at Moreton-in-Marsh station, Roy said, “You’ve been awfully kind to me, Emma. No, don’t bother walking over the bridge with me.” He kissed her on the cheek.

The opposite platform across the bridge was already full of people waiting for the London train. Clutching his travel bag, Roy strode off towards the bridge, thinking that anyone watching would be sure that Emma was his mother.

Emma watched him go and felt a little frisson of delightful naughtiness. She felt sure anyone watching would think that Roy was her young lover.

“Here’s Telegraph Road and a convenient car-park.” Charles turned into the car-park and stopped.

Agatha opened the passenger door and got out, wincing slightly as she did so.

“Rheumatism?” asked Charles.

“No,” snapped Agatha. “Just a slight cramp.”