Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye (6 page)

Mr Horrington worked as sales director of a shoe company out on the industrial estate. Toni cycled out to the estate. The day was still sunny and the radio that morning had announced a hosepipe
ban.

Her heart sank as she cycled around the industrial estate. The ground around the shoe factory was bare of bushes and trees. Nowhere to hide. How had the others managed to watch him? If he left
in his car, she could hardly keep up with him on her bicycle because, unlike the centre of town, the roads around the industrial estate did not carry much traffic.

She took out her notes and found his home address and headed there instead. Mrs Horrington opened the door and scowled at the young girl with the fading black eye. ‘Go away. I’m not
buying anything,’ she said.

She was a carefully preserved woman with expensively blonded hair. Her make-up was quite thick and her lipstick a scarlet slash across her mouth.

‘I’m from the agency,’ said Toni. ‘I am working on your divorce.’

‘This is an outrage,’ exclaimed Mrs Horrington. ‘Wait there!’

She marched indoors and Toni waited.

At last the door opened again and a mollified Mrs Horrington said, ‘You’d better come in. Mrs Raisin says you are not only brilliant but lucky. I’ll go along with it for the
moment.’

‘I wanted to know if your husband had a favourite restaurant for lunch,’ said Toni.

‘I believe he goes to La Nouvelle Cuisine,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘I wondered if he might take someone there.’

Mrs Horrington gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘He would hardly parade anyone in front of the business community. They all lunch there.’

‘How did you guess he was having an affair?’

‘New underwear. Smells of scent. Looks guilty as hell.’

‘Have you challenged him?’

‘Oh, yes. He said it was all nonsense. He said he would take me on a cruise for a second honeymoon. No sign of him booking anything.’

‘Do you have a photograph of him? I couldn’t find one in the file.’

‘I gave one to that Raisin woman. Oh, wait here.’

After a few minutes, Mrs Horrington came back with a photograph. It showed a plump middle-aged man with thinning grey hair and a paunch.

‘He’s dyed his hair black since that was taken,’ said Mrs Horrington. ‘Another sign.’

‘I’ll get back to you,’ said Toni.

‘You’d better do it quick. If you don’t have any results by the weekend, I’m employing another agency.’

Toni pedalled under the unseasonally hot sun into the centre of Mircester. She propped her bike outside the restaurant and went in, the camera slung round her neck.

A pleasant wave of air conditioning hit her. A formidable maître d’ approached. ‘I am taking pictures for a new magazine called
Gloucester Food,’
said Toni, trying
to imitate Charles’s polished vowels as best as she could.

‘I don’t know that my customers would like having their meals interrupted by photographs,’ said the maître d’.

Toni noticed there was a service hatch from the kitchen. ‘I could shoot a few photographs through that service hatch,’ she said. ‘I’ll be very discreet. It’s best
to take photographs when the restaurant is as busy as this.’

The maître d’ hesitated only a moment. Although the lunch hour was still busy, attendance in the evenings had been falling off. The restaurant could do with the publicity.

‘Just for a little while,’ he said. ‘We don’t use the service hatch any more. The waiters carry the food straight in from the kitchen.’

He led Toni into the kitchen. She raised the service hatch and then stood back. She wanted anyone looking over to get used to seeing it open. She studied the photograph of Mr Horrington and then
cautiously approached the service hatch and looked through.

She saw Mr Horrington just getting to his feet and helping a comparatively young woman into her jacket.

Toni darted out of the kitchen and said to the startled maître d’, ‘I’ve left some equipment outside.’

She positioned herself outside the restaurant. There would not be much point photographing the pair if they stood apart and showed no signs of affection. Mr Horrington could just claim it was a
buyer.

He emerged with the woman. Toni raised the camera. He whispered something in her ear and she giggled. Toni snapped a picture, glad the sound of the shutter was drowned by the traffic. Then Mr
Horrington looked hurriedly up and down the street, not seeing Toni, who had crouched down behind a parked car. Toni rose to her feet again just in time to witness Mr Horrington and the woman
engaged in a steamy kiss.

‘Gotcha!’ she muttered, clicking the camera and taking as many photographs as she could.

Later, Agatha said, amazed, ‘You are lucky. I’ve followed him for days. Damn it. I concentrated on the evenings. He always seemed to be working late.’

‘Then she probably works at the shoe factory as well,’ said Toni.

‘Good. I’ll go and see Mrs Horrington. Do you want to come with me?’

‘No, I’ll leave it to you.’

‘Had lunch?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Go out and get something and we’ll go to that flat when I get back.’

When Agatha had gone, Toni asked Mrs Freedman, ‘When do I get my pay? I’m running low.’

‘On Friday. I gather you don’t have a bank account so you will be paid cash until you set one up. But you haven’t yet claimed any expenses. I can give you some money out the
petty cash for just now. Take an expenses sheet with you and fill it in. You can put down for lunch at that posh restaurant.’

‘I don’t have a receipt.’

‘We’ll assume you lost it. Here’s forty pounds for the moment.’

Toni was determined to keep as much of the money as possible, so she went to the nearest Burger King. She was just finishing a burger when she looked through the window and saw her brother,
Terry, lurching along the street. He looked drunk. She bent down and hid until he had passed.

Later that afternoon, Agatha took her to see the flat. It was very small: one tiny living room, a small bedroom, a minuscule kitchen and a bathroom. The bathroom was
surprisingly the largest room in the place.

‘I’m buying the furnishings as well,’ said Agatha. ‘They’re pretty horrible, but you can change them as you go along. You’ve got a bed at least and I put
bedclothes on it and some towels in the bathroom. Now I’ll take you home and you can collect your bag. Everything went through quickly and so instead of waiting a fortnight, you can move in
right away.’

Toni was choked up with gratitude as Agatha handed her the keys. She had an impulse to hug her but reflected that one probably didn’t hug such as the formidable Agatha Raisin.

Agatha, as she drove towards Carsely, was prey to mixed feelings. It was all right to think that Toni was just lucky, but she herself should have thought of that restaurant. Toni’s black
eye was fading fast. How wonderful to be young again, thought Agatha. How marvellous not to suffer the indignities of approaching old age: spreading waistline, moustache, hair dye and aching hip.
She resolved to go back to the beautician’s, Beau Monde, in Evesham and get Dawn to work her magic on her face before the weekend.

The weekend! It all seemed a rather silly waste of time the more she thought of it.

Agatha set out with Charles for the Manor House on Saturday morning feeling low in spirits.

‘What’s up with you?’ asked Charles. ‘You’ve gone all moody.’

‘It’s these divorce cases. I hate them. The two that Toni wrapped up weren’t too bad.’

‘Why?’

‘No children involved. But there are in the two new ones.’

‘Not developing a conscience at this late time in life, Aggie?’

‘I am not late in life, but yes, it does seem dirty.’

‘You can’t avoid divorce cases if you’re going to run a detective agency.’

‘It’s not only that,’ said Agatha, ‘it’s this weekend. I’ve been lost in dreams of a Poirot-type set-up and I feel now it’s just the paranoia of one
batty old woman.’

‘We’ll suffer today,’ said Charles, ‘and if we decide she really is bonkers, we’ll clear off. But from what you’ve told me, she certainly seems to have
thought up a will to make herself a prime target.’

‘You’ve got the map,’ said Agatha, who was driving. ‘Remember to direct me to the entrance from Upper Tapor. I don’t want to have to endure that long walk across
the fields again. Besides, it looks like rain.’

‘Occasionally it’s looked like rain in the past few days,’ said Charles, ‘but the clouds then disappear and the sun blazes down again. Cheer up. You’ll feel better
once we’re there and suss things out. Then if the old girl is still alive by this evening, we could push off.’

‘I have to stay. She’s paying me handsomely by the day and now that I’m paying Toni full detective wages, I need the money.’

‘Your generosity surprises me sometimes, Aggie.’

‘Well, as someone who always forgets to find his wallet when we’re out for dinner, you should not be surprised at all.’

‘Miaow!’

Just outside Upper Tapor, they saw a sign,
THE MANOR HOUSE
. Agatha drove along a well-kept drive and soon they found themselves at the house.

Phyllis Tamworthy greeted them. ‘I thought you were bringing your son,’ she said to Agatha.

‘Roy Silver is not my son,’ said Agatha crossly. ‘This is a colleague of mine, Sir Charles Fraith.’

‘A “sir”?’ Phyllis grinned. ‘My snobby daughters are going to love you. I’ll show you to your rooms – or are you sleeping together?’

‘No,’ said Agatha, ignoring a whispered, mocking ‘Maybe’ from Charles.

Agatha found her bedroom a surprise. Obviously Phyllis had decided to forgo the appearance of a stately mansion on the upper floors. Everything looked as if it had come from Ikea. Also, it was
decorated in shades of brown: dark brown carpet, lighter brown curtains, mid-brown painted walls and a rust-coloured duvet on the bed.

There was a television set on a table by the window. Agatha reflected that it looked exactly like a bedroom in a three-star hotel.

Charles came in as she was unpacking. ‘I’m not a romantic like you,’ he said, ‘but I must admit the bedrooms come as a surprise. Hardly the right sinister setting. This
house depresses me. It must have once been a charming family home.’

Phyllis came in without knocking, drying her hands on her apron. ‘They’ll all be in the drawing room just after one o’clock. Jimmy closes the shop half day on Saturday. Stupid.
It should be his busiest day, but there’s no arguing with him. When you’re ready, come down.’

When she had left, Agatha said, ‘You unpacked quickly.’

‘Didn’t unpack at all,’ said Charles laconically. ‘Took one look at the bedroom and decided a quick getaway might be a good idea. Let’s go down and face the
music.’

On entering the drawing room, Agatha surveyed the assembled company and decided with a sinking heart that she had never seen a bunch of such ordinary people before.

As Phyllis introduced them, Agatha took mental notes so that she would remember who was who. Daughter Sadie, married to Sir Henry Field, was small and dumpy, and dressed in a bright blue silk
trouser suit. Sir Henry was so bland and pompous that there was something not quite real about him, as if he had come from Central Casting. Divorced daughter Fran was as thin as her sister was fat,
with tightly permed white hair, indeterminate features as if someone had taken a sponge and tried to erase her face, and wearing a baggy tweed skirt and Aertex blouse. I haven’t seen an
Aertex blouse in years, thought Agatha.

Son Bert was small and red-faced, bald and with pursed-up lips, as if perpetually discontented. He was wearing a suit which had obviously been tailored for him when he was a slimmer man.

His wife, Alison, was a domineering woman in tweeds. She had a heavy truculent face and slightly protruding brown eyes. Fran’s daughter, Annabelle, made Charles’s eyes light up. She
was in her late thirties with thick auburn hair and creamy skin. She stood out in the pedestrian-looking crowd. Sadie’s daughter, Lucy, on the other hand, looked as dreary as her mother, and
her eight-year-old daughter, Jennifer, had ‘spoilt brat’ written all over her.

Agatha had phoned Phyllis the night before to ask her where she should say they had met and Phyllis told her to say they had met five years ago in Bournemouth when she, Phyllis, had been on
holiday at the Imperial Hotel.

Jimmy, the favourite, was last to arrive. His shoulders were stooped. He had a long face and a beaten air, as if years of working at a job he hated had bowed him down.

Agatha wondered if Phyllis planned to cater for and serve the lot of them lunch. Sherry was served. Even to Agatha’s uneducated palate, it tasted awful. Charles muttered he thought it was
British sherry, and so it turned out. ‘Do you remember the days when you could buy British sherry?’ said Phyllis. ‘It was so cheap that every time I had an empty bottle, I would
go down to the off-licence and get it filled up. It was on draught. I’ve still got bottles of it in the cellar.’

‘Oh, Mother,’ wailed Fran, casting an anxious look at Charles. ‘What will Sir Charles think of you?’

They were summoned to the large dining room. Two women, who looked as if they came from the village from their appearance, and who behaved as if they were part of the local protest group, served
the first course of ham-and-pea soup, slopping the soup into plates, and scowling all around.

The long mahogany table shone and the china was of the finest, but placed strategically down the table were bottles of HP sauce and bottles of ketchup.

The second course was steak and kidney pie with chips and peas. The meat was tough and there was more kidney than steak and the pastry was like a wet book. Phyllis’s choice of wine was
served. Blue Nun.

‘I’m out of here – fast,’ whispered Charles, who was seated next to Agatha.

‘Don’t leave me,’ pleaded Agatha.

Conversation was stilted. They talked among themselves about the weather and about people Agatha did not know.

Over the apple pie and custard – sour apples and lumpy custard – Phyllis, flushed with several glasses of Blue Nun, asked, ‘When do I get my presents?’