Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage (2 page)

Had the young man denied knowledge, then Roy would have decided to forget the whole thing. He was suddenly ashamed of his low behaviour. But Agatha’s stars were definitely in the
descendant, so the young man said laconically, ‘Over there, guv.’

Roy peered into the darkness.

‘Where?’

‘Third box on the left.’

Roy walked slowly towards the cardboard indicated. At first he thought it was empty but then, bending down and peering into the gloom, he caught the shine of a pair of eyes.

‘Jimmy Raisin?’

‘Yes, what? You from the Social?’

‘I’m a friend of Agatha – Agatha Raisin.’

There was a long silence and then a wheezy cackle. ‘Aggie? Thought she was dead.’

‘Well, she isn’t. She’s being married next Wednesday. She lives in Carsely in the Cotswolds. She thinks
you’re
dead.’

There was a scraping and shuffling from inside the huge box and then Jimmy Raisin emerged on his hands and knees and got unsteadily to his feet. Even in the dim light, Roy could see he was
wasted with drink. He was filthy and stank abominably. His face was covered in angry pustules and his hair was long and tangled and unkempt.

‘Got any money?’ he asked.

Roy dug in the inside pocket of his jacket, produced his wallet, fished out a twenty-pound note and handed it over. Now he was really ashamed of himself. Agatha did not deserve this. Nobody did,
even a bitch from hell like Agatha.

‘Look, forget what I said. It was a joke.’ Roy took to his heels and ran.

Agatha awoke the next morning in James’s cottage, in James’s bed, and stretched and yawned. She turned in bed and, propping herself up on one elbow, surveyed her
fiancé. His thick black hair streaked with grey was tousled. His good-looking face was firm and tanned, and once more Agatha felt that pang of unease. Such men as James Lacey were for other
women, county women with solid county backgrounds, women in tweeds with dogs who could turn out cakes and jam for church fêtes with one hand tied behind their backs. Such men were not for the
Agatha Raisins of this world.

She would have liked to wake him up and make love again. But James never made love in the mornings, not after that first glorious coming together. His life was well ordered and neat – like
his emotions, thought Agatha. She went through to the bathroom, washed and dressed and went downstairs and stood irresolute. This is where she would live, among James’s library of books,
among the old regimental and school photographs, and here, in this clinical kitchen with not a spare crumb to mar its pristine counters, she would cook. Or would she? James had always done all the
cooking when they were together. She felt like an interloper.

James’s mother and father were dead, but she had met his elegant sister again and her tall stockbroker husband. They seemed neither to approve nor to disapprove of Agatha, though Agatha
had overheard his sister saying, ‘Well, you know, if it’s what James wants, it’s none of our business. It could have been worse. Some empty-headed bimbo.’

And her husband had said, ‘Some empty-headed bimbo would have been more understandable.’ Hardly an accolade, thought Agatha.

She decided to go next door to the security of her own home. As she let herself in to a rapturous welcome from her two cats, Hodge and Boswell, she looked about wistfully. She had made
arrangements to put all her furniture and bits and pieces in storage, not wanting to clutter up James’s neat cottage with them, especially after he had agreed to house her cats. Now she
wished she had suggested that they club together to buy a larger house where she could have some of her own things. Living with James would be like being on some sort of perpetual visit.

She fed the cats and opened the back door to let them out into the garden. It was a glorious day, with a large sky stretching across the green Cotswold hills and only the lightest of
breezes.

She went back into the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee, looking affectionately around at all the clutter which James would never allow. The doorbell rang.

Detective Sergeant Bill Wong stood on the step, clutching a large box. ‘Got around to getting your wedding present at last,’ he said.

‘Come in, Bill. I’ve just made some coffee.’

He followed her through to the kitchen and put the box on the table. ‘What is it?’ asked Agatha.

Bill smiled, his almond-shaped eyes crinkling up. ‘Open it and see.’

Agatha tore open the wrappings. ‘Careful,’ warned Bill. ‘It’s fragile.’

The object was very heavy. She lifted it out with a grunt and then tore off the tissue paper which had been taped around it. It was a huge gold-and-green china elephant, noisily garish and with
a great hole in its back.

Agatha looked at it in a dazed way. ‘What’s the hole for?’

‘Putting umbrellas in,’ said Bill triumphantly.

Agatha’s first thought was that James would loathe it.

‘Well?’ she realized Bill was asking.

Agatha remembered hearing once that Noel Coward had gone to see a quite dreadful play and when asked by the leading actor what he thought of it, had replied, ‘Dear boy, I am beyond
words.’

‘You shouldn’t have done it, Bill,’ said Agatha with real feeling. ‘It looks very expensive.’

‘It’s an antique,’ said Bill proudly. ‘Victorian. Only the best for you.’

Agatha’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. Bill had been the first friend she had ever had, a friendship formed shortly after she had moved to the country.

‘I’ll treasure it,’ she said firmly. ‘But let’s put it carefully away because the men will be coming tomorrow to remove all my stuff to storage.’

‘But you won’t want to pack this,’ said Bill. ‘Take it to your new home.’

Agatha gave a weak smile. ‘How silly of me. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

She poured Bill a cup of coffee.

‘All set for the big day?’ he asked.

‘All set.’

His eyes were suddenly shrewd. ‘No doubts or fears?’

She shook her head.

‘I never asked you – what did that husband of yours die of?’

Agatha turned away and straightened a dish-towel. ‘Alcohol poisoning.’

‘Where is he buried?’

‘Bill, I did not have a happy marriage, it was a century ago and I would rather forget about it. Okay?’

‘Okay. There’s your bell.’

Agatha answered the door to Mrs Bloxby. Bill rose to leave. ‘I’ve got to go, Agatha. I’m supposed to be on duty.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘No juicy murders for you, Miss Marple. Nothing but a spate of burglaries. Bye, Mrs Bloxby. You’re to be Agatha’s bridesmaid?’

‘I have that honour,’ said Mrs Bloxby.

When Bill had left, Agatha showed the vicar’s wife the elephant. ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘I haven’t seen one of those things in years.’

‘James is going to hate it,’ said Agatha gloomily.

‘James will just have to get used to it. Bill is a good friend. If I were you, I would grow some sort of green plant in it, you know, one of the ones with trailing branches and big leaves.
It would hide most of it and Bill would be pleased you were putting it to such artistic use.’

‘Good idea,’ said Agatha, brightening.

‘And so you’re off to northern Cyprus for your honeymoon. Are you going to stay in a hotel? I remember Alf and I stayed in the Dome in Kyrenia.’

‘No, we’ve taken a villa. James used to be stationed out there and he wrote to his old fixer, a man who used to arrange everything for him, who sent him photographs of a lovely villa
just outside Kyrenia and down a bit from the Nicosia road. It should be heaven.’

‘I actually came to help you pack,’ said the vicar’s wife.

‘There’s no need for that,’ said Agatha, ‘but thanks all the same. I hired one of those super-duper removal firms. They do everything.’

‘Then I won’t stay for coffee. I must call on Mrs Boggle. Her arthritis is bad.’

‘That old woman is a walking case for euthanasia,’ said Agatha waspishly. Mrs Bloxby turned mild eyes on her and Agatha flushed guiltily and said, ‘Even you must admit
she’s a bit of an old pill.’

Mrs Bloxby gave a little sigh. ‘Yes, she is a bit of a trial. Agatha, I don’t want to press you on the matter, but I am a little taken aback by the fact that you didn’t want to
be married in our church.’

‘It all seemed too much fuss, a church wedding, and I’m not exactly religious, you know that.’

‘Oh, well, it would have been nice. Still, everyone is looking forward to the reception. We would all have helped, you know. There was no need for you to go to the expense of hiring a firm
of caterers.’

‘I just don’t want any
fuss,
’ said Agatha.

‘Never mind, it is your wedding. Did James ever say why he never married before?’

‘No, because I didn’t ask him.’

‘Just wondered. Do you need anything from the shop?’

‘No, thank you. I think I’ve got everything.’

When Mrs Bloxby had left, Agatha debated whether to go back next door and prepare breakfast in a wifely way. But James always made breakfast himself. She adored him, she longed to be with him
every minute of the day, yet she dreaded doing anything or saying anything that might stop his marrying her.

The fine weather broke the next day and rain dripped from the thatch on the roof of Agatha’s cottage. She was busy all day supervising the packing. Then Doris Simpson,
her cleaner, called round in the late afternoon to help clear up the mess left behind. Bill’s elephant stood behind the kitchen door.

‘Now that’s what I call handsome,’ said Doris, admiring it. ‘Who gave you that?’

‘Bill Wong.’

‘He’s got good taste, I’ll say that for him. So you’re marrying our Mr Lacey at last, and all of us thinking him a confirmed bachelor. But as I said, “What our
Agatha wants, our Agatha gets.”’

‘We’re going out for dinner, so I’ll leave you to it,’ said Agatha, not liking what she felt was the implication that she had bulldozed James into marriage.

Dinner that evening was at a new restaurant in Chipping Campden. It turned out to be one of those restaurants where all energy and effort had gone into the writing of the menu
and little into the cooking, for the food was insubstantial and tasteless. Agatha had ordered ‘Crispy duck with a brandy-and-orange sauce nestling on a bed of warm rocket salad and garnished
with sizzling sauté potatoes, succulent garden peas, and crispy new carrots.’

James had a ‘Prime Angus sirloin from cattle grazed on the lush green hillsides of Scotland, served with pommes duchesse, and organic vegetables culled from our own kitchen
garden.’

Agatha’s duck had a tough skin and very little meat. James’s steak was full of gristle and he said sourly that it was amazing that the restaurant’s kitchen garden had managed
to produce such bright-green frozen peas.

The wine, a Chardonnay, was thin and acid.

‘We should stop eating out,’ said James gloomily.

‘I’ll cook us something nice tomorrow,’ said Agatha.

‘What, another of your microwave meals?’

Agatha glared at her plate. She still fondly imagined that if she microwaved a frozen meal and hid the wrappings, James would think she had cooked it herself.

She suddenly looked across the table at him as he pushed his food moodily about on his plate and said, ‘Do you love me, James?’

‘I’m marrying you, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, I know, James, but we never talk about our feelings for each other. I feel we should communicate more.’

‘You’ve been watching Oprah Winfrey again. Thank you for sharing that with me, Agatha. I’m not a talking-about-feelings person, nor do I see the need for it. Now shall I get
the bill and we’ll go home and have a sandwich?’

Agatha felt so crushed, she didn’t even have the heart to complain about the food. He was silent as he drove them home and Agatha felt a lump of ice in her stomach. What if he had gone off
her?

But he made love to her that night with his usual silent passion and she felt reassured. You couldn’t change people. James was marrying her, and nothing else mattered.

The rain-clouds rolled back on the day of Agatha’s wedding. Sunlight sparkled in the puddles. The rain-battered roses in Agatha’s garden sent out a heady scent.
Doris Simpson was to look after Agatha’s cats while she was on her honeymoon. Her cottage stood empty now. Only the elephant and her clothes had been transferred to James’s cottage.

Agatha, sitting down to make up her face on the great day, wiped off the liberal application of a brand-new anti-wrinkle cream and then stared at her face in horror. She had come out in a red
rash. Her face was fiery. She rushed and bathed it in cold water, but the redness remained.

Mrs Bloxby arrived to find Agatha almost in tears. ‘Look at me!’ wailed Agatha. ‘I tried that new anti-wrinkle cream, Instant Youth, and look what it’s done.’

‘Time’s getting on, Agatha,’ said Mrs Bloxby anxiously. ‘Haven’t you any thick make-up you could put on?’

Agatha found an old tube of pancake make-up and put a heavy layer over her face. It left a line where her chin ended and her neck began, so she applied the stuff to her neck as well, and then a
layer of powder. Eyeshadow, blusher and mascara followed. Agatha groaned at the resultant mask-like effect. But Mrs Bloxby, looking out of the window, said the limousine to take Agatha to Mircester
had arrived.

So much for the most important day of my life, thought Agatha dismally.

The day was fine but with a blustery wind, which snatched Agatha’s hat from her head as she was about to get into the limousine and sent it bowling along Lilac Lane, where it settled in a
muddy puddle.

‘Oh dear,’ mourned Mrs Bloxby. ‘Do you have another hat?’

‘I’ll go without one,’ said Agatha, fighting back a sudden impulse to cry. She felt that everything was suddenly turning against her. And she dare not cry. For tears would
channel runnels through her mask of make-up.

Mrs Bloxby gave up trying to make conversation on the road to Mircester. The bride-to-be was unusually silent.

But Agatha’s spirits appeared to lift when the registry office came in sight and James could be seen standing in front of it, talking to his sister and Bill Wong. Roy Silver was also
there, feeling virtuous now that he had done nothing to wreck Agatha’s marriage, or so he told himself. If Jimmy Raisin wasn’t dead, he soon would be. He might have mentioned to Jimmy
that Agatha was getting married and lived in Carsely, but Jimmy had been so drunk, so sodden, that Roy was sure the man hadn’t really taken in a word he said.