Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden (8 page)

“But someone carrying a cash box and emptying out the contents and throwing it over the seawall would surely be noticed?”

“Not really. Have you been around Wyckhadden at six o’clock? It’s the ideal time for a murder. All the shops and offices are closed and everyone indoors having their tea. Only the really posh still have dinner in the evening down here. The murderer could have transferred the money into coat pockets and then just have dropped the empty box over the wall. It was high tide and the sea would have been up.”

“But the appointments book. Was anyone booked in for six?”

“She always took the last appointment at four-thirty. That was a Mrs Derwent, who took her little boy along who’s got trouble with asthma.”

“What about the weapon? Surely that would have been dropped over the seawall with the box?”

“Maybe. But there’s everything down there at low tide that could have been used – empty bottles, iron bars, bits of wood. The sea’s rough and the pebbles would have scoured any evidence clean away.”

“So are you looking for anyone?”

“We suspected Janine’s husband, Cliff. But he has a cast-iron alibi. He was playing bowls from early afternoon to late evening at the bowling alley over at Hadderton. Masses of witnesses.”

“Rats.”

“As you say, rats. Don’t worry about it, Agatha. At least your lot at the hotel seem to be in the clear.”

“Why?”

“It’s a young man’s murder. I’m sure of that. That blow that killed her was done with one brutal bashing to the head.”

“They’re pretty spry, and Jennifer Stobbs, for example, is still a powerful woman.”

“It’s usually someone with a bit of form, and they’re all respectable people who don’t need the cash. It takes a lot of money to pay the Garden’s prices, year in, year out. Your hair’s grown back in. Very nice.”

“I wonder if it was that lotion I got from Francie.”

“I think it would probably have grown back in anyway. I’ll need to go.”

“We’re all going to the pier dance tonight,” said Agatha hopefully.

“If I find a spare minute, I’ll drop in. But don’t waste time worrying about who did the murder. If you ask me, it could have been anyone. She had so many clients over the years and one of them could have seen her putting money away in that box and talked about it at home. Some youth hears about it and tells his pals. I’ve a nasty feeling this one isn’t going to be solved.”

♦

Agatha walked back to Partons Lane. Again the young man answered the door. “Are you Cliff? Janine’s husband?” asked Agatha.

“Yes.” He led her into the living-room and said, “Wait there.”

The white cat was lying on the hearth. It saw Agatha and bared its pointed teeth in a hiss. Agatha eyed it warily in case it flew at her again.

Janine came in. She had dyed blonde hair piled up on top of her head. She had hard pale blue eyes fringed with white lashes, a thin, long nose and that L-shaped jaw which used to be regarded as a thing of beauty in Hollywood actresses of the eighties.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, smiling. The smile was not reflected in her hard, assessing eyes. Agatha felt that every item she was wearing had been priced.

“Your mother – excuse me, my condolences on your sad loss – sold me some hair tonic. I wonder if you have any left.”

“No, I’m sorry. I threw a lot of that stuff out. I don’t deal so much in potions. I have seances, palm-reading, tarot, things like that. I could read your palm.”

“How much?”

“Ten pounds.”

Pretty steep, thought Agatha, but she was anxious to ingratiate herself with Janine.

“All right.”

“Give me your hands.”

Agatha held out her hands. “You have a strong character,” said Janine. “Like getting your own way.”

“I don’t need a character assessment,” said Agatha testily.

“You have suffered a bereavement recently, a violent bereavement.” Agatha’s husband’s murder had been in all the papers. “There are now three men in your life. Each loves you in his own way, but you will never marry again. There has been a great deal of danger in your life up until now, but that is all gone. You will now lead a quiet life until you die. Nor will you have sex with anyone from now on.”

“How can you tell all that?” Agatha was feeling angry.

“There is an affinity between us. You found my mother. There is a psychic bond between us. That is all.”

What a rotten ten pounds’ worth, thought Agatha, and then was about to say something when she was hit by an idea.

“You said you do seances,” she said.

“Yes, I call up the spirits of the dead.”

“So who does your mother say murdered her?”

“It is too early. Any day now. She is getting established on the other side.”

Can’t be unpacking anyway, thought Agatha sourly.

“Look, there’s six of us along at the Garden Hotel. Would you consider doing a seance for us if the others are agreeable?”

“Certainly.”

“At the hotel?”

“No, I always do seances here.”

I’ll bet you do, thought Agatha. Too many tricks to carry along.

She said aloud, “I’ll check with the others and let you know.”

She paid over ten pounds. “How much do you charge for a seance?”

“Two hundred pounds.”

“Blimey.”

“It takes a lot out of me.”

And a lot out of everyone else’s pocket, thought Agatha as she stumped along the promenade some minutes later.

When she arrived at the hotel, she took a look in the lounge. Mary was on her own by the fire, knitting. Agatha decided to join her. Mary rarely said anything. Jennifer always acted as spokeswoman for both of them.

Taking off her coat, Agatha sat down opposite her. Mary gave her a brief smile and went on knitting. She must have been quite pretty once, in a weak, rabbity sort of way, thought Agatha.

“I went to see Janine,” said Agatha.

“Francie’s daughter? What was she like?”

“Read my palm at great expense and talked a lot of bollocks. Still, it might be a hoot if we all went along to one of her seances.”

“Do you think those things are real?”

“I can’t see how. But it might be fun. She charges two hundred pounds, would you believe? Still, split up amongst six of us, it isn’t too bad.”

“I wonder if she can tell about the living? I mean, if her spirits can tell about the living.”

“I doubt if she can any more than I can bring myself to believe she talks to the dead. Why the living?”

“Just someone I was keen on a long time ago.”

“A man?” asked Agatha, who often wondered whether Mary was in a relationship with Jennifer.

“Of course, a man. I often wonder where he is and what he is doing.”

“Didn’t it work out?” asked Agatha sympathetically, thinking of James Lacey.

“It all went wrong.” Mary’s large brown eyes filled with memories. “But for a while, we were so happy. I was on holiday with my parents here, in Wyckhadden, and it was at this very hotel that I met him.”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty-two,” said Mary on a sigh. “A long time ago. We got friendly, we walked on the beach, we went to dances.”

“Did you have an affair?”

Mary looked shocked. “Oh, nothing like that. I mean, one didn’t…
then
.”

“And so how did it end?”

“I gave him my address. I was living in Cirencester then with my parents. He lived in London. I waited but he didn’t write. He hadn’t given me a phone number, but I had his address. At last I couldn’t bear it any longer. I went up to London, to the address he had given me. It was a rooming-house. The people there had never heard of him.”

“Maybe he gave you a false name?”

“It was his real name, the one he gave me, because he had a car. He had just passed his driving test and was very proud of his new licence. It had his name on it, Joseph Brady. I described what he looked like and I even had a photo with me, but the people in the rooming-house said he had never lived there and one lady had been there for the past ten years! He had said he was an advertising copy-writer. When I got home, I phoned all the advertising agencies that were listed. I went off sick from work to do it. Nobody had heard of him. I couldn’t get over him. I went back to Wyckhadden year after year, always hoping to see him.”

“Was he on his own here at the hotel?” asked Agatha.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t notice the address on the driving licence?”

She shook her head.

“What about the hotel register?”

“I didn’t like to ask.”

Agatha rose to her feet. “I’ll try to find out for you.”

“How?”

“I’m sure they have all the old books locked away somewhere. What year was this?”

“It was in the summer of 1955, in July, around the tenth. But don’t tell Jennifer.”

Agatha sat down again. “Why?”

“I met up with Jennifer ten years afterwards. My parents were poorly and I came here on my own. I told her all about Joseph. She told me I was wasting my life. We became friends. She had, has, such energy. I was working as a secretary. She told me to take a computer programming course. She said it would get me good money.”

“What did Jennifer do?”

“She was a maths teacher at a London school.”

“Teachers aren’t well paid,” Agatha pointed out. “Why didn’t she take a course herself?”

“Jennifer has a vocation for teaching.”

“I see,” commented Agatha drily.

“So I did very well but then my parents died, one after the other, and I had a bit of a breakdown. Jennifer moved in with me in the long summer vac and looked after me. Then she suggested I should sell my parents’ house and take a flat with her in London. It seemed such an adventure. I got a programming job with a City firm.”

“But you must have met other people, other men,” said Agatha.

“At first, Jennifer gave a lot of parties but the people that came were mostly schoolteachers. I invited people from the office but they didn’t seem to enjoy the parties and they stopped coming.”

“Didn’t you make friends with any of the women in the office?”

“Sometimes one of them would suggest we had a drink after work, but Jennifer usually waited for me after work and so…”

Jennifer’s a leech, thought Agatha.

She stood up again. “I’ll see what I can do with the records.”

Agatha went into Mr Martin’s office and asked him if it would be possible to look up old records. He said all the old books were down in the cellars and she was welcome to try but he could not spare any of the staff to help her. He handed Agatha a large key and led her downstairs to the basement and then indicated a low door. “Down there,” he said. “You’ll find them all stacked on bookshelves at the back of all the junk.”

Agatha unlocked the door and made her way down stone steps. The basement was full of old bits of furniture, dusty curtains, even oil lamps. She picked her way through the clutter to the piles of bound hotel registers, stacked up on shelves in a far corner. To her relief, the date of each was stamped on the outside.

She had to lift down piles of books to get at the one marked ‘1955’. She sat down on a battered old sofa and opened it, searching until she found July.

She ran her fingers down the entries, glad it was such a small hotel so she did not have a multitude of names to look through. And then she found it, Joseph Brady. Agatha frowned. He had given his address as 92 Sheep Street, Hadderton. What on earth was someone with a car who lived in Hadderton and who could easily have motored over every day doing spending a holiday in an expensive place like the Garden Hotel?

She took a small notebook from her handbag and wrote down the address, put the book back, went upstairs and returned the key to the office and went into the lounge where Mary was still knitting.

“I’ve found it,” said Agatha.

“You have? Just like that? And after all these years…”

“The funny thing is he’s given an address in Hadderton, and Hadderton’s so close.”

She held out the piece of paper. “I can’t believe it,” whispered Mary.

“We may as well lay your ghost. We’ll go tomorrow.”

“It might be a good idea if we didn’t tell Jennifer,” said Mary.

“Will that be difficult?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll say I’m going with you to look at a dress.”

“Right you are. I’ll ask the others what they think about the seance when we all meet up tonight.”

♦

Jennifer was scornful of the idea of a seance and said so, loudly. Daisy said she had decided that things like that were best left alone. But the colonel showed unexpected enthusiasm and said it ‘sounded like a bit of a lark’. Harry said it would be interesting to see what fraudulent tricks Janine got up to. Daisy capitulated to please the colonel. And so it was decided that Agatha should arrange it for an evening in two days’ time. She phoned Janine, who said she would expect them all at nine in the evening.

After dinner, they set out to walk to the dance. They were all unusually silent and Jennifer was openly sulking. She obviously did not like the idea of the seance, but did not want to be left out.

Although they all danced amiably enough that evening, there was an odd sort of constraint which Agatha could not understand. She kept looking towards the doorway of the ballroom, always hoping to see Jimmy arrive, but the evening wore on and there was no sign of him. At last, Daisy said she had a bit of a headache and would like to return to the hotel and the others agreed.

And what was all that about? wondered Agatha as she got ready for bed. Could it be that the idea of the seance frightened one of them and that inner fright had subconsciously communicated itself to the others? Could it be remotely possible that one of them had committed the murder?

And why hadn’t Jimmy come? Maybe the love potion wore off after a while.

♦

In the morning, Agatha and a guilty-looking Mary took a cab to Hadderton. “No trouble getting away?” asked Agatha.

“No, not this time, but she did somehow make me feel guilty.”

“Worse than having a bullying husband.”

“Oh, you mustn’t say that, Agatha. Jennifer’s the only true friend I’ve ever had.”

They fell silent as the old cab rattled into Hadderton.