Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham (8 page)

Agatha dressed carefully in a tailored suit and silk blouse and headed for Evesham. Her dreams of the day before had faded and would have stayed faded had John not immediately taken her in his
arms when she arrived and given her another of those warm, passionate kisses full on the mouth.

She felt quite weak at the knees as she sat down. His bruises appeared to be fading fast and his eyes were as blue, as intensely blue, as ever.

‘Have you thought any more about my business proposition?’ he asked.

Agatha flexed her public relations muscles. She described how she thought they should go big from the word go, open in Bond Street, say. She outlined how she would go about rousing interest so
she could get it into as many newspapers as possible. ‘And do you know what we’ll call it?’

‘I thought just Mr John.’

‘No, we’ll call it the Wizard of Evesham.’

He looked at her thoughtfully and then began to laugh. ‘I like that. It’s catchy. I like it a lot.’

All afternoon, they talked busily. Then he sent out for Chinese food. Before dinner, he opened a bottle of pills and popped two in his mouth. ‘Is that your medicine?’ asked
Agatha.

‘No, they’re vitamin pills, a multi-vitamin called Lifex. I swear by them. I keep a supply in the shop. You should try them.’

Agatha picked up the bottle and shook one out. ‘I’m not very good at swallowing pills,’ she said, looking at the large brown gelatine capsule in her hand. ‘I would choke
on something this size. What do they do for you?’

‘I find they give me a lot of energy. Let’s eat.’

They talked busily over dinner, firing ideas for their new venture back and forth across the table. Agatha at last said reluctantly that she should get home.

If he had asked her to stay with him, Agatha probably would have succumbed, but he only gathered her back into his arms as he said goodnight and again sent her senses spinning with one of those
kisses, fuelling the hopelessly romantic side of Agatha to boiling point.

She decided as she drove dreamily home that all her suspicions of him had been unfounded. What were they based on after all? One frightened village woman who had probably had a crush on him, had
probably written him a silly love letter or something like that and her bad-tempered husband had found out.

There was a message from Charles on her Call Minder but she did not want to phone him, did not want anything to burst the rosy bubble in which she floated. Mr John – no,
John
– stop calling him that silly hairdresser’s name – had said he had taken the liberty of making an appointment for her for the following day. Soon she would see him again.

Agatha in love meant an Agatha who could not make up her mind what to wear. Although she started her preparations early the next day, she at last left in a rush, wearing a coat over a sweater
and skirt and having torn off more dressy ensembles, feeling she looked as if she were trying too hard.

She would need to steer him to a good interior decorator, she thought, looking round the salon in a proprietorial way. And no receptionist like the dreadful Josie, but no one too glamorous
either.

She was shampooed and with a dithering feeling of anticipation was led through to Mr John.

‘Agatha,’ he said, giving her a warm smile. He pressed her shoulders and then gripped them hard.

She looked, startled, at his reflection in the mirror. Under the bruises, his face was an unhealthy red colour.

‘Excuse me,’ he muttered. He fled to the toilet. The tape deck was playing a selection of sixties pop. The Beatles were belting out ‘She’s got a ticket to ride’,
filling the salon with noisy sound. The number finished and then Agatha and everyone else could hear retching sounds coming from the toilet.

Agatha went through and knocked at the door and called, ‘What’s the matter?’

Another bout of dreadful retching answered her. She was joined by the assistant, Garry.

‘He sounds terribly ill,’ said Agatha. She rattled the door handle.

‘John! John! Let me in.’

She was answered by a loud tearing groan. Then crashing noises.

‘Break open the door!’ she shouted at Garry.

The willowy Garry threw himself against it but succeeded only in hurting his shoulder.

Agatha was joined by the other customers. Maggie was amongst them, she noticed.

‘Get me a screwdriver or chisel,’ said Agatha. ‘Quick. Josie, phone for an ambulance.’

Garry went into the nether regions and came back with a tool-box. Agatha seized a chisel and stuck it into the door jamb at the lock and jerked it sideways. There was a splintering and cracking
as the flimsy lock gave way.

Mr John was lying on the floor. He was now stretched out, immobile, his eyes staring upwards. His pale grey eyes. God, even his eyes have changed colour, thought Agatha wildly.

She knelt down and felt for his pulse, only finding a faint flutter. In the distance, she could hear the wail of the ambulance siren. Thank God, the hospital was quite near.

She gagged at the smell. Vomit was everywhere.

‘Ambulance is here!’ shouted Josie. Everyone except Agatha rushed to the door. She stared helplessly down at John, wishing she knew first aid. And then she saw his keys had fallen
out of his pocket. She scooped them up and put them in the pocket in her skirt.

The ambulance men came in. They told everyone to stand clear. After what seemed to Agatha like an interminable wait he was carried out to the ambulance with a drip in his arm and an oxygen mask
over his face.

The police arrived and took notes. ‘Might be food poisoning, by the sound of it,’ said one.

‘Can I go home now?’ asked the woman called Maggie. Her face was paper-white. ‘I’ve had a terrible shock.’

‘I suppose so,’ said one. ‘We’ll just take a note of your names and addresses and then you can go. But you can’t leave until then.’

There were exclamations of dismay from some of the other customers who, although they were half-way through perms and tints, just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. Maggie sat down and
began to cry.

Agatha felt the keys burning a hole in her pocket. Why had she taken them?

Because, she thought, her brain sharpened by fear, perhaps he
was
a blackmailer, perhaps I’ve been as silly as Charles thinks I am. If he were a blackmailer, then he might have
something on Mrs Friendly in his house. Poor Mrs Friendly. Why should she suffer more? Agatha did not realize that she had become a true villager: Although Mrs Friendly was nothing more than an
acquaintance, she felt she should be protected, even if it meant breaking the law.

She gave her name and address to one of the policemen. Her hair was still wet but she didn’t care. She wanted to find out what was in that house and then somehow return with the keys and
hide them somewhere in the salon. Besides, when Mr John recovered from his bout of food poisoning, which was what it had looked like, then she would know definitely one way or the other whether he
was a villain or simply a very good hairdresser with nothing sinister about him to worry her. Her mind jumped to murder. Could it be murder? The police would not search his house because of simple
food poisoning.

Oh yes, they would, she suddenly thought. They’ll want to go through everything and find out what he ate. The Chinese meal! She hoped it wasn’t that. But he would have developed
symptoms of food poisoning before today and she herself would have fallen ill.

Feeling naked and exposed, she parked in the back streets behind the Cheltenham Road and set off on foot for the villa. The neighbours might be watching and although they might not spot her,
they might remember the make and registration number of any car parked outside the house. The day was so dark and still. As she cautiously approached the villa by way of the side street which ran
along the side of it, she glanced nervously to right and left but no face glimmered at her through a window and no one was working in their garden.

After putting on a pair of gloves and fumbling with several of the keys, she found the right one and let herself in.

How many eyes had been watching her from the house opposite? She could say he had given her the keys before he collapsed. Oh, God, his staff would say he had done no such thing. But she was here
and so she may as well get on with it.

She walked through the silent, dark, over-furnished rooms. No desk, no filing cabinet. She went upstairs. Two bedrooms showing no signs of recent occupation and then a large double bedroom,
obviously his. She searched the bedside table and then the pockets of his jackets in the wardrobe.

Reluctant now to give up the search, she went slowly downstairs. And then, at the bottom of the stairs, she saw a door she had missed before. It was padlocked. A cellar door?

She tried all the keys until she had found the right one. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

She switched on the light inside the door and made her way down steep stone steps to a basement room. She was just reaching for the switch to illuminate the basement when she heard a noise above
her head. She switched off the light on the stairs and stood in the darkness, panting like a hunted animal. The police must have arrived.

Agatha had a little torch in her handbag. If only she could find another way out of the basement! Her heart slowed down its pounding race. She cocked her head and listened hard. There were
furtive noises from above. She frowned. The police would surely make more noise. Then a sinister gurgling sound. She had shut the door behind her at the top but the padlock was hanging open on the
other side of the door.

Then there was a tremendous
whoosh
and she heard the upstairs street door close.

In one horrified split second she knew what had happened. Someone had set the house alight!

She switched on the basement light. A dusty room with exercise machines and weights and a desk in the comer – a desk that was under a dirty window.

Later Agatha was to reflect that a cool detective would have seized papers from that desk, but all she could think of was the horror of burning to death.

She climbed on the desk and tugged at the window. It was firmly shut. She climbed down and heaved up one of the heaviest of the weights and hurled it at the window, which broke leaving a jagged
hole. She smashed away the rest of the glass round the hole and with her gloved hands dragged herself up and through on to a patch of weedy earth outside.

She was in the garden at the side of the house, between the house and garage.

She crouched on her hands and knees behind a bush. How to get away unobserved? She took the keys from her pocket and threw them back in through the window.

Overhead came a great crack of thunder and the rain came down in sheets, so heavy it blotted out the view of the houses around.

A woman ran past down the street. Agatha had an excuse to be seen running hard.

She belted through the torrent, not stopping until she had reached her car.

Gasping and sobbing with fright, she drove off. She nearly ran into another car on the Four Pools Industrial Estate and realized she had not switched the windscreen wipers on.

She swung out on to the by-pass and made her way slowly and carefully home, through Broadway, up Fish Hill and along the escarpment past the Chipping Camden road, until she turned left and down
through the tunnels of trees to Carsely.

She let herself into her cottage just as the rain began to slacken. She slammed the door shut behind her and slumped down on to the hall floor and took the phone on to her lap. She phoned
Charles and said in a shaky voice, ‘Come over. Something dreadful’s happened.’

She found she was still wearing those gloves. She tore them off and carried them into the living room. She put a whole packet of fire-lighters in the fireplace, then a bunch of kindling and lit
the lot. When the flames were roaring up the chimney, she threw the gloves on to the fire. Her shoes! If there was anything left of the house, they would scan the carpets and find her footprints.
She took off her shoes and threw them on the fire as well and then sat in front of the blaze, hugging herself and rocking to and fro.

When the doorbell rang, she gave a gulp of relief and went to open it. Charles stood there, as neat and immaculate as ever. She threw herself into his arms and began to cry.

‘There now,’ he said, shoving her inside. ‘What have you been up to? What’s that dreadful smell? Have you been burning old boots?’

He propelled her into the living-room. ‘Sit down. I’ll get us a brandy. You’re all smoky and smelly and soaking wet.’

He poured two brandies and handed one to Agatha. ‘Now drink that and tell Uncle Charlie what happened. Did he rape you? No, you might have a smile on your face.’

‘Don’t be coarse. Are you one of those fools who think women
like
being raped?’

‘Oh my God. You poor thing. It
was
rape. Look, Agatha. It’s no longer the Dark Ages. We’ll phone the police right now and –’

‘IT WASN’T RAPE!’ screamed Agatha.

‘Well, what was it?’

‘Sit down. Listen. I’ll tell you. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.’

Charles listened while Agatha told of the collapse of Mr John and how she had stolen his keys, about the house being set on fire.

‘God, you’re idiotic, Aggie,’ he remarked. ‘Someone’s bound to have seen you. You might have got away with it if the house hadn’t been torched. Police,
forensics, experts from the insurance company, God, they’ll be crawling over what’s left inch by inch.’

‘What am I to do?’ wailed Agatha.

‘Pray.’

‘I mean, what am I really to do?’

‘Well, if he was sick to the point of collapse and then someone torched his house, it looks to me as if someone tried to murder him. As they got him to the hospital, he’ll probably
be all right, and when he recovers he can maybe tell the police who he thinks did it.’

‘Now it’s you who is being stupid,’ said Agatha. ‘If he was a blackmailer, then he won’t want to give the police the names of any suspects in case one of his
victims tells all.’

‘I know, we could pay him a visit, or rather you pay him a visit and tell him about taking his keys. Throw yourself on his mercy.’