Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers (3 page)

‘Quite a number,' said Agatha. ‘Why?'

‘How do you recognize a psycho?'

‘Do you think you've met one?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Well, there are lots of books on the subject, or you could look it up on the Internet,' said Agatha. ‘The trouble is, I think there are different levels. I mean, a captain of industry, say, could be a psycho but it's all channelled into power. He's not going to kill someone. I suppose I would operate on gut instinct. Is someone threatening you?'

‘I'm beginning to think I've got an overactive imagination.'

Agatha's doorbell rang. She went reluctantly to answer it. ‘Oh, it's you,' she said bleakly to James Lacey.

‘I saw George coming in with you,' said James. ‘I'd like a word with him.'

‘He's in the garden.'

Cursing James in her heart, Agatha led him through to the garden. She offered James a drink. He said he would like a whisky and soda. When she returned, James and George were deep in army reminiscences.

At last, James turned to Agatha. ‘I'm sorry, we must be boring you to death.'

‘And I must go,' said George, getting to his feet.

‘I'd better get back to my manuscript,' said James.

‘I'll run you home,' said Agatha to George.

‘Don't bother. I'll enjoy the walk. Thanks for the drink.' He bent and kissed her on the cheek.

Agatha stood on the step and watched them go. James went into his cottage, and George walked down the lane to the corner. As if conscious of Agatha watching him, he turned and waved.

And that was the last time Agatha saw him alive.

The ball was a sellout. Toni, arriving in her battered old Ford, had to squeeze into a parking place some way from the village hall. Large expensive cars seemed to have taken up most of the parking areas in the village. Simon had offered to escort her and she had turned him down. Now she wished she had accepted his offer, feeling suddenly timid at walking into the hall on her own in all the glory of midnight-blue chiffon.

A band up on the small stage was playing an old-fashioned waltz. Toni paused on the threshold, reflecting that it looked like a ball in a society magazine. There was a long bar down one side of the room. She saw Phil Marshall and Mrs Freedman standing by the bar with Simon and went to join them. ‘You look very beautiful, my dear,' said Mrs Freedman.

Agatha swung past in the arms of Charles Fraith. Her face was tight with concern. She hadn't seen George for over three days. George had promised her the first dance and yet he hadn't even put in an appearance. She glanced over to where Toni was standing. What it was to be young and beautiful, she thought enviously. Toni's white shoulders rose from folds of blue chiffon and her fair hair was piled on top of her small head. Jessica Fordyce was also standing at the bar, surrounded by men. She was wearing a low-cut black sheath and her glossy red hair shone in the lights.

At the end of the dance, Agatha muttered something to Charles about repairing her make-up, and refused the offer of the next dance with James, but instead she went outside the hall and looked up and down. People were still arriving, laughing and chattering. The county had turned out in force: high voices, out-of-date gowns on some of them, but all at ease in a way that Agatha, always conscious of her low upbringing, could never achieve.

Agatha suddenly decided she simply must find out what had happened to George. She began to run through the village towards his cottage, feeling the straps of her high-heeled sandals beginning to hurt.

George's cottage lay on a little rise above the village. It had been an agricultural worker's cottage at one time, a small, ugly redbrick building, unlike the golden Cotswold stone buildings of the rest of the village. Agatha hammered on the door. Nothing but silence.

She wondered whether he might be sitting in his garden, having decided not to attend. Agatha made her way along the path at the side of the house to the garden at the back. It was a mess of weeds and overgrown bushes. Obviously George did not believe in wasting time on his own garden.

Agatha felt a dark lump of disappointment in her gut. She was about to turn away when a bright moon shone down on something sticking out of the compost heap, something metal that glittered.

Moving slowly, Agatha bent down for a closer look and then stood up, her heart beating hard. The metal was part of a prosthetic leg. Maybe he had an old one that for some reason he had dumped in the compost.

She picked up a rake and began to rake away the compost. Another leg was exposed – this time a real one.

Crying and sobbing, she got down on her knees and began to claw away the stinking compost.

Gradually the dead body of George was revealed, but with a bag tied round his head. Agatha had one mad hope that it might not be George's body but then realized that she did not know anyone else with a prosthetic leg. Agatha felt for a pulse and found none. She wanted to tear off the bag from his head, but a cold voice of common sense invaded her panic, telling her to leave it to the police. She stood up, cursing that she had left her phone in her evening bag at the hall, and tore off her shoes and began to run, fleeing through the moonlit streets, past the brooding thatch of the cottages, over the cobbles, until she reached the village hall.

The band had just finished playing a number when Agatha Raisin erupted into the hall. She went straight to Bill Wong, who was standing with James. ‘George Marston has been murdered,' she said.

‘Show me,' said Bill.

‘I'll come with you,' said James.

‘No,' said Agatha. ‘Stay here. Keep them all here. Go on with the raffle. Don't tell anyone.'

She hurried off with Bill. ‘Let's go,' said Toni, who had witnessed the exchange. ‘Something awful's happened. Agatha's as white as a sheet and her dress is ruined.' Toni, followed by Phil, Simon and Patrick, hurried after Bill and Agatha.

At George's cottage, Bill, who had collected his forensic suit from his car, said, ‘Agatha, come with me, and just point to where the body is.'

Toni, Simon, Patrick and Phil waited anxiously until Agatha rejoined them. Charles came hurrying up. ‘What's happened?'

‘It's George!' wailed Agatha. ‘I think it's George. He's dead. He's got a bag tied over his head.'

Police cars, marked and unmarked, swept up to the cottage. Police began to tape off the area. Inspector Wilkes approached them. ‘Mrs Raisin, Wong says you found the body.'

‘It's in the back garden,' said Agatha hoarsely.

‘Constable Peterson will take a preliminary statement. Wait there.'

Alice Peterson was a pretty young woman with dark curly hair and blue eyes. ‘Would you like to sit in the car, Mrs Raisin? You've had a bad shock.'

‘I'll wait here,' said Agatha. ‘I couldn't see the head. It may not be him.'

‘I believe Mr Marston had a false leg. Did you notice one?'

‘Yes, his trouser leg was pulled up,' said Agatha. She was wearing scarlet lipstick and it stood out garishly on her white face.

‘Just tell me what you know,' said Alice.

Agatha swayed slightly and Charles came forward and put an arm around her shoulders. As she told the little she knew, Agatha felt the whole thing was unreal and that the voice issuing from her mouth belonged to someone else.

When she had finished, Charles said, ‘I went away and got my car. I think you should sit in it, Agatha. Toni, you too. When they get the bag off his head, someone's got to identify him.'

They waited in silence.

No other villagers joined them. Amazingly, the news had not reached the village hall, and, through the night air, they could hear the faint sounds of the dance band.

Toni was surprised that Mrs Bloxby had not come to find out what had happened to her friend. But Mrs Bloxby, who had organized a raffle for the ball, was holding her post. She thought that Agatha had gone off hunting for George. She had not seen her leave with Bill. She assumed her staff and friends had gone to bring her back.

The night dragged on. At last Wilkes came out. ‘We've got the bag off. Someone will need to identify him.'

‘I'll go,' said Agatha, getting out of the car. There were loud protests from her friends.

‘No, I've got to see for myself that it is George,' she said.

How she was to regret that decision.

In the garden, a tent had been erected over the body. In the unearthly light of the halogen lamps that had been set up, George's swollen and discoloured face was revealed.

‘It's George Marston.' Agatha gulped and was led back to the car.

‘Go home,' said Wilkes, who had followed her. ‘We will call on you in the morning.'

The next morning, Mrs Bloxby switched on the radio as she made her husband's breakfast. She listened to the news, appalled. She went into her husband's study. ‘Alf, it's ghastly. George Marston has been murdered!'

‘When? How?'

‘I don't know. I wondered why Mrs Raisin never came back to the village hall.' Mrs Bloxby regretted the fact that she had thought Agatha had simply been unable to find George and had gone back to her cottage in a massive sulk. ‘I'll need to go and see if there's anything I can do,' she said.

‘What about my breakfast?' cried the vicar, but his wife had already left.

The police had put a tape across the road just before Agatha's cottage to keep the press at bay. Mrs Bloxby, using her status as the vicar's wife, persuaded the police on duty to let her through to the cottage. Toni answered the door, still wearing her ball gown.

‘Agatha is in the sitting room, making a statement,' whispered Toni. ‘They should be finished with her shortly.'

‘Do they know how he died?' asked Mrs Bloxby.

Toni shook her head. ‘But Agatha says there is no way he could have fallen into his compost heap and covered himself up or tied that bag round his own head. We'll need to wait ages. If only it was a television show, they'd rush back to the lab and immediately produce the results. Agatha has had to account for all her movements in the last few days.'

‘I did not see Mr Marston around the village recently,' said Mrs Bloxby. ‘The police should ask questions in the village shop. I believe some of the village women were asking for Mr Marston, saying he had promised to help with odd jobs but had not turned up.'

There was a ring at the doorbell. ‘I wonder who that can be,' said Toni, going to answer it.

A smartly dressed middle-aged woman stood on the step, accompanied by Detective Constable Alice Peterson.

‘This is Mrs Ilston, Mr Marston's sister from Oxford,' said Alice. Unlike her brother, Mrs Ilston was dark-haired and only medium height. Her eyes were swollen with recent crying.

Alice went into the sitting room and emerged shortly, followed by Inspector Wilkes, Bill Wong and a policewoman.

‘I wanted to see the man in charge of the case,' said Mrs Ilston. ‘They told me at headquarters you would be here.'

‘We'll take you back to headquarters,' said Inspector Wilkes soothingly. ‘I gather two of my detectives broke the sad news to you last night.'

‘Yes, and I don't understand it!' wailed his sister. ‘He was always so popular.'

They moved off. The door slammed behind them. Agatha dragged herself from the sitting room.

‘Thanks, Toni,' she said. ‘You can go home now.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I'll look after her,' said Mrs Bloxby firmly.

Toni hesitated. She wanted to give Agatha a reassuring hug, but somehow Agatha was not the sort of person one hugged.

‘I'll be back in the office tomorrow,' said Agatha wearily. ‘Open a file on George.'

Mrs Bloxby made tea and carried a tray out to the garden. It was a riot of colour: red, white and yellow roses, delphiniums, hollyhocks, pansies and wallflowers, and a large clematis with purple petals that bloomed in the summer instead of the spring. Agatha's cats, Hodge and Boswell, played on the smooth lawn. A few wispy white clouds floated over the blue sky above.

‘This is the sort of summer people, when they get old, will remember as happening every year. People forget the rainy days.'

Agatha began to cry. ‘I d-don't w-want to g-get old,' she sobbed.

‘You're ageless,' said Mrs Bloxby briskly. ‘Dry your eyes, drink your tea, light one of your rotten cigarettes and start thinking. Someone murdered George Marston.'

Agatha meekly did as she was told. ‘I don't know where to start,' she said. ‘Do you think it has anything to do with his military service?'

‘I think perhaps it was too personal a murder for that.'

‘Someone in the village?'

‘Perhaps.'

‘But why?'

‘If you work very hard on this, I will pray you find out.'

‘Do you believe in God?' asked Agatha.

‘Of course.'

‘Why?'

Mrs Bloxby put down her teacup, and said gently, ‘I need to believe in something perfect and unchanging in this imperfect world. Humans are apt to make other humans into gods and being human they let them down. I sometimes think that inside everyone is a desire for a spiritual belief and sometimes it gets twisted. Why else would people worship, say, Hitler or Elvis Presley?'

Agatha laughed, feeling her inner torment ease. ‘I think you could make a lot of Elvis fans furious with a statement like that.'

‘You must have had very little sleep,' said Mrs Bloxby. ‘Go to bed. I will wait down here for a while. Go on!'

* * *

Before Agatha climbed into bed, she opened her window and looked down into the garden. Mrs Bloxby was sitting quietly, her face turned up to the sun.

Agatha left the window open and, despite the warmth of the day, pulled the duvet up to her chin and fell asleep.

After half an hour, Mrs Bloxby's mobile phone rang. She walked down the garden with it. ‘Yes?'