Dishing the Dirt (21 page)

Charles said, “I heard it is quite easy to fake an electric fault. Shred a bit of wire and put a lit book of matches next to it and clear off.”

“How much was the house insured for?” asked Agatha.

“Eight hundred thousand.”

They were sitting in easy chairs in a well-appointed office. Agatha suddenly sat up straight, her eyes dilated. Charles thought she ought to have a lightbulb above her head.

“The body was that of Anthony Tweedy was it?” she asked.

“Who else could it be?” Brian said. “Lavender identified what was left by the remains of his watch and one of his handmade shoes had escaped most of the burning.”

“So no dental records? No DNA?”

Brian said testily, “I am very good at my job. I spent a lot of time making sure the fire was accidental. What the hell are you getting at?”

“The brother and sister hated each other,” said Agatha. “Get a load of this. What if—just what if—the body was that of Lavender, not Anthony?”

Brian laughed. “You must realise, I interviewed Lavender. One very distressed old lady. I’m not a fool, you know. Also, she was the spitting image of a photograph she showed me.”

“But they were identical twins,” protested Agatha.

Brian rose to his feet as a signal that the interview was over. “It’s been very interesting to meet you, Mrs. Raisin,” he said. “Ever thought of writing detective fiction?”

“Don’t be rude,” said Agatha. “Come along, Charles.”

*   *   *

“I could do with a drink,” said Charles when they left the building. “I want you to sit down and tell me exactly what’s got into that crazy head of yours.”

They headed for the bar of the Queen’s Hotel. “It’s like this,” said Agatha, taking a gulp of gin and tonic. “Bob Dell was a cross-dresser. He said he wasn’t alone. Right? What if one transvestite recognised the man behind so-called Lavender Tweedy’s disguise? What if the Tweedy woman saw me going there and got worried?”

“Well,” said Charles cautiously, “what on earth can you do about it?”

“Teeth often survive a fire. I wonder if the body was buried? I should talk to Bill.”

“And he will consult his superiors and Wilkes will tell you to stop interfering in police business.”

“I wonder what’s in the Tweedy garden?”

“Agatha, the police searched all the gardens looking for wolfsbane.”

“Snakes and bastards. And it could all have been uprooted.”

“What about the allotments?”

The allotments were those strips of land just outside Carsely rented by various villagers to grow vegetables and flowers.

“I seem to remember they searched those as well,” said Agatha gloomily.

“Just suppose I go along with this mad idea of yours,” said Charles. “Could she have got an allotment in a nearby village? Mrs. Bloxby would know if there were any available.”

Agatha’s face cleared. “Let’s go and ask!”

*   *   *

Mrs. Bloxby’s gentle face looked bewildered as Agatha poured out her new theory and then demanded to know if Mrs. Tweedy could have rented an allotment in any nearby village.

“Do have another scone, Sir Charles, while I think,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I’ll ask Alf.”

She went along to her husband’s study but unfortunately left the door open. “You mean that pesky woman is here again?” they heard the vicar demand. “Hasn’t she got a home of her own to go to?” Then the study door was shut.

Charles grinned. “Doesn’t like you much, does he?”

“That man is not a Christian,” snapped Agatha.

Mrs. Bloxby came back. “There is a village called Upper Harley. It’s about ten miles from Carsely. They had allotments available last year. It’s little more than a hamlet so they might allow outsiders to rent.”

“I’ll go over there tonight,” said Agatha. “Don’t want to be snooping around in the daytime.”

“I can’t come with you,” said Charles. “Got a dinner engagement. You’d better take someone with you.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Agatha.

“Don’t be silly,” snapped Charles. “There’s nothing to think about. Don’t go alone.”

*   *   *

That evening, Charles talked politely at dinner while all the time his mind raced. Damn, Agatha. If her mad conjectures were right, she was putting herself in serious danger. He looked anxiously at the fading light of the evening beyond the long windows of the dining room. It would be dark soon.

At last he couldn’t bear it any longer. He made a muttered excuse and found his way to the lavatory. He sat down on the pan, took out his phone, where he had all the numbers of Agatha’s detectives listed. He rapidly told them where Agatha was going and begged them all to get over there. Then he phoned Bill Wong and managed to get him at home. Bill listened in amazement as Charles rapidly told him about Agatha’s theory and where she had gone.

“I think that attack on her life upset her,” said Bill, “or she would never have come up with this load of rubbish.”

“There’s something awfully convincing about it,” pleaded Charles. “Can’t you just get out to that allotment and check?”

“It’s my night off,” protested Bill. “Oh, all right. But I am really going to give her a blast.”

*   *   *

As soon as it was dark, Agatha set out, listening to the irritating voice on her sat-nav directing her to Upper Harley. Despite the Cotswolds being such a tourist attraction, there are little Cotswold villages like Upper Harley, buried away in the wolds and seldom visited.

She kept checking in her rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed, but there were several cars behind her until she swung off the main road. Her way took her down dark twisting lanes where overhanging trees blotted out the moon.

Finally she arrived, parked in the centre and got out and looked around. Upper Harley appeared to consist of a huddle of houses beside a pond. There was no evidence of a shop or pub. Agatha marched up to the nearest house and knocked on the door, demanding to know where the allotments were. “No use you wanting one,” said the woman who answered the door. “Thems bin sold off for housing.”

Agatha’s heart sank, but she pursued with, “Where are they anyway?”

“You come by car?”

“Yes.”

“Take that liddle lane t’other side of the pond. Drive slow, mind. Do be sheep sometimes. Quarter mile up on the left.”

Agatha thanked her. Got into her car and drove slowly off, hoping the sheep would have gone to sleep.

There were no trees over the lane and she was grateful for the bright moonlight, thinking that otherwise she might have missed the allotments, hidden as they were behind a straggly hedge. It was only when she was driving at a snail’s pace and coming to a break in the hedge that she noticed through the back a few strips of land. She collected her camera and a powerful torch and made her way through the gap.

Because, probably, of the incipient sale, many of the former allotments had been left to run wild. But there were a few sheds and a few cultivated strips. One had beans, another marrows, but Agatha was looking for flowers.

A little wind sprang up, making urgent whispering sounds. Agatha suddenly wanted to forget the whole thing and go home. She wished she had brought Toni or Simon with her. She realised dismally that for once her nerves were in bad shape.

Telling herself severely not to be such a wimp, she made her way carefully past the beds, shining her torch to left and right. At the far wall, she saw a shed behind a garden strip of flowers: hollyhocks, late roses and some early chrysanthemums. She shone the torch over the flowers. No wolfsbane. Time to go home. She was about to turn around when Agatha saw a gleam of glass behind the shed. She made her way round and found a small greenhouse. The door was padlocked. Agatha shone her torch in the window.

The beam picked out a healthy clump of what she recognised to be wolfsbane.

She grinned in triumph and took out her phone to call the police.

That was when a heavy blow from a spade struck her right on the back of the head and she slumped down on the ground.

Agatha fought desperately against the blackness trying to engulf her. Above her, she heard a sneering voice say, “You interfering old cow. I enjoyed watching you bumbling around. You’re cleverer than I thought. So you just lie there while I dig you a nice grave.”

Agatha’s head swam. She’s going to bury me alive, she thought. Let her think I’m unconscious. Or is it him? I bet it’s that brother, Anthony.

She could hear sounds of digging. Blood from the wound on her head was seeping into her eyes as she made an effort to see if she could move. But that was when her strength failed her and she blacked out.

*   *   *

Bill and Alice Peterson were racing through the night. Bill ruefully had to admit to himself that he had been glad of the distraction. He had long fancied Detective Alice, although relationships with colleagues were frowned on. Nonetheless, he had invited her home for supper, but his mother had been singularly rude, not that Bill saw it as such because he adored his mother and thought she was perhaps not feeling well.

“Do you really think Agatha might be onto something?” asked Alice.

“Not for a moment,” said Bill. “This is just one very far-fetched idea.”

“She’s come up with far-fetched ideas before,” said Alice.

“But this one’s a stinker. Don’t worry. We’ll sort her out and have a coffee on the road back.”

*   *   *

They had just parked outside the allotments when another car drew in behind them and Toni and Simon got out.

“Charles really panicked,” said Bill. “Come on, you two. Let’s get it over with and we can all go home.”

They walked into the allotments, all shouting “Agatha!” at the tops of their voices.

A man emerged from a shed and shouted, “Wot you bleeding lot doing, stomping my prize marrows? I’ll ’ave the law on yer.”

“We’re looking for a friend,” said Bill.

“Ud that be old Mrs. Tweedy?”

Bill froze for a moment. “Where’s her allotment?”

“Up back. But you’re going to pay for that marrow wot you stood on.”

They hurried up, Bill and Alice shining their torches. They came across a deep hole in the ground. With a spasm of terror, Bill shone his torch into it and saw, under a pile of earth, a woman’s foot sticking out.

He shouted to Alice to phone headquarters and get help, and then he and Simon eased themselves down into the hole and frantically began to clear the earth away from the body underneath until Agatha was revealed, her face covered in blood.

He felt her neck. “There’s a pulse,” he said. “I daren’t move her. Toni, there’s some of that silver stuff we use for shocked people in the back of my car. Get it and we’ll wrap her up until the ambulance comes.”

A voice behind him made him jump. “Is she dead?” Charles stood there, his face white in the moonlight.

“No, but she’s in a bad way,” said Bill.

“Where’s the Tweedy woman—or man, if Agatha’s got it right?”

“We haven’t had time to look. But Alice has phoned headquarters. They’ll be a nationwide search for her.”

Villagers had got wind of a fuss up at the allotments. Alice got police tape out and cordoned off the area. The marrow man was driven outside, still grumbling about his prize vegetables.

To Bill’s immeasurable relief, an air ambulance helicopter soared round overhead and landed in the field opposite. Paramedics came rushing up with a stretcher.

Unconscious, Agatha was lifted up and taken to the helicopter. Charles was allowed to go with her, but Toni and Simon were told to wait behind until their statements were taken.

*   *   *

The surgeons estimated that Agatha’s thick hair had saved her skull. When she recovered consciousness, Agatha found Bill and Inspector Wilkes beside her bed.

She gave a feeble grin. “So I’m alive?”

“We would like to take a few notes,” said Wilkes. Then, as if it were being forced out of him, he said, “That was a good piece of detective work. Tell me how you figured it out.”

In a weak voice, Agatha told him about meeting Bob Dell and how his remark about not being alone and his subsequent murder had started her to think of Mrs.—or as they now suspected—Mr. Tweedy. But soon her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

The next day, she was stronger and able to give a full account. When she had finished, Mrs. Bloxby came in, her kind face creased with worry. “I should never have told you about those allotments,” she said.

“Just as well you did,” said Agatha. “Is there a police guard on my room?”

“Of course. They haven’t caught Tweedy yet.”

“I bet they’ve been too slow to freeze the bank accounts. He could be anywhere.”

“Why did we never think Mrs. Tweedy might be a man?” asked the vicar’s wife.

Agatha sighed. “She appeared old and rude. Some old people lose sexuality or femininity, or whatever and people never really look at them properly. I wish they would catch her. And how did a woman who’d never had a job know how to bug my cottage? Oh, I suppose it was easy with all those little gadgets you can buy. Once she’d got in, all she had to do was spread them around. I keep saying ‘she.’”

Agatha looked around the room. “No flowers?”

“Hospitals don’t allow flowers these days,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “People have sent chocolates, fruit and cakes but the police took them all away for forensic examination in case they contained poison.”

“Where’s James?”

“He’s in Thailand, but he phoned to find out about you. The press have been trying to get in to see you.”

“Do you know,” said Agatha wearily, “I can’t for once face them. And look at my poor head! All done up in bandages and shaved underneath. I’ll need to wear a wig until it grows back in again.”

The door opened and Charles came in carrying a brown paper bag, which he dumped on the table in front of Agatha. “Double cheeseburger, chips and coffee,” he said.

“You’re an angel,” cried Agatha. “The hospital food is rubbish.”

“Oh, Sir Charles,” protested Mrs. Bloxby. “Couldn’t you have brought something a little healthier?”

“She thrives on junk food,” said Charles. “Look, Aggie, you’d better clear off on holiday somewhere when you get out of here.”

“Nonsense. The solving of this case will bring the agency a lot of work. Can’t wait to get back.”