by M C Beaton
“La dame … Yes,” Agatha admitted, taking a gulp of sherry. “That’s me. I didn’t realise I was famous in France.”
The Colonel gave a Gallic shrug and returned to the conversation. “Yes, that’s her.” There was a pause. “If that’s what you want, my dear. I’ll check.” He covered the phone again and addressed Agatha. “Are you free to go on a little trip on Friday and Saturday? Claudette would love to meet you. I’d say yes if I were you.”
“Then yes,” said Agatha.
“She can.” The Colonel resumed his phone conversation. “Very well. Friday morning. ETA with you at the mill at ten hundred hours. Bella? Yes, I can bring Bella if your chap can look after her at the airport. That’s a splendid idea. Perfect weather for her. Au revoir, my dear.”
He put down his phone and beamed at Agatha.
“We’re going on a trip?” Agatha asked. “Where are we going?”
“To meet Claudette,” he said.
“I know you like springing little surprises,” said Agatha, gesturing towards the laptop and the drinks cabinet, “but if this is on a need-to-know basis, then I am surely one of the ones who need to know.”
“You’ll need your passport and a couple of posh frocks for dinner,” he advised. “You’re coming with us to Bordeaux.”
Chapter Six
“Surprises are all very well, guys,” Agatha said, holding a black sequinned evening gown against herself while standing in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, “but a surprise trip at short notice gives a girl no chance to decide what to pack, does it?”
She turned to face them and Boswell and Hodge stared at her from the bed, their eyes wide, tails flicking. “You don’t care, do you? You just want to be fed.” Agatha draped the dress over the stool by her dressing table and made her way downstairs to the kitchen, the cats trotting at her heels. She fed her feline companions before turning her attention to her own evening meal, pouring herself a glass of red to help her consider the options. She had an individual steak-and-kidney pie in the fridge and, somewhere in the freezer, a box of microwaveable oven chips. She’d nuke the pie as well. The pastry would go floppy, but she didn’t care. There was more to think about than dainty cooking.
Sitting at the kitchen table, she sipped wine and opened the pad normally used to make shopping lists. Who would want Mary dead? Keep an open mind, she told herself. Don’t rule anything out. Let’s start with those closest to home.
Darell and Linda. Perhaps the most unlikely suspects. They really have nothing to gain from Mary’s death. Maybe a business associate might have an axe to grind or profit to make with Mary out of the way? Patrick might have come up with something on that front.
Charles. Probably still the main focus of the police investigation, but certainly not guilty of murdering Mary. Chief Inspector Wilkes, however, might be working on the assumption that Charles paid someone to do the deed—a professional hit man. Can you still say “hit man” nowadays, or is that too gender-specific? Should it be “hit person?” Ridiculous. In any case, a pro would surely have kept it clean and would never have risked being discovered setting up the bizarre suicide-in-riding-gear scenario. Nevertheless, Charles is still a police suspect.
Gustav. He would do anything for Charles. Yet Charles would never sanction Mary’s murder. He would always have wanted to find another way to deal with the Brown-Field problem. Gustav would know that. Despite the fact that the Brown-Fields might force him out of Barfield House, Gustav wouldn’t risk doing something as awful as committing murder if he thought it would turn Charles against him. It would be interesting, however, to find out a bit more about his mysterious background. He’s still a police suspect at the very least. We need to check if he has an alibi.
Mrs. Tassy. There’s no way she had anything to do with Mary’s murder, however much she loathed the Brown-Fields. The whole idea is simply beneath her dignity, and she’s not strong enough to have done it anyway. Impossible. Only Wilkes would ever be stupid enough to consider her as a suspect or that she might be acting in league with Gustav.
Me. Well, I know I didn’t do it. Wilkes might think differently, but I don’t need to waste any time investigating myself.
The microwave pinged. She took the chips out and put the pie in. She shook the chips out of their box onto a plate and tried one. Too hot. She sucked in some air to cool her mouth and took a sip of wine, returning to her list. What about the horse-riding lot? she asked herself. Toni, Patrick or Simon may have been able to come up with someone from the party list, but in the meantime, we have:
Tamara Montgomery. She was blackmailed by Mary and had her business trashed by Mary and her father. Plenty of motive. She didn’t seem like a murderer, but that means nothing. Her alibi has to be verified. “Things,” Agatha said out loud, mimicking John Cornish’s accent, “ain’t always what they seem.” The Colonel’s computer masquerading as a ledger certainly wasn’t, which brings me on to …
Claudette Duvivier. We know nothing about her. That’s something I need to sort out before I meet her on Friday. She knows who I am. I need to know all I can about her, too.
Deborah Lexington. Again, I know nothing about her, but we should know more by tomorrow. I will have to pay her a visit.
Mrs. Chadwick. Might she have been involved? She is linked to Mary through Darell and the horse brooch, but does she have a motive for murder? Could Mary have been blackmailing her too?
The truth is, Agatha decided, everywhere we turn, another suspect crops up.
The microwave pinged again and she scooped the collapsed pie onto the plate with her chips. It was not an appetising sight, but she was too hungry to care. She reached into a cupboard for some ketchup to brighten up the meal, then heard the front door opening.
“Coo-ee!” came the voice of Roy Silver. He struggled up the hall and stood in the kitchen doorway laden with carrier bags. “Can we pop down to the Red Lion, darling? My treat. I’m famished and I couldn’t possibly even consider showing you all these fabulous things without something to eat and a decent drink.”
“I’ll get my coat,” said Agatha, scraping the pie and chips into the bin.
* * *
The Raisin Investigations staff were in the office the following morning bright and early. They all assembled round Agatha’s desk and she explained that Roy would not be joining them as he was on special assignment at the stables. She then handed Toni the page from her notebook.
“The list of suspects is growing,” she informed everyone. “Read this out, please, Toni, so we can recap.”
“Eggs, tissues, milk, cat food…”
“The bottom bit!” groaned Agatha, rolling her eyes.
Toni giggled and went through the list of names. Patrick Mulligan chipped in.
“I’ve got quite a lot of background on Mary from various police contacts,” he said. “She has been cautioned a couple of times following disturbances at show-jumping events. A retired mate of mine has been working in security at some of the events and he says she has a bad reputation for getting into fights with other competitors, but charges have always been dropped.
“One of those fights was with Deborah Lexington. She lives with her brother in a house near a village called Duns Tew. Their parents died in a hotel fire in Turkey several years ago.
“Deborah says she caught Mary trying to feed something to her horse. At these events, you don’t go anywhere near anyone else’s horses without express permission or in the company of the owner. Deborah claimed that Mary was trying to nobble her horse—to drug or poison it. She grabbed hold of her and dragged her away. There was a lot of screaming and shouting and a bit of a cat fight before Mary shoved Deborah.”
“I’ve been on the receiving end of one of those shoves,” said Agatha. “She packed a lot of power into them.”
“Deborah staggered back, tripped and hit her head on a Land Rover tow bar. She was badly hurt—ended up in a coma. When she finally woke, she was partly paralysed. At one point, docto
rs expected that she would recover fully, but she never has.”
“Why didn’t Mary go to jail for that?” asked Simon.
“There were no actual witnesses,” Patrick explained. “Some people heard a commotion, but it was all over very quickly. Deborah’s brother was the one who found her. When she came round, it was Deborah’s word against Mary’s. Mary said Deborah must have fallen and that she was fine when she left her. No trace of any poison or drugs was ever found in the horse.”
“Wow,” gasped Toni. “If anybody had a motive to murder Mary, it was Deborah Lexington.”
“But she’s not physically capable of doing it,” said Agatha. “Still, we should pay her a visit. Have you been keeping an eye on Mrs. Chadwick, Simon, and did you find out any more about the horse brooch?”
“The house that Mrs. Chadwick and Darell use in Oxford has been empty all week,” said Simon. “Neither of them has been near the place. According to Mr. Chadwick, his wife has gone abroad and isn’t expected back until the beginning of next week.
“As far as the brooch is concerned, I spoke to a jewellery designer here in Mircester. He put me on to a London jeweller, who identified the brooch as one of her creations. She said that she made one for a particular client—wouldn’t say who—as a special birthday present for her daughter. A few weeks later the girl’s father commissioned an exact copy. Said his wife liked his daughter’s brooch so much that she wanted one as well. Those are the only two in existence.”
“I’m betting Mrs. Chadwick spotted Mary’s brooch,” said Agatha, “and demanded that Darell get her one as well.”
“She must mean a lot to him,” said Simon. “Best estimate I could get for the cost of the brooch is five to ten thousand pounds.”
“That’s peanuts to Darell,” said Patrick. “The Brown-Field business empire is worth countless millions. They started out manufacturing ladies” … um … sanitary products, but they have diversified with all sorts of investments in property and the leisure industry.
“Darell is a keen golfer. He plays in Spain and is a member of at least two golf clubs in the UK. Just like his daughter, he likes to win and doesn’t always play fair. He was kicked out of one club for cheating but was back again a couple of weeks later. When they told him he wasn’t welcome, he simply said, ‘I think you’ll find I am.’ One of his companies had bought the club. Basically, he owned the place.
“Rumour has it that his golfing cronies include some senior police officers. That may be part of the reason why no charges against Mary ever stuck. He is also known for having ways of getting to people, either through straightforward bribes or by using strong-arm tactics—scaring people off with hired help.”
“Good work, guys,” said Agatha. She knew she could be a difficult boss, but she also believed in giving credit where it was due. “I need you two to stay on top of our other cases, but try to track down some of those riders who were on the receiving end of Mary’s foul temper at competitions. They may not have pressed charges, but we need to know who they were and whether they could have been involved in her murder.”
“I think the police are already doing that,” said Patrick.
“I suppose they had to be one step ahead of us somewhere,” said Agatha. “Follow up nonetheless. We don’t want to miss anything. As a priority, I need some background on a Frenchwoman named Claudette Duvivier. She appears to be a regular on the show-jumping circuit. I’m meeting her tomorrow and want to know a bit about her. Toni, you and I will pay a visit to Deborah Lexington today. All right, let’s get to it.”
* * *
Later that morning, Agatha and Toni set off for Duns Tew, with Toni driving. They headed for Chipping Norton, then took the road towards Banbury before turning right onto a series of minor roads that grew ever narrower the farther they ventured. The low hedgerows and regular copses of trees marked the boundaries of fields that spread as far as the eye could see. Scatterings of sheep, dazzling white in the sunshine, were the only signs of life save for the sparse clusters of farm buildings. The old mellow stone buildings stood quietly, in perfect harmony with the scenery, but on crossing a bridge over a stream, Toni spotted two low, angular, overgrown concrete structures, one either side of the road.
“Those are funny little sheds,” she said.
“Not sheds,” said Agatha. “Charles has a few of those on his estate. They’re pillboxes—gun emplacements left over from the Second World War. You know what a history buff he is. He says there were almost thirty thousand of them all over the country to help fight the Nazis had they invaded. Most of them have been bulldozed by now, but he won’t let anyone touch his.”
“I think we must be nearly there,” said Toni, and the road swept into a hamlet that Agatha deemed a pleasant mix of old and more modern stone houses. They passed the White Horse Inn before finding a side road that led them to what was clearly a fairly new, late-twentieth-century house with a large front garden. The five-bar wooden gates in front of the driveway stood closed, with a red Ford hatchback parked on the drive. They left their car by the narrow pavement and walked through a smaller garden gate set in the white picket fence. By the time they reached the front door, a young man was standing waiting for them.
“Can I help you?” he asked, with a welcoming smile.
“We’re looking for Deborah Lexington,” Agatha explained. “We’d like to talk to her.”
“I’m not sure you can right now,” he said. “Come in and I’ll see if she’s up to having visitors.”
He waved them into the hall. Agatha judged him to be in his late twenties, and by the way his white T-shirt clung to his frame, he was in very good shape. Tall, lean and well muscled. She spotted Toni checking him out as well.
“I’m Jacob,” he said, giving each of them a firm handshake. “Jake—Debbie’s brother. Let me check if she’s awake.”
He disappeared into a room on the left, closing the door behind him. Agatha looked around. The decor was painfully bland and modern. The walls and ceiling were painted white and the floor was covered with a beige carpet. A white wooden staircase wound its way from the far end of the hall to the upper floor. Toni quickly walked forward and squinted up the stairs, then through to the rooms at the rear of the house. She ran a hand across some mail sitting on a wooden table by the foot of the stairs. Opposite the room into which Jake had gone was what would have been a family lounge, but through the open door Agatha could see that it was laid out with gym equipment, weights and a couple of large computer screens. Window blinds reduced the late-morning sunshine to bars of light on the floor.
“My den.” Jake had returned. “I’m a website designer and I like to work out. Makes sense to have it all in the same room. Debbie is ready for you now.”
Agatha and Toni were shown into a room that would once have been a dining room but was now more of a hospital suite. A large steel bed dominated the white room, and a pale, thin woman lay between crisp white sheets, propped up with pillows. On her left, two monitors blinked discreetly, the wires that snaked from them towards the bed no doubt attached to the patient somewhere beneath her pink silk pyjama top. To her right, a vase of fresh flowers stood on a side table, along with a TV remote control, a paperback novel, a glass of water and a bottle of perfume.
“Help me up a little more, Jake,” she said, and the young man stepped forward. She draped her left arm around his shoulders, and he eased her forward, pressing a button at the side of the bed to raise it behind her back.
“I’m Deborah Lexington.” She held out her left hand to Agatha. “The other one’s not much use any more.”
Agatha shook her hand. The skin felt warm and she noticed small beads of sweat on Deborah’s brow.
“I’m Agatha Raisin, and this—”
“Yes, I know who you both are,” said Deborah, “and I’ve heard what you’re up to. I may be stuck in this bed but my friends keep me up to date with what’s going on in the real world.”
“Then you know why we want to talk
to you,” said Agatha. Jacob offered her and Toni two seats by the bed. Toni produced a notepad and pen.
“You want to talk about darling Mary Darlinda,” Deborah sneered. “The most hateful human being ever to walk the face of the earth—may she rot in hell.”
Toni looked up from her pad.
“Do I shock you?” Deborah asked, tilting her head meekly in mock innocence.
“Not at all,” said Agatha. “I think I understand why—”
“Understand?” roared Deborah. “How can you possibly understand? How can you even begin to understand what it’s like to wake up one morning and find that you’ve lost the use of your legs and your right arm? You can’t possibly understand how it feels to be trapped in this bloody bed with only that,” she pointed to the television screen hanging on the wall opposite, “and a crummy phone to keep you in touch with life outside—with what all your friends are getting up to!”
She fanned herself with her left hand and waved Jacob towards the perfume bottle.
“I’m sorry,” said Agatha. “You’re right. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through.”
“Calms me down,” said Deborah, squirting perfume into the air around her. “Used to stop me smelling of horses; now it stops me smelling of me. And you’re wrong.”
“I’m wrong? How?”
“You CAN begin to imagine. At least you can imagine how it began.” Deborah laughed. “I heard she sent you flying just like she did me. Gave you a bit of a champagne shower.”
“You are very well informed.”
“Hell, no—everybody’s been talking about that night. Friends of mine came to see me before the infamous masked ball. One of them showed me her invitation. Said she wouldn’t go, of course, after what Mary did to me … but she went anyway. She saw the whole thing between you and Mary. The Battle of Barfield House, they’re calling it.”