Beating About the Bush

by M C Beaton

  * * *

  Few words passed between Agatha and Toni as they drove to Carsely. Turning off the A44, they cruised down into the village, which sheltered in a dip, hidden away in the Cotswold Hills. Passing the church and the line of shops and terraced stone houses in the high street, Agatha told Toni to turn into Lilac Lane and drop her right outside her garden gate at the end of the straggle of cottages. Even in the darkened lane, she was loath to be seen in her current bedraggled state—and in Carsely there was always someone watching.

  “Agatha…” said Toni as she got out of the car. “I wondered…”

  “What?” Agatha really didn’t want to hang around.

  The whole truth and nothing but the truth means no rendezvous with the young doctor tonight, thought Toni. She’ll drag me inside for a lecture that could go on for hours. Best stick to the work bit. “There was no sun,” she said. “No setting sun to shine on that leg. I think some hoaxer was holding a torch.”

  “The world is full of nutters,” said Agatha. “See you tomorrow.”

  But as she swiftly opened her front door and slipped into her cramped hallway, she thought: who would know that we would drive past on that road at that time?

  * * *

  Agatha and Toni were in the Raisin Investigations office, above an antique shop in one of the oldest lanes of central Mircester, when Toni eventually brought Agatha up to speed with her police statement. Agatha was leaning against the front of her over-large pseudo-Georgian desk while Toni hovered near the door, a sheaf of papers in her hand.

  In her statement, Toni had laid out the whole story of their afternoon at Morrison’s. They had been given lunch in the directors’ dining room. At one point, Agatha had excused herself and gone to the loo. A young man, John Sayer, head of human resources, had asked Toni if Agatha was a good boss. Toni had praised Agatha but had said she was anxious to get away on time that evening because she had a date, and Agatha sometimes drove slowly, peering at the undergrowth at the side of the road and saying “Nice place to dump a body.” And that on a couple of occasions she had been sure she had seen something and had insisted Toni leave the car and search through the trees and bushes with her.

  “You put that in your statement?” said Agatha. “You told him I said that?”

  “You say it all the time.”

  “I DO NOT say it all the time!”

  “Yes you do. It’s one of your worst habits.”

  “I DO NOT have … habits!” Agatha snarled.

  Toni put the index finger and forefinger of her right hand to her mouth, pulled them away, and exhaled through pursed lips as though blowing out smoke.

  “Smoking is not a habit,” said Agatha. “It is a therapeutic aid to rational, logical thought. Not that you could be expected to know anything about that!”

  Toni then had to endure a lecture about loyalty, dedication, duty, reliability, and how a trustworthy confidante never, ever talks about friends behind their backs.

  “Haven’t I been good to you?” demanded Agatha.

  “Spare me the guilt trip,” said Toni. “This is a good time to tell you. I want to have a personal life. I need a bit of time to myself.”

  “You’ve got it!” raged Agatha. “To think of all the times I have looked after you. Why, if it weren’t for me, you’d be—”

  “Oh, shut your stupid face!” yelled Toni. “You want my resignation?”

  “No, she doesn’t,” came a pleasant masculine voice from the top of the stairs.

  “Charles!” cried Agatha, recognising the voice of Sir Charles Fraith. “Where have you been?”

  “I thought you might need some comfort after I read the Mircester Mail this morning.”

  Charles sauntered past Toni into the office. “Get me a coffee, Toni,” said Agatha, dismissing the younger woman with a wave of her hand.

  “Get it yourself,” snapped Toni.

  “I will speak to you later,” said Agatha. “Let’s go to the pub, Charles. I am weary and don’t feel like coping with Toni’s tantrums.”

  * * *

  They crossed the lane and settled into two armchairs at a table inside the latticed window of the King Charles.

  “What on earth came over Toni?” said Agatha. “I only gave her a mild ticking-off.”

  “You never give anyone a mild ticking-off. You are a fault-finder supreme. Out with it.”

  Agatha described how Toni had gossiped about Agatha’s propensity to remark “Nice place to dump a body” almost every time they were on the road. Clearly some prankster had put the leg there in the hope that she would spot it and be made to look like a complete fool.

  “You do, as a matter of fact,” said Charles. “Not look like a complete fool. I mean, you do say that thing about a nice place to dump a body. But I’m sure you reminded Toni of all she owed you, and no one likes emotional blackmail, so she became furious as well. I sometimes think you don’t value people enough. You often bark commands at me as if I’m one of your detectives. And what did your Heathrow Romeo think when you dumped him after a week?”

  “I neither know nor care,” said Agatha. “The man was intolerable. He wanted me to travel the world with him like we were on one long, endless holiday. What sort of madness is that? He may have decided to retire and travel, but I have far more life left in me than that. I have a business to run, employees, responsibilities.”

  “Really,” said Charles, nodding. Agatha could tell by that flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth that he knew she wasn’t actually telling him the truth. He would wait, and they both knew that she would tell him eventually. Right now, she wasn’t prepared to admit that she had plunged herself into an engagement with a man whom she very quickly discovered had a string of other fiancées around the world—Stella in New York, Carrie in Cape Town, Barbara in Brisbane. And those were only the three she had found out about. There were bound to be more. He must have been buying diamond engagement rings in bulk. Well, he could keep hers. She’d shoved it in his ear while he was recovering from a ferocious slap in the face, before she kicked him out the front door.

  “Yes, really,” she said. “And oh, look! The ice is melting in my gin. I’m talking too much. Let me take a couple of sips.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Silence. Then a sniffle.

  “Are you crying?” asked Charles. “This will never do, Aggie. Here, take this.” He reached inside his jacket and produced a perfectly folded pristine white handkerchief. A linen handkerchief. Who the hell carried linen handkerchiefs nowadays? Most men would struggle to find a crumpled used paper tissue in the bottom of some disgusting trouser pocket, thought Agatha, dabbing her tears. But Sir Charles Fraith was not most men.

  From behind the crisp linen, her bear-like brown eyes studied his movements, not for the first time, as he rose to his feet. He moved with an effortless grace. His sports jacket hung faithfully from his shoulders, as though it would fit no other, which, of course, it wouldn’t. It had been hand-tailored for him. His cavalry twill trousers were casual but untroubled by any sign of crumpling. Charles was a crease-free zone. The bottom of his trouser legs sat lazily on the lacing of his brown Oxford shoes. They were polished but not too shiny. Ideal for country wear. No gentleman would wear brown shoes in town. Town, of course, meant his London club, not a back-street pub in Mircester.

  Charles would have emerged from that leg-incident bramble thicket looking like he had just stepped out of his Savile Row tailor’s, unlike Agatha, who had looked like she’d been spat out by a combine harvester. Even when they had clambered over walls together to break into a monastery in the Pyrenees in search of her ex-husband, he never had a thread out of place. If he were ever—perish the thought—to grow wrinkly with age, Gustav, his loyal retainer, would find a way to iron him.

  “Got to pee,” he said. “Back in a minute.”

  He seemed to be gone a long time. Agatha reached for her handbag to find her cigarettes, then remembered that smoking had been banned in
English pubs for more than a decade. She fidgeted with the clasp on the bag, swirled the last of the ice in her glass and looked up to see Charles walking back into the bar. He was not alone. Toni was at his shoulder.

  “What’s she doing here?” demanded Agatha.

  “Toni is here,” explained Charles calmly, “because, odd as it may seem, ladies, I am becoming interested in this case. I’d like to know what’s going on, and for that, I need both of you. So begin at the beginning and go on to the end.”

  It was Toni who began summing up. She explained that they rarely came across cases of industrial espionage, and this one appeared to be something they could really get their teeth into. Like a dry, dull, and boring church fête sponge cake, thought Agatha, but she said nothing, letting Toni continue. Someone, it would appear, rated their abilities highly enough to plant that dummy sawn-off leg in the undergrowth for them to find. “So,” said Toni, “maybe someone wants us to look like fools and discredit us. Maybe whoever it was will try to trip us up again, forcing Morrison’s to terminate our contract and hire someone else.”

  “That,” said Agatha, nodding in agreement, “might buy them some time to finish whatever moves they are making against Morrison’s. But going so far as to make it look like the secretary’s leg is bizarre. I think that’s someone not only clever but quite mad.”

  “It need not have been someone in Morrison’s office who heard me talking to John Sayer,” pondered Toni. “Just someone who bugged the place.”

  “It’s all to do with an electric car battery pack this firm has invented,” said Agatha. “They say it can give a car more miles than any others on the market, and that will be worth a fortune. Burning down the research and development department must have set the project back months.”

  “There were seven people in the room when I made that remark about Agatha,” said Toni. “I will look into their histories tomorrow.”

  “We’ll both do that,” said Agatha, and then suddenly smiled at her assistant. “Truce?”

  “Truce,” said Toni.

  How to describe that smile of Agatha’s without falling into cliché? wondered Charles. It lights up the room? It lights up your life? It melts your heart? He gave a mental shrug. Just be grateful the storm has passed.

  “Must rush,” said Toni. “Pick you up at eight thirty tomorrow morning.”

  * * *

  Toni was silent as she drove Agatha to the factory in the morning. The previous evening her young doctor had seemed, for the first time, rather dull. She had felt pretty flat throughout the entire time they had spent together at his place. He had cooked a dreadfully bland risotto. She had gone home early, weary and listless. Was it him? Was it her? Or was it just the risotto?

  Agatha broke the silence as Toni pulled into the car park by saying, “I wonder what’s next?”

  “Maybe another body part,” said Toni. “I think he’s mocking us.”

  “Could be a woman,” said Agatha. “Come on, Toni, I need you to be thinking straight.” Then she paused. “I am really quite concerned about you.”

  Toni stiffened. “If you are going to poke into my private life, Agatha, forget it.”

  “I didn’t know there was anything to poke into,” said Agatha, then swiftly changed tack back to the case. “If this character is as mad as I think he is, he’ll play little tricks for a while, but then cruelty will take over his twisted brain and you might be the target.”

  “Or you.”

  Agatha gave a little shiver. “Whichever one of us he thinks is the most vulnerable.”

  “I brought the bug-sweeping kit,” said Toni. “I suggest I do the conference room first.”

  Agatha climbed slowly out of the car and scowled. This new stiffness in her joints couldn’t be age. Maybe it was that damned car seat. Yes, that must be it. She never felt stiff and old when she got out of Charles’s BMW.

  At the reception desk, Mrs. Dinwiddy was there to greet them—tweed suit, pearls, wool stockings, and brogues. In her left hand she held a small dictation recorder, its strap looped around her wrist. She seemed anxious to get back to her work as she briskly escorted them to the conference room, which had been set aside for their use. Agatha stood in silence, staring out of the window, while Toni worked her way methodically around the room holding something that looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio. The gadget could detect any kind of recording equipment, transmitter or hidden camera. She moved it this way and that, sweeping it over the walls, skirting boards, furniture, and light fittings. She finished with the dark oak conference table and its centrepiece decoration of two odd-looking ornamental antique ashtrays.

  Agatha scrutinised the factory buildings. It was a surprisingly small complex that must originally have been farm steadings. They had been converted and extended many years before, probably around the 1950s, in Agatha’s estimation. Paint was peeling from window frames and guttering hung loose here and there. On the other side of a courtyard stood what must have been the research and development department, now little more than a shell. The autumn wind soughed and moaned round the stone buildings. At some point, someone had attempted to grow flowers and bushes, but over the years the planting had degenerated into a tangle of trees and undergrowth. Over the bending trees, curtsying in the wind, ragged clouds chased across a pale grey sky.

  “We’re clear,” said Toni, slotting the scanner back into its black plastic case.

  “Then let’s get to work,” said Agatha.

  On the table in front of them were piles of manila folders stuffed with documents. The first pile was the smallest—the six people who might have overheard Toni talking to John Sayer. Sayer’s file was on top.

  After they had been sifting through the files for what seemed like hours, Mrs. Dinwiddy arrived with coffee. She placed it on the table in front of them with barely a word and swiftly made her exit. Agatha was raising a cup to her lips when Toni suddenly shouted, “Don’t drink it!”

  Agatha lowered the cup. “Why?”

  “A hunch. Not poison. Some sort of laxative.”

  “A lax—” Agatha squirmed in her seat. “We need a guinea pig.” The door opened and Mrs Dinwiddy returned.

  “I have been told to ask if you ladies need anything further.”

  “Try this coffee,” said Agatha.

  “I never drink coffee, Mrs. Raisin. But if you think it is substandard in any way, I will bring you a fresh pot. I also have two lunch tickets for you for the executive dining room, on this floor at the end of the corridor and turn left. Today is toad in the hole. That is a particular favourite of our chairman, Mr. Albert.”

  “Yuck,” said Agatha after the secretary had left.

  “I like sausages,” said Toni, “so it’s okay with me.”

  “Why do you think the coffee might be spiked with a laxative?”

  “Because I keep thinking of a childish, twisted sort of brain. A laxative could leave us both … well … indisposed in a most undignified way. Once again, we could be made a laughing stock.”

  * * *

  At lunch, Toni pronounced the toad in the hole to be excellent, and Agatha had to agree that the sausages in golden batter were delicious. This was followed by Icky Sticky pudding, as heavy as it sounded, and both felt sleepy afterwards, wishing that they hadn’t eaten so much. Agatha was in no doubt that she was wishing harder than Toni, mainly because the tightness of the waistband of her skirt was depressing her.

  The police seemed to have dismissed the whole dummy leg affair as a practical joke. Not one policeman had turned up at the factory to follow up on it, or so Mrs. Dinwiddy had assured them.

  Agatha tried to concentrate on the personnel files in front of her, but her mind kept wandering. The tyranny of words. One didn’t say “personnel” any more. One said “human resources.” Honestly! In the future, children would be yelling “Personnel!” in the playground and being smacked for using a dirty word. Only smacking had also been banned, hadn’t it? Probably a good thing, although she c
ould think of a few people who could do with a slap. In fact, the more she thought about it, the longer the list became. Her lying swine of an ex-fiancé was still sitting right at the top. The image of Charles’s hurt face, lit by the glare of a street light as he stood on the pavement peering in at her engagement party to which he had not been invited, filled her mind. Snakes and bastards! Concentrate!

  What was this? Her eyes suddenly focused on the file in front of her. Jennifer Williams, aged twenty-eight; previous occupation, trapeze artist. That was odd. Circus people hardly ever did anything else but work for the circus. Agatha phoned Mrs. Dinwiddy and asked if it would be possible to interview Jennifer Williams.

  “She works in the packing department,” said Mrs. Dinwiddy. “If she is in the building, I will send her to you.”

  Agatha told Toni why she had summoned the girl, and when the door opened and a young woman was ushered in, they both looked at her curiously. “Miss Williams,” announced Mrs Dinwiddy, giving her a little push into the room.

  One reason Jennifer Williams might no longer be a trapeze artist was immediately apparent. She had a large, round face and several chins. Her bosoms were like pillows and her hips were so large they formed cliffs on either side of her body, from which her enormous black skirt hung. She had tight black curly hair. Round the back it looked as if a family of circus dwarves might have set up camp in the garment, Agatha thought.

  “We were searching through the staff files for anomalies,” began Agatha.

  “I’m British, me. No anomi-whatsits in our family.”

  “I mean, you worked in a circus. Why did you leave?”

  “He dropped me, see. Near broke my neck.”

  “Who did?”

  “Cousin Alfie. Said I’d got too heavy. Said one o’ me sequins had popped off and near blinded him. Me dad works with the horses. Did he take my part? Naw! Said I had to start losing weight. Always fancied a job here. Canteen’s the best for miles around.”