by M C Beaton
A car going the other way, towards the village, stopped. A door opened and closed. Then a dark figure loomed up on Agatha's side of the car. She opened the window. 'Are you all right, Mrs Raisin?' came James Lacey's voice.
Before the vet, before the fiasco of the Bahamas, Agatha had often fantasized about James Lacey rescuing her from some accident. But all she could think about now was that precious date.
'I think nothing's broken,' said Agatha and then struck the wheel in frustration. 'Bloody, bloody snow. I say, can you run me into Evesham?'
'You must be joking. It's to get worse, or so the weather forecast said. Fish Hill will be closed.'
'Oh, no' wailed Agatha. 'Maybe we could go another way. Maybe through Chipping Campden.'
'Don't be silly. Does your engine still work?'
Agatha switched it on and it sprang into life.
'What about the lights?'
Agatha switched them on, glaring out at a snow- covered wilderness.
James Lacey inspected the damage to the front of the car. 'The glass in your headlamps is all shattered and you'll need a new bumper, radiator, and number-plate. You'd best back out and follow me down to the village. If you won't run me, then I'll get a cab'
'You can try' He walked off to his own car and Agatha heard him starting up. She reversed and followed him. He parked outside his own house, waved to her, and strode indoors.
Agatha leaped out of her own car, forgetting she was in her stockinged feet, and ran into the house. She seized the phone and, looking at a list of taxi-cab companies pinned to the wall, she began to phone them one after the other, but no taxi driver was prepared to go to Evesham or anywhere else on such a night
Dammit, thought Agatha furiously, my car still works. I'm going.
She pulled on a pair of boots over her wet feet and went out again. But she was half-way up the hill again when both her headlamps blew, leaving her crawling along in snowy darkness.
Wearily, she turned the car and headed back^ down to the village again. Back indoors, she phoned the Chinese restaurant. No, came a voice at the other end, Mr Bladen had not turned up. Yes, he had booked a table. No, he had definitely not arrived.
Feeling very flat, Agatha phoned Directory Enquiries and got a Mircester number for the vet. A woman answered the phone. 'I am afraid Mr Bladen is busy at the moment' The voice was cool and amused.
"This is Agatha Raisin' snapped Agatha. "He was to meet me in a restaurant in Evesham tonight'
'You could hardly have expected him to drive in such weather'
'Who is speaking, please?' demanded Agatha.
'This is his wife'
'Oh!' Agatha dropped the receiver like a hot coal.
So he was still married after all! What was it all about? But if he were married, then he should not have asked her out. Agatha had very firm views about dating married men.
She felt somehow as if he had set out to deliberately make a fool of her. Men! And James Lacey! He had simply gone indoors without calling to see if she were indeed unharmed after her accident.
Agatha felt silly and now she had only a ruined car to show for her dreams of a date with a handsome man. She passed the rest of the evening filling in an accident claim form, the purring Hodge on her lap.
The next day dawned foggy as well as snowy. Once more Agatha felt that old trapped feeling. She waited and waited for the phone to ring, sure that Paul Bladen would call her to say something. But it sat there, squat in its silence.
At last she decided to pay a visit to her neighbour, James Lacey, if only to explain to him, subtly, that she had not been pursuing him. But although a thin column of smoke rose from his chimney, although his snow-covered car was parked outside, he did not answer the door.
Agatha felt well and truly snubbed. She was sure he was in there.
Hodge, in the selfish way of cats, played happily in the snow in the garden, stalking imaginary prey.
In the afternoon, the doorbell went. Agatha peered at herself in the hall mirror, grabbed a lipstick she always kept ready on the hall table and painted her mouth. Then, smoothing down her dress, she opened the door.
'Oh, it's you' she said, looking down into the round oriental features of Detective Sergeant Bill Wong.
'That's not much of a greeting,' he said. 'Any chance of a cup of coffee?'
'Come in,' said Agatha, leaning over his shoulder and peering hopefully up and down the lane.
'Who were you expecting?' he asked, when they were seated in the kitchen.
'I was expecting an apology. Our new vet, Paul Bladen, invited me out for dinner in Evesham last night, but I had a skid at the top of the road and couldn't make it. But as it turned out, he didn't even get to the restaurant. I phoned his home and a woman answered it. She said she was his wife'
'Couldn't be' said Bill. 'He was separated from his wife for about five years and the divorce came through last year'
'What's he playing at?' cried Agatha, exasperated.
'You mean, who's he playing with. Snowy night, no way of getting to Evesham, had a bit of fun at home instead.'
'Well, he should have phoned anyway' said Agatha.
'Talking about your love life, how did you get on in the Bahamas?'
'Nice' said Agatha. 'Got some sun'
'See anything of Mr Lacey?'
'Didn't expect to. He'd gone to Cairo'
'And you knew that before you left?'
'What is this?' exclaimed Agatha. 'A police interrogation?'
'Just friendly questions. Glad to see Hodge is happy. Looking very fit'
'Oh, Hodge is in the best of health'
The almond-shaped eyes studying her so intently glittered slightly in the white light from the snow coming in the kitchen window.
"Then why did poor Hodge have to go to this vet?'
'Have you been spying on me?'
'No, I just happened to be passing yesterday and I saw you carrying Hodge in a basket to the surgery. You should wear more sensible footwear in this weather'
'I just wanted to check the cat had all his shots' said Agatha, 'and what I choose to wear on my feet is my business'
He raised his hands and let them fall. "Sorry. Funny thing about Bladen, though'
'What?'
'He went into partnership with Peter Rice, the vet in Mircester, some time ago. What a queue of women there were during the first weeks! Right out in the street. But then they stopped coming. Seems Bladen is no good with pets. He's a whiz with farm animals and horses, but he loathes cats and small dogs'
'I don't want to talk about the man' said Agatha hotly. 'Haven't you got anything else to talk about?'
So Bill told her all about the trouble with the increase in car theft in the area and how a lot of the crime was being increasingly committed by juveniles, while Agatha listened with half an ear and hoped the phone would ring to salve her pride. But by the time Bill left, the wretched machine was still silent.
She phoned the local garage and told them to come and tow her broken car away and give her an estimate, and then, after she had seen her vehicle carried off down the street on the back of a truck, she decided to go down to the Red Lion. There was no reason to dress up any more. For months now she had worn only her best and smartest clothes when passing James Lacey's door. She put on a thick sweater, a tweed skirt and boots. But just as she was shrugging herself into a sheepskin coat, the telephone suddenly shrilled, making her jump.
She picked it up, sure it would be Paul Bladen at last, but a voice she did not recognize said tentatively, 'Agatha?'
'Yes, who is it?' said Agatha, made cross by disappointment.
'It's Jack Pomfret. Remember me?'
Agatha brightened. Jack Pomfret had run a rival public relations company to her own, but they had always been on amicable terms.
'Of course. How's things?'
'I sold out about the same time as you' he said. 'Decided to take a leaf out of your book, have early retirement, have a bit of fun. But it get's
boring, know what I mean?'
'Oh, yes' said Agatha with feeling.
'I'm thinking of starting up again and wondered if you would like to be my partner'
'Bad time' said Agatha cautiously. 'Middle of a recession'
'Big companies need PR and I've got two lined up, Jobson's Electronics and Whiter Washing Powder.'
Agatha was impressed. 'Are you anywhere near here?' she asked. 'We need to sit down together and discuss this properly.'
'What I thought' he said eagerly, 'was if you could take a trip up to London, we could get down to business'
The thought of fleeing the village, of getting away from lost romantic hopes, made Agatha say, Til do that. I'll book a place in town. What's your number? I'll call you back'
She wrote down his phone number and then, about to phone her favourite hotel, paused. Damn Hodge. She couldn't really dump that poor animal back in the cattery. Then she remembered a block of expensive service flats into which she had once booked visiting foreign clients and phoned them and managed to get a flat for two weeks. She was sure they did not allow pets but she wasn't even going to ask them. Hodge could survive indoors for two weeks. The weather was lousy anyway.
Chapter Two
Agatha could not immediately plunge into business affairs, for Hodge, who had kept all his destruction to the outdoors in Carsely, had started to scratch the furniture in the service flat in Kensington, and so Agatha had to buy a scratching post and spend some time crouched on the floor in front of it, raking it with her fingernails, to show the cat what to do.
Having seen her pet settled at last, she phoned Jack Pomfret, who said he would meet her at the Savoy Grill for lunch.
Carsely was whirling away to a small speck in Agatha's mind. She was back in London, part of it again, not visiting, back in business.
Jack Pomfret, a slim Oxbridge type, fighting the age battle in denim and hair-weave, enthused over Agatha's appearance. Agatha curiously asked him why he had really decided to sell up.
'Just like you' he said with a boyish grin. 'Thought retirement would suit me. Actually we, that's my wife, Marcia, and I, moved to Spain for a bit, but the climate didn't suit us. Down in the south. Too hot. But tell me all about yourself and what you've been doing'
Agatha settled back and bragged about her part in a murder investigation, highly embroidered.
"But village life must be absolutely stultifying for you, darling' he said, smiling into her eyes in a way that reminded Agatha of the vet. 'All those dead brains and clodhoppers.'
'I must admit I get bored' said Agatha, and then felt a pang of guilt as the faces of the village women rose before her eyes. 'Actually, everyone's very nice, very kind. It's not them. It's me. I'm just not used to country life.'
They talked on until the coffee arrived and then got down to business. Jack said that there was an office up at Marble Arch they could rent. All they really needed to kick off were three rooms. Agatha studied the figures. He seemed to have gone into everything very carefully.
"This rent is very high,' said Agatha. "We would be better to get the end of a lease somewhere. Then, before we even start thinking about it, we should be sure we had enough clients'
'Would those two biggies I mentioned to you, Jobson's Electronics and Whiter Washing Powder, convince you?'
'Of course'
"The managing directors of both companies happen to be in London for a business conference. Tell you what. Lay on some drinks and fiddly bits and I'll bring them round to your flat. I'll phone you later today and give you a time'
1 must say, if you have contacts like this, we'll shoot to the top of the league in a few weeks' said Agatha.
He did phone later, the managing directors came round to Agatha's the following day and it was a jolly meeting, particularly for Agatha, as both men flirted with her.
As Jack got up to leave, having stayed on for an extra drink after the businessmen had left, he kissed Agatha on the cheek and said, I'll give you a round figure for your share of the concern, you give me a cheque and leave all the nitty-gritty business side to me. You're the whiz with the clients, Agatha. Always were. Look at the way you had those two eating out of your hand!'
'How much?' demanded Agatha.
He named a figure which made her blink. He sat down again and took out sheaves of facts and figures. Agatha thought hard. The sum he had named would take away all her savings. She still had the cottage in Carsely, but she wouldn't need that any more now she was back in business.
'Let me sleep on it,' she said. 'Leave the papers with me'
After he had gone, she wished she had not drunk so much. She stared down at the figures. They needed all the basic things like computers and fax machines, desks and chairs. Party to launch it. Paper and paper-clips. 'I'm not sure' she said slowly. 'What do you think, Hodge? Hodge?'
But there was no sign of the cat. She searched the small flat, under the bed, in the cupboards and closets, but no Hodge.
The cat must have slipped out when her guests were leaving.
She threw on her coat and went down by the stairs, not the lift, calling 'Hodge! Hodge!' A woman opened a door and said in glacial tones, 'Do you mind keeping that noise down?'
'Get stuffed' snarled Agatha, sick with worry. If this were Carsely, said a voice in her head, the whole village would turn out to help you. She opened the street door. Outside lay anonymous, uncaring London. She trekked round and round the squares and gardens of Kensington while the traffic often drowned the sound of her frantically calling voice.
'If I was you, dear' said a woman's voice at her elbow, 'I'd wait till after the traffic dies down. Cat, is it? Well, the traffic scares them'
But Agatha ploughed on, her feet cold and aching.
She asked in all the shops up the Gloucester Road, but she was just another woman looking for a lost pet and no one had seen the cat, nor did they look at all interested or concerned.
She wandered dismally back into Cornwall Gardens. Someone was stumbling through a Chopin sonata in an amateurish way. Someone else was having a party, a press of people standing shoulder to shoulder in a front room.
And then Agatha saw a cat walking slowly towards her, a tabby cat. She advanced slowly, praying under her breath. Hodge was a tabby, a striped grey and black, hardly an original-looking animal.
'Hodge' said Agatha gently.
The cat stopped and looked up at her. 'Oh, it is you' said Agatha gratefully and scooped the cat up into her arms.
Tm glad someone's picked up that poor stray' said a man who was walking his dog. 1 was going to phone the RSPCA. Been living in these gardens for about two weeks. In this cold, too. Still, cats are great survivors'
'It's my cat' said Agatha, and clutching the animal as fiercely as a mother does her hurt child, she stalked off to her flat.
She opened the door and closed it firmly behind her, put the cat on the floor and said, 'Hot milk is what you need'
Agatha went into the minuscule kitchen. Hodge rose from a kitchen chair and stretched and yawned.
'How did you get there?' demanded Agatha, bewildered. She swung round. The tabby she had picked up in Cornwall Gardens came into the kitchen, mewing softly. In the full glare of the fluorescent light, Agatha saw that it was a skinny thing, not at all like Hodge.
Two of them' groaned Agatha. She couldn't keep two. One was worry enough. Where had Hodge been? thought Agatha, who was not yet well enough versed in the ways of cats and did not know they could appear to vanish into thin air. She thought of putting the new cat back out in the gardens. But that would be cruel. She could take it to the RSPCA but they would probably gas it, for who would want a plain tabby cat?
She warmed milk and put down two bowls of it and then two bowls of cat food. Hodge seemed to have placidly accepted the newcomer. Agatha changed the litter in the tray, hoping the new animal was house-trained.
When she went to bed, the cats settled down on either side of her. It was comforting. What would they say in Ca
rsely when she returned with two? But then, she would only be returning to Carsely to pack up.
But the village was still fresh in her mind when she awoke the next morning. She decided to phone Bill Wong and tell him her news. At police headquarters in Mircester, they said it was his day off and so Agatha phoned his home.
Bill listened carefully while she outlined all her plans and told him of the visit of the two managing directors.
There was a silence. Then he said in his soft Gloucester accent, 'That's odd'
'What is?' demanded Agatha.
T mean, two managing directors of big companies turning up just like that. I don't know much about business . . .'
'No, you don't' put in Agatha.
"But I would have thought a meeting would have been set up for you, liaison with the advertising department, the firms' public relations officers, that sort of thing.'
'Oh, they both happened to be in town for some business meeting.'
"And what do you really know about this Jack Pomfret? You're not just going to hand over any money or anything like that?'
'I'm not stupid' said Agatha, angry now, for she was beginning to think she was.
'A good way to find out about people' said Bill, 'is to call at their home. You can usually get an idea of how flush they are from where they live and what the wife is like.'
'So you think I should spy on him? And you're always telling me I don't know how to mind my own business'
'I think you're a Nosy Parker when you don't have to be and touchingly naive when you do have to be' said Bill.
Took, copper, I ran a successful business for years'
'Maybe Carsely's made you forget what an evil place the world can be'
'What? After all that murder and mayhem?'
'Different sort of thing'
'Well, I've finished with Carsely'
There was an amused chuckle from the other end of the phone. 'That's what you think'