by M C Beaton
“If we faxed Bill Wong, we’d find out all we have to know,” said Agatha sulkily.
“Bill Wong may be too busy to bother about a murder case in Cyprus. It’s only a dinner, Agatha, and we have the rest of the day to ourselves.”
But when they got back to the villa, it was three-thirty in the afternoon and James said he was going to write.
Agatha retired to her room and began to search through her clothes for something to outshine Olivia. There was a phone extension in her room. On impulse she threw a pile of brightly coloured clothes on the bed and dialled the number of the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Bloxby.
“Agatha,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “How are you getting on? We read about the murder in the newspapers.”
Agatha told her all about it, looking out of the window at the blue Mediterranean and thinking how very far away the village of Carsely seemed.
“And has this murder brought you and James closer together?” asked the vicar’s wife when Agatha had finished.
“Not really,” said Agatha on a sigh. “You know James.”
“Oh, Agatha, I wish you could meet a really warmhearted man!”
“James is a warm-hearted man. He just doesn’t know how to show his feelings!”
“He may not have any to show.”
“That’s not true!” said Agatha furiously.
The vicar’s wife was contrite. “I didn’t really mean to say that, Agatha. I mean, I should not have said that. I don’t know what came over me. We miss you here. Do you know when you are coming back?”
Agatha glared furiously through the open window at the sea and took a deep breath of sweet-scented air. She hated Carsely and never wanted to go back there again. Why couldn’t everyone mind their own business? “I don’t know,” she snapped.
“If only I had kept my big mouth shut,” said Mrs. Bloxby to her husband later. “Poor Agatha.”
The vicar peered at his wife over the tops of his spectacles. “I would not feel sorry for Agatha Raisin. In my opinion she and James Lacey thoroughly deserve each other.”
FOUR
THE evening was warm and sticky, and dark clouds obscured the moon. Agatha had put on full make-up, but as they arrived at the restaurant in Zeytinlik, she could feel foundation and mascara beginning to melt. She was wearing a black evening dress with a short skirt and high collar. As she turned her head in the car to speak to James, she felt her damp cheek brushing against her collar and knew immediately it was probably smeared with Vichy Camel foundation cream. She was wearing tights. Her legs had still not recovered from their burning by the pool and the humidity was making the hairs on her legs sprout dreadfully. She passed a tentative hand across her upper lip but she had waxed it before leaving and it still felt smooth. Oh, all the things that careless youth takes for granted, like a slim figure, smooth skin and a hair-free face! In that moment, she desperately wished to be back in her late thirties-that was not asking too much-when one could indulge in, say, a large piece of cheesecake without feeling two minutes after it had been consumed that one’s knicker elastic was cutting off one’s circulation.
The proprietors, Emine and Altay, gave them a welcome and ushered them to a table next to a fountain in the centre of the garden restaurant, where Olivia and party were already seated. Between sunburn and booze, Trevor’s face looked as if it had been boiled. The food as usual was delicious, but Trevor complained loudly and drunkenly that he was tired of “this foreign muck” and would give anything for a good steak and kidney pie.
“This place used to be called Templos,” said Olivia loudly to break the awkward silence which followed Trevor’s outburst. “The Knights Templars were stationed here and it was a sort of market garden for Saint Hilarión Castle. Some even say there is a tunnel here somewhere that leads right up to the castle.”
“I think that’s an engineering feat that would surely be beyond the Crusaders,” said Agatha.
“They built the castle up on top of the mountain,” said Olivia, “so a tunnel wouldn’t have been beyond them.”
Agatha decided to change the subject. She did not like being contradicted. “I cannot understand why north Cyprus is not a recognized country,” she said.
“It’s all quite simple,” said James. “They let the world forget about the massacres they endured, about the women and children in one village buried alive with their hands tied behind their backs. The Greek Cypriots have a very powerful propaganda machine and this side has little or nothing. If I were an emerging country, I would not waste money on guns or bullets, but I would hire a Madison Avenue public-relations company. I’ve talked to some members of the government here. ‘Why don’t you keep reminding the world of what you have suffered?’ I asked. They say they only counter-attack.”
“They have the UN here,” said Angus.
“And what is the UN?” demanded James. “I’ll tell you what their function is. To cost various countries a great deal of money so that their soldiers can stand around surveying ethnic cleansing. And what the hell am I talking about ethnic cleansing for? Genocide is the word. Hasn’t the suffering of the Jews taught this damn world anything? Look at Bosnia!”
“What delicious lamb on the bone,” said Olivia brightly. “Do try some, Trevor. Just like Mother used to make.”
“My mother only made with the can opener,” said Trevor.
What an ill-assorted lot we are, thought Agatha. Even me and James. He talks with such passion about politics but I can’t get him to say one word about us. Passion, thought Agatha. Was that what was behind this murder? But George Debenham, thin and sallow like his wife, seemed always cool and detached. Then there was friend Harry Tembleton, whose expression was usually hidden behind a pair of thick spectacles, and yet, in his way, Harry was almost a reflection of Angus, both being old and sagging and with white thinning hair. Perhaps there was a breed of elderly men who attached themselves to married couples.
“Were you ever married, Harry?” asked Agatha.
He blinked at her through his glasses and said, “Yes, but she died twenty years ago.”
“And you, Angus?”
“Never found anyone to suit me,” said Angus sadly. His Scottish accent was only slight when he forgot to thicken it. “If I could have met someone like Rose, it might have been a different matter.” Agatha glanced quickly at Trevor to see how he had taken this declaration, but Trevor appeared to be once more sunk in gloom.
“And what about you, Agatha?” asked Olivia. “Rose told us she remembered reading about you. Your husband was murdered just as you were about to marry James here. It’s a wonder he’s forgiven you.”
“He hasn’t and won’t, ever,” said Agatha, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. “Excuse me.” She rose to her feet and went to the toilet and leaned against the wash-hand basin. What is up with me? she thought. Is this the menopause? Should I go on hormone-replacement therapy? Or maybe I need a good psychiatrist to tell me that my infatuation for James is because I’m sick in the head.
She walked wearily out of the toilet and back towards the table in the garden. Then she stopped stock-still and gazed in amazement at the entrance to the restaurant.
A small man with fine hair and a thin, sensitive face was standing there, looking vaguely about him.
Agatha walked towards him. “Charles.”
Sir Charles Fraith, Baronet, focused on her. “Funny thing,” he said, “I was just thinking about you, Agatha. Folks at the hotel were talking about some Englishwoman being murdered and you crossed my mind.”
Agatha had been part of a murder investigation when a rambler had been found dead on Sir Charles’s land.
“Do you want to join us?” Agatha indicated her party, who were all staring at them.
“That’s that chap Lacey,” said Charles. “That’s the one you nearly married. Odd bunch of people with him. No, I don’t think I want to join them.”
“What are you doing here, Charles?”
“Just a little holiday. You’re here wi
th Lacey? Honeymoon?”
“No, we’re just friends.”
“Oh, in that case, let’s go somewhere for a drink.”
“Don’t you want to eat?”
“No, I was just cruising the highways and byways, looking for a cool place to have a drink.”
“You’d best come over and say hullo,” said Agatha, who was looking forward to introducing this baronet to Olivia.
“I don’t think so, Agatha. You know what will happen. They’ll all come with us. Let’s just drift off.”
Suddenly the thought of just walking away with Charles and going for a quiet drink somewhere seemed wonderful.
James had engaged Olivia in conversation, not wanting Agatha to know that they were all awaiting her return impatiently. He had not recognized Charles, who was slightly hidden by a palm; he only knew that Agatha was talking to some man. When he looked up again, Agatha and her companion had gone.
Ten minutes later Agatha and Charles were sitting at an outdoor café near the Dome Hotel.
Charles ordered brandy sours for both of them and leaned back in his chair and gazed vaguely out to sea.
“I heard you’d got married,” said Agatha.
“Engaged. Didn’t work. No chemistry. Sarah was very attached to her parents. Very worthy people, but her father was the sort of man who puts logs on my fire. Know what I mean?”
“Sort of,” said Agatha, suddenly getting a picture of a solid middle-class family, foreign in their ways to the aristocratic Charles.
“They liked giving very long dinner parties with such boring people. I used to sit there thinking, when will this evening end? Bring on the cheese. Oh, please God, bring on the cheese.”
“So you broke off the engagement? How’s Gustav?” Gustav had been Charles’s manservant.
“Left me because of the engagement. Terrible snob, Gustav.”
“Where is he now?”
“Maître d’ in some classy hotel in Geneva.”
“Did you replace him?”
“No. Can’t have servants these days. Anachronism. Get women in from the village to clean, hire a catering company if we’ve a lot of people at the weekend. So what about this murder?”
Agatha told him all about it, feeling as she did so that every time she talked about it the whole thing became more unreal.
His pale eyes swivelled from the sea to her face. “So what about it? Are you hot on the trail?”
“Fm not,” said Agatha gloomily. “In fact, I should be back there with James trying to find out more about them all. I thought of faxing Bill Wong, you know, my friend at Mircester police, asking him for some background, but James said to wait.”
‘I’ll ask The Dome to send a fax if you like.”
Damn James, thought Agatha. Why shouldn’t she act on her own initiative?
“I haven’t got a typewriter here, or computer,” said Agatha.
“Write it by hand. I mean, it’s not the Epistle to the Romans, is it? Just a few lines.”
“I’ll do it!” said Agatha.
“Good girl,” said Charles, appearing to lose interest.
“So how are things back home?” asked Agatha, wondering now what James was making of her disappearance, and feeling uncomfortably that she had behaved badly.
“Oh, same as ever. That’s a very pretty girl over there.”
Agatha had the ordinary feminine irritation of being asked to admire some woman by a male companion. And she had walked off and left the field to Olivia. But as she was eager for Charles to arrange that fax to Bill Wong, she did not want to hurry him over his drink.
At last he signalled to the waitress and paid the bill.
The manager was still on duty and agreed to send a fax. Agatha wrote out her request on a piece of paper, asking for any reply to be sent to her at The Dome to await collection.
“I will put the charge on your bill,” said the manager to Charles.
“It’s not my fax,” said Charles. “Mrs. Raisin will pay.”
“Where are you staying, Mrs. Raisin?” asked the manager. “My accountant will send the bill to you.”
Agatha wrote down her address.
“Well, I’m off to bed,” said Charles, stifling a yawn.
“Aren’t you going to run me home?” asked Agatha. “I went to the restaurant in James’s car.”
“Too tired. I’ll get you a cab.”
Charles ordered a cab for her at reception and nodded to her and walked off.
The receptionist said, “It is a very busy night. Your cab will be about ten minutes.”
“I’ll wait in the bar,” said Agatha.
She walked through to the bar and stopped short on the threshold. Charles, with another brandy sour in his hand, was talking to a group of Turkish women. Agatha felt rejected all round-by James, by Charles.
She returned to the reception desk and waited until her cab arrived. But when she got back to the villa, it was to find the place in darkness, and James had the keys. She told the cab driver to take her to the Ottoman House Restaurant, only to find that they had all left half an hour before. Thinking she might have missed James on the road, she went back to the villa to find it still in darkness. Wearily she told the driver to take her back to The Dome.
James was not there and the others were not in their rooms. Where had they gone?
She sat down on a chair in the reception area and stared bleakly around.
“Still here?” asked Charles, walking up to her.
“Still here,” echoed Agatha dismally. “James is still out somewhere and he has the keys.”
“It’s late. I’m off to bed.” Charles hesitated. “Got two beds. You can have the other one if you like.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” said Agatha gratefully. “I’m tired of running around.”
“Come along, then,” he said, heading for the lift. “Just don’t use my toothbrush.”
Once in his room, he threw her a pair of pyjamas. “You can wear those and use the bathroom first.”
Agatha washed and changed into the pyjamas. “You’re in the bed by the window,” said Charles when she emerged. “I hope you don’t snore.”
I don’t think so,” said Agatha. Tears started to her eyes. “Well, if I do, no one’s ever told me.”
“Have a good cry,” he said. “Nothing like a bloody good cry. Then we’ll have a drink and you’ll sleep like a log.”
He went into the bathroom. Agatha stared bleakly ahead. All in that moment, she longed to be back home in her cottage in Carsely with English rain drumming down on the thatch, secure with her cats sleeping at the end of the bed. What on earth was she doing sharing a foreign hotel room with this odd baronet?
He emerged from the bathroom finally, wearing a pair of paisley-patterned pyjamas. He flung open the windows and shutters. “There’s at table out on the balcony, Aggie. Come and take a pew.”
Agatha sat out on the balcony. The air was warm and sweet and the sound of the sea soothing.
“I can’t mix brandy sours,” he said, returning with a bottle and two glasses. “But at least I’ve got the brandy. It’s local stuff but not bad.”
They drank silently and then he said, “What was all that about?”
“What about?”
“You were nearly in tears, Aggie.”
“It’s Agatha.”
“I like Aggie. I shall call you Aggie, and since you are in my room and drinking my brandy, I can call you what I like.”
Slightly tipsy now, Agatha began to talk. She told him all about James, about her relationship with James, about her obsession with James.
“I had a crush on a girl like that when I was seventeen,” he said when she had finished. “That’s what it’s like, Aggie. A teen-age crush.”
“I didn’t expect you to understand,” said Agatha sadly.
“Have you ever considered,” he said, tilting his brandy glass in the moonlight and watching the liquid, “that there is something up with the man to keep you hangin
g around like this?”
“I behaved badly. He won’t forgive me.”
“Then he should stop jerking your chain. All he had to do was tell you that you should not have followed him out here, that it is all over, and get lost, Aggie.”
She bent her head. “I think he still loves me.”
“Dream on. And talking of dreams, let’s go to bed.”
Agatha sighed, drained her glass and followed him into the bedroom. Somehow, even in his pyjamas, Charles looked as neat and impersonal as if he were wearing a business suit.
She got into bed. What a mess! Her head swam from all she had drunk.
“Move over,” she heard Charles say.
“What?”
“Move over.” He edged into the bed next to her and took her in his arms.
“What are you doing?” demanded Agatha.
“What do you think?”
He bent his head and kissed her slowly. Oh, well, just one kiss, thought Agatha drunkenly. It was all very soothing and sensuous and not quite real. He had forgotten to put on the air-conditioning and the windows were still open. He kissed her for quite a long time before he took her pyjamas off and Agatha’s last sane thought was, oh, what the hell.
She awoke at five in the morning with the telephone ringing shrilly. Charles answered it. She heard him say, “Yes, James, she’s here. She had nowhere to go, so I let her use the spare bed.”
“He’s coming up,” said Charles after he had replaced the receiver. He got out of bed and rapidly put on the pyjamas he had discarded.
Agatha ran for the bathroom, where she had left her clothes. She turned on the shower and washed herself hurriedly, dried, and then put on her clothes. Outside she could hear the sound of voices. She looked anxiously at her face in the mirror, but it showed no signs of love-making.
She went out into the hotel room. “So there you are,” said James cheerfully. “What a scare you gave us! Police all over the place looking for you.”