Toni had been glad to see Simon back in the office. Agatha had briefly outlined Simon’s adventures. She wondered what her old school friends would make of Simon. With his beaky nose and long mouth, he looked a bit like a Bavarian puppet. But it was his warm smile and the way his grey eyes sparkled under his thick thatch of curly black hair that made her find him endearing. And he had been kind to her.
Toni rang the bell of Carrie’s cottage and listened to the cacophony of barking from Carrie’s tape recorder before the lady herself opened the door. Her large face was blotched with tears.
‘What’s the matter?’ exclaimed Toni. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Yes, there is. Come in.’
Toni followed her into her cluttered parlour which still smelled of dog. Carrie rounded on her. ‘You’re a detective. I want you to solve a murder.’
‘But that’s why we’re here.’
‘I’m not talking about that snoop, Sunday, who deserved to die. I’m talking about my Pooky.’
‘Pooky?’
‘My little dog, my precious boy.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was yesterday. I was out on the village green and put Pooky down so that he could have a little run around. I saw him get hold of something and start eating it. By the time I got to him, he had finished it, whatever it was. I said, “Pooky, bad boy. You’re not supposed to eat anything that mummy doesn’t give you.”’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘And Pooky just licked my nose and looked up at me with his little eyes. I took him home and put him in his basket. I went for an afternoon nap myself and when I woke up, he was dead! I took the body to the vet and demanded an autopsy.’
‘Have you had the result?’
‘Not yet. The stupid vet tried to tell me it was probably the result of overeating and not enough exercise.’
‘How old was Pooky?’
‘Nearly twelve years.’
‘It’s a good age for a dog.’
‘Nonsense. He had years left in him.’
‘Please sit down and let me make you a cup of tea,’ urged Toni. ‘You’ve had a bad shock.’
Without waiting for an answer, Toni found the kitchen and made a cup of strong sweet tea and took it back to Carrie. Carrie swallowed a gulp of tea and then said gruffly, ‘You’re a kind girl. No one else seems to care. They said that my Pooky fouled the village green.’
‘If your dog was poisoned, who could have done it?’
‘Any one of them could have done it. This was a nice village. Oh, we were all fed up with Sunday snooping around but it drew us closer together. While we had our little rows now and then, we were a close-knit community. Even Miriam fitted in. We let her play lady of the manor because she did a lot for the village. For a while, everything was back to normal because people were sure Tom Courtney had done it, but now it seems as if he couldn’t and we have a murderer amongst us.’
‘Who do you think could have killed Sunday? I mean, perhaps it might turn out to be the same person who killed your dog.’
Carrie looked steadily at Toni for a long moment, her eyes red-rimmed with weeping. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said at last. ‘It was the vicar, Giles Timson.’
‘But why?’
‘He wouldn’t let me bring Pooky to church. “What about all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small?” I asked him. And he sneered at me and said God created things like pythons and cockroaches. Now, would I want any of those in the church? And Pooky bit his hand. And you should have seen the evil look he gave me. Besides,’ – she lowered her voice – ‘I saw his wife in a coffee shop in Mircester with John Sunday, and she was crying as if he were breaking up with her.’
Probably the photograph, thought Toni. ‘Here is my card,’ said Toni. ‘Phone me the minute you get the result of the autopsy.’
Agatha found Penelope in the churchyard, clearing grass and long weeds away from the base of some of the old tombstones. She was wearing a pink straw hat with a wide brim and with pink and white dotted net wrapped around the crown.
‘Splendid hat,’ commented Agatha.
‘Oh, this.’ Penelope straightened up and pushed it to the back of her head. ‘I only use it for gardening. I hate it. I bought it to wear at someone’s wedding, someone I really didn’t like, so I never felt again like wearing this hat for dressing up. Silly, I know. Did you want something?’
Toni had phoned Agatha while Agatha had been searching around the vicarage for Penelope.
‘I heard there was a young man staying here with May Dinwoody Someone pushed him into the pond last night.’
‘Simon? Such a nice young man. Why would anyone do that? Probably just a joke.’ She lowered her voice. ‘There are people in this village who drink too much.’
‘Or someone who thought he could not swim,’ said Agatha. ‘What I really wanted to ask you was this. Look, it seems you were once seen in a café in Mircester with Sunday. Was it about that photo? What did he really want? Money? Tell the truth this time. He had that photo, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he didn’t want money. Giles had bought a plot of land outside the village some time ago. He said when he retired, we could build a house there. I didn’t want to go on living in the village. I’m a town person myself.’
‘Which town?’
‘I’m from Moreton-in-Marsh originally.’ Hardly a buzzing metropolis, thought Agatha.
‘So what did Sunday want? The building plot?’
‘Yes, he wanted me to persuade Giles to sell it to him or he would send that photo to Giles.’
‘When was this?’
‘A week before the murder.’
‘Why on earth would he want to live in Odley Cruesis?’ asked Agatha.
‘I think’, said Penelope, passing an earthy hand over her face and leaving streaks, ‘that he wanted to build up a little microcosm of power. He liked bullying people.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I invited him to tea and let him ask Giles if he could buy the plot. Giles refused point blank. He asked Giles if he had a happy marriage. Giles gave him a curt yes, and John laughed and said, “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
‘I actually fantasized about killing him. That was when I told Giles about the photo. Do you really need to find out who did this murder? Are you sure it wasn’t Tom Courtney?’
‘Absolutely sure. And look at it this way. If the murderer is never found, you’ll all go on suspecting each other and this village will never be the same again. If it ever was much to write home about in the first place.’
‘Oh, it was lovely and peaceful and we all got along. Boring at times, of course.’ Penelope took off the offending hat and put it on the head of a stone angel. ‘And one could always go into Mircester for some culture. Did you see the local company’s production of The Marriage of Figaro last year?’
Agatha had seen it in an attempt to widen her horizons but had disliked it so much that she put it down to her tin ear. She didn’t know it had truly been dreadful, mainly because the role of Cherubino had been taken by the local newspaper editor’s wife, which had ensured that the production received a glowing review despite the fact that Cherubino had a voice that could strip lead off a church roof.
‘Yes,’ said Agatha.
‘So uplifting.’
‘Just so. But we are getting away from the main subject. Think back to the evening Sunday was murdered. Are you absolutely sure no one left the room apart from Miriam and Miss Simms?’
‘No one I can remember. But there was such a lot of smoke from the fire and I had to go out at one point to get the brandy.’
‘Neither Tilly Glossop nor Carrie Brother attended.’
‘Penelope!’ shouted a voice from the vicarage.
‘My husband. I must go.’ Penelope fled, leaving her hat on top of the angel.
To his surprise, Patrick found that Tilly Glossop was actually flirting with him. When she served him a mug of coffee, she stretched round him, leaning her hea
vy breast against his shoulder. He could not quite remember any female flirting with him during his last twenty years, when his face had settled into its present lugubrious lines, but he smiled and tried to look flattered.
‘So nice to have a man in the house,’ said Tilly as she jangled over the coffee table. She had multiple bracelets on her thick wrists and chains with dangling bobbly objects around her neck. She was wearing a long, floating gown of some sort of chiffon material, semi-transparent, but enough to show she was wearing a formidable brassiere underneath and a pair of purple French knickers. ‘Do try one of my cakes.’
‘We’re still interested in the Sunday murder,’ said Patrick. ‘You, having been closest to him, might have heard that someone was threatening him.’
Patrick had seen a woman’s lips pout before, but Tilly’s whole face seemed to pout, fat and wrinkles all creased forward.
‘Nobody liked him much,’ she said, plumping herself down on the sofa next to Patrick and releasing a cloud of scent.
‘But you were heard to quarrel.’
‘Oh, that was because I told him I had finished with him,’ said Tilly. ‘He was amusing for a time, but that’s me – easy come, easy go.’
How did she do it? wondered Patrick. She’d need to be the last woman on earth for me to ever dream of fancying her. ‘I thought it was the other way round,’ he ventured.
‘Then you were wrong. Most people in the village had it in for him. But the atmosphere of the village had changed before he came.’
‘How? Why?’
‘This isn’t an Agatha Christie-type village with some lord or some retired colonel at the head of the hierarchy, with the rest of us peasants waiting for an invitation to some fête in the manor grounds. We’re all pretty equal. Old George Briggs used to own the manor, but he kept himself to himself. Then Miriam came and wanted to play lady of the village. It upset the balance, see? So folk were already edgy when Sunday came on the scene. Although there was all that fuss about the special ramp for the disabled at the manor and that turned her against him, I think she encouraged his petty little vendettas. She clashed with Giles, the vicar, a lot. She said the church was too high, all bells and smells, and the only reason for it was because he liked dressing up in all those fancy robes. But she did contribute to the church, although I’d swear that man hated her. Hell of a temper.’
Patrick wondered if all this was one hell of a red herring. ‘What about that photograph of you and the mayor? You must know who took it.’
‘It was Sunday. Too many complaints were coming in against him and the mayor had been swearing to do something about it.’
‘So you set him up!’
‘Not me. I told Sunday I was going to have a little fling with him when the mayor’s missus was away, that was all. You can’t blame me.’
Her cloying scent and proximity were beginning to make him feel queasy. ‘Someone must be living in this village who is a murderer,’ he persevered. ‘There was that attack on Mrs Raisin’s friend, Roy Silver. It could have killed him if it hadn’t turned out he had a hard head.’
‘I don’t think that was attempted murder,’ said Tilly. ‘Probably someone just got fed up with that outside nosey parker. Can’t we talk about something else?’ She leaned against him.
Patrick got abruptly to his feet. ‘Thank you for your time. I must be on my way.’
He moved rapidly for such a big man and before plump Tilly could struggle out of the depths of the sofa, she heard the front door slam behind him.
Patrick, Toni and Agatha met up on the village green. Only one of them had found out anything and that was that Tilly had told Sunday about her proposed fling with the mayor. Suddenly a clod of earth struck Agatha on the cheek. She swung round in a rage. She had not noticed any teenagers in the village before, but now there was a group of them, seizing stones and tussocks of earth and throwing them viciously, screaming, ‘Get out! You ain’t wanted here!’
They ran to their cars and met up again at the office. ‘Do we report them to the police?’ asked Agatha.
‘I don’t think we should,’ said Agatha. ‘But as I ran to the car, I saw Giles, the vicar, looking out of the vicarage window. He made no move to run out and stop those boys. Well, let’s get on with our other cases and forget Sunday for a bit. How are you getting on, Simon?’
Simon swung round in his chair. ‘I’ve printed out all my notes. You told me to put in everything, no matter how small.’
‘Great. I’ll go over them later. No one is now paying us to find out who murdered Sunday, so we all need to begin to concentrate on our paying clients.’
When Agatha returned to her cottage that evening, she found Charles waiting for her. ‘I’ve got something to report,’ he said.
‘About Sunday?’
‘Forget Sunday. I was driving through Moreton-in-Marsh and who should I see walking boldly along the street but Dan Palmer?’
‘I wonder what he’s doing here?’
‘Let’s just hope he isn’t looking for revenge. I heard through my contacts that he’d lost his job. I thought I’d keep you company just to be sure. How’s the Sunday business going anyway?’
Agatha gave him the latest news. She ended with, ‘I think this is one case that’s never going to be solved.’
Dan Palmer craved a drink. But he promised himself one later in the day, just one. He had taken notes of Agatha’s cases with him before he had left the newspaper office and found the unsolved case of John Sunday. It was then he had a great idea. If he could solve the case, then he would set himself up as a private detective in competition with Agatha Raisin. He knew if he stayed sober, he could beat her hands down because he was prepared to use some dirty tricks that she probably wouldn’t even contemplate.
He decided the best time would be around ten o’clock in the evening. He had a high-powered listening device. All he had to do was wait until everything was quiet and listen in to various conversations in the cottages. An old police contact had told him that the police were sure the murderer was one of the villagers.
He checked into a motel on the outskirts of Mircester on the ring road. There was no minibar in the room. He drove to a roadside restaurant and ate an all-day breakfast and felt better, although there was still a great hole inside him needing to be filled with alcohol. Just one drink wouldn’t hurt.
At a pub in Mircester, he confined himself to two large vodkas. With a great effort, he got off the bar stool and back to his car, where he switched on the overhead light and studied an ordnance survey map until he located the road to Odley Cruesis.
The village was dark and silent. The little cottages around the green seemed to be crouching there. He drove out of the village and parked his car under a large horse chestnut tree on the crest of a hill. The sky was overcast. Clutching his listening device, which had cost him a fortune but had been the source of many scoops, he cautiously made his way back to the churchyard on foot, crouched behind a large tombstone, switched on the device and pointed it at the vicarage.
A man’s voice came over, loud and clear. He cursed and turned down the sound so that only he could hear it. Must be the vicar. ‘I’m off to bed,’ he said. ‘Coming?’
‘In a minute, dear,’ came a woman’s voice. ‘Just finishing the dishes.’
And that was that.
Great, just great, he thought. Let’s try somewhere else. He was wearing dark clothes with a dark wool hat pulled down over his eyes. The evening was warm and humid and he was beginning to sweat. He emerged cautiously from behind his tombstone and then let out a scream. A tall hatted figure was staring down at him.
By the time he had recovered enough to see it was a stone angel with a hat on top, the vicarage door had opened and a tremulous woman’s voice demanded, ‘Anyone there?’
He crouched down again, his heart thudding, until she closed the door. He crept off. Down in the village, lights were shining from a tall building. He made his way there. A little road leading to the building ha
d a sign saying Mill House Lane.
Crouching in bushes by the side of the pond, he switched on the powerful listening device. ‘I wish that young man hadn’t left,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘He was so nice. I’m sorry he turned out to be a snoop. The rent made such a difference. It’s a bit hard to make ends meet these days and—’
A savage blow struck Dan on the back of the neck. He fell forwards. The listening device was picked up and thrown into the golden ripples of the moonlit pond.
Two days later, when Agatha was about to shut up the office for the evening, she received a visit from a Mrs Ruby Palmer.
She was a small, crushed-looking woman with mousy brown hair in tight permed curls. Her weak eyes blinked rapidly. She was wearing a droopy green cardigan over a cotton blouse of violent-coloured zigzags and a long white cotton skirt.
‘I’m Dan’s wife,’ she said.
‘You mean Dan Palmer? I’m sorry, Mrs Palmer, but if you’ve come to give me a row about your husband losing his job, forget it.’
‘No, it’s not that. You are a detective?’
‘That’s what it says on the door.’
‘I need your help. Dan’s gone missing.’
‘He did drink a lot, Mrs Palmer. Maybe he’s sleeping it off somewhere.’
‘It’s not that. He had this idea of outdoing you as a detective. He said he was going to go to that village and find that murderer. You see, he had this illegal listening device. The newspaper didn’t know about it. You can stand outside people’s houses and hear what they are saying. I would like to employ you to find him. Not that I miss him, mind you, because he was really nasty when he had taken drink. But he recently inherited a good bit of money from an uncle. He paid me only a little house keeping money. If anything’s happened to him, I won’t get the money until they find his body. I filed a missing person’s report with the police in Hackney but they weren’t much interested.’
‘All right,’ said Agatha. ‘I won’t charge you unless I find him. Have you a card?’
Ruby produced a card from her shabby handbag.
‘Are you staying in Mircester?’
‘No, I’m driving back to Hackney.’
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body Page 14