Agatha Raisin and The Walkers of Dembley ar-4

by M C Beaton

  Deborah heaved a tiny sigh of relief, excused herself, and slipped quietly out of the pub and went to phone Sir Charles.

  Agatha had never seen James so angry. In vain she did try to say that she had simply been putting on an act. "And," raged James, "I am packing up and leaving. I will not tolerate such behaviour." Agatha, now completely at a loss for words, followed him upstairs to the flat. As they entered, the phone was ringing. James answered it. It was Sir Charles Fraith.

  "Congratulations to Agatha Raisin on a great performance," chuckled Sir Charles. "She's turning out to be as good as you said she was."

  "What do you mean?" demanded James sharply.

  "Deborah's just called me. Those ramblers were talking in the pub about how you two didn't look married and that they thought you were both police spies, and then our Agatha turns up and puts on the best angry marital scene Deborah says she's ever witnessed. Went down like a charm."

  "Oh," said James, looking round in amazement at Agatha. "I didn't realize...I mean, yes, she's very good at it."

  "Call me when you learn anything," said Sir Charles cheerfully. "I am still suspect numero uno."

  When James had said goodbye, he turned to Agatha and said in a mild voice, "I am so sorry, Agatha. I should have let you explain. I didn't know you were acting. That was Sir Charles. Deborah told him that the walkers didn't think we were man and wife and were beginning to think we were police spies, but after your scene, they were convinced we were what we claimed to be. You knew this, of course. I should have let you explain."

  "Of course," said Agatha weakly. She waved her hand at the table. "I don't suppose you want any dinner."

  "On the contrary," he said cheerfully, "you didn't give me time to get more than a few mouthfuls in the pub."

  "Be back in a minute," said Agatha and scurried off to the bathroom, where she indulged in a hearty bout of tears caused by a mixture of shame and relief.

  When she had served dinner, she was so sensible and composed that James was once more intrigued by the investigation. They both decided to try to find out from the walkers' neighbours anything they could about Jessica - had she been seen with any of them - or rowed with any of them - before the murder?

  James said he would try Kelvin, and Agatha said she would check on Deborah.

  "Why Deborah?" asked James.

  "I've been thinking," said Agatha, "she might have called us in to divert suspicion from herself."

  "Seems a bit far-fetched, but I suppose we have to try everything."

  Later that night, Deborah sat in Burger King in the main street of Dembley with Sir Charles Fraith. He had suggested a late supper. Deborah looked around her and thought of all the posh restaurants people ate in, hoping to dine alongside people like Charles.

  But he listened with such interest when she talked of her work in the school and of the pupils. "That's an odd bunch you've got in with," remarked Sir Charles.

  "Oh, you mean the Dembley Walkers. It's something to do."

  "Are you going out this Saturday?"

  "Yes, I have to keep an eye on our detectives."

  "Pity. I've got people at the weekend and wanted to ask you over."

  Deborah spilled some coffee from her polystyrene cup. Damn the walkers. Should she say she would drop going with them? Would that look too eager? Would...?

  "Of course, if you're all through by the evening, you can come for dinner," she realized he was saying.

  "What time?"

  "Oh, eight or eight thirty."

  "Thanks awfully"

  "My pleasure. Only hope you don't find it a bore. Gosh, I'm tired. Have you got your car?"

  "No, I live quite close by"

  "Then I'll walk you home."

  Dembley was an old market town which no longer boasted a market but sometimes on calm evenings still held a flavour of the old days. The market hall with its splendid arches and clock tower now housed an Italian restaurant and an auction room. The beautiful seventeenth-century house opposite had a garish neon sign in one window flashing out Chinese take-away. Concrete blocks of shops nearly obscured the view of the thirteenth-century church. White-faced youths leaned against lamp-posts at street corners and jeered at the world in a tired way, their speech liberally sprinkled with obscenities.

  As they passed one group, a thin teenager shouted out, "Getting your leg over tonight, guv?" and the rest sniggered.

  To Deborah's horror, Sir Charles stopped dead in his tracks. "Why did you say that?" he demanded, addressing the teenager.

  The boy looked at his shoes and muttered, "Sod off."

  Sir Charles stared at him curiously. Then he turned to Deborah and took her arm. "It's not that they suffer from material poverty," he said. "It's a poverty of the mind, wouldn't you say?"

  Deborah, head down, murmured, "Oh, ignore them. They might have knives."

  Sir Charles turned back. "Have you got knives?" he asked.

  For some reason, his simple, almost childlike curiosity appeared to embarrass the youths more than a stream of insults would have done.

  Muttering, they slid off, still in a group, used to being in a gang since they were toddlers, frightened to break away from each other and become vulnerable individuals.

  "Here's where I live," said Deborah, stopping in front of a dark doorway between a dress shop and an off-licence. "Would you...would you like to come up for a cup of coffee?"

  Unnoticed by Deborah, who was studying her shoes, a predatory gleam entered Sir Charles's eyes. He fancied her a lot, he thought. She was different from the girls he usually escorted. There was something so pliant and appealing about her thinness and whiteness. He was not used to shy women and found Deborah a novelty. "Not tonight," he said. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips. "See you Saturday. Would you like me to send Gustav for you?"

  "No!" said Deborah. "I mean, I know the way."

  "And so you do. Bye."

  Deborah scurried up the stairs, her heart beating hard. She was going to be a dinner guest at Barfield House. She telephoned her mother in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mrs Camden, a tired, faded woman, worn out with years of work in looking after Deborah and her two brothers because Mr Camden had shot off for parts unknown shortly after Deborah, the youngest, had been born, listened to Deborah's excited voice bragging about how she was going to be a dinner guest at Barfield House.

  "Make sure your underwear's clean," cautioned Mrs Camden. "You never know what might happen."

  And Deborah knew her mother did not mean that her daughter should be prepared for a night of lust but was simply expressing an old fear that one of her children might meet with an accident and arrive at the hospital in dirty underwear.

  The next morning Agatha did not rush to get to the kitchen first to make a wifely breakfast. She was appalled at her behaviour of the night before. She was determined to back off and play it cool. So she mentally shelved all her earlier plans of cooking up breakfast in a hurriedly bought satin nightgown and negligee, and bathed and dressed in a plain skirt and blouse and sensible shoes.

  When she arrived in the kitchen, James was cooking eggs and bacon. "I put some on for you," he said over his shoulder. "Sit down and I'll serve you. There's coffee in the jug."

  Agatha saw the morning newspapers lying at the side of the table and looked hurriedly through them all. But there was no news of the rambler murder.

  James served her and himself, ate hurriedly and then settled down to read a newspaper, allowing Agatha to reflect that this was probably more like real married life than any of her wild imaginings.

  She finished eating and cleared away the dirty plates into the dishwasher. The flat, although expensively furnished, depressed her. It was the sort of place that reminded her of her London days, when she had allowed decorators to do the job for her and never revealed any of her own personality in the furnishings. She wished suddenly she had brought her cats with her. They were back in the care of Doris Simpson. Perhaps she would take a run home and
collect them. She was sure James would not mind.

  "So what are you going to do today?" asked James finally.

  "I'm going to where Deborah lives," said Agatha. "I'll take a clipboard and say I'm a market researcher."

  "That's a good idea. But don't you think it might be easier just to question Mrs Mason?"

  "I want to find out Deborah's movements before the murder. Mrs Mason won't know that."

  "But won't people think it odd that a market researcher would want to know about Deborah Camden?"

  "Not the way I go about it. Look, you represent some product and suggest there's going to be a prize. They invite you in for a cup of tea. Once in, you start talking about the murder."

  James looked thoughtfully at Agatha, as if debating whether she was the type of woman that people asked in for a cup of tea, but he said, "I'll see what I can find out about Kelvin. We'll meet up back here early evening, swap notes, and then go to that restaurant where Peter and Terry work." He retreated back into his newspaper while Agatha's feverish mind planned what to wear to dinner.

  Seeing she was going to get no more conversation out of James, Agatha found a clipboard among her belongings, attached several sheets of paper to it, and set out.

  When she arrived at the doorway between the shops which led to the flats above, one of which was Deborah's, Agatha longed for the pre-security days when one just opened the street door and walked in. She studied the names on the bells: D. Camden, Wotherspoon, Sprott - her eyes narrowed - and Comfrey.

  After a little hesitation, she rang the bell marked 'Wotherspoon'. No intercom. The buzzer went and Agatha quickly pushed open the street door and walked in and up a shabby flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs. An elderly man leaning on a stick was standing on the landing peering down at her as she made her ascent.

  "I don't know you," he said. "If you're selling something, I'm not interested."

  Agatha pinned a bright smile on her face and went resolutely on up. "I am doing some market research about the tea-drinking habits of the English. It will only take a moment of your time."

  He had a grey, very open-pored face, loose dentures, and thin hair greased in streaks across a narrow head. He was wearing a grey shirt and grey trousers and carpet slippers of a furry plum-coloured fabric, very new, probably a present from some grandchild, thought Agatha.

  "Questions, questions," he grumbled. "I don't want to answer damn-fool questions."

  "We are paying ten pounds to each person who helps us," said Agatha, all bright efficiency.

  "Oh!" His truculence melted. "Come in. As a matter of fact, I was just about to have a cup of tea."

  Agatha followed him into a sparsely furnished living-room. There was a photograph of him in an army uniform taken during World War II, when he was a young man. He had been very handsome. Age, it comes to all of us, thought Agatha, repressing a shudder. There was another photograph, a wedding one.

  "That your wife?" asked Agatha, pointing to it.

  "Yes, she passed on fifteen years ago. Cancer. Odd, that," remarked Mr Wotherspoon, peering blearily at the photograph. "I always thought Madge would see me out."

  "You must miss her."

  "What's that? Oh, no, she was an old bitch."

  Agatha blinked but tactfully said nothing. He poured two dark cups of tea into chipped mugs. He added tinned sweetened condensed milk to his own and held the tin over Agatha's cup. "No, no," she said hurriedly. "Now just a few questions."

  "Where's the money?" he asked.

  Agatha fished out a ten-pound note and gave it to him. She was sitting down at a scarred living-room table as he bent over her to take it. It was then she smelt him. He smelt very strongly of rum.

  He sat down next to her and put a gnarled hand on her knee. Agatha picked it up and said roguishly, "Naughty, naughty." He leered at her and put his hand back again.

  "I'll take that money back if you don't behave yourself," said Agatha sharply. The hand was removed.

  Agatha asked a few questions - age, job, taste in tea, how many cups, where did he buy it, and so on. At last she felt she had put on a good-enough act and said, "I would love another cup of tea, if you can spare the time. I don't get to meet very many interesting people."

  "No, there's not many good uns left," he said. He poured her another cup of tea and then sank into an old man's reminiscences, his voice droning on in the stuffy room like a fly trapped against the glass of a window.

  When he said, "Ah, young people these days..." Agatha interrupted with, "That rambling murder, talking about young people these days. You've got one of them living next door."

  "That skinny little thing! At least she didn't murder anyone. Couldn't say boo to a goose, that one couldn't."

  "Many boyfriends?"

  He leaned forward and winked. "Not her. She's one of them homosapens."

  Agatha digested this and translated it quickly in her brain.

  "Do you mean she's homosexual...I mean, a lesbian?"

  "I caught the pair of them in each other's arms. I'm telling you. I've seen a thing or two. I 'member when we was in Tunis - "

  "Never mind Tunis," interrupted Agatha. "What pair?"

  "Her, Deborah, and that one wot was killed, arms round each other, they had."

  "Where was this?"

  "Out on the stairs."

  "But a lot of women hug each other."

  "But they was kissing and groaning."

  "Did you tell the police this?"

  "Not me. Hadn't the time to spend with me even though I told them I was an old soldier. No, all they wants to know is if I'd heard her or seen her having a row with that Jessica and I hadn't seen a blind thing. I mostly keeps meself to meself."

  "So when did you see them hugging and kissing?"

  "Reckon about a month ago. I tell you, what the world is coming to these days, I don't know."

  Agatha stood up. "You've been most helpful, Mr Wotherspoon."

  "Won't you stay?" Loneliness peered out from old eyes. "We could have a natter."

  Much as she thought him horrible, Agatha nonetheless felt guilty as she made her way to the door, said goodbye firmly and went down the stairs and out into the freedom of the sunny street. She wondered how James was getting on.

  James privately would have liked to think up some idea for interviewing people that was different from Agatha's. But at last he decided that a market researcher was as good as anything. He had no fear of being seen by Kelvin. Like the others, he would be at work.

  Kelvin lived in a tower block near the school, a depressing place surrounded by scrubby grass and litter. What trees there were stood semi-shattered, raising their few remaining branches up to the sky. There were other signs of vandalism everywhere, and he found that the lift was out of order and had probably been out of order for some time, for the sign saying so was covered with old graffiti.

  Kelvin lived on the tenth floor. James decided that the police would have interrogated the neighbours on either side of his flat and wondered if he might have better luck questioning the people underneath, as sounds carried down the way.

  At the first flat he met with no success at all, perhaps because he never thought of Agatha's idea of offering money. He said he was doing a survey about which kind of washing detergent was most used in Dembley. A sour-faced woman simply slammed the door in his face. He tried the next door after squinting upwards and deciding it must be the one directly under Kelvin's.

  The door was opened by a tired-looking woman in her thirties. Her dyed blonde hair was showing an inch of dark roots and her heavy make-up looked like yesterday's.

  "It's not the rent arrears again, is it?" she asked nervously.

  "No," said James. "I would like to ask you some questions about which soap powder you use."

  To his relief, she gave a little jerk of her head. "Come in."

  He walked through a minuscule hall and into a living-room full of cheap furniture, all of which seemed to be falling apart. The sofa had been slashed, a
n arm was off one chair, and the table looked as if someone had recently tried to cleave it with an axe.

  "My husband," she said, following his eyes. "He do go on something awful when he has the drink in him."

  "Where is he now?" asked James nervously.

  "Out on the building site. Come into the kitchen, will you? I'm not much use. I just buy the first packet I see in the supermarket."

  He followed her into a small kitchen, averting his eyes from the smashed cupboards, no doubt signs of the absent husband's drunken wrath. She pulled a packet of soap powder from a cupboard under the sink and held it up. "This any good?"

  He proceeded to ask questions - number in family, how often clothes were washed, and so on - automatically writing down the answers, wondering how to introduce the subject of the tenant upstairs. "I'm sorry to take up so much of your time," he ventured politely.

  She gave him a flirtatious smile. "I don't mind. Don't get to see much people. Like a cup of tea?"

  "Yes, please," said James, smiling back.

  He leaned against the kitchen counter while she plugged in an electric kettle. He looked down from the window. From down below came the harsh cries of little children trying to catch a cat to torture it. The cat escaped. The children hunched together as if plotting further horrors and then they ran off, screaming at nothing.

  "Been doing this job long?" he realized she was asking.

  "I'm retired. I do bits for the company a few times a year. Freelance. I'm not on the payroll."

  The kettle boiled. She filled a small teapot after putting in six tea-bags, arranged a bottle of milk, a bag of sugar, and two mugs on a tin tray with the teapot, and carried them into the living-room.

  The tea was very strong indeed. She leaned back on the battered sofa and crossed her legs. She had very good legs. In fact, thought James, she had probably been a pretty girl before marriage knocked the stuffing out of her, much as the stuffing was spilling out of the sofa on which she sat.

  "You've had a bit of excitement around here," said James, sipping his tea and trying not to shudder.

  "How come?"

  "Isn't one of your neighbours one of those ramblers, a Scotsman?"

  "Oh, him." She jerked a thumb at the ceiling. "Lives up above."