by M C Beaton
"Don't worry," said Agatha. "Nothing will happen. I've come to the conclusion that she really is a bit unbalanced."
Sunday was a wearisome day for Agatha and several times she considered going into the office just to get away from an ecstatic Roy, who had bought ten copies of The Bugle and who kept reading out bits of the damning story on Green Desire.
Toni turned up promptly for work on Monday morning. She was looking forward to her new job. She had no illusions about the detective work she would be doing, but she could make her own hours and be her own boss, and that appealed to her.
"Now," said Agatha, "we've got an odd case here." She told them about Mrs Tamworthy. Then she said, "Patrick, I'd like you to go to that pub in Lower Tapor and find out just how angry the locals are and who the ringleader is. Phil, I'd like you to go to a newsagent's in Upper Tapor and see what Jimmy Tamworthy is like. Running a shop was his mother's idea. If my mother was rich and possessed a large estate, I might think running a village shop was beneath me. See if you can get some idea. After that, I'd like you to check out applications for planning permission. I can't see the villagers getting so hot under the collar if she was just going to sell the village. They might hope for a more generous benefactor. But Mrs Tamworthy likes making money. What if she hoped to get planning permission for more houses? Or planning permission for something the villagers would hate?"
"Also, Patrick, while you're in the pub, get an idea of what the locals really think about Mrs Tamworthy. Any scandal. Do they think she's mad? That sort of thing."
"There's that divorce case," said Patrick. "We really should wrap it up. Mrs Horrington is paying a lot. Then there's the one Phil is on. Mr Constable."
"I'll take Horrington. I can't be seen near that village before next weekend. I'm going as a friend of the family." Agatha turned round and looked at Toni, who was sitting quietly on the visitors' sofa. She was wearing clean jeans, a white T-shirt and sandals.
"Toni, I'm going to throw you in at the deep end. Can you take photographs?"
"Yes, I was in my camera club at school."
"Phil will give you the Constable file and a camera. Have you a car?"
"I can't drive. I've got a bike."
"That'll do. No one will suspect a teenager on a bike of spying on them."
Phil handed Toni a file. Goodness, he was old, thought Toni. Must be in his seventies, though he seemed fit enough. "It's the usual thing," said Phil, sitting down on the sofa beside her. "The husband, Mr Constable, thinks his wife, Hetty, is having an affair. I'd only just started following her at the end of last week. There's the address. It's out in the northern end of Mircester, where all the large villas are. But just at the end of the street is a supermarket with a big car park. If you go to the end of the car park, you can get a good view of the house because it's the one nearest the supermarket."
"She drives a BMW, so I hope you can chase her on a pushbike."
"The traffic's so bad in Mircester, I should be able to keep her in view," said Toni.
"Right. I'll give you a camera and a telescopic lens and a camera bag. The equipment is expensive, so take care of it. I'll also give you a small powerful tape recorder in case you get close enough to her to record anything."
Toni's heart began to thump against her ribs. Mrs Freedman, who felt sympathetic in a motherly way to the young girl, had told her that morning just before Agatha arrived that her predecessor, Harry, had found a lot of cats and dogs at the animal shelter and had never told Agatha the reason for his successes. So Toni had been looking forward to an easy first day.
As Toni pedalled in the direction of the supermarket, she wondered nervously how she was supposed to remain unnoticed standing at the edge of a car park with a telescopic lens fitted to a camera.
She had an idea. When she got to the supermarket, she went in and bought a packet of chocolate chip cookies and a packet of sandwich bags. Outside, she tipped the cookies into a sandwich bag and sealed it. Then she got straight back on her bike and pedalled up to Mrs Constable's house.
She rang the bell. She would say she was selling cookies for the Girl Guides. That way she would find out what her quarry looked like.
When the door opened, Toni stared at the woman looking at her. "Mrs Mackenzie! What are you doing here?" Mrs Mackenzie was her next door neighbour.
"I'm cleaning, that's what."
"Is Mrs Constable in?"
"No, she's out."
Toni took a deep breath. "Can I talk to you?"
"I was just about to take a break. Come in. We'll have a cuppa."
Toni followed her through to the kitchen. "I've never seen a kitchen like this outside of advertisements," she marvelled. "It's huge."
"Fortunately for me, madam doesn't do any cooking, or hardly ever. She eats carrot sticks at home or dines out. So what is it, Toni, love? How do you know her?"
"I don't," said Toni, and then she plunged in, telling Mrs Mackenzie all about the detective job and how she had to find proof that Mrs Constable was having an affair.
"Oh, she's having an affair all right, and with a right bit of rough."
"How do you know?"
"I've got the keys, see. I'd left some shopping by mistake one day and came back. I opened the door quiet-like, and went to the kitchen. They were hard at it on the kitchen floor."
"Do you know the chap's name?"
"No; I didn't see his face, neither, only his great hairy bum."
"It would mean a lot if I could get a photograph," said Toni.
"I don't like her and that's a fact," said Mrs Mackenzie. "Get her out of the way and I'd have peace and quiet just cleaning for Mr Constable. He's ever so nice."
"Maybe I could hide in the back garden and hope she and her pal choose the kitchen again," said Toni.
"Here, have your tea and get out of here in case she comes back sudden-like. I don't want to know any more about what you're going to do and you never heard a word from me, mind."
"Sure."
Toni drank her tea rapidly, thanked Mrs Mackenzie and left. But she wheeled her bike round to the back garden and hid it in some bushes. Then she crouched down below the kitchen window and waited.
Fortunately, the garden was surrounded by a high fence and bordering trees and could not be overlooked from any of the neighbouring houses.
Toni waited. And waited. The garden grew hot. After an hour she heard the front door slam. She hoped it was Mrs Constable returning home but then she realized it was probably only Mrs Mackenzie leaving. She opened the sandwich bag and took out a cookie. The chocolate had melted and stuck to her fingers. How odd that chocolate chip biscuits were the only ones in England called 'cookies'.
Then, at two in the afternoon, when she was feeling so cramped and thirsty she was about to give up, she heard voices coming from the kitchen. The kitchen window was thrust open. "Christ, it's hot in here," came a female voice.
A deep man's voice said, "Then take 'em off, darlin'."
Toni extracted the camera and slowly rose until she could peer in the window. A burly man was unbuttoning a tall blonde woman's blouse while she fumbled at the belt of his jeans. "Come on. Hurry up," he said. They fell to the floor.
He began soon to emit loud grunts, covering the noise of the busy click of the camera shutter. Toni took out the recorder and recorded every obscenity that was pouring out of their mouths.
Feeling slightly sick, Toni quietly lifted her bike from the bushes and made her way silently round the side of the house. Her friends at school had watched pornography on their computers and she had seen some of it herself. But, she reflected, it was pretty disgusting being a witness to the real thing.
She pedalled away as fast as she could, stopping at last at a cafe where she ordered a sustaining meal of egg and chips and two Cokes.
Then she went back to the office.
Agatha was reading some correspondence. She looked up when Toni came in. "Too hot?" she asked. "I gave up myself."
"No, I've got
the photographs."
"Good heavens! Print them off and let's have a look. There's a machine over there. I don't know how to work it. Do you?"
"Yes." Toni printed off the photographs and handed them to Agatha. "I have a tape recording as well." She switched it on. Mrs Freedman put her hands over her ears.
"That's enough," said Agatha sharply. "Well done. But I didn't expect a young girl like you to be exposed to such filth. I'm sorry. How did you manage to get these?"
Toni told her.
When she had finished, Agatha said, "I can't in all honestly pay you trainee wages for work like this. We'll negotiate a contract for you tomorrow. You may take the rest of the day off. Mrs Freedman, call Mr Constable."
"What about Phil's camera?"
"Take it home and bring it back tomorrow."
Chapter Three
Agatha returned home slightly jealous of young Toni's early success. The girl had luck on her side and Agatha knew that a lucky detective was often a lot more valuable than an experienced one.
Her cats came running to meet her. The house felt silent. "Roy!" she called. She went into the kitchen. There was a note on the kitchen table propped up against a dirty coffee cup.
"Dear Aggie," she read. "Thanks to that brilliant article, I got the Meery baby products account, which is big big big! Sorry I had to dash off. Lots of love, Roy."
Roy must have phoned his boss, thought Agatha, to crow over the article. She had a feeling that he would not be back for the weekend and she would be left on her own to cope with the case.
She fed her cats and let them out into the garden. Although the day had been unseasonably warm, there was now a slight chill in the air.
She fixed herself a gin and tonic and sat down at the kitchen table feeling lonely.
Her mobile phone rang. At first she couldn't make out who it was because of the gulps and sobs coming down the line. "Take a deep breath, whoever you are," snapped Agatha.
"It's T-Toni," stammered the voice. "He's pinched the camera."
"Who has?"
"M-my b-brother, Terry. He says he's going to sell it in the morning. He's drunk."
"Where are you?"
"I'm locked in my room. He beat me."
"What's your address? I've left it at the office."
Toni gave it to her, along with directions.
"Stay in your room," ordered Agatha. "I'm coming."
"He'll kill you!" wailed Toni. "He's drunk."
"Just wait."
Agatha got into her car and drove to the pub. She said to the barman, John Fletcher, "I need some muscle. Someone's beaten up one of my assistants. Anyone want to make some money?"
"I'll see." John lifted the flap of the bar and went over to where two men were eating lasagne and chips and bent over them. Then he came back to Agatha. "How much?"
"A hundred pounds each," said Agatha.
He went back and returned with the men. He introduced them as Dale and Sean. They were agricultural labourers.
As she drove them towards Mircester, Agatha outlined the problem. "I don't want any broken bones," she warned them. "Just overpower him while I get that camera and get Toni out of there."
"You didn't want to call the police?" asked Sean. Agatha realized that she could easily have called the police, but perhaps this Terry would lie and say he had only taken the camera as a joke. Toni would be asked if she wanted to press charges and probably wouldn't want to land her brother in prison.
"No, it's better this way," she said.
A faded, drunken woman answered the door to them. "Mrs Gilmour?" asked Agatha.
"Yesh, what is it?"
"We would like to speak to your son."
"I dunno..."
"Let us past," ordered Agatha.
She stood aside, hanging on to the edge of the door for support. Agatha heard the sounds of the television. "In here," she ordered.
Terry was slumped on the sofa with a can of beer.
"I want that camera and lens," said Agatha.
"Dunno what yer talkin' about."
Agatha nodded to Sean and Dale. The two powerful labourers jerked Terry to his feet and slammed him up against the wall.
Mrs Gilmour staggered into the room. "Leave my baby alone!" she screamed. "I'll call the perleece."
"Do that," said Agatha coldly, "and I'll have your son charged with theft and actual bodily harm."
Sean twisted Terry's arm up his back. "It's in the bag on the floor," he howled. "You're hurting me."
Agatha recognized the camera bag Phil had given Toni. She opened it up and saw the camera and lens were inside.
"Keep him there," she ordered. Mrs Gilmour had collapsed, weeping, on to the sofa.
Agatha ran up the stairs, shouting, "Toni!" Toni unlocked her bedroom door. She had a cut lip and what looked like the beginnings of a black eye.
"Pack a suitcase. You're getting out of here," said Agatha.
Toni hauled a suitcase down from the top of a wardrobe and began to stuff clothes into it. Agatha looked round the room. Unlike the rest of the house that she had seen, Toni's room was neat and clean, reminding her bitterly of her own childhood where she had tried to create an island of calm amongst the drunken chaos wrought by her parents.
"He'll kill me if I try to leave," whispered Toni, shutting her suitcase.
"No, he won't. I've got two strong men downstairs who'll make sure he doesn't. Come along."
Agatha stopped at a bank and drew two hundred pounds out of the machine. She paid the two men and dropped them off at the pub before driving Toni to her home.
"Get your bag and come in," ordered Agatha. Carrying the camera case, Agatha led the way.
In the kitchen she ordered Toni to sit down and examined her lip and eye. "You won't need stitches but you're going to have one hell of a black eye. I'll make you a cup of sweet tea and then check the spare room. I had a guest who's just left, so I'll need to change the sheets."
But when she went upstairs, Agatha found that her excellent cleaner, Doris Simpson, had been in and changed the sheets, cleaned the room, and placed a small jug of wild flowers beside the bed.
She returned to the kitchen. "It's all ready. Has this happened before?"
"He's never hit me before. Just played nasty tricks. When I was going to school, if he found my homework, he'd rip it up, things like that."
"Where is your father?"
"I don't know who he is. Ma would never say."
"And your mother drinks a lot?"
"All the time."
"Any others? I mean brothers or sisters?"
"No, just Terry."
"What a mess. I should report all this to the social services. Stay here for a bit until I figure out what to do. Now, have you eaten anything?"
Toni shook her head.
"I'll fix us something, but," said Agatha with a rare burst of honesty, "I'm not the world's best cook."
She searched in the deep freeze and found a packet of lamb stew, given to her the week before by Mrs Bloxby. She defrosted it and then heated it in the microwave. She put a plate of food in front of Toni and then opened a bottle of wine.
"You're very kind," said Toni awkwardly.
The doorbell rang.
"Does Terry know where I live?" asked Agatha nervously.
"No. I didn't either. You only had phone numbers on that card you gave me."
Agatha went to answer it. Her friend, Sir Charles Fraith, stood on the doorstep.
"Come in," said Agatha. "But I'm in the middle of a bit of a drama."
Charles was as beautifully tailored as ever, his fair hair in an excellent cut and his neat features betraying nothing more than amiable curiosity. Agatha introduced Toni and briefly outlined what had been happening.
Charles helped himself to a glass of wine. "I haven't enough food for you," said Agatha.
"I've just eaten. Do you know what you should do?" said Charles.
"About what?"
"About Toni here."
/> "It's arranged. She can stay here as long as she wants."
"You'll soon want your own space and start bitching, Agatha."
And Agatha, who had been feeling like a saint for rescuing Toni, glared at him.
"Listen," said Charles. "These days, you can't lose out buying property. Buy her a flat in Mircester and then when she starts earning enough, charge her rent."
Agatha opened her mouth to give an angry retort and then shut it again. Charles might have a point. What if she met the man of her dreams? It wouldn't help to have a pretty young girl in residence.
"I'll think about it," she said gruffly. She saw that Toni had finished eating. "Come along, Toni. I'll take you upstairs. Have a hot bath and get into bed. You'll feel a lot better after a good night's sleep."
Later, Toni lay in the comfortable bed and looked about her with a kind of wonder. Everything was so clean and cheerful. Chintz curtains fluttered at the open window. Agatha had brought her up a glass of warm milk and two strong painkillers along with magazines and books.
How odd that the terrifying Agatha should turn out to be so motherly. And the cottage was the kind she had seen on chocolate boxes and calendars with its deep thatched roof.
Toni did not expect this heaven to last. But her young life had been full of experience of how to enjoy the moment before the drunken chaos created by her mother and brother descended on her again. She sighed and stretched out and was soon fast asleep.
Toni awoke with a start and looked at the alarm clock beside her bed--and groaned. Nine o'clock! How could she have overslept? She struggled up and saw a note on the bedside table. It was from Agatha. She read: "I think you should take the day off and relax. There is food in the freezer. Help yourself. A."
Toni got up and stretched. Two white fluffy towels had been placed at the end of her bed. She found the bathroom, had a shower and dressed in a blouse, jeans and sandals.
She went into the kitchen. Agatha's cats, Hodge and Boswell, came to meet her. Toni crouched down on the floor and petted them, then stood up and went to the fridge. There were no eggs or bacon. A chest freezer stood against one wall. She lifted the lid. The labels that could still be read showed Agatha's love for microwaveable food such as curries and lasagne.