by M C Beaton
“It can’t be arthritis,” raged Agatha. “What do you know?”
“Enough,” he said calmly. “But suit yourself.”
Once the massage was over, Agatha felt much better. The masseur’s treatment room was situated above his chocolate shop, The Honey Pot. Agatha had a sudden sharp longing to reward herself with a big box of handmade chocolates, but marched determinedly out into the square. She stood in the square, irresolute. She felt fine. But why not prove Richard wrong? Agatha had a private doctor, but it was Saturday. Nonetheless, she had his home phone number.
She phoned him and he said he could see her. Hoping for reassurance, her face fell when he said she’d better get the hip x-rayed. Agatha said she wanted to go private, no longer in her worry prepared to wait for the slow-grinding machinery of the National Health Service. He phoned the Cheltenham and Nuffield Hospital and booked her for an appointment with a specialist for Monday evening.
“Where on earth have you been, sweetie?” demanded Roy.
“I had a massage and looked around the shops,” lied Agatha.
“Well, you’ve missed all the excitement. It’s on the news. Mabel Smedley’s escaped.”
“What? From a Spanish jail? How did she do that?”
“She seemed to be having a heart attack and then fell unconscious. They took her to a hospital. The ambulance had to stop for some horrendous crash in front of them on the road there. The ambulance driver and guard got out because to all intents and purposes Mabel was unconscious. She removed all the straps from the stretcher and simply got out and walked away.”
“What if she comes after me?” said Agatha, her eyes glowing.
“Aggie, you almost look as if you wish she could.”
“Don’t be silly.”
But for one moment Agatha had envisaged herself catching Mabel and all the circus of publicity coming back to surround her in a warm starry coat that kept the realities of pedestrian life and possible arthritis at bay.
“Put the television on again,” she said.
Roy switched on the television set to a twenty-four-hour news channel.
They sat patiently watching trouble in Iraq, an earthquake in Japan, the latest iniquities of the National Health Service, and then there was a news flash. “Mabel Smedley, the British woman wanted for three murders, has just been rearrested by Spanish police. A Spanish police spokesman said she had ordered a drink in a bar and when she walked out without paying for it, the bartender chased her down the street, shouting and yelling. A traffic policeman on duty arrested her. More later.”
“I think she wasn’t very cunning after all,” said Agatha. “I think all the murders were done on impulse, fuelled by sick jealousy, or maybe, in the case of her husband, pure rage. Let’s keep watching.”
An hour later, Roy said crossly, “Agatha, it’s the same thing over and over again. You’re not a very good hostess. Let’s go and see Mrs. Bloxby. Have you seen her since you got back?”
“No. How awful. Everything’s been so busy. Let’s go now.”
Mrs. Bloxby was delighted to see them and demanded to know all the details. “I can hardly believe Mrs. Smedley capable of such violence and evil,” said Mrs. Bloxby when Agatha had finished. “Jealousy really must have turned her mind. You will surely miss that young man, Harry Beam, when he goes to university.”
“I’m going to try to persuade him to stay. Patrick is already looking for another detective for me. We’re actually short-staffed.”
“Jessica’s parents must be relieved that the murderer has been caught. What about Joyce? Are her parents alive?”
“It turns out her father was a respectable accountant. Dead these past three years. Her mother is in care in Bath. She has Alzheimer’s. Joyce invented a rich father to explain why she was able to rent a whole house.”
“The thing that troubles me,” said the vicar’s wife, “is that I look around our ladies when we meet at the ladies’ society and I begin to wonder what strange passions are lurking behind those genteel breasts. I mean, Mrs. Smedley was so admired for her good works and for her gentle manner. Who could ever have guessed she would turn violent? Love is a strange thing and can twist people in so many ways.”
Agatha suddenly thought again of her ex-husband, James Lacey. Did he ever think of her? Would he ever come back into her life? And if he ever did, would he find she had turned into some old crock riddled with arthritis? She had been a far from perfect wife, but he had behaved badly towards her and probably never realized it. Most men were protected from admitting their mistakes by a sort of justified selfishness.
Agatha spent a pleasant weekend with Roy and plunged back into work on the Monday, but always thinking of her appointment at the hospital in the evening.
She decided that she would need to employ more than one extra detective. They could not all keep on working in the evenings as well as the days.
At last, she drove reluctantly to the Nuffield Hospital, feeling obscurely guilty at the courteous reception and thinking of all the unfortunate people who could not afford private medicine. She filled in the forms.
“Don’t you have health insurance?” asked the receptionist. Agatha shook her head. She had always believed herself to be immortal.
“Go through to X-ray, along there on the left,” said the receptionist. “The specialist will see you after he receives the X-rays.”
Agatha went along to the X-ray department, took off her clothes and put on the gown allocated to her. Then her hips and legs were x-rayed and she was told to get dressed and wait. After a short time, the folder of large X-rays was handed to her and she was told to go back out to the reception area and wait again.
Agatha slid the X-rays out and squinted at them, holding them up to the light, but she could not make out anything.
A nurse approached her and took the X-rays away from her. “Mr. McSporran will see you now. Follow me,” she said.
“Are you sure that’s his name? Sounds like a Scottish music hall joke.”
“McSporran is a good old Scottish name. Please don’t make any jokes about it. He does get tired of them.”
Mr. McSporran was a small, neat man. He put Agatha’s X-rays up on a screen.
“Uh-uh!” he murmured.
“What?” demanded Agatha nervously.
“You will see quite clearly that you have arthritis in your right hip. It is not terribly advanced, but I would advise you to make an appointment for a hip operation. The longer you leave it, the less successful the operation will be.”
“I’m too busy at the moment to take time off,” said Agatha.
“As I said, it is important you do not leave it too long. We can make arrangements to give you an injection in the hip as a temporary measure. If you are lucky, the injection will last six months.”
Agatha felt she had just received a stay of execution. “I’ll have it now.”
“It doesn’t work like that. You will need to make an appointment. You are put under a general anaesthetic. It only takes one day. I would suggest also that you have a bone scan.” He opened his diary. “We can do the hip injection for you on the twenty-fifth. That’s in two weeks’ time. You will need to be here at seven-thirty in the morning and do not eat or drink anything after ten o’clock the evening before.
“All right,” said Agatha bleakly.
“Now lie down and let me examine you. Remove your trousers.”
Agatha suffered her leg being pulled this way and that.
“Right,” he said when he had finished. “Call at the X-ray desk on your road out and make an appointment for a bone scan.”
Agatha was just leaving the hospital when her mobile phone rang. It was Charles. “Have you eaten?”
“No, I’m in Cheltenham.”
“I’ll take you for dinner. I’ll meet you in the square in Mircester. How long will you be?”
“The traffic should have thinned out. About three quarters of an hour.”
“See you then.”
“Why were you in Cheltenham?” asked Charles when they were seated in an Italian restaurant.
“Working on a case,” said Agatha, who had no intention of telling Charles about her arthritis. So ageing.
“You’ve been having a lot of excitement.”
“You could have been in on it, Charles, if you hadn’t gone scuttling off. How’s it going?”
“Turns out she was engaged and was just using me for a bit of a fling.”
“Poor you.”
“Yes, poor me. Do you ever worry about getting old on your own, Agatha?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Sometimes I think it would be awful to sink into decrepitude on my own.”
“You’re hardly on your own, Charles. You’ve got your aunt and Gustav.”
“My aunt can’t last forever and Gustav is hardly the sort of sympathetic type to soothe the fevered brow. Still, there’s always hope. Lots of pretty girls out there.”
Agatha obscurely felt she was being dismissed because of her age. Charles was in his forties, but she was only in her fifties. And yet men in their forties could still hope to wed some young miss.
When the meal was over, she hoped Charles would volunteer to stay with her because she did not want to go back to an empty house, but he showed no signs of wanting to. Agatha felt too demoralized to ask him.
She went home alone and checked her phone for messages. There was one from Roy thanking her for the weekend, but the next one made her heart soar. It was Freddy.
“How’s my heroine?” he said. “I’ll call you at your office tomorrow.”
Agatha’s black mood lifted. Somebody loved her!
The next day in the office, she jumped whenever the phone rang, waiting for Freddy to call. By late afternoon, she had almost given up hope and was tired of making excuses not to leave the office when he did call. “What about dinner tonight?” he said.
“At what time?”
“I’ll pick you up at your cottage at eight.”
Without making any more excuses, Agatha left the office and went straight to the nearest hairdresser’s. Then, with her hair newly done, she hurried off home to begin elaborate preparations for the evening ahead.
Freddy arrived promptly at eight o’clock and took her to a new restaurant in Moreton-in-Marsh.
Had Agatha not been so elated to be in his company, she would certainly have complained about the meal. Freddy recommended the rolled, stuffed pork belly. When it was served, Agatha found herself staring down at what looked like one small brown turd surrounded by acres of empty plate. It was served with a tiny bowl of mixed salad. But there was handsome Freddy across the table, plying her with questions about the murders and exclaiming in a flattering way at what he described as her brilliant intuition.
And, oh, the way he looked into her eyes and the way his hand brushed hers as he reached across to fill her wine glass.
They were sitting at a table in the bay of a window. It had started to rain again, but for once Agatha was oblivious to the miseries of the dreary weather.
“Do you know,” breathed Freddy, “I fancy you something rotten, old girl.”
He should have left the “old” out. Agatha turned away and stared out of the window just in time to see Charles in his car stopping at the pedestrian crossing lights outside the restaurant. He gave her a startled look. The lights changed to green, a car behind him honked and Charles moved on.
Agatha realized Freddy was waiting for some sort of reply, but found she couldn’t think of anything that might be suitable come on.
So instead she asked, “How was South Africa?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. Met friends. That sort of thing.”
The door of the restaurant opened and Charles breezed in. “Mind if I join you?”
“You weren’t invited,” snapped Agatha.
“And how are you, Freddy?” asked Charles, ignoring the fact that Agatha was glaring at him.
“Fine,” mumbled Freddy.
“Bring the wife and kids back with you?”
“They’re still there.”
Agatha could hardly believe what Charles was saying.
“When are they joining you?” pursued Charles.
“Next week.”
“Jolly good. Well, I better not interrupt your meal. I’ll phone you tomorrow, Agatha.”
“Wait!” Agatha got to her feet. “I’m coming with you. Give me a lift home. I want to get away from this bastard as quickly as possible.”
“I thought you knew I was married,” said Freddy.
“How was I to know that when you didn’t tell me, and you told that copper right in my kitchen that you weren’t married.”
“You’re a rat, Freddy,” said Charles. “Come along, Agatha.”
“You should have told me,” said Agatha for the umpteenth time when they were both back in Agatha’s cottage.
“And you should have told me he had been dating you. How many times do I have to say it?” protested Charles.
“Well, it’s all very depressing. I was feeling low as it was. I mean, all that publicity was rather exhilarating, but it suddenly just died away. Midlands TV wanted me for another interview and they cancelled.”
“It may have been something to do with Detective Inspector Wilkes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He gave a rather unflattering interview about you in the Guardian”
“When?”
“I forget exactly when, but as it happens I’ve got a copy of the paper in my car. Gustav got it for me.”
“If it was unflattering, then he would. Fetch it for me.”
Charles went out and came back with a crumpled copy of the Guardian.
Agatha riffled through it until she came to the features page. There was a big headline: THE INSPECTOR AND THE LUCKY AMATEUR. She began to read.
Wilkes had been very amusing about Agatha’s detective abilities. “I think Mrs. Raisin stumbled on where the murderers were because they were amateurs and she is an amateur,” he had said. “She bumbles around my cases like some sort of bumble bee, occasionally, by sheer luck, crashing into the truth. We are grateful to her, of course, but Interpol were on it and they would have been caught eventually.” There was a lot more of the same.
“This is character assassination,” said Agatha. “I’ll sue him.”
“I wouldn’t do that. Not if you intend to keep running a detective agency. You sue him and you’ll soon have the police working against you at every turn.”
“You should have told me,” protested Agatha. “I could have countered this by reminding everyone it was I who found Jessica’s body, not to mention tracking that pair to Spain.”
“The paper was old by the time Gustav gave it to me. Anyway,” said Charles, “you never mentioned me once in any of your interviews.”
“Because you had beetled off chasing a bit of skirt.”
“That’s it,” said Charles. “I’m off. Phone me when you’re in a better temper.”
Agatha arrived at the office the next morning to find them all waiting for her. “What’s this?” she asked wearily. “A strike?”
“We just wanted to be sure that you want to continue with this agency,” said Patrick. “You didn’t bother doing any work yesterday and you took the whole weekend off.”
“Of course I am continuing,” said Agatha. “I’ve just been tired, that’s all. Mrs. Freedman, let’s go through the work for today.”
In order to show enthusiasm, Agatha took on one of the nastier cases, which was following a man whose wife thought he was being unfaithful and wanted grounds for a divorce.
He owned a delicatessen in Mircester. The shop was a popular one. Agatha found a parking place across the road. Phil was beside her with his camera.
Customers came and went. Then the shop was closed for an hour at lunchtime. Their quarry went to a local restaurant but ate on his own.
Back to watching the shop a
s the hours dragged on until closing time. His two assistants left and then he came out and locked up the shop. He stood outside, looking up and down the street.
“He’s waiting for someone,” said Agatha, crouching down. “Get ready with the camera. Thank God for the light evenings. Wouldn’t want him to be alerted with a flash.”
A youngish man came along the street and hailed the owner. They walked off together.
“Today was a waste of time,” said Phil.
“No, get out the car and follow them,” said Agatha. “I’ve got an idea.”
They hurried after them at a discreet distance. They stopped outside a club called the Green Parrot.
“Thought so,” said Agatha. “Bang off a couple of pictures and let’s get out of here.”
Phil did as he was told, getting two good shots before the two men walked into the club, their arms around each other’s shoulders.
“So why did I have to take photographs?” asked Phil. “Was that his illegitimate son, or what?”
“The Green Parrot is Mircester’s only gay club. Sometimes I hate this job. I feel grubby. I’ll drive you back to your car, Phil. You can go home now and print up those photos. I just want to look at the books.”
After she had left Phil, Agatha slumped down in Mrs. Freedman’s chair and stared at the blank computer screen.
She could not remember ever before feeling so old or so lonely. Early fifties surely wasn’t old these days. But the fact that she had arthritis had shaken her badly. She envisaged herself crumbling into old age all on her own, no one to look after her, no one to share the pain.
There was a tentative knock at the office door. Agatha was about to shout, “We’re closed. Go away,” but reflected that business was business and a possible new case might take her mind off her misery.
She opened the door and stared up at the tall figure standing there, smiling down at her.
“Hullo, Agatha,” said James Lacey.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
the next Agatha Raisin mysrery
LOVE, LIES AND LIQUOR
Coming soon from St. Martins/Minotaur Paperbacks!
JAMES Lacey, Agatha Raisin’s ex-husband with whom she was still in love, had come back into her life. He had moved into his old cottage next door to Agatha’s.