by M C Beaton
“I don’t understand,” said Mrs Bloxby. “How did that come about?”
Roy kicked Agatha under the table. She yelped, rubbed her ankle, and glared at him. “I’m going to tell them,” she said. She explained about the deal.
“You must be very good at your job,” said Mrs Bloxby. She tried to surreptitiously feed Hodge, the cat, with a piece of muffin. Agatha had bought a packet of a product new on the market which promised ‘real American blueberry muffins from your own microwave’. They tasted like wet cardboard. Hodge took it from her fingers and then spat it out on the grass. James crumbled his, so that his plate was covered in muffin crumbs. He hoped Agatha might think he had eaten some of it.
“She is,” said Roy. Somehow Mrs Bloxby, without saying anything, was making him feel guilty about getting Agatha to sign that contract. Away from the world of PR, away from London, things which passed as normal business in the city had a way of appearing, well, shabby in this rural tranquillity.
He gave himself an angry little shake, like a wet dog. People didn’t go about planting people in London; mugging, raping, knifing and shooting, but not planting.
“I think,” said Mrs Bloxby in her quiet voice, “that the full enormity of Mary Fortune’s death is striking me at last. Someone in this village is mad enough and deranged enough to have killed her and left her body in such a dreadful way. What on earth could she have done to engender such hate?”
“So you believe she was a murderee?” asked James. “I mean someone who is going to get murdered because of some flaw in their character?”
How can you talk about Mary with such academic interest when you once made passionate love to her? thought Agatha. Aloud, she said, “If only it would turn out to be an outsider!”
“You sound more like a villager every day, Agatha,” said Mrs Bloxby. “I must go and look at some of the other gardens. Why, James, what about yours?”
“It’s open,” he said easily. “I do what the others do and just leave a box at the gate for the money.”
“Then I’ll have a look. Agatha?” Mrs Bloxby turned to her. “Care for a walk?”
Agatha shook her head. “I couldn’t bear the looks and whispers.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Yes, they will most of them be laughing over it, but I think with affection. You are regarded as something of a character.”
“That’s me,” said Agatha. “The village idiot complete with cats. So where do we go from here?”
Bill came back into the garden. “Until this murder is solved, Agatha,” he said, “you should keep your front door locked at all times. Come to think of it, with that expensive security system in your garden, the lights must have been blazing while the men were working. Or did you switch it off?”
“It switched itself off ages ago,” said Agatha. “I’ll phone the security people and get them to fix it. What did Beth and John have to say for themselves?”
“John did it,” said Bill, sitting down. “And he’s quite unrepentant about it.”
“What!” screeched Agatha. “Have you charged him?”
“It’s up to you. But for a schoolboy trick? And have your deception come out in court?”
“But if he did that to me, maybe he did it to the other gardens. What was his reason for switching those labels?”
“He said he went out for a long walk because he couldn’t sleep. He turned along Lilac Lane. As he passed your house, he saw the truck outside leaving. Wondering if it might be a burglary, because it was dawn and no one was about, he started to go up to the front door. He heard voices from the back garden and went to the side path and listened. He heard someone say, “So now we can go and get a bit of sleep. When do the people start coming?””
“Roy,” breathed Agatha.
“And then your voice saying, “Not till ten. How do I tell them what flowers are what? I don’t want to be exposed as a cheat.” And then Roy here replying, “Labels tied on all of them, nicely faded and weathered, but legible. You just bend down and read.” So he thought he would pay you back for ‘meddling in his life’, as he put it, by switching the labels. He went down the lane a little and sat by the hedge and waited until the house became quiet. Then he went into the garden and moved all the labels around. I still can’t think him guilty of anything else. He seems to me typical of a certain type of Oxford University student, boorish and somewhat sulky.”
“Damn him,” muttered Agatha. “I would look a fool if this ever came to court.”
“Thought I’d let you know,” said Bill.
“How did the funeral go?” asked James. “You did go to it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I was there at the crematorium. Very sad. Only me and two other detectives and Beth and John.”
“Some of us from the village should have gone,” said Agatha, suddenly conscience-stricken because all at once it was hard to think of the Mary who had been exposed since her death. She could only remember Mary’s warmth and charm. Agatha suddenly became more determined than ever to see what she could do about solving Mary’s murder. Whatever Mary had been, she had not deserved such a death.
Nine
Agatha remembered Bill Wong’s warning when she was putting on make-up in her bedroom and heard her front door open the next day and someone walk into the hall. She was looking wildly at her dressing-table for some sort of weapon and seeing only the nail scissors when James’s voice called up, “Agatha, are you there?”
“Coming,” she yelled, and put some Blush Pink lipstick over her chin, swore dreadfully, wiped it off, and applied it properly.
She ran down the stairs. “What’s the matter?”
“I wondered whether you would fancy a trip into Oxford,” said James. “I remembered this professor friend and phoned him up. He’s at one of the other colleges but he’s got us an introduction to a don at St Crispin’s. I phoned him and asked him to lunch. That way we can find out more about John Deny.”
“And Beth,” said Agatha eagerly. “Wait a minute. I’d better change.”
He looked appraisingly at her flowered blouse and plain skirt. “You’ll do. We’re lunching at Brown’s and no one dresses for that. I’ll drive.”
And Agatha was happy as they drove off. She tried to persuade herself that she was happy because the day was sunny, because she was getting out of the village and ahead with the investigation. She did not want to admit that James’s company was beginning to exert its old magic.
He took the road through Chipping Norton and Woodstock. “Do you think anything will come out of this lunch?” asked Agatha.
“It might. I don’t think either Beth or John Deny had anything to do with the murder, but we may as well try everything.”
“I wonder what he’ll be like, this don. What’s his name?”
“Timothy Barnstaple.”
Perhaps he’ll be attractive, thought Agatha.
James parked in the underground car-park at Gloucester Green and they walked back along St Giles and so to Brown’s Restaurant on the Woodstock Road.
“This is silly,” said James. “I forgot to ask what he looked like.”
“Did you book a table?”
“No. We’re meeting him now, at twelve, so it won’t be too crowded, and it is the university holidays.”
They entered the restaurant and looked about. A thin middle-aged man got up as they walked in. He was leaning on a stick. He was dressed in a black jacket and black trousers. His black hair was greased back from a tired lined face. Porter from one of the hotels, thought Agatha and turned her eyes elsewhere.
But the man called out, “Are you Mr Lacey?”
This, then, was Timothy Barnstaple.
“I took the liberty of ordering a drink while I waited for you,” he said. His voice was beautiful. In these days of the cult of the common accent, it was a pleasure to hear a well-spoken, well-modulated voice.
“I didn’t know you were bringing Mrs Lacey,” said Timothy, leering at Agatha, “but the pleasure is all mine.�
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“Mrs Raisin is my neighbour and friend,” said James.
“And where is Mr Raisin?”
“I don’t know,” said Agatha truthfully. “I walked out on him years ago. I suppose he’s dead.”
“Sit beside me, Mrs Raisin. But why are we so formal? What is your first name?”
“Agatha.”
“A good old name, Agatha. So sad the way they name girls these days. I have a student called Tootsy. That is her real name. She was christened that. A most scholarly girl. But how will she succeed in life? Her full name is Tootsy McWhirter, and she is a Thatcherite. Could not her parents write down, say, the Right Honourable Tootsy McWhirter and see how strange it might look? But we digress. I am very hungry. I will just order another drink while we look at the menu.”
The don ordered another double whisky and water and then peered over the menu. When they had ordered their food and Timothy had ordered a bottle of claret – ’We’ll start with one bottle and then see how we get on’ – he leaned his elbows on the table, pressed his knee against Agatha’s and asked, “How can I help?”
James told him briefly about the murder.
“Ah,” said Timothy, “I read about that.”
“The thing is,” said James, “we’re just blundering about, finding out what we can about the characters of all the people close to Mary Fortune. What do you think of John Deny?”
“The college,” said Timothy, “started to discriminate against the public schools, you know, Eton, Marlborough, Westminster, some time ago. Help the underprivileged and all that stuff. Down with elitism. The sad fact is that we have quite a lot of John Derrys, beer-swilling, loud-mouthed, at a loss at university, diligent enough swot at his comprehensive school, but not university material. Sort of chap who gets a bad degree if he gets one at all and then blames the capitalist system. Subsequently can’t get a job and refuses to believe that turning up for interviews in torn jeans and a boorish manner has anything to do with failure. He latched on to Beth in their first year.
“Beth, on the other hand, is a highly intelligent girl.”
“So why get tied up with John Deny?” asked Agatha.
“The brighter the girl, the more sexually naive. They think they are being feminist and liberated when they enter into a sexual relationship with some man at college, not aware that by funding him, washing his socks and making his meals, they are more in chains than their mothers. It’s all sex.”
He pressed his knee harder against Agatha’s. It was a small table. She moved her legs away and found them pressed against James’s, apologized and moved them away again, where Timothy’s insistent knee was waiting under the table to welcome her leg back.
The food arrived, solid English food. “Do you think either of them could have committed a murder?” asked Agatha.
He held up a hand ornamented with dirty fingernails for silence and then attacked his food. He ate very rapidly, washing the meal down with great gulps of wine. “Perhaps another bottle?” he said, breaking his silence at last.
James ordered another bottle and poured a glass for Agatha and himself before serving Timothy. “Now,” said James, “as I am sure you don’t want to drink claret with the pudding, perhaps we can talk.”
But Timothy, it transpired, could eat apple pie and ice cream and double cream washed down with claret.
Agatha waited in silence and then said sharply, “Let’s get down to it. We brought you out for lunch to get a few facts.”
Timothy smiled dreamily at Agatha’s pugnacious face. “Dear lady,” he crooned. “So forceful. I am but jelly in the hands of a forceful woman.”
He seized hold of Agatha’s hand and kissed it. She snatched it away. “Come on,” she snapped. “Tell us more about John Deny.”
He drained the last of the claret and signalled the waitress. “Perhaps a brandy with the coffee…” he was beginning but Agatha waved the waitress away. “We’ll call you when we need you. No brandy, Timothy, until you talk to us. Tell us more about John Derry. Any incidents in college involving him? He and Beth are in their final year when the term starts, are they not?”
He sighed and leaned back and lit a cigarette. “There was an incident in John’s first year. He beat up a fellow student in a drunken brawl. It never got to court. He was disciplined by the college,”
“What caused the brawl?”
“He said the student he had attacked had made a pass at Beth. Some witnesses said Beth had encouraged the advances and seemed delighted at the subsequent punch-up, egging John on to greater efforts. But I find that hard to believe. She is such a sweet girl. She’ll get a good degree.”
He began to talk about college life, and time after time Agatha steered him back to the characters of John and Beth, but without much success. Reluctantly James ordered brandy for Timothy – “A double, my dear,” called Timothy to the waitress – and said, “The one thing we have got out of this is that report that Beth had incited John to fight.”
“Beth Fortune is no Lady Macbeth,” exclaimed Timothy, waving one hand expansively so that cigarette ash dropped into Agatha’s coffee cup. He focused his tipsy eyes on James and nodded in Agatha’s direction. “What’s she like in bed? Feisty, I’ll bet.”
James sighed. “I have not had that pleasure.”
“Why?” asked Timothy.
“Can we stick to the subject?” Agatha’s voice was beginning to get a nasty edge to it. “On the night of the murder, John and Beth claim they were in Bern’s rooms. But the police say there are no witnesses to give them an alibi.”
“But there is a witness.” He tapped his nose and then stubbed his cigarette out in the remains of his pudding.
They both leaned forward. “Who?”
“Me,” he said triumphantly. “Of course, it should be ‘I’, but I always feel one can appear a trifle pedantic if – ”
“What are you talking about?” howled Agatha. “What did you see?”
“I was crossing the quad below Beth’s rooms on the evening of the murder. I looked up and distinctly saw John Deny and Beth Fortune standing by the window, talking.”
“At what time?”
“At about eight thirty.”
“Did you tell the police this?”
“They didn’t ask me.”
“But you must have known that they were looking for witnesses,” said Agatha impatiently.
“I saw no reason for my evidence, dear lady. Such as Beth Fortune does not kill her own mother, and in such a gruesome way. Nor, for that matter, would John Deny. The manner in which she was killed suggests a brooding hatred. A real village murder.”
“What do you mean – village murder?”
“We don’t go in for such colourful deaths in the city. Lots of inbreeding still in these old Cotswold villages, and witchcraft and all that sort of thing. Take my word for it, it’s a village murder.”
His eye roved round the restaurant for the waitress and James, guessing correctly that Timothy meant to ask for another brandy, forestalled him by asking for the bill.
Agatha was glad to escape and take a deep breath of fresh air when they got outside. “I thought we would be meeting a scholarly old gentleman,” she said bitterly. “Do you think he meant all that, about being a witness?”
“Yes, I think he was telling the truth. Why should he lie?”
“Sing for his supper? Get more free booze out of you? When was the time of death exactly? Did we ask Bill Wong? We found her at eight o’clock.”
“I asked. They estimate she was killed about an hour before we arrived.”
“Why didn’t I think of asking Bill?” demanded Agatha fretfully.
“Because we weren’t exactly looking for alibis for people but more for reasons for killing Mary. Oh, God, think of the time it took to kill her and then to string up the body. He or she could have left only minutes before we arrived. And if John and Beth were seen at eight thirty, they could have had time to get back to Oxford, so they haven’t really got an
alibi, now I come to think of it,”
“Thank you for lunch, James. I should give you my share.”
“That’s all right. Take me out for dinner next week and we’ll call it quits. Are you going to give away the money Mary left you, Agatha?”
“No, I think I’ll keep it.”
“Then you can afford to buy me dinner. Where now?”
“Back to Carsely, I suppose,” said Agatha. “We might think of some ideas on the road.”
But nothing occurred to either of them, although they swapped various theories.
“Mrs Bloxby was right,” said Agatha with a shiver as they approached the village. “The murder seems more awful the further one gets away from it. I think the shock of the whole thing has kept reality at bay.”
“There’s the boy scouts’ fête,” said James, slowing the car outside a field above Carsely. “Want to have a look? They’ve got stalls and things, and I could do with some home-made jam. Mary used to keep me supplied. Damn it! Why did I have to think of that?”
“May as well have a look,” agreed Agatha.
He stopped the car on the verge and they walked into the field, admission twenty pence. Admission to everything in Carsely seemed to cost twenty pence. They wandered along the stalls. Mrs Bloxby, raising money for charity as usual, was selling home-made jam. Agatha and James bought a jar each. James chatted away while Agatha edged off and stood waiting. She was still ashamed about her trick with her garden.
There were small boy scouts leaping about on a trampoline and boy scouts vaulting over a hobby horse. There was also a boy scouts’ band playing tinnily.
Over in the corner was something that looked like a scaffold but turned out to be a ‘mountain rescue’ display. Three boys were hoisting a chubby boy scout up on ropes. He missed his hold and turned upside down and swung in the air.
“Just like Mary Fortune,” said Agatha with a shudder. “Let’s go.”
They turned away. A wind had sprung up and the clouds above were heavy and grey. There had not been rain for some time and little dust devils swirled up from between patches of bare earth among the scrubby grass of the field. There was also a faint chill damp in the air, heralding approaching rain. Agatha rubbed her bare arms and shivered.