by M C Beaton
Agatha was wary of farms, considering them full of livestock of which she knew nothing and snapping dogs. The farmhouse was more of a country mansion, being a Georgian building four storeys high, well maintained.
The door was standing open. There came the sound of voices from within.
“Hello!” shouted Agatha.
The voices stopped, then there was the sound of a chair being scraped back, then booted feet.
Angela Buckley appeared. “It’s our heroine,” she cried. “Come along in.”
Agatha followed her into a stone-flagged kitchen. Three men sat at the table with cups of tea. “That’s my father,” said Angela, jerking her head at a grey-haired man, “and that’s Joe and Ben, they work for us. Sit down and have a coffee. This lot were just going back to work.”
The farmer picked up a cap from the back of his chair and put it on. “Saw you the other night, Mrs Raisin,” he said. “You told ‘em.”
He went out, followed by the two men. Angela and Agatha sat down at the table.
“I’ve just been to see Jane Cutler,” said Agatha.
“Oh, the slurry with the fringe on top. Why did you go to see her?”
Agatha decided to plunge right in. “I wanted to see if I could find out anything about the murder.”
“What’s that got to do with you? That’s police business.”
“But as I am working for the water company, it is in their interest to get this murder cleared up as quickly as possible.”
“So what did the raddled old bitch have to say for herself?”
“She more or less said you did it.”
“There’s no end to that woman’s venom. She’s had so many face-lifts and been so stretched that every time she opens her mouth her arsehole gapes. What reason should I have for murdering old Struthers?”
“The paddock.”
“Oh, mat. It had become a bit of a joke between us. He would say, “You’ll need to wait until I’m dead.” Oh, lor’. Doesn’t that sound awful?”
“But there was no real feeling about it?”
“There was from time to time. He didn’t need that paddock, and he was a stubborn old codger. But actually he’d call round here quite a lot. We were friends.”
“So who could have done it? Was it to stop him voting for or against? Did any of you know which way he meant to vote?”
“No, he enjoyed teasing us.”
“What about Mary Owen? Tell me about her.”
“She always wanted to head the parish council but we wouldn’t let her. She’s so bossy. I think in her way she kept us all together, despite our differences. We all hated her.”
Agatha wondered whether to broach the subject of the late Percy Cutler, but decided against it. Her own heartache over James had made her unusually sensitive to another woman’s feelings.
“We’ve always had fights over something or another,” Angela was saying, “but they all die away after a while.” She looked at Agatha and her round weather-beaten face suddenly turned hard. “Drop this amateur murder investigation. All you’ll do is stir up a lot of muck…and you might get hurt.”
“Is that a warning?” asked Agatha, gathering up her handbag.
“Yes, it is. A friendly warning.”
Agatha said goodbye and went out to where her car was parked in the farmyard. As she drove off, she looked in the rear-view mirror. Angela was standing, her hands on her hips, watching her go. Her face was grim.
Agatha went home and phoned Bill Wong and told him of both conversations, the one with Jane Cutler and the one with Angela. Bill groaned. “This opens up a messy field of research. Let me know if you find out anything else.”
“What, no warning to keep out of it?”
“I need all the help I can get on this one.”
James Lacey phoned Bill Wong later. “I went to see that Cutler woman as a start,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s nothing there. According to her the members of the parish council all love one another. I must admit I found her very charming.”
“That’s not what our Agatha found out,” said Bill gleefully.
There was a short silence and then James said, “What do you mean?”
Bill repeated what Agatha had told him.
“Mrs Cutler said nothing of that to me,” complained James.
“Probably she reserves all her nice manners for us gentlemen. I found her charming as well. You should join forces with Agatha.”
“I’ll think about it,” said James curtly.
But he took several days to think about it and by that time Guy Freemont had phoned up Agatha and invited her out for dinner.
“I’m afraid I’m busy tonight, James,” said Agatha, noticing with irritation that her hand holding the telephone receiver was trembling. “Got a dinner date.”
“Oh, well, what about if I pop round this afternoon?”
“Got an engagement for this afternoon,” said Agatha. “Look, I’ll call you. Bye.”
She sat down on the stairs. Why, oh, why had James decided to contact her just when she was booked to have dinner with Guy and had made an appointment with a beautician in Evesham for that afternoon?
James was the same age as she, and if she had been going out with him, then she would not be rushing off to the beautician to have electrodes put on her face and neck to try to reduce the wrinkles.
This was what came of dating a much younger man and a handsome man at that. Somehow, with the work for the water company, and then the prospect of going out with Guy, she had not thought much about the murder, nor had she investigated it further.
But the gloss of that date with Guy had been definitely tarnished and it was a gloomy Agatha who drove into Evesham. She had picked out a beautician from the Yellow Pages.
Evesham was an odd town, reflected Agatha, as she made her way up a narrow staircase to the beautician’s. All over the town, shops had closed down and the boarded-up fronts had been decorated with paintings of old Evesham shops by a local artist. If this goes on, thought Agatha, Evesham will soon be a town of paintings. No shops. And yet, here was this beautician who appeared to have the latest in beauty treatments, and along the road, a drugstore was doing a brisk trade in cut-price French perfume. It should have been a bustling, prosperous town. So much traffic, so many houses being built. But quite a lot of people were on the dole and didn’t seem much interested in getting off it. A local fruit-packing company was bussing in workers from Wales because the locals wouldn’t take up the jobs.
Agatha opened the door of the beautician’s and went in.
The beautician, called Rosemary, was refreshingly maternal and non-threatening. Agatha, who had been expecting some anorectic creature who would make her feel frumpy, began to relax.
That was until the electrodes were attached to her face and neck and switched on. “It’s a good thing I know this is a beauty treatment,” muttered Agatha. “If I was in a police station in a totalitarian state, I would think it was torture and tell them everything.” But she booked up a further nine appointments.
For good measure, she had her eyebrows shaped and her eyelashes dyed. She walked down the stairs and along the High Street, squinting sideways at her reflection in shop windows to see if she looked any younger.
It seemed to take ages to get home, because she had forgotten about the building of the Broadway bypass and the traffic lights on Fish Hill. The bypass would surely benefit Broadway by taking away all the huge rumbling trucks that daily shook the old buildings of the village, and yet it was very sad to see the trees on Fish Hill cut down for the new road and the scarred earth on either side where sheep so lately had peacefully grazed.
Once home, she began the long preparation necessary to any middle-aged woman who is dating a younger man, although she kept reminding herself fiercely that it was only a business partnership.
By the time, she had applied the last of her make–up and stood before the mirror wondering if the low-cut fine wool red dress was too gaudy, she felt
a wrench of real pain. Instead of going through all this, she could have been talking to James about the case, building bridges, getting back to the old warmth and closeness.
When Guy called to pick her up, she had lost all interest in him.
Guy drove her to Oxford, parked in the underground car park in Gloucester Green and then escorted her to a French restaurant. It turned out to be one of those ones with a delicious menu and lousy food. A good way of dieting, thought Agatha, would be just to enjoy the prose on the menu and then not order anything.
Agatha had ordered breast of duck stuffed with spinach on a bed of warm rocket which translated itself into a piece of rubber stuffed with decaying vegetable matter, and rocket must be surely the most overrated vegetable in the world. It always tasted to Agatha like weeds.
They talked about various journalists and which would be more inclined to give them a good show. Agatha had already arranged various lunches in London with journalists. Guy said the new colour brochures advertising the water would be ready in a couple of days’ time and that he would save Agatha a trip to Mircester and run over with them.
They drank a bottle of highly priced indifferent wine, but there was enough alcohol in it to mellow Agatha. After coffees and two brandies, she felt happy to be in the company of this well-tailored and handsome man.
When the bill was presented, Guy began patting his pockets. Then he gave Agatha a rueful boyish smile. “Damn, I’ve left my wallet at home.”
“It’s all right, I’ll pay,” said Agatha, thinking not for the first time that the majority of Englishmen were as tight as the bark on the tree.
He drove her back home. James heard the car arrive and leaped for the side window of his cottage. Guy, his black hair gleaming in the light over Agatha’s door, took her keys from her and unlocked the door for her. James held his breath. Then Guy followed Agatha in. James waited and waited. He drew a chair up to the window and waited. Lights from the downstairs window shone out into Agatha’s small square of front garden. At last they went off and the hall light went on. Then the hall light was switched off and the light on the stairs switched on. Then the light from behind the drawn curtains of Agatha’s bedroom lit up the garden.
“Silly woman,” he muttered, but still he waited. When the light in Agatha’s bedroom was switched off and no Guy could be seen leaving the house, James went to bed.
Agatha came awake suddenly the next morning. She couldn’t believe she had actually had sex with Guy. What on earth was up with her? Was she trying to prove that at her age she could still do it without a map?
She lay and listened to the silence of the house. Please let him be gone! That was the hell about being middle-aged. There was all the fear of trying to get to the bathroom to slap on make–up before he caught a glimpse of her unadorned face. But there was no sound but the wind blowing through the heavy purple lilac blossoms outside the window.
She got out of bed, feeling stiff and sore. After a deep bath, she felt better. She made up carefully and dressed, and then ripped the sheets off the bed and carried them down to the washing machine in the kitchen. She fed her cats and let them out into the sunshine of the garden.
There was a knock at the door. Perhaps it was James! But it was only Mrs Bloxby, the vicar’s wife.
“I’ve brought you some home-made marmalade,” she said. “You are looking very well this morning.”
“Thanks,” said Agatha, leading the way into the kitchen and nervously eyeing the laundry basket of sheets she had left on the kitchen floor. “I’ll just pop these in the machine and then we’ll have coffee.”
“So you’ve been out with that young man from the water company?” said Mrs Bloxby. One is never too old to blush. Agatha bent over the washing machine and loaded it. “How did you know?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Mrs Darry was round at the vicarage first thing this morning to tell me that he had gone in with you after driving you home and hadn’t come out again. You know what villages are like.”
“That cow lives at the other end of the village!”
“But she has a nasty little yapping dog and dogs are very useful for walking about the streets at night by someone who is more interested in other people’s lives than they are in their own.”
Agatha plugged in the coffee percolator. “So I went to bed with him. Does that shock you?”
“No dear, but it probably shocks you. Women of our generation never got used to casual sex. Now young people these days just seem to go and do it without feeling any loss of dignity at all. And yet it is a most undignified performance, unless one is in love, of course.”
“I suppose that Darry woman will spread it all round the village and James will get to hear of it.”
“Is that so very bad? He has been neglecting you. He cannot expect you to carry a torch for him forever.”
Agatha poured two cups of coffee and sat down wearily at the kitchen table. “I feel a fool. I think Guy Freemont is a taker. He took me to a quite dreadful French restaurant in Oxford, very expensive, and then said he had forgotten his wallet.”
“Perhaps he did.”
“I doubt it. I have endured a long series of dinners and lunches with men who forget their wallets or go to the men’s room the minute the bill comes up.”
“Then I suggest you forget your own cards and money the next time you go out. He might find he has his wallet on him after all.”
Agatha grinned. “I’ll try that. No more trouble about the water, is there?”
“As a matter of fact, there is.”
“What?”
“You’ve heard of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a new lot nobody heard of before this year. Save Our Foxes.”
“But they’re hunt saboteurs!”
“Yes, but they are organizing a march on the spring for this Saturday.”
“What’s it got to do with them?”
“They say it is an example of how capitalism is ruining rural life.”
“Bollocks,”
“Quite. They will not get a welcome because the water company has started hiring staff, and young people from Ancombe are getting first priority.”
“I hope this won’t mean bad publicity.”
“I think it will mean some violence and I hope the police can control it. You see, most of these protesters come from the towns and they do not seem to understand country life. I am talking about the genuine protesters, usually serious and mild-mannered people. But they often find their protests are hijacked by thugs looking for a punch-up.”
“I’d better be there,” said Agatha.
“Do be careful.”
“I will.”
After the vicar’s wife had left, Agatha sat down to bring her expenses for the water company up-to-date, knowing of old the horror of leaving expense accounts to the last minute. Then she opened her handbag and took out the bill from the French restaurant. She neatly typed into her computer, “To entertaining Mr Guy Freemont, ninety-two pounds, plus ten pounds gratuity,” and grinned as she ran it off on the printer.
Guy Freemont and his brother were sitting discussing business two days later when their accountant, James Briggs, came in.
“Yes, Briggs, what is it?” asked Peter.
“There is an item on Mrs Raisin’s expense account I thought you might like to consider?”
“What’s up with the old bat?” demanded Peter. “Charging us for clothes or make–up, or what?”
“It’s this.” James Briggs placed a list of figures in front of the two brothers. “Everything seems in order except that I find it odd that she has put in an expensive restaurant bill for entertaining Mr Guy Freemont.”
Peter tapped it. “What’s this, Guy?”
“I did invite her out for dinner, but forgot my wallet.”
“Again? Let it go this time, Briggs.” When the accountant had left, Peter said wrafh-fully, “She’s a good PR. Don’t screw her around unt
il we get this water safely launched.”
“I forgot my wallet,” said Guy. “That’s all.”
Agatha had learned that the protest was to take place at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. She was there in good time. Other people were gathered around. Mary Owen came straight up to Agatha. “You’re not going to get away with this,” she snarled.
“Oh, sod off,” said Agatha. “Is this protest your idea?”
“No, but it goes to show that people all over Britain are not going to sit back and see the life of the country ruined.”
Agatha shrugged and moved away, only to bump into Bill Allen. “You’d better be careful,” he said in his odd, strangled Savoyard voice. “You have stirred up deep feelings.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Just a warning, Mrs Raisin.”
A silence fell on the crowd as eleven o’clock came and went. Agatha suddenly saw James’s tall figure at the edge of the crowd. She longed to join him but was frightened of being snubbed. And yet he had phoned her. She was just edging her way towards him when someone shouted, “Here they come!”
A small procession was heading towards the spring. At the front were gentle-faced middle-aged people, but behind them came burly young men with tattoos, camouflage jackets, earrings, and trouble written all over them. Five policemen were standing in front of the spring.
The onlookers cleared a way for them. A woman with a face like that of a worried sheep turned to face the crowd and took out a sheaf of papers.
“We are here,” she said in a wavering voice, “to protest against the commercialization of this spring. Our village life must be protected.”
“Where do you live?” shouted Agatha.
The woman blinked, opened and shut her mouth, then held on to her notes more firmly and went on. “As I was saying, we must protect—”
“Where do you live?” demanded Agatha again.
“Shut your face!” shouted one of the tattooed young men.
“No, I will not shut up,” yelled Agatha. “Does this woman know anything about village life? Or did you all come from Birmingham or London to make trouble?”