by M C Beaton
She stared down at it, wondering at the same time if James had been successful in returning the ledger and somehow telling the police about the secret room without revealing their identities.
Agatha took a sharp knife out of the kitchen drawer and sliced the tape that sealed the parcel. Just before she wrenched it open, she paused. What if it were a bomb?
She put her ear to the parcel and then told herself she was being silly. Surely bombs ticked only in old movies.
She was reminded of some old game show on television where people would shout either ‘Don’t open the box!’ or ‘Open the box!’
She tore open the top flaps. Whatever was in there was covered in bubble wrap. She gingerly opened the coverings and then stared down at the revealed contents. Rigid with shock, she looked into the dead eyes of Gary Beech. His face was encrusted with little pellets of ice. The head had been frozen.
She sank down into a chair and grasped her knees to stop them from shaking.
Agatha felt she did not have enough strength to get up and call the police from the phone on the kitchen counter. She reached up and pulled her handbag down from the kitchen table and fished out her mobile and dialled 999.
James looked out of his window and saw police cars and a forensic unit arriving outside. He rushed out of doors in time to see a white-faced Agatha being led out and ushered into a police car.
He tried to get to her but had his way blocked by a policeman. ‘Can’t go there, sir,’ he said.
‘Agatha!’ shouted James. ‘What’s up?’
‘Head!’ screamed Agatha wildly as she was thrust into the car, which then sped off, and the road in front of her cottage was taped off.
Agatha, who had refused offers of treatment for shock and simply wanted to get any interview over with, told Inspector Wilkes about the arrival of the package. While she was making her statement in a weak, faltering voice quite unlike her own, the interview was suddenly suspended as Wilkes was summoned from the room.
She waited, staring blankly into space, reviving only enough to refuse a policewoman’s offer of hot sweet tea.
Wilkes eventually returned. His face was grim. ‘Do you know there was a note for you with the head?’
‘Too much of a shock to look further,’ said Agatha. ‘What did it say?’
‘It says, “You’re next, you nosy bitch, if you keep on interfering.” What have you been up to?’
Agatha thought wildly of her visit to Gary Beech’s home. She said, ‘I was investigating his death at the request of his ex-wife . . .’
‘Who you found murdered?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Have you found out anything at all you are not telling us? You see, we got an anonymous call at dawn, telling us about a secret room in Gary Beech’s house. You wouldn’t know about that, would you?’
‘A secret room!’ exclaimed Agatha. ‘That sounds like something out of Enid Blyton. It would never cross my mind.’ She leaned forward wearily. ‘Do you know yet exactly how Beech was killed?’
‘We are waiting for the pathologist’s report on the head. But the initial report says there is evidence of severe blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull.’
Shocked though she was, Agatha was aware of a heavy atmosphere of suspicion in the room. I’ve got to solve this case, she thought wildly. I’m rapidly becoming the number one suspect. But that’s ridiculous. I would hardly send a severed head to myself. And where is the rest of the body? The feet and legs are missing.
‘Mrs Raisin!’ said Wilkes sharply. ‘Pay attention. I want you to go back to the late Mrs Richards. We must assume that she knew something and that was the reason she was killed.’
‘You have my statement,’ said Agatha. ‘I gave you everything then.’
‘Nonetheless. Go over it again.’
Agatha eventually had to be supported from the interview room by a policewoman. She felt her legs had turned to jelly. James was waiting for her.
‘I rescued your cats from the garden,’ he said, ‘and took them to my place. I suggest you move in with me until things are safer. It’s all right, Officer, I’ll take her home.’
‘Take me for a drink first,’ said Agatha.
‘It’s just a few minutes before eleven in the morning. Too early.’
‘James, I’m sure the sun is over the poop deck or whatever. I need a drink.’
‘Agatha, that is a warning sign. When people start saying they need a drink, they’re on the slippery slope to alcoholism.’
A fit of rage brought the strength back to Agatha’s legs. ‘Goodbye,’ she said abruptly, and left police headquarters, banging the door noisily behind her.
She headed straight for the Dragon pub across the other side of the car park, deaf to the sound of James shouting something from behind her.
There was a light breeze. The pub had tables outside with large glass ashtrays on each one. ‘Civilization at last,’ breathed Agatha.
She sat down, opened her handbag, took out her lighter and a packet of Bensons and lit a cigarette. A shadow fell across her.
‘Gin and tonic?’ asked James.
‘Make it a double,’ said Agatha, squinting up at him out of her bearlike eyes.
When James went into the pub, Agatha pulled out her mobile and dialled Toni. ‘See if you can renew your friendship with Mrs Richards,’ said Agatha after she had finished describing the horrors of the morning. ‘She might know something. I mean, this Richards character strikes me as fishy.’
‘Patrick did a check on him,’ said Toni cautiously. ‘He is what he appears to be – a successful businessman.’
‘Nonetheless, do it,’ said Agatha, ‘and I want Phil following behind you to keep a watch on you, just in case.’
James came back as she rang off, carrying her drink and a coffee for himself. Agatha suddenly found herself missing Charles. She did not want to move in with James. She would not be allowed to smoke. And his fussy bachelor ways would get on her nerves. Her cottage was protected by first-class security.
‘I think I’d be better off in my own home,’ said Agatha after a gulp of her drink. ‘It is secure. Come on, James, you know we’d get on each other’s nerves.’
He gave a reluctant smile. In that moment, Agatha wavered. Oh, those blue eyes of his and that smile which lit up his whole face. That hard, muscular body . . .
She gave herself a mental slap.
For his part, James felt that old pull of attraction towards Agatha. Her hair was shining in the sunlight, and the colour had returned to her face.
‘Can’t you just for once leave this one to the police?’ he asked.
‘No, I can’t,’ said Agatha. ‘I must get to the bottom of things. What knowledge did a common copper like Beech have that was worth a lot of money? That’s what I would like to know. His macabre death was revenge, I think, but also a warning to anyone else.’
‘Leave it for now, anyway,’ said James. ‘Let me take you home.’
Agatha wavered but realized she was still weak from shock. ‘All right,’ she said, finishing her drink. ‘But I don’t think I’ll go home yet. It will still be full of police. I’ll book a room at the George Hotel after I buy myself some cheap clothes.’
Sir Charles Fraith heard the news of the dead head delivered to Agatha on the car radio later the next morning. When he arrived at his Warwickshire mansion, he went straight to the kitchen where he kept the keys to Agatha’s cottage. They were usually hanging on a board along with various other keys to the garage, the cellar and so on. But Agatha’s keys were missing. He called to his manservant, Gustav, ‘Have you taken Mrs Raisin’s keys?’
‘Wouldn’t touch them,’ said Gustav, who disapproved of Agatha.
‘Ask around. The village women were in to clean, weren’t they? And ask my aunt.’
He waited impatiently until Gustav returned. ‘Nothing,’ he said with gloomy relish.
‘Check all the loc
ks. Make sure no one could have broken in.’
‘You probably left them somewhere.’
‘Oh, just do what you’re told for once in your miserable life.’
Gustav eventually found there were faint scratches around the lock on the kitchen door.
‘I’d better get to Agatha quickly,’ said Charles. ‘She isn’t answering her phone.’
A call to Bill Wong elicited the fact that Agatha was staying at the George. Charles got into his car and set off for Mircester.
Toni decided that it would be a mistake to visit Mrs Richards in her home. With Phil in his car parked behind her car a little way away from the Richardses’ villa but with a clear view of the front, Toni settled down to wait.
The news of Gary Beech’s head had been flashed on television. If Fiona Richards saw it and her ex-husband was implicated in any way, she might rush to him – always assuming she knew something.
The day was unusually warm. The sun beat down on Toni’s little car. After an hour, Fiona Richards appeared. She was on her own. Fiona drove off at a sedate pace, and Toni with Phil behind followed her black BMW.
Then Fiona parked in the town square. Toni slid into a parking place a few places away and set out to follow on foot.
To Toni’s dismay, she went into the George Hotel. Agatha had phoned again before Toni had left the office to say that she would be staying at the George.
She heard the receptionist say, ‘Good day, Mrs Richards. Your friend is waiting for you in the dining room.’
Toni had forgotten to take any money out of the petty cash and hoped her own credit card would stand the strain of a lunch at the George. She turned and saw Phil hovering behind her. ‘She’s gone in for lunch to meet someone,’ said Toni. ‘I’d better go into the dining room as well.’
‘Don’t waste your money on an expensive meal,’ said the ever-practical Phil. ‘You can’t get near her when she’s with someone. Go into the dining room and get a look at whoever she is meeting and then join me in the café across the road. We can have a cheap snack and wait until she comes out.’
‘Good idea.’ Phil went off, and Toni made her way through to the dining room.
Mrs Richards was talking to a man, and from his appearance, Toni guessed that the man was her ex-husband. Agatha’s notes on the case included detailed descriptions of all the people she had come across.
She retreated and joined Phil, who was seated at an outside table at the café. ‘It looks as if she’s with her ex-husband,’ said Toni. ‘I’ll try to talk to her again when she’s on her own. I mean, she was friendly enough before.’
‘I’ll go and have a look,’ said Phil. ‘I sneaked a photograph of him.’
He had just gone when Toni’s mobile phone rang. It was Charles. ‘Do you know if Agatha is at the George?’ he demanded. ‘It looks as if someone’s stolen my set of keys to her cottage.’
‘Yes, she’s staying at the George,’ said Toni. ‘I hope you didn’t have the code to the burglar alarm with the keys.’
‘Oh, God, it’s pasted above the hook.’
‘Charles!’
‘Got to go.’
Agatha awoke and blinked groggily. Someone was hammering at her hotel-room door. She heard Charles’s voice shouting, ‘Agatha! Open up!’
She struggled out of bed, shouting back, ‘Give me a minute.’
Her hair was all over the place, and her face looked tired and white. She gathered up the set of cheap clothes she had bought, unlocked the door and dived into the bathroom. ‘Take a seat,’ she called. ‘Getting dressed. What’s up?’
‘I’ll tell you when you come out.’
Charles opened the minibar and helped himself to a whisky.
Agatha quickly showered and put on underwear and the loose cotton dress she had bought. She brushed her hair until it shone and carefully applied a layer of make-up with a hand made expert over the years.
When she emerged, she glared at the glass of whisky in Charles’s hand, noticing from two small empty bottles that it was not his first.
‘Oh, do make yourself at home,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Hear about the head?’
‘Yes, frightful.’
‘Is that why you are here raiding the minibar?’
‘Well, not exactly. It’s like this . . .’
Agatha heard him out and then said, ‘I’ll get on to the security firm and get them round tomorrow. I suppose the police will be at my cottage for most of today. I should charge you. I’ll need to change all the locks and the burglar alarm.’
She sat down suddenly on the bed. ‘I still feel shaky. I went straight to bed when I got here.’
‘You need lunch.’
‘Are you buying?’
‘Of course,’ said Charles reluctantly.
They were about to enter the dining room when Agatha saw Fiona Richards and her husband.
She backed away. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she hissed. ‘The Richards female is in there with her husband. We’ll have lunch somewhere else.’
As they left the hotel, Agatha spotted Phil and Toni in the café opposite and went to join them. ‘I thought I would wait until she leaves and see if I can have a word with her,’ said Toni.
‘But get her on her own.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘We’re off for lunch,’ said Agatha, and added firmly, ‘Charles is buying.’ Charles, predictably, led Agatha to the Dragon, where he knew the set pub meals were cheap at lunchtime.
Bill Wong was just finishing his lunch as they walked in. ‘I’m going back out to your cottage, Agatha,’ he said. ‘I want to see if they’ve found out anything.’
‘I hope I’ll be able to go home tomorrow,’ said Agatha, sitting next to him. ‘Charles, get me a steak and chips and a half of lager.’
As Charles’s well-tailored back moved towards the bar, Agatha whispered, ‘You’ll never guess what the silly ass has done.’ She told him about the missing keys.
‘I know. He did phone us,’ said Bill crossly. ‘Come over to headquarters after lunch. We’ll need to send someone out to Warwickshire to have a look at that kitchen door.’
Bill left them when their food arrived. Agatha poked dismally at her steak. When she was with James, she longed for Charles’s lighter company. Now, she felt she could do with James’s steady reassurance.
Her phone rang. It was Roy Silver, babbling with excitement. ‘I hear you’ve found the head.’
‘Well, it found me.’
‘Look, Aggie, how about me coming down for the weekend and babysitting you?’
‘Yes, sure. Do you want me to pick you up at the station?’
‘No, I’m driving down. See you Friday evening.’
Toni at last saw the Richardses leaving the hotel. Tom Richards kissed his ex-wife on the cheek and strode off. Fiona Richards set off in the opposite direction. Toni had already paid the bill in the café, so she followed in pursuit, with Phil following a discreet distance behind.
Fiona went into a dress shop, and after only a little hesitation, Toni followed her in just as a formidable sales assistant was ushering Fiona into a changing room, saying, ‘I’ve got the very thing for you. Cerise silk.’ She swung a frumpy outfit off its hanger and handed it into the changing room.
Fiona Richards was a contrast to the dead Amy, thought Toni, patiently waiting for her to come out. Amy wouldn’t have been seen dead in a frock like that.
‘How much is that dress you have just given that lady to try on?’ asked Toni.
‘Four hundred and ninety-nine pounds.’
‘Bit steep.’
The assistant looked coldly at Toni. ‘Do you want something?’
‘I just want a word with Mrs Richards.’
The assistant went into the changing room. ‘What do you think?’
‘May as well. I need something for the Woman of the Year banquet.’
‘Ooh, have you been selected?’
‘Hardly. I’m just a housewife. Yes, I’ll take it.’
‘There’s a young lady waiting to speak to you.’
Fiona glanced out of the changing room and then shut the door. ‘I do not wish to speak to her. Tell her to go away. She’s one of those awful detectives.’
The assistant approached Toni. ‘Come into my office, please. I want a word with you. Come along, or I’ll call the police.’
Once in the small office, which smelled of perfume and cloth, the assistant said, ‘Mrs Richards doesn’t want to speak to you, and she has made that perfectly clear. You will leave immediately.’
At that moment, they both heard the shop door bang.
The assistant looked out of the window and saw Fiona scurrying off down the street. ‘You’ve lost me a sale,’ she wailed.
Toni ran out of the shop, looking to right and left, but could see no sign of Fiona.
Phil was remarkably spry for seventy-odd years. He followed Fiona to the car park. She had been moving very quickly, taking a circuitous route through market stalls to the car park.
She was just about to get into her car when Phil approached her. ‘Excuse me!’
Fiona surveyed him. Phil had white hair and a gentle face.
‘What is it?’
‘I think I saw a couple of youths trying to break into your car. They saw me and ran off. Maybe you’d better go to the police station and I’ll help you put in a report.’
‘The police won’t do anything,’ said Fiona. ‘Useless. But thanks all the same.’
Phil gave a charming laugh. ‘I don’t know what they would have done if they had confronted me. Bit long in the tooth. You know, you look a bit shaken. Fancy a cup of tea?’ As she hesitated, he added, ‘With my years, you can hardly think I’m trying to pick you up.’
‘Oh, all right. I could do with a cuppa. I had lunch at the George and there was too much salt in the food.’
‘There’s a new café just next to the abbey,’ said Phil.
‘Lead the way.’
Over a pot of tea and toasted tea cakes in a shady garden at the back of the café, Fiona visibly relaxed as Phil prattled on about the unseasonably warm weather.
‘Are you originally from Mircester?’ asked Phil.
‘No, I’m a London girl. I think when the kids are old enough, I’ll move back. Never really settled here.’