"I told you. For once in her life, Agatha seems too busy to concentrate on murder."
While Bill and James were dining, Agatha was having a pleasant dinner with Guy Freemont. He encouraged her to talk about herself, flattered her ability in public relations and then asked her what a "city girl" like herself was doing buried in the Cotswolds.
"I sometimes wonder," said Agatha ruefully. "But you get used to the safe life, the sleepy life, and it"s so beautiful, particularly at this time of year. It"s beautiful everywhere you look. Have you seen that purple wisteria in Broadway? The blooms are so magnificent. It"s a wonder it doesn"t cause accidents, with so many drivers putting on their brakes to have a better look."
"But don"t you miss the excitement of London?"
"London has changed so rapidly. Last time I was up, I had a meal in a restaurant in Goodge Street and decided afterwards to walk down Tottenham Court Road to get the tube for the Central Line. There were beggars and drug addicts all the way along and shapeless bundles of clothes huddled in doorways. When I got off the tube at Notting Hill to change on to the Circle Line for Paddington, a man, drunk as a skunk, tried to throw himself under the next train. This big burly man s.n.a.t.c.hed him back in the nick of time and marched him up the escalators to the ticket collector. At the top, the would-be suicide wrenched free, vaulted the turnstile and vanished into the night. His rescuer said to the ticket collector, "That man just tried to throw himself in front of the train!" The ticket collector shrugged and looked bored. Didn"t do anything about it. I was glad to get back down here. I don"t belong in London any more. It can be a lonely place."
He took her hand and gave it a warm squeeze. "Any romance in your life?"
"Nothing that I want to talk about," said Agatha as his thumb began to stroke the palm of her hand. Her mind raced. I can"t be doing this, she thought frantically. I"m too old. I don"t have stretch marks, but I have love handles and my b.o.o.bs don"t perk up the way they used to.
When he drove her home, he stopped outside her cottage and, leaning across, planted a warm kiss on her mouth. Agatha blinked at him, dazed and shaken. "I"m going up to London for a few days," he said softly. "I"ll call you when I get back. You"ve been working like a beaver. Why don"t you take a few days off and relax?"
"I"ll do that," said Agatha huskily.
She let herself into the cottage and stood in her hallway, her knees shaking.
You are ridiculous, she told herself fiercely. She peered in the hall mirror at the lines around her mouth, at the lines on her neck.
The phone rang, making her jump. It was Bill Wong. "Been out?" he asked.
"Yes, Bill. I had dinner with Guy Freemont. Got anyone for the murder yet?"
"Not yet. I had dinner with James Lacey."
Agatha went very still. "And?"
"And he seems h.e.l.l-bent on playing the amateur sleuth again."
"He won"t get very far without me."
"He supposes you"re too busy to be interested."
"Too right. In the murder and in him."
"If, on the other hand, you do hear any gossip, let me know, Agatha. We seem to be at a dead end."
Agatha then asked about his girlfriend and his parents, and after a few more moments" conversation, rang off.
She had a few days off. She could not bear the idea of James"s finding out anything and taking all the glory. It would do no harm to drop in on some of the parish councillors in the morning, just to see if she could find out anything.
Three.
Agatha decided to start off with one of the councillors friendly to the water company. That way, it might be easier to get gossip. She looked up Mrs Jane Cutler in the phone book and noted down her address. She hesitated, wondering whether to phone first, but then decided it would be a better ploy just to land on the doorstep.
Mrs Cutler Jived in Wisteria Cottage in Ancombe, near the church. Wisteria Cottage turned out not to have any wisteria in evidence, nor was it a cottage. It was a modern bungalow with double glazing and niched curtains. The lawn was a severe square of green gra.s.s surrounded by regimented flowers which looked as if they had been measured to stand exactly four inches apart from each other, no more, no less.
Agatha knew that Mrs Cutler was aged sixty-five and did not look it, but she was startled again at the appearance of the woman who opened the door to her and confirmed that she was, indeed, Mrs Cutler.
Mrs Jane Cutler had expensively blonded hair, her skin was smooth and her figure excellent. Only the eyes were old and watchful and the wrists and ankles had that fragile, brittle appearance of old age. No plastic surgeon had yet found the way to make eyes look youthful. She must be very rich indeed, thought Agatha, as she followed her indoors. It took a mint to look like that.
She was wearing a clinging wool jersey dress of goldy-brown with a colourful Hermes scarf at her neck.
"I am so glad to see you, Mrs Raisin," she said. "Such a silly fuss about some water! I"ll just go and get us some coffee. Shan"t be a tick."
Agatha looked round the sitting-room, which was furnished in b.a.s.t.a.r.d Country House. Hunting prints on the wall, chintz on the sofa, expensive fake fire where gas flames flickered among fake logs, Country Life and The Lady on the coffee-table, very new oriental rugs spread over the hair-cord fitted carpet.
In a short time Jane Cutler reappeared with coffee and biscuits on a tray. Agatha reflected b.i.t.c.hily that wim the money that had gone into maintaining her appearance, Jane Cutler could have bought a real country mansion. After the coffee had been served, Agatha said, "I do not understand why any of the councillors should be against the water company. Such a fuss about nothing."
"Oh, you know what village people can be like," said Mrs Cutler. "So narrow-minded. Now I have always had broad vision. And my vision tells me that this water-company business is a good idea. I can understand why you work for them. I suppose people like you have to go on earning money, no matter what their age."
"I-" began Agatha furiously.
"Have a biscuit. You obviously are a sensible woman and can"t be bothered with all this silly dieting."
Now I know why people don"t like you, thought Agatha, feeling her skirt-band tightening against her waist and wondering again if people could suffer from instant psychosomatic fat.
"I can"t help thinking," ventured Agatha, deciding not to rise to insults, "that this awful murder might have something to do with the row about the water. I mean, why would anyone want to b.u.mp off a nice man like Mr Struthers?"
A merry laugh. "Dear Mrs Raisin, who gave you the odd idea that Mr Struthers was a nice man?"
"I mean," floundered Agatha, "there was surely nothing about him that bad to make anyone want to murder him."
"We-ell, I probably shouldn"t be saying this..."
Agatha waited patiently, convinced that nothing in this world could make Mrs Cutler refrain from saying anything nasty about anyone else.
"You see, Mr Struthers owned the paddock which borders on Angela Buckley"s father"s land. Do you know our Angela? Great strapping monster. Big powerful hands. Well, the Buckleys wanted to buy that paddock. Take it from me, dear, land greed is a worse addiction than drink or drugs or"-her glance flicked up and down Agatha"s figure-"chocolate. There was quite a stormy scene at the last council meeting and it wasn"t about the water. Angela said that Mr Struthers never used that paddock, that it was a waste of land and that the only reason he wasn"t selling it was out of spite. Mr Struthers said it was no wonder she had never married, she was such a frump, and it was no wonder Percy Cutler had jilted her almost at the altar, and Angela slapped his face! My dear, we had to pull her off! "
"Cutler," said Agatha slowly. "Percy Cutler? Your son?"
"No, my late husband."
"But-"
"Oh, there was an age difference, I admit, but what does that matter when there is real love? When poor Percy died of cancer, that b.i.t.c.h Angela said I had known that he had cancer and had only married him to get my hands on his money."
"How dreadful," said Agatha faintly.
"I pointed out to her that the husband before Percy, my Charles, had been very rich and I had no need to marry again for money."
"How many husbands have you had?" blurted out Agatha.
"Just the three."
"And what did the first two die of?"
"Cancer. So sad. I nursed them all devotedly."
It might be considered a brand-new way of gold digging, thought Agatha. Marry a man who knows he"s got cancer and not long to live.
"So you think," she said aloud, "that perhaps Angela or her father might have murdered Mr Struthers. But why? How would that give them the land?"
"Because the son and the father never got on. The son, Jeffrey, was always nagging his father to sell them the land. They"ll get it now."
There was a silence while Agatha digested this news. "Anyone else have it in for old Struthers?"
"Well, everyone knows about Andy Stiggs."
"Not me," said Agatha fervently.
"Of course, you"re one of those incomers from...where? Birmingham, maybe?"
Agatha coloured angrily. She had been brought up in a Birmingham slum and had done her best with clothes and accent to bury her past forever.
"London," she snapped.
"Really? I could have sworn there was a trace of Brummie there. Anyway, the late Mrs Struthers, away back before G.o.d was born, was the belle of Ancombe. I never saw it. One of those rather common blowsy creatures with a loud laugh, you know-the kind you see on a bar-stool in a road-house, skirt hitched up, laughing insanely when not taking sips out of one of those drinks that come with an umbrella sticking out of the gla.s.s. Andy Stiggs was pa.s.sionately in love with her and swore Robert Struthers had lured her away."
"So does anyone know which way Mr Struthers meant to vote?"
"Oh, who cares? We all got tired of him nodding his stupid head and saying, "I"ll make up my mind when the time comes." Now if you"ll excuse me, I have to change. I am expecting a gentleman caller."
Feeling quite stunned by all this gossip, Agatha made her way out. She got into her car and was about to drive off when she was suddenly overcome with curiosity to see who this gentleman caller might be. She drove as far as the end of the road and parked under a lilac tree where she could still command a good view of Jane Cutler"s front door.
She waited and waited and after three quarters of an hour was just beginning to decide that Jane had used a fiction of a gentleman caller to get rid of her when she saw a familiar car drawing up outside her house and a familiar figure got out. James Lacey!
Agatha"s hand tightened angrily on the steering wheel. So he, too, had begun investigations!
She drove along the village street, stopped at the newspaper shop and asked for directions to the Buckley farm, and headed off.
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.
"h.e.l.lo!" shouted Agatha.
The voices stopped, then there was the sound of a chair being sc.r.a.ped 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 b.i.t.c.h 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 a.r.s.ehole 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."