M Beaton: A Spoonful of Poison

“Yes, we do,” said the vicar.

“Draft them in to park the cars and dib, dib whatever, you’ve got a fortune.”

There was a startled silence. The vicar looked as if someone had just presented him with the Holy Grail. George gave a reluctant smile.

“I suppose it could work. We don’t have much time.”

“Call an emergency meeting in the village hall tomorrow,” said Agatha eagerly.

“There are only a few days left,” cautioned George.

“We can do it,” said Agatha. “I know we can do it.”

“What about all these crowds that are going to come? We’ll need to inform the police.”

Agatha quailed at the thought of her friend Detective Sergeant Bill Wong’s reaction. “I’ll do that,” she said, “and I’ll hire a security firm to police the area.”

“You are an angel,” said the happy vicar.

But George looked uneasy. “I feel no good will come of this,” he said.

The dinner party finished at eight because the vicar liked to eat early and get to bed early.

Agatha cast one longing look after George’s retreating well-tailored back as he headed for his car.

She must find out more about him. Surely Mrs. Bloxby knew something.

Later that evening, Mrs. Bloxby listened in alarm to Agatha’s plans. She felt that as Agatha had bulldozed ahead, there was now little point in making any protest. And when Agatha left, commenting on the incredible beauty of the Cotswolds spring, Mrs. Bloxby repressed a sigh. Agatha’s perception of beauty, she felt, was prompted by her hormones. If only Agatha hadn’t seen that handsome man in the graveyard. She knew her friend of old. Agatha was heading for another obsession, and while it lasted, the Cotswolds would be beautiful and every pop tune would have a special meaning.

Agatha sustained a visit from a very angry Bill Wong on Friday evening. “You might have told me first what your plans were,” he complained, “and I would have done my best to stop you. Betsy Wilson! It’s as bad as hiring Celine Dion for the occasion.”

He was only slightly mollified by the news that Agatha had engaged a security firm that had promised to put as many of their men as possible on the ground.

Bill was the product of a Chinese father and a Gloucestershire mother. He had inherited his father’s almond-shaped eyes, those eyes which were looking suspiciously at Agatha. “Who is he?” asked Bill.

“He? Who?”

“You’ve fallen for someone.”

“Bill, can you not for once believe something good about me? I’m doing this for charity.”

“So you say. I’ll be there myself on Saturday.”

“How’s your love life?” countered Agatha. “Still dating my young detective, Toni Gilmour?”

“We go around together when we both get some free time, but…”

“But what?”

“Agatha, could you try to find out what she thinks of me? Toni is very affectionate and likes me, but there’s no spark there, no hint of passion. Mother and father like her a lot.”

Agatha eyed him shrewdly. “You know, Bill, you can’t go after a girl just because your mother and father like her. Do you yearn for her?”

“Don’t be embarrassing.”

“All right. I’ll find out what her intentions are.”

“I’d better go. See you tomorrow.”

Agatha, who had been sitting on a kitchen chair, rose with one fluid movement to show him out.

“You’ve had a hip replacement!” exclaimed Bill.

“Nonsense. It wasn’t arthritis after all. A pulled muscle.”

Agatha had no intention of telling Bill or anybody else that she had paid one thousand pounds at the Nuffield Hospital in Cheltenham for a hip injection. The surgeon had warned her that she would soon have to have a hip replacement, but now, free of pain, Agatha forgot his words. Arthritis was so ageing. She was sure it had been a pulled muscle.

George Selby had to admit to himself that it looked as if the day was going to be a success. Betsy Wilson was a rare pop singer in that she appealed to families as well as teenagers. He also had to admit that had she not arrived to open the fête, only a few people would have attended. What was considered the height of the fête was the tasting to find the best home-made jam. Little dishes of jam were laid out, and people tasted each and then dropped a note of their favourite in a ballot box.

The sun shone from a cloudless sky on the beauty of spring. It had been a cold, damp early spring, and now, with the sudden heat and good weather, it seemed as if everything had blossomed at once: cherry and lilac, wisteria and hawthorn and all the glory of the fruit trees in the orchards around the village.

Betsy Wilson, in a gauzy dress decorated with roses, made a short speech, clasped her hands and sang her latest hit, “Every Other Sunday.” It was a haunting ballad. Her clear young voice floated up to the Cotswold hills. Even the hardened pressmen stood silently.

She sang two more ballads, finished by singing “Amazing Grace,” and then was hustled into a stretch limo by her personal security guard. The band which had accompanied her packed up and left, to be replaced by the village band.

Then Toni, who was with Agatha, tugged her sleeve and said, “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?” asked Agatha.

“Look at all those teenagers queuing outside the jam tent.”

“Really? If I thought it was going to be such a popular event, I’d have charged an extra admission fee.”

“Could someone be peddling drugs inside that tent?” asked Toni.

“Why?”

“Some of the people coming out look stoned.”

Agatha was about to walk towards the tent when she heard screams and commotion coming from over by the church. People were pointing upwards. A woman was standing at the top of the square Norman tower, her arms outstretched. As Agatha ran over to the church, followed by Toni, she heard someone say, “It’s old Mrs. Andrews. Her said something about how her could fly.”

Agatha saw George running into the church and ran after him, with Toni pounding after her. George was disappearing through a door at the back of the church where stairs led to the tower. Agatha ran up the stairs, panting and gasping as she neared the top. She staggered out onto the roof.

Mrs. Andrews was standing up on the parapet. “I can fly,” she said dreamily. “Just like Superman.”

George made a lunge for her-but too late.

With an odd little laugh, Mrs. Andrew sailed straight off into space. George, Agatha and Toni craned their heads over the parapet. Mrs. Andrew lay smashed on a table tombstone, a pool of dark blood spreading from her head.

George was white-faced. “What on earth came over her? She was a perfectly sane woman.”

“The jam,” said Toni suddenly. “I think someone’s put something in the jam.”

“Get down there,” said Agatha, “and tell the security guards to seal off that damned tent.”

She was about to run after Toni when George caught her arm. “What’s this about the jam?”

“Toni noticed that an awful lot of teenagers were queuing up outside the jam tent and coming out looking stoned. I’ve got to get down there.”

When they arrived outside the church, a woman came up to them looking distraught. “Get an ambulance. Old Mrs. Jessop’s jumped into the river.”

Police were beginning to shout through loudhailers that everyone was to stay exactly where they were until interviewed.

“Thousands of them,” gasped Toni. “I told Bill there was something wrong with the jam.”

SIR CHARLES FRAITH, a friend of Agatha’s, placed his slippered feet on a footstool in his drawing room and switched on the television to BBC news.

Agatha’s frantic face seemed to leap at him out of the screen. “I don’t know what happened,” she was saying to the interviewer. “I think some maniac put something in the jam.”