M Beaton - There Goes The Bride

‘But what has that to do with murder?’

‘They’ll be checking out everyone who might have had a grudge against Felicity.’

‘You are very young to be a detective.’

Toni opened her briefcase and took out a file with newspaper cuttings. ‘Have a look at those,’ she said.

He flicked through the newspaper cuttings, reports of Toni’s successes. Although they had been due in the main to the detective work of Agatha Raisin, Toni was prominently featured because she was the most photogenic.

‘You seem to know your job, miss,’ said Ernest, ‘but I cannot see how this murder has anything to do with me.’

‘You seem to me an intelligent man and someone in an important position in this town,’ said Toni, giving him a charming smile. ‘It’s not that the murder has anything to do with you – of course not – it’s just that you knew Felicity and sometimes – quite often, in fact – the character of the person who has been murdered can give a clue as to the reason for the murder.’

The weather outside was clearing up. A shaft of sunlight shone through the office window and gilded the fair cap of Toni’s hair.

Ernest suddenly smiled. ‘I can only give you ten minutes but I will do my best. Did you know Felicity?’

‘No, but her fiancé invited me to the wedding. She was very beautiful.’

‘She was quite plump and she had brown hair when I was engaged to her.’

‘When was that?’

‘Let me see, about five years ago. She seemed fresh and innocent and eager to please. I thought she would make a very good wife.’

‘You weren’t in love with her?’

‘I found her very suitable,’ he said repressively. ‘A man in my position must be careful whom he weds.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I found her too… er… demanding.’

‘You mean sex?’

He actually blushed.

‘Well, yes. It struck me as not being very ladylike. She was furious when I broke off the engagement. In fact, her mother and father threatened me with all sorts of lawsuits. Then she went off with her parents to somewhere on the Continent. When she returned a long time after, I forget how long, she had transformed herself into a beauty.’

Wondering whether Ernest might be gay as well as Bertram, Toni asked, ‘Are you married now?’

‘Yes, indeed, and very happily.’

‘Can you think of anything to do with Felicity that might drive someone to murder her?’

He said drily, ‘Perhaps her present fiancé found that murder was the only way of getting out of the marriage.’

‘What about the Bross-Tilkingtons? Anything there?’

Ernest’s secretary put her head round the door. ‘Mr Barnstaple is complaining that you are keeping him waiting, sir.’

‘Show him in. Good day, Miss Gilmour. I really must get back to work.’

An hour later, Toni and Agatha met up in their room at the pub. Toni had phoned Agatha, telling her it would be a good idea to come back and listen to the two taped interviews.

‘It’s all very odd,’ said Agatha, after she had heard the tapes. ‘I must talk to James.’

‘Are you going to phone him now?’

‘No. I talked to Mrs Bloxby this afternoon and she said he was back in Carsely. I want to talk to him face to face. I’ll leave now and come back tomorrow. See what you can find out about Sylvan Dubois. That’s an odd sort of friendship. Keep trying to get Olivia on her own. You shouldn’t be too much troubled by the press. There’s been a double murder over in Brighton, so most of them have hurried off there. You’d better rent a car.’

Back to the Cotswolds drove Agatha, back down the leafy roads leading to Carsely. She was assailed with a sudden longing to forget about the whole thing. Her excellent cleaner, Doris Simpson, had been looking after her beloved cats in her absence. How wonderful it would be just to go to bed, have a long lie-in in the morning, and spend a lazy day reading books and playing with her cats.

The old mellow stone houses of the village of Carsely glowed in the late-evening light. The weather was unusually warm and the little gardens were heavy with blossom.

She parked in front of her cottage and went in to a sulky reception from her cats. She patted them but they oiled away from her and stood expectantly in front of the garden door. She let them out, went upstairs and refreshed her make-up, and then walked next door and rang the bell.

James answered it. They stood looking at each other for a moment and then James said quietly, ‘Come in, Agatha.’

Agatha walked into the familiar room and sank down on the sofa, biting back a yelp as her arthritic hip gave a nasty twinge.

James slumped down in his favourite armchair by the fireplace. ‘What a mess,’ he said.

‘Why didn’t you stay on?’ asked Agatha.

‘Because I had to get away from George and Olivia. At first they accused me of the murder and after I was cleared by the police, the atmosphere was still hellish.’

‘You could have booked in at The Jolly Farmer with us,’ said Agatha.

He said in a low voice, ‘I had to get away. You have no idea what a fool I feel.’

‘Well, Olivia has hired me to find out who killed her daughter and I’m going to do it, so I need some clue as to why someone would want to bump her off. What was she like?’

‘Very beautiful, as you know. She seemed to adore me. I was flattered by the way she hung on my every word. It was only on that Ukraine trip that I began to slowly realize that when I was talking, she was usually thinking of something else.’

‘Toni interviewed her two ex-fiancés. The first said he broke off the engagement because he was gay, the second because he found her too sexually demanding.’

‘Now that’s ridiculous. Felicity was in fact rather shy.’

‘But the gay chap said she was oversexed and Sylvan Dubois said she was hot stuff between the sheets.’

There was a long silence while James stared at Agatha. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he said at last.

‘Three of them are surely right.’

‘Good heavens! She was old-fashioned maidenly towards me. Said we should wait until after we were married.’

‘James, in this day and age? Didn’t you find that a bit odd?’

‘I was dazzled by her appearance and she seemed so sweet and innocent. When she went for you at that party, I could hardly believe it. But I had already discovered that she was extremely stupid, on the cusp of being mentally retarded. I would guess she had received practically no education at all. I had already approached George and told him I did not think I would make a suitable husband and he threatened me with every lawsuit under the sun and said if I broke his daughter’s heart, he would kill me.’

‘Let me think,’ said Agatha. ‘I gathered from your engagement party that Sylvan was a friend of yours, and yet he seems to be pretty close to Olivia and George. How did you meet him?’

‘I met him by accident in a brasserie. He spilled beer over me. We began to chat and I found him very amusing. We became friends. Then the next time I was in Paris, he invited me to a party at his friend’s apartment and it was there that I met Felicity.’

‘Could you have been set up?’

‘Conspiracy theories, Agatha? I could simply have been polite to the girl and left. The whole mess was entirely my fault.’

‘When did you propose?’

‘Two days after I first met her. I’m a silly old fool, but it all seemed so romantic – Paris and the most beautiful girl in the world on my arm. Don’t glare at me like that, Agatha. You’ve made a fool of yourself in the past. What about the last one who turned out to be a murderer?’

‘Charles has been gossiping.’

‘No, Bill Wong. He worries about you.’