M Beaton - There Goes The Bride

‘There, there,’ said Agatha soothingly, leading him back to his chair and whipping her handkerchief away from him. She returned to the microphone and shouted, ‘Three cheers for John!’ The cheers were deafening. Agatha signalled to the village band at the side, who broke into a rendering of ‘Jerusalem’, followed by ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.

James looked on in wry amusement. It was vulgar and at the same time magnificent. Agatha had made arrangements for Boy Scouts to go up and down the aisles collecting donations.

Agatha had moved the village hall meeting back to the earlier time of five o’clock in the hope that it would be easier to get articles in the morning papers. Her luck was in. Film of the meeting was shown on BBC’s Midlands Today news just before seven o’clock.

Charles was entertaining a lady friend, Tessa Anderson, to pre-dinner drinks in his study because his aunt was in the drawing room with the television sound turned up high. Tessa would make a good wife, thought Charles. She was tall, which was a disadvantage as he was only of medium height. But she was a rich divorcee with extremely good looks and a large fortune. Not that he was mercenary, he tried to tell his conscience, it was just that the estate ate up money.

They were sitting side by side on a sofa. He put down his drink and decided the time had come to kiss her. Then the unmistakable voice of Agatha Raisin boomed out of the other room.

Charles shot up and ran into the drawing room. Tessa, who had closed her eyes in anticipation of that kiss, opened them again and stared about her, wondering where he had gone.

Bill Wong joined the others who were crowded around the television set in the squad room to watch Agatha’s performance. Collins joined him. ‘Glad to see she’s back to doing PR. All she was really fit for anyway. I bet the police down at Hewes are glad she’s out of their hair.’

But Agatha had also talked to the newspapers about the murders in Hewes, saying she regretted nothing seemed to be happening to solve the murders and promising a reward to anyone who could give her information on Sean Fitzpatrick. Agatha felt sure that, if she could find out about Sean, the trail might lead back to Felicity.

Agatha felt she had now done all she could do about the Hewes affair as she drove to her office the following morning.

The next couple of days found her back in the old routine of searching for missing teenagers, cats, dogs, and tracking down faithless lovers or husbands. Mrs Freedman told her she had lined up interviews for the following day so that Agatha could hire a new detective.

‘There won’t be another Toni,’ mourned Agatha. ‘What a fool I was!’

‘Why?’ asked Mrs Freedman curiously.

But Agatha did not want to tell her that it was her own jealousy of Toni that had made her encourage the girl to set up her own detective agency.

She began the interviews the following day. The candidates were mostly young, barely educated, and had peculiar fantasies about what the work involved. Mrs Freedman had gone home and Agatha was thinking about locking up when the office door opened and Toni walked in.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ cried Agatha. ‘I thought for one awful minute it was one of those morons after a job here.’

‘This moron is looking for her job back,’ said Toni quietly.

‘Sit down. What happened? Have you had a row with Harry?’

‘Worse than that. Betty Talent, that genius who was handling the books, she’s decamped and cleared out the bank account.’

‘Have you phoned the police?’

‘Yes, I spoke to Bill.’

‘How on earth did she do it?’

‘She seemed so ultra-competent. We left all the billing and bookkeeping to her. She had a chequebook for office supplies, petty cash, things like that.’

‘Was there much?’

‘Harry had originally put two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of his inheritance into the office bank account and then we had been making money. There was over two hundred thousand pounds in the account. She’s gone, vanished.’ A tear ran down Toni’s cheek.

‘Where is Harry?’

‘Said he was going back to Cambridge to see if he could resume his studies. I was frightened to ask you, then I saw your ad.’

‘Of course you can have your job back, and welcome.’

‘I trusted Betty,’ wailed Toni.

‘Let’s go for a drink and we’ll work out what to do,’ said Agatha. ‘Was it just the money? Did she pinch anything else out of the office?’

‘A couple of cameras and a telephoto lens.’

‘Bitch. Let’s go.’

In a corner of The George pub, Agatha, after she had fetched drinks from the bar, pulled out a notebook and pen from her capacious handbag. ‘Let me see,’ she began. ‘Was the office rented?’

‘Yes. Rent paid. Oh, I should have guessed something. The estate agency phoned up two months ago and said the rent was in arrears. Betty turned very red but said she would go round and pay them immediately. I should have suspected something even then.’

‘Now, office equipment, computers and stuff?’

‘Still there.’

‘We’ll sell that and you continue with outstanding cases and collect the money for any you solve.’

Charles came and joined them. ‘Saw your car outside,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Buy your own drink,’ said Agatha huffily. She had not forgiven him for running away from Hewes.

Charles shortly returned carrying a half of lager. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Toni, you look as if you’ve been crying.’

In a sad little voice, Toni described what had happened.

When she had finished, Agatha surveyed Charles’s well-tailored figure. ‘You’ve stayed with me a lot, haven’t you, Charles?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘You have eaten my food, haven’t you?’

‘If you can call microwaved curries food, yes.’

‘So you owe me.’ Agatha’s bearlike eyes bored into his face.

‘My dear Aggie, if you want to have sex with me, you only have to ask.’

‘Don’t be flippant. I’ve got a lot of work and so has Toni. I’ve got this pub business to follow through.’

‘Saw you on the box. Real tub-thumping perfor-’

‘I want you to find Betty Talent.’

‘But Toni’s got the police on to it.’

‘They won’t do much. Oh, have you a photo?’

Toni had a folder and produced one. ‘I gave the rest to Bill.’

Betty Talent was undoubtedly a plain-looking girl with a sallow face and dark brown hair pulled back in a knot.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Charles. ‘Give me her address. I’ll start there.’

But instead of going straight to Betty Talent’s address, Charles waited until the following morning and went to see James Lacey.

After James had welcomed him, Charles explained that Agatha had bulldozed him into finding the missing Betty Talent, and recounted the story of how Betty had absconded with the money.

‘You could always have said no,’ James pointed out.

‘To Agatha? You must be joking. Anyway, that’s why I’m here.’

‘I can’t see -’

‘You can pick locks, can’t you?’

‘Yes, but -’

‘Then get your jacket. We’re off to break into Betty’s flat.’

The flat was over a grocer’s shop in Berry’s Wynd, one of the narrow medieval streets behind the abbey.

‘If the street door is locked, I can’t stand in broad daylight picking the lock,’ complained James.

‘We won’t know until we try it,’ said Charles. ‘Come on.’

They crossed the street. Charles turned the handle of the front door. It swung open.

‘See,’ he said. ‘Faint heart never won successful burglary.’

‘What if there’s more than two flats?’ whispered James.