M Beaton: There Goes The Bride

Three days passed without a reply. Agatha could hardly concentrate on her work. Then finally an e-mail arrived suggesting a rendezvous at a restaurant called The Lifeboat in Saint Katharine’s Dock at eight o’clock on Saturday evening.

Agatha cheerfully e-mailed an acceptance and phoned Mrs Bloxby with the good news. She then made appointments with the beautician and hairdresser for Saturday morning.

Mrs Bloxby was sitting in a dentist’s waiting room on Saturday afternoon. A filling had fallen out of a tooth. She felt she was lucky to get an appointment because most dentists shut down for the weekend. It was a private dentist and Mrs Bloxby hoped the treatment would not turn out to be too expensive. The woman who had gone in before her seemed to have been in the treatment room for ages. Mrs Bloxby wished she had brought a book.

Mrs Bloxby flicked through the pages of a copy of Country Life. She wished there were still magazines around with stories in them. She remembered when magazines like Good Housekeeping would serialize authors like Ruth Rendell.

And then she flicked it open at a double-page spread of photographs. Mrs Bloxby could hardly believe her eyes. It was a feature on the recent wedding of Geoffrey Camden. With shaking hands, she took out her mobile and asked directory inquiries for the number of Geoffrey Camden at The Grange in Shropshire. When she got the number, she asked to be connected. A woman answered the phone. Mrs Bloxby asked to speak to Mr Camden.

‘This is Mrs Camden,’ said the woman. ‘Geoffrey’s up in London to see an old friend. He won’t be back until tomorrow.’

Agatha must be warned. Mrs Bloxby dialled Agatha’s mobile. It was switched off.

Then she wondered if Geoffrey Camden, so recently married, would be the type of man to cheat on his wife – through a dating agency, of all things.

And fast on that came one dreadful thought – Sylvan.

What if Sylvan were tricking Agatha? Desperately she phoned Toni and explained the situation. Toni said she would phone Bill Wong and get up to London herself. Bill listened carefully but said he could hardly alert Scotland Yard on such a far-fetched theory. With the whole of Interpol still looking for Sylvan, he would hardly dare put in an appearance, but Bill would go up to London with Toni.

On the road to London, Toni phoned James and Charles and then phoned Roy Silver. But Roy was out. She left a message for him telling him to get down to Saint Katharine’s Dock and warn Agatha.

Agatha was ten minutes early when she arrived at the restaurant. The restaurant was very dark. Behind her a waiter asked her if she would like something to drink. Agatha ordered a Campari and soda. When it arrived, she sipped it as she studied the menu. It was one of those twee menus she hated so much: the Captain’s Table Special for two, Dirty Dick’s shrimp cocktail, Captain Hook’s battered cod and so on.

She began to feel slightly dizzy. She pulled out her mobile phone and switched it on in case he was going to be late and had been trying to contact her.

Toni’s voice came on the phone. ‘Get out of there, Agatha. It’s a trick. It could be Sylvan.’

Agatha stumbled to her feet, staggered and almost fell. A smooth French voice said, ‘I’m afraid the lady has had too much to drink. I’ll help her outside.’

Agatha opened her mouth to scream but the restaurant swirled around her and something seemed to have happened to her voice. It was like one of those nightmares where you tried to scream and only whimpering little squeaks came out.

She had only taken a sip of the Campari and soda, thinking it a sophisticated drink, although it was one she did not like very much.

The air outside revived her and she began to struggle weakly. ‘There is a gun in your ribs,’ said Sylvan. ‘One squawk out of you and you’re dead.’

Bill, followed by Toni, rushed into the restaurant. The first thing Toni’s eyes spotted was Agatha’s handbag resting on a chair. ‘Where is the lady who belongs to this?’ she shouted. The manager came forward. ‘The lady had a dizzy turn and one of our waiters took her outside for some fresh air.’

‘Was he French?’

‘Yes, he was filling in for one of our waiters who was taken ill suddenly.’

Bill took out his phone and called Scotland Yard while Toni rushed out to the dock. Saint Katharine’s Dock is punnily named The Berth of London. Cruisers and yachts bobbed at anchor. Toni went up to an old man who was watching the boats.

‘Did a boat just leave here?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was a big powerful motor cruiser.’

‘Name.’

‘What?’

‘The name of the boat?’ shouted Toni.

‘Versales.’

‘Versailles?’

‘Could be. Never could get my tongue round them French names.’

Bill came to join her. ‘The River Police will be with us in a minute. We’ve got to catch him before he throws her overboard.’

Agatha stared bleakly at Sylvan, who was sitting across from her in the boat’s cabin. ‘I see your old friend, Jerry Carton, is driving us. What are you going to do with me?’

‘Get you out to sea and chuck you overboard. The water’s nice and cold this time of year.’

‘But they’ll know it was you.’

He gave a Gallic shrug. ‘They haven’t caught me yet.’

‘Why? Why do you want to kill me?’

‘Revenge, pure and simple. To think I even encouraged Olivia to hire you! I thought that would make me look innocent, but then I realized your poking about was becoming a threat. You fouled up my nice lucrative business.’

‘But why shoot Felicity?’

‘Ah, I did not do that. That was George.’

‘Her own father!’

‘Remember, he wasn’t her father. He’d been having sex with her since she was fourteen. She promised him that they could carry on after she was married. She was, after all, sex-obsessed. But the wedding went to her head. She told him she wouldn’t have anything to do with him after the wedding. He tried to force her. She said she was going to tell Olivia, her mother, everything. So he put on – how you call it? – a boiler suit, gloves, plastic boots, the lot, and shot her through the window to make it look as if some outsider had done it. He shoved the boiler suit and everything in the furnace.’

‘And the gun?’ asked Agatha.

‘Ah, the local police of course never thought to search any of us. George simply pushed it into the waistband of his trousers under his morning coat, called the police, followed them to the church and slipped it to me.’

‘And what did you do with it?’

‘Threw it in the river at the first opportunity.’

‘Where in the river?’

‘There is no point in telling you because you are not going to escape me this time.’

Desperate to keep him talking, Agatha asked, ‘Why did you kill George?’

‘He’d become dangerously sentimental, mourning Felicity, and he was beginning to drink too much. Hélas, he had to go.’

‘How did you get my details from the agency?’

‘Easy. The joke is I hired a detective agency to follow you. I found out about the bankrupt agency and saw the fair Amanda and said I would put in a bid if I could take over her client list. She jumped at it. She expects me to be at her lawyer’s tomorrow. She will be disappointed.’

‘Why did you kill Sean?’

‘The idiot had the nerve to blackmail me. He said I wasn’t paying him enough for helping smuggle those Chinese into the country.’

‘And what about poor Bert?’

‘That one was always crawling about in the dark. He saw me unloading a cargo. He tried to blackmail me. Silly boy must have hoped to get money out of you as well. Two blackmailers. Pouf! Both dead.’