M Beaton: There Goes The Bride

Toni stood up. ‘Come with us.’

Toni followed them into the pub office, a small room furnished with a metal desk, two plastic chairs, three filing cabinets, and a large safe. On the wall behind the desk was a badly executed picture of the Sussex Downs.

Boase was a tall man with a sagging grey face, grey hair and weak, watery eyes. Falcon was smaller and plump with black hair and surprising large blue eyes.

‘Now, Miss Gilmour,’ began Falcon, ‘what were your movements leading up to the wedding?’

Toni told him. Boase took out a cigarette and lit it and puffed a cloud of smoke up to fog the large no smoking sign on the wall.

‘Do you still have the note Mrs Raisin left you?’

‘I’m sure I have,’ said Toni.

‘We’ll get it from you later. Now, we have reason to believe that Mrs Raisin was not happy about this marriage, that she is still obsessive about her ex-husband.’

‘I don’t know of any reason to think that.’

‘Are you aware that Mrs Raisin followed Mr Lacey as far as the Ukraine and then Turkey?’

‘No, I was not,’ said Toni, taken aback. Agatha had merely told her that she had gone on holiday to Turkey, but nothing about having seen James anywhere. ‘I certainly knew she had gone to Turkey on holiday, to Istanbul. But she had been there before and is fond of the city.’

The questioning went on. How long had she worked for Agatha before setting up a detective agency of her own?

A tape recorder hummed on the desk. Toni began to feel really frightened for Agatha.

‘Who would you say is Mrs Raisin’s closest friend?’

‘We are all close friends,’ said Toni, ‘but I suppose you could say that Mrs Bloxby is the closest.’

‘We’ll have her in. Do not leave Hewes until we give you permission to do so.’

As Mrs Bloxby was told to go to the office, Toni sank down in a chair and said, ‘We’d better get out in the morning and see if we can find out where she bought that hat. Then we’ll try and trace her movements from there.’

‘Do they really want to waste time interviewing all of us?’ asked Charles.

‘Looks like it,’ said Toni. ‘I’m going to bed so I’ll be fresh enough in the morning to do some detective work. Let’s say we all meet for breakfast at eight o’clock – that’s us detectives – me, Harry, Patrick and Phil. What about you, Charles?’

Charles smiled lazily. ‘I’m not a detective.’

Toni thought that she had never been able to figure Sir Charles out. He was a beautifully tailored figure of a man with neat features and fair hair. He was as self-contained as a cat. He came and went in Agatha’s life as he pleased. Bill had told Toni that he thought Charles and Agatha had once had an affair but Toni had never been able to see any signs of it.

Bill tossed and turned that night. When he had phoned his headquarters again to say that he should be back in Mircester by Monday, Wilkes had demanded to know why he had been overheard saying Mrs Raisin had not been stalking her husband. Bill had described Agatha’s visit to the two battlefields and said it was because Agatha was competitive and wanted to impress her ex with her military knowledge. The fact that James Lacey had been there around the same time was sheer coincidence. Now, he felt he had been disloyal to Agatha.

He wanted to stay on but had been told firmly by Boase that his help was not needed. As Bill had left the Hewes police station, he had seen Patrick deep in conversation with the desk sergeant. He had been going to approach him and then decided to leave Patrick to it.

They all met in the dining room in the morning. Toni had a copy of the Yellow Pages and was marking off all shops likely to sell hats.

The dining room door opened and a familiar voice said, ‘Pour me a cup of black coffee, someone. I’m knackered.’

They all stared with a mixture of relief and amazement as none other than Agatha Raisin walked up to their table.

‘Where’s the hat?’ asked Roy and then gave a nervous giggle as Agatha’s bearlike eyes focused on him.

‘They’re holding it as evidence,’ said Agatha. ‘Coffee, please. I wish I could have a cigarette. Stupid nanny state.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Toni. ‘Did your lawyer get you out?’

‘No, my stupid hat got me out. I bought it in Delia’s Modes in the High Street. The salesgirl told me it was just like the one that the Duchess of Cornwall had worn for the French president’s visit to Windsor.’

‘It certainly looked like roadkill,’ sniggered Roy.

‘It looked all right in the shop,’ snapped Agatha. ‘Anyway, I still had time to go back to the pub and accompany Toni, but I wanted to be on my own to think. I got a cab out to Downboys and was going for a walk when I met James. We walked and talked. Then his best man came looking for him and they left for the church. I sat down on a bench. I wanted some more time to myself.

‘Villagers passed me. A few stopped, looked at my hat, and asked, “Aren’t you going to the church?” The police had been doing a door-to-door in the village after the murder. So they collected evidence that I was where I said I was and the taxi driver confirmed taking me to Downboys. Of course all this took a long time to come in and they were reluctant to release their prime suspect.’

A policeman appeared and said, ‘You all have to report to the police station to confirm your statements. You first, Mrs Raisin.’

‘Has my lawyer arrived?’

‘Yes, he is waiting for you.’

The day dragged on with interview after interview. At last, they found they were all free to leave. ‘I wish I could have a word with James before we leave,’ Agatha fretted.

‘Let it go,’ said Charles. ‘Just be glad you’re off the hook.’

Agatha and Toni went up to their room to pack. ‘I hate to quit like this,’ said Agatha. ‘Who on earth would want to kill Felicity?’

‘This is one we have to leave to the police.’

The phone rang. Agatha picked up the receiver. A voice strangled with tears said, ‘This is Olivia Bross-Tilkington.’

‘Look,’ said Agatha defensively, ‘I’m terribly sorry for your loss, but -’

‘I’m sorry for what I said in church,’ said Olivia. ‘I want to hire you to find out who killed my daughter. I’ve been checking up on you.’

‘I don’t have the resources of the Hewes police,’ said Agatha cautiously.

‘But you have found out things in the past that the police could not. Please, Mrs Raisin, come and stay as our guest.’

‘Is Mr Lacey there?’

‘He is leaving in the morning, which in the circumstances is the most unfeeling thing I have ever heard of.’

Agatha made up her mind. ‘I’ll be along in the morning.’

She put down the receiver and turned to Toni, her eyes gleaming. ‘That was Olivia Bross-Tilkington. She’s engaged me to find out who killed her daughter.’

‘Want me to stay with you?’

‘No, Charles will do. He’s helped me before. I’ll just phone him.’ But Charles was not in his room and a call to reception informed Agatha that he had already left.

‘I’ll stay,’ said Toni. ‘For a bit anyway. You’ll need an assistant. I’ll run along and tell Harry to man the fort until I’m back, and you’d better get hold of Patrick and get him to take over your business.’

As Agatha and Toni drove to Downboys the next day, the weather had broken and a miserable drizzle was oozing down from a grey sky.

‘I’m not much looking forward to staying with them,’ said Toni.

‘I was just thinking about that,’ said Agatha. ‘I might suggest we continue to stay at the pub and just turn up every day. We have to find out more about Felicity. Damn James. I hope he hasn’t left. Maybe he has some idea if she had any enemies.’