M Beaton: Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

“You’re both to report to police headquarters in the morning and we’ll go over your statements.”

“Okay. Just go away,” moaned Agatha.

But after Bill had gone, she lay awake, listening until she heard them all drive off. She went downstairs, her face tightening in anger when she saw the mess in the kitchen. Even a bag of flour had been slit open. The fact that the bag had been lying on the shelves for two years waiting for her to blossom into a baker did nothing to appease her anger.

She swung round as Charles entered the kitchen. “What a wreck!” he exclaimed. “Where’s the diary?”

“Come upstairs and I’ll show you.”

Agatha went into her bedroom and over to an antique travelling case on her dressing-table which she used to keep her bits of jewellery and the few letters she had once received from James. “It’s got a secret drawer,” she said. “I bought this on a whim in that antique market in Oxford, the one that’s now closed down. She fumbled at the back. “See!” She turned the case around. A drawer had sprung open at the back and inside lay the diary.

“What are we going to do with it?”

Agatha closed the drawer. “I don’t know about you, but I need more sleep and then I’ll think of something.” She suddenly put her hands up to her face. “Charles! We’ve forgotten about Paul. What’s happened to him?”

PAUL sat in the darkness of the Anderson shelter. He had tried shouting and screaming but it had only left him feeling helpless and exhausted. He thought of his wife, Juanita. Why on earth had he been so stubborn about staying in the Cotswolds? Why hadn’t he gone to Madrid? It was all Agatha’s fault-silly blundering woman.

He wondered whether he should try praying. He didn’t believe in God. Never had. Still, he had once heard someone say there are no agnostics on the battlefield. He would give it a try. He sank to his knees on the earthen floor and prayed desperately for deliverance.

As he rose from his knees, he heard police sirens faintly in the distance and was overcome with religious awe. Juanita was a devout Catholic. He would no longer mock her faith. They would go to church together, start a family, live a decent married life. He waited and waited. Then he flung himself at the door and shouted and screamed.

Nobody came.

Agatha phoned Bill at police headquarters and listened in fear as he said that they had been out to the building works and combed the place from end to end, they had turned over Frampton’s cottage, but no sign of Paul. Zena and workers at the building works remembered seeing Paul, but no one had seen him leave. Agatha rang off and told Charles what he had said.

“Let’s go over there,” said Charles. “We might find out something they haven’t.”

But when they got to the building works it was to find out the place had been closed down after the police left. A solitary watchman told them that the workers had decided to go home until they found out whether some executor of Frampton’s estate was going to pay their wages.

Agatha said they wanted to search the buildings. He was about to refuse until Agatha crackled a fifty-pound note in front of his eyes. So through the buildings they went, hoping to see something that the police had missed, but it seemed hopeless.

The day was very hot and sunny. A heat haze shimmered across the fields beside the works. They thanked the watchman and then stood wondering what to do.

“If he wanted to get rid of Paul,” said Agatha, “he wouldn’t surely do it anywhere there was a chance of being seen. Let’s walk round the perimeter fence-like over there.”

“But there’s nothing over there, Aggie, except grass and weeds.”

“Come on. There might be a dead body in the grass.”

“Bang, bang! You’re dead!” shrilled a voice and Agatha clutched her heart. A small child rose out of the long grass, followed by another. Both were wearing miniature Stetsons and carrying toy guns.

“Beat it!” snarled Agatha.

The children looked up at her, not in the least afraid. They were both white-faced and spotty and had calculating eyes. Why do people insist that kids are innocent? wondered Agatha.

“Got any sweets?” asked one.

“Get lost.”

“If you give us sweets, we’ll show you where the ghost lives.”

Agatha was just wondering whether to bang their heads together when Charles said, “What ghost?”

“No sweets, no tell,” they chorused.

Charles held out a pound coin. “Tell us.”

They looked at each other and solemnly shook their heads. “Not enough,” said the spottier of the two.

“Oh, here!” said Agatha impatiently, handing over a five-pound note. Anything that might lead them to Paul was worth any money.

“Okay, follow us.”

They followed the children to where a taller mound of grass lay by the perimeter fence. “It lives in there,” said the spotty one “Moaning and yelling.”

Agatha walked round the mound and saw the stairs leading down. “It’s an old war shelter,” she called excitedly. Followed by Charles, she went down the steps and then, with his help, lifted the heavy metal bar which guarded the door.

The door swung open and sunlight flooded in, illuminating Paul, who was lying in the foetal position on the floor.

“Paul!” cried Agatha. “Thank God we’ve found you!”

Paul had been crying with fear and despair. He rose to his feet, furious at his weakness, and turned all his venom on Agatha.

“Just keep away from me, you horrible old bat!” he shouted. “If you hadn’t got me involved in your stupid detective work, this would never have happened.”

Agatha turned away in disgust. Then she turned back. “Sit down, you useless twat. Just shut up. You’re going nowhere until the police and ambulance come.”

She pulled out her mobile phone and asked urgently for police and ambulance. Then she walked outside and lit a cigarette. Charles stayed behind and looked down at Paul, who was sitting on the bench, his head bowed.

“The police were here earlier,” said Charles mildly. “Searched the place end to end. If it hadn’t been for Aggie and me, you’d have rotted here.”

“Where’s Frampton?” croaked Paul.

“Dead. Shot himself after he threatened me and Aggie with a gun. Shot himself when the police arrived.”

“Have you any water?”

“No, but the ambulance will be here soon enough.”

Charles went outside to join Agatha. “Don’t take it too hard,” he said. “The man’s in shock.”

Agatha shrugged and puffed energetically on her cigarette. Why did things never work out the way she imagined them? She had dreamt on the road to the building works that she would find Paul and he would be so grateful he would take her in his arms and propose marriage. It was only when they began to search the works that she feared he was dead. Why on earth would a murderer like Frampton leave him alive? To find the diary, of course.

Agatha whipped round and went down into the shelter. “Look here,” she said, “for God’s sake don’t mention that bloody diary or we’ll be in the soup.”

“Okay,” muttered Paul, looking at the floor.

“The story’s this. Charles and I found a portrait of Frampton in Robin’s studio. We phoned you and you came here to question Frampton, who locked you up until he figured out what to do with you.”

“All right!” shouted Paul.

“They’re coming,” said Charles from outside. “I’ll run and meet them and guide them here.”

When Paul had been taken off to hospital for a check, Agatha and Charles found themselves facing an angry Runcorn. “You two,” he said, “were supposed to report to police headquarters today to go over your statements.”