M Beaton - Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

The front door was standing open. She lugged her cases inside. She called, “James!” but there was no sound but the wind and the sea. She walked through the kitchen out into the garden. James was sitting in a garden chair under an orange tree, intently listening to the news on the BBC World Service.

“Anything?” asked Agatha.

He shook his head. “You wouldn’t think it was the British Broadcasting Service,” he complained. “I can tell you everything that’s going on in Africa and Russia, but not a word about anyone or anything British.”

Agatha pulled up a little white wrought-iron garden chair and sat down opposite him. Behind the orange tree was a vine, its leaves rustling in the breeze. The air was heavy with the scent of vanilla from a large plant to Agatha’s left. Her eyes felt gritty with fatigue.

“I hope you had a shower before you left the hotel,” said James.

“I haven’t even changed my clothes,” said Agatha, indicating her party dress. “Why?”

“This isn’t a day for water. There might be some later. I think we both need sleep.”

“Which bedroom is mine?”

“The one you chose. I’ll take your luggage up.”

They went inside. He carried up her cases to her new room. With a curt little nod, he left her. Agatha stripped off her clothes and fell naked on top of the bed. The windows were open and a light breeze was blowing in, bringing with it snatches of voices from the beach. She plunged down immediately into a heavy sleep and awoke three hours later, sweating from every pore. The breeze had died and the stifling humidity had returned.

Still naked, she trekked up the shallow wooden steps and through to the bathroom. The bathroom had a door at either end. The one opposite to the one she had entered suddenly opened and James came in.

“There’s water now,” he said, looking at her. “You can have a shower and then come downstairs. I’ve got some cold meat and salad.”

When he had shut the door Agatha looked crossly down at her body. Well, although her breasts did not yet sag and she was not cursed with cellulite, she supposed it was not a body to drive a man to passion. Besides, James had seen all of it before.

After she had showered and changed into shorts and a cotton shirt and flat-heeled sandals, she felt better. She went downstairs. James had set out a meal for both of them on the kitchen table. Agatha suddenly realized she was ravenous and had not eaten since the night before.

“What are we going to do about this murder, Agatha?” asked James.

“The receptionist at the hotel said it was probably some mainland Turk.”

“They get blamed for a lot, but believe me, they don’t go around murdering British tourists.”

“The thing that gets me,” said Agatha, “is that if, say, she was murdered on the dance floor, wouldn’t she have screamed or cried out?”

“Not necessarily. It was some sort of very thin blade, remember.”

“Could someone have stabbed her while everyone was trying to drag her out from under the table?”

“She was lying on her back,” said James. “I’m sure she was. Yes, she was on her back when Trevor slid her out from under the table. If that’s the case, there’ll have been smears of blood on the floor.”

“I think the clue to the whole thing,” said Agatha eagerly, “is in the odd friendship between Olivia and her lot and Rose and her lot.”

“Tell me again how you met them.”

So Agatha told him of the sail on the yacht, how Olivia, George and Harry had hogged the small bar and had been contemptuous of the rest. Then how, when she had been swimming, she had seen Rose and George laughing together until Trevor saw them. She moved on to the scene in The Grapevine and how, underneath Rose’s screeching vulgarity, there was a well-read, intelligent, shrewd mind.

When she had finished, they heard a knock at the door. “That’ll be the police,” said James, getting to his feet. “I think we should have a crack at finding out who did this ourselves, Agatha, so keep your speculations to yourself.” He went off before she could reply.

He returned with Detective Inspector Nyall Pamir. He sat down at the table and surveyed Agatha with those little black eyes of his which gave nothing away.

“Aren’t your colleagues going to join you?” asked James.

“They can wait outside,” said Pamir. “This is an informal chat. I would like you both to report to the police headquarters in Lefkoça tomorrow at ten in the morning for an official interrogation.”

He folded his small fat hairy hands on the table in front of him. They looked like two small furry animals.

“Now, Mrs. Raisin,” he began, “who do you think murdered Rose Wilcox?”

Agatha glanced at James, who frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “I had really only just met all of them.”

“Explain.”

“I took a sail on a yacht, the Mary Jane.”

“Tell me all about it.”

So once more Agatha told her story, but a bald account devoid of speculation.

He listened carefully. “What interests me, Mrs. Raisin, although you have not said anything about it, is how this friendship arose.”

“They weren’t friends,” said Agatha impatiently. “Like I told you, they called me over to their table at The Grapevine, and then last night I had arranged to meet Mr. Lacey here for dinner at The Dome. Rose heard James asking for my table-he arrived first-and Rose claimed to be a friend of mine and urged him to join them.”

Those hairy hands of his were removed from the table and clasped over his rotund stomach. Pamir was wearing a double-breasted suit, shirt, collar and tie. The heat did not seem to trouble him.

“Ah, yes, you and Mr. Lacey. You are staying here with him?”

“Yes.”

“You are friends?”

“Yes, we are neighbours in the same village in the Cotswolds. That’s an area in the Midlands -”

“I know,” said Pamir.

“Your English is very good,” said James.

“I was brought up in England and went to the London School of Economics. So, Mr. Lacey, you and Mrs. Raisin are neighbours. You arrived first. Mrs. Raisin joins you. Are you having, how shall I say, a liaison?”

“No,” said James. “We’re friends, that’s all.”

“So, Mr. Lacey, what has been happening to you since you first arrived on the island?”

So James told him of renting the villa from Mustafa.

“Mustafa has gone to the bad,” said Pamir. His black eyes swivelled back to Agatha. “To return to your tourists. We have a lot of British residents here and I am well aware of the famous class differences. Mr. and Mrs. Debenham and their friend, Mr. Tembleton, are not of the class of Mrs. Wilcox and her husband. There is something in your story, Mrs. Raisin, which implies you were surprised by such a friendship.”

“I was,” said Agatha. “Olivia-that’s Mrs. Debenham-is so snobby and she despised Rose. I’ve been wondering about that myself. Why on earth should such an unlikely lot get together, and why were George Debenham and Rose laughing together at Turtle Beach Cove?”

“You did not tell me about that.”

Agatha told him, although she was aware of James glaring at her. “And Rose was actually intelligent,” she said.

“Explain.”

So Agatha expanded happily on how Rose would let slip about books she had read and then seem to remember her act. “If it was an act,” she said finally.

There was another knock at the door. James went to answer it. He returned with a policeman who was carrying a sheaf of fax papers which he handed to Pamir.

Agatha sipped coffee with her eyes lowered, aware of James’s angry eyes on her.

“Ah,” said Pamir finally. “You lead an adventurous life, Mrs. Raisin. You and Mr. Lacey here were to be married, but the wedding was interrupted by the arrival of your husband, who was subsequently murdered. You planned to go to north Cyprus on your honeymoon, but while you were in hospital, Mrs. Raisin, recovering from an assault on you by the murderer, Mr. Lacey here left for Cyprus and then you followed him. If you will both forgive me saying so, in my experience people who lead violent and colourful lives are often violent themselves.”