M Beaton - Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

“You are insulting. You are looking in the wrong direction. What about Trevor Wilcox? His business is on the skids and Rose wouldn’t bail him out. He’ll be all right now. He probably inherits her money. And what of George Debenham? He’s in debt as well.”

“How did you find this out, Mrs. Raisin?”

Damn him, thought Agatha. She could not betray Bill Wong.

“They told me,” she muttered.

“They just told you!”

“Something like that.”

“I do not believe you,” said Pamir. “I think somebody in England found out the information for you.”

Sweating now, Agatha hoped the manager of The Dome had not told the police about her fax to police headquarters in Mircester. She wanted to run away from this room, from this inexorable questioning, from the humiliating accusation that she was a batty sensation-seeker driven mad by the menopause.

Pamir then made her tell her story again. If I had anything to hide, it would certainly have come out during this remorseless questioning, thought Agatha.

At last she was free to go. The others, apart from Charles, had disappeared.

“You look awful,” said Charles. “Rough time?”

“It was grim, He accused me of the murders.”

“Why?”

“He thinks I am a sensation-seeker driven potty by the menopause, and not having any murders here to investigate, decided to manufacture some of my own.”

Charles’s eyes crinkled up with laughter. “That’s funny.”

“It’s not funny at all,” said Agatha furiously.

A secretary came out and told them a car was ready to take them home. They travelled in silence, Agatha thinking that she really must find out who murdered Rose and Harry or she would be damned forever as a madwoman.

At the villa, where the press were fortunately absent, Agatha said she would like to lie down and read.

She tried to concentrate on a novel about the complexities of broken marriages, but finally felt too restless to go on reading.

When she emerged from her room, it was to find that Charles had gone off somewhere. Not wanting to be on her own in the villa, she took her own rented car and drove into Kyrenia and parked behind the post office. She walked down the main street looking at the shops, and then saw the turning to the left where she had first pursued James and met Bilal. She turned along the street, wondering suddenly if Bilal was working at his dry-cleaning and laundry business.

He left his work when he saw her hovering in the doorway. “Mrs. Raisin!” he cried. “I was just trying to call you. How are you?”

“Shattered,” said Agatha.

“It is the terrible business,” said Bilal. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

He placed two chairs and a wooden box to act as a table outside his shop and went to the café next door and came back with a tray on which were two cups of Turkish coffee and two glasses of water.

“The owners have been phoning me and Jackie from Australia,” said Bilal. “They would like Mr. Lacey to call them.”

“I meant to phone you about that. Mr. Lacey has gone to Turkey. If I’m still here after the month’s rent has run out, I’ll pay you for another month.”

“Why has Mr. Lacey gone? I thought none of you was supposed to leave. “

“He just took off,” said Agatha. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. Oh, James, how could you? Where are you?

Bilal handed her a clean handkerchief and looked at her sympathetically while she blew her nose, so sympathetically that Agatha found herself telling him everything.

“The police here are very good,” said Bilal. “Just like British police, Mrs. Raisin.”

“Agatha.”

“Agatha, then, why don’t you just take a holiday. I mean swim and see the sights and forget about trying to find out who did it. Your own life seems to be in danger. Just keep away from them all.”

Agatha gave him a watery smile, warmed and comforted by his concern.

“I think I might just take your advice, Bilal.”

“And come to our place one evening for dinner. Jackie’s a good cook.”

“Thank you. And now I really must go.” They both rose.

“It will be all right. It may seem like a nightmare now, but it will be all right, you’ll see.”

Bilal smiled warmly at her, and moved by his friendship, Agatha put her arms round him and hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

And then, as Agatha turned to walk away, she saw Jackie standing a little way away down the street, staring at her, and behind her stood Pamir.

And Agatha blushed, suddenly aware of how that affectionate embrace must look to Pamir, let alone Bilal’s wife. She walked towards them.

“I was just talking to your husband,” she said to Jackie.

“So I saw,” said Jackie drily.

“Looking for me?” Agatha asked Pamir with what she felt was an awful, false guilty brightness.

“No, I was on my way to speak to your landlords. I will call on you later, perhaps.”

Agatha trailed off. Pamir would be confirmed in his suspicions that she was some sort of sex-mad, peculiar female.

Her mind was just beginning to accept Bilal’s advice as she walked up to The Grapevine, deciding to have a drink at the bar. The bar was empty, the lunch-time rush being over. Agatha realized she was hungry and ordered a chicken sandwich and a glass of wine and sat down at one of the tables.

And then Trevor came in. At first he did not see Agatha. He asked for a whisky in a hoarse voice and then, turning from the bar with his glass in his hand, he recognized her.

He walked forwards and demanded, “Are you following me?”

“How can I be following you when I was here first?” demanded Agatha.

Now that she had decided to forget about the case, she was dismayed when he sat down next to her. The tables were out in the restaurant garden among the flowers. Sun slanted down through the leaves of a jasmine bush, casting fluttering shadows over Trevor’s pink, bloated face.

“This is a bad business,” he said.

“Yes,” said Agatha, wishing he would go away.

“I mean, why Harry?” he went on.

Agatha’s good resolutions disappeared as she asked, “You tried to punch Harry, didn’t you, because he called Rose a slut?”

“I don’t remember,” he said, shaking his head. “I drink so much, get these big blanks.”

“Why would Harry call her a slut?”

Agatha held on to the table-top, prepared to flee if Trevor lost his temper, but all his usual truculence was absent.

“He probably felt for Olivia.”

“Did Olivia think her husband was after Rose? I mean, was there any reason for her to think so?”

“Could’ve been. Rose liked to flirt a bit. That was all.”

“How did you meet Rose?”

“I was with my wife at this road-house outside Cambridge-that’s my first wife, Maggie. It was our wedding anniversary. Maggie and I had been married for twenty-five years. Got married when I was eighteen. Well, we was sort of Darby and Joan, set in our ways. Got one boy, left home to work abroad, just me and Maggie left. Good housekeeper. Very quiet. Bit fat. Grey hair. Never went out winter or summer without gloves on. We was in the dining-room, but there was this long bar running along the edge of it and Rose was sitting up on a bar-stool.

“I can ‘member that evening as if it was yesterday. She was wearing a short dress and she had all those diamonds on.

“‘Look at all those rocks on that woman,’ I says to Maggie. And Maggie says they’re bound to be paste. Rose saw us looking at her and she asks the barman something. I had told the restaurant to give us a good table because it was our wedding anniversary and the barman must have known, for next thing is that Rose sends a bottle of champagne over to our table.”