M.C. Beaton - The Day the Floods Came

“What about Harry McCoy?”

“Not him either. I really don’t know. Her death involved drugs. Maybe she heard something she shouldn’t.”

John said, “Well, keep your eyes and ears open. You could be of great help to us.” Again that smile. Agatha and John rose. “Before you leave,” said Joanna to John, “you must sign your books.”

Agatha fidgeted impatiently while John signed four books. “Thank you,” said Joanna and John kissed her on the cheek.

♦

When they were both outside in the street again, Agatha muttered, “So, Humbert Humbert, where now?”

He swung round. “What did you say?” he demanded.

“I was wondering about lunch,” said Agatha quickly.

“We’ll get a snack somewhere. What about a pub?”

“There’s a quiet pub up in the High Street. The food won’t be very exciting but it’s never busy and we can talk there.”

Once inside The Grapes, they ordered beer and sandwiches. The sandwiches were dry and curling at the edges. “I can see why this place is quiet,” said John. “Let’s see how far we’ve got. Phyllis, maybe with the help of Harry McCoy, somehow lured her out of her home in her wedding gown and bumped her off. “Show us the wedding dress,” that kind of thing.”

“Don’t like it,” said Agatha, giving up on the sandwiches and reflecting that the ongoing battle of the middle-aged bulge was at least getting some help.

“So now we come to Barrington. He was frightened of his wife finding out. Kylie liked money, or so we gather. I wonder what this Barrington looks like. I mean, for a young girl like that to have an affair with a middle-aged man can only mean money was the attraction.”

“Exactly,” said Agatha forcefully, thinking of Joanna.

“So just suppose she was blackmailing him.”

“I wonder. I wonder if the police have looked at her bank account.”

“There’s no reason for them to do so. They’d need to know about Barrington and I bet they don’t.”

“We could go and see Freda Stokes,” said Agatha. “But what reason do we give for asking to see her daughter’s bank statements?”

“We could just ask to see them. She might just take it as part of the investigations. Where does she live?”

“Near Joanna. Up and round the corner by the tax office.”

“So let’s go. Are you going to eat your sandwiches?”

“I can’t.”

“Then let’s see how we get on with Freda Stokes.”

♦

Freda lived in a red brick terraced house. “This is quite near where Sharon Heath lives as well,” said Agatha.

Freda Stokes answered the door. She stared at them for a minute and then smiled at Agatha. “It is you. My! I wouldn’t have thought a wig and glasses would make such a difference. Come in. I should be at work but I’m having a break.”

The small downstairs living-room into which she led them had been turned into a sort of shrine for her dead daughter. There were framed photographs of Kylie everywhere – on the table, on the walls. Kylie at school. Kylie as May Queen. Kylie as a toddler being held in the arms of a small man.

“Is that your husband?” asked Agatha, pointing to the man in the photograph.

“Yes, that’s Bill. Cancer took him off when she was young.”

Agatha thought guiltily of the packet of cigarettes nestling in the depths of her handbag and once more silently vowed to give up smoking.

“Can I offer you anything? Tea?”

“Maybe in a minute,” said Agatha. “We wondered if we could have a look at Kylie’s bank statements.”

“Why?”

“Just part of our investigations,” said John. “And who are you?”

“Sorry,” said Agatha, and introduced John. “I’ll go and get them but I still don’t see why you want them.”

As they said nothing in reply to this, Freda, after another doubtful look at them, went out. They heard her mounting the stairs.

“Nice woman,” said John. “Do you know, for her sake, I hope there’s nothing of interest in those statements.”

They waited patiently. The room grew dark, and outside, it started to rain. Rain smeared the windowpanes and a gust of wind soughed down the street outside.

At last, Freda returned with a sheaf of bank statements. Her, eyes were red with fresh weeping. “Here you are,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute. It fair upset me going through her things.”

John separated the bank statements. “Here. You take this lot and I’ll look through these.”

They studied the statements. At first it appeared that Kylie’s wage, each week, was spent soon after it had been deposited in the bank. Then John gave an exclamation and passed a statement to Agatha. “Look at that. Fifteen thousand pounds deposited the week before her death!”

“It may not be Barrington,” said Agatha. “Maybe it was from Zak’s father to buy a trousseau or something.”

Freda came back in. “I’ll get you some tea now.”

“There’s something here we should discuss first,” said Agatha. “Fifteen thousand pounds was deposited in your daughter’s account the week before her death.”

“That’s not possible. Let me see it!”

Agatha held out the relevant bank statement, which Freda snatched from her.

“I don’t understand,” Freda said piteously. “She was always broke. Always asking me for money. The bank must have made a mistake.”

Agatha took a deep breath. “I am sorry to have to tell you this, Freda, but your daughter, Kylie, was having an affair with her boss, Mr. Barrington. We fear she might even have been blackmailing him.”

Freda’s face was mottled with red. “I won’t listen to this filth. I’ll show you. That money probably came from Terry Jensen.” She walked to the phone and dialled a number. They heard her saying hullo and then asking Terry whether he had given Kylie a present of fifteen thousand pounds. The answer was obviously in the negative, for she put the phone down, shaking her head in bewilderment. Then she swung round on Agatha, her eyes glittering with rage. “Get out of here and don’t come back!”

“But, Freda – ”

“Don’t you Freda me. You’re nothing but an interfering old busybody. I should have listened to that Anstruther-Jones woman in your village. She stopped me after I’d called on you, saying I looked distressed and could she help. I told her why I had visited you and she said I was to be careful. That she had heard you hadn’t really solved any crimes at all. It was the police that did it every time. All you ever do is just ask silly questions or dig up dirt. Well, you’re not going to ruin my daughter’s good name. I’m finished with you.”

Agatha backed towards the door where John was already waiting, holding it open for her. She tried to protest. “Don’t you want to know who killed your daughter?”

“OUT!” shouted Freda.

And so they left. As they walked to the car, Agatha said in a small voice. “What now?”

“We’ll see Barrington another time. Let’s try Mary Webster again.”

♦

They drove to the Four Pools Estate, off the Cheltenham Road, past Evesham College where Kylie used to meet Arthur Barrington and turned right into the housing estate opposite Safeways supermarket. “Just there,” said Agatha, pointing to a house at the end of a row. “Yes, that’s it.”

Agatha still felt shaken after the confrontation with Freda. While she had been investigating on Freda’s behalf, she had felt like a real detective. Now she felt diminished. She longed to go home and forget about the whole thing. John wasn’t much company, handsome though he was. There was something almost robotic about his good looks, surely too smooth and unmarked for a man of his age. James Lacey was handsome, but in a high-nosed, rangy sort of way, and Charles was chatty. Maybe John Armitage had paid for a face-lift. As he rang the bell, she studied around his ears for any tell-tale signs until he turned and looked at her curiously with that green gaze of his that gave so little away.