M.C. Beaton - The Day the Floods Came

Phyllis then went on to describe her hopes of becoming a television star. She pointed out that she was the only one of the girls with any looks to qualify for stardom.

Agatha and Roy ate steadily and tried not to listen as Phyllis’s harsh voice went on and on. They would have liked to escape, but Phyllis demanded more drink and pudding and so they had to wait until she had demolished a large helping of apple pie and custard washed down with a double vodka and Red Bull. Her face flushed with drink and food, she went on and on until at last they were able to make their escape.

“Phew!” said Roy when they were free of her. “Now what?”

“I can’t bear listening to any more of these silly girls’ dreams of stardom,” said Agatha. “Let’s ask John if he can find out from Joanna about Barrington.”

“Harry McCoy could have been mistaken. And you’re jealous of John’s interest in this Joanna.”

“I am not! It’s too good a lead to ignore.” John was at home when they arrived. He listened to them carefully and then said, “He was probably just giving her a lift home.”

“Along the High Street?” jeered Agatha. “Wrong way.”

“Well, I suppose I’ve got nothing better to do. I’ll run back up to Redditch and let you know what she says.”

“What about a visit to your friend, Mrs. Bloxby?” suggested Roy when John had driven off. “We’ll tell her what we’ve got and see what she says. She’s very intelligent.”

“She may be busy,” protested Agatha, who did not like hearing something that suggested Mrs. Bloxby might have better powers of deduction than she had herself. “We can try.”

♦

Mrs. Bloxby was at home and pleased to see them. Agatha rather sulkily listened as Roy outlined the latest findings.

“It must have something to do with drugs,” said Mrs. Bloxby.

“Why?” demanded Agatha. “I think it’s got something to do with blackmail and jealousy.”

“Just a feeling. Say someone knew about how worried Kylie was about that wedding dress. And that someone phones her up, or if it was one of those office girls, says to her something like ‘Why don’t you nip out of the house with it and let me have a look?’ Kylie had probably drunk a lot at the hen party and so she wouldn’t see anything odd in going out in the middle of the night with it.”

“Surely the police have thought of that. They must be looking for someone who saw a girl carrying a dress through the streets of Evesham at night.”

Agatha lit up a cigarette, made a face and stubbed it out again. Why had she even tried? And she had never lit up a cigarette in the rectory before.

“To turn to parish matters,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “We have a gentleman who is mounting an exhibition of old photographs of the Cotswolds in the school hall a week on Friday. Admission to the exhibition is only twenty pee. But to raise some extra money, we are having teas and cakes. May I rely on your support, Mrs. Raisin?”

“No use asking her,” crowed Roy. “She can’t bake.”

Agatha scowled horribly.

“I meant, could you help with serving the teas? Mrs. Anstruther-Jones was one of our helpers, and the poor woman can’t do it now.”

Guilt over Mrs. Anstruther-Jones’s death prompted Agatha to say gruffly, “Yes, put me down.”

“Splendid.”

I wonder how John’s getting on, thought Agatha.

♦

John entered Joanna’s hospital room quietly. She was lying asleep and looked very young and fragile. He put the box of chocolates he had brought her on the table beside the bed. Joanna’s eyes opened and she looked up at him.

“John!” she exclaimed, a delicate pink colouring her cheeks. “Two visits in one day. I’ve got good news, too. I’m to go home tomorrow.”

“They’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m completely recovered.” She eased herself up against the pillows and gave him a radiant smile.

“Joanna, there’s one little thing that made me curious. It’s about the Kylie Stokes business.”

Her eyes flirted with him. “And I thought you came rushing back to see me.”

“It’s just that you were seen one evening in Barrington’s car going along Evesham High Street.”

“He gave me a lift home one evening.” She looked down and plucked at the bedcovers. He noticed she had painted her nails red, and Joanna wasn’t what he would have considered a red-nails sort of person. Oh, really? jeered Agatha Raisin’s voice in his head. And just what is a red-nails sort of person?

“Joanna,” he persisted, “if he had been driving you home, he wouldn’t have gone by way of the High Street.”

There was a long silence. Then she asked in a small voice, “Will you be telling the police?”

“Neither I nor Agatha is particularly popular with the police at the moment. But I think you’d better tell me about it.”

“He’s not a very nice person,” mumbled Joanna.

“I know that. I gathered that.” He took a deep breath. “Did you have an affair with him?”

She blushed as red as her nails.

“Yes,” she whispered.

John had a sudden mental picture of Barrington with his florid face, thinning hair, and hairy hands. “Why, in God’s name?”

“It started when he did give me a run home one night and he did go home first to pick up some files. He said there was a new restaurant just opened up in Cirencester, very expensive, and perhaps I would like to go? I’d never been to an expensive restaurant before and I thought it would be a bit of fun. I enjoyed myself. He told me he was planning to get a divorce. He’d made a mistake in his marriage. He said the business was doing well and he could soon afford to take a holiday – maybe the Caribbean – and he wished he could take someone like me. I’ve never been abroad. I’m ambitious. I want to see the world. I thought, why not? He said if I’d go with him, he’d get a divorce and marry me, so it wasn’t as if I would be committing adultery or anything.

“We started to have an affair. I suppose it wasn’t what you’d call an affair. Three evenings at my place, that was all. I didn’t enjoy it a bit, but I thought what marriage to him would entail. Being able to go to posh places and glamorous holidays. Then he just stopped seeing me. After a week, I went into his office. He blustered and said he’d been busy. The business wasn’t doing as well as he’d thought and his wife had invested in it. I felt such a fool. But I hadn’t been in love with him so it wasn’t that bad until I found he’d been going out with Kylie. So I took it upon myself to warn her off. She just laughed at me and told me to go and take a good look in the mirror. Barrington may not have been serious about someone like me, she said, but he was dead serious about her. I hated her. Silly little bitch.”

John felt sad. Joanna thought she was a cut above the rest of them and he had believed that, too. She had read and admired his books, so, with his writer’s vanity, he had assumed she must be intelligent.

“Did you kill Kylie?” he asked.

“Of course not. What do you take me for? She wasn’t worth the effort.”

Joanna lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes.

“I’d better be going,” said John.

Joanna’s eyes flew open. “But I’ll see you soon. We’ll go to that restaurant again and have a chat.”

“I’m going to be very busy,” said John. “New book to write. I won’t be socializing for a while.”

She studied him, her eyes suddenly hard. “The police don’t know it was you who put me up to searching Kylie’s e-mail. Maybe I’ll tell them.”

“Then you’ll only look very silly for not having told them in the first place. They will call on me and I will be obliged to tell them what you’ve just told me about Barrington.”