M.C. Beaton - The Day the Floods Came

“I want to ask you a personal question. Did your boss ever I come on to you?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You mean, Mr. Barrington? No, he didn’t. Until I heard about him and Kylie, I’d never have I thought he’d do anything like that.”

Agatha hesitated. Did she owe Joanna any loyalty? No. “Did you know that he also had an affair, a very brief affair, with Joanna?”

“Why, that dirty old man! And Joanna! Always a bit prim and proper. I mean, she’d always come along for a drink with us, if one of us had a birthday. But she’d never really join in. She’d always be the first to leave the pub.”

“What about the night of the hen party?”

“She stayed to the end, until we all walked into Evesham I and split up. Phyllis wasn’t there but then she had it in for Kylie because of Zak. Hey, do you think it might have been Phyllis who struck Joanna?”

“Why would she do that?”

“I dunno. I begin to think I don’t know anything. I mean, if Mr. Barrington hit on Joanna and Kylie, he might have tried it on with Phyllis. Wait till I see Joanna when she gets back to work. I’ll take her down a peg or two.”

Agatha said uneasily, “Please don’t do that. Do treat what we say to you in the utmost confidence. If you are going to be on television, it is essential that you know how to be discreet.”

“I won’t breathe a word.” Ann’s eyes shone at the thought of being on television. Again Agatha felt that stab of conscience.

♦

“Didn’t get anything out of that,” remarked Roy, after they had left.

“I really want to drop the whole thing,” said Agatha. “I hope she doesn’t tell Joanna anything.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid of Joanna. She knows my real identity and she knows where I live.”

“Were you as taken in with her as John obviously was?”

“Yes, I really did think she was a cut above the other girls. She certainly fooled me. I think we’d better call on Freda Stokes. She might know if the police have found out anything.”

Freda was at home and pleased to see them. She listened carefully as Agatha told her everything they had found out.

“The police don’t know about Joanna and Barrington. Should I tell them?” asked Freda.

“Not at the moment because they would want to know how I you found out and that would land us in trouble. Have they told you what lines they are working on?”

“No. They came back again and searched her room. They’d already taken a lot of stuff away.”

“Like what?”

“Aspirin bottles, cosmetics, stuff like that. They were looking for any trace of drugs. They even took her dolls and stuffed animals.”

“No point in us looking, then,” said Agatha. “Did Kylie ever say anything about Joanna?”

“I can’t remember. It was usually Phyllis she was complaining about.”

“Did she have one particular friend amongst the girls? She took that wedding gown to show someone.”

“She never seemed to have any of them round the house. Harry McCoy might know.”

Agatha took out her mobile phone. “May as well have another chat to him.” She checked her clipboard and dialled his number. Roy heard her say, “Harry? We’re still going ahead with the television programme and wanted to ask you some more questions. Can we meet you at that café where we met before? Good. About fifteen minutes.”

Agatha rang off. “May as well keep trying,” she said.

♦

If only, thought Agatha, I could drop this masquerade of being with a television company and cut to the chase instead of pretending to be interested in this young man’s supremely uninteresting social life. But she patiently took notes and then finally asked him, “What did you think of the attack on Joanna Field?”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” said Harry. “I mean, she was at Kylie’s computer and someone obviously didn’t want her to read what was on there.”

Agatha wondered whether to tell him about Joanna, but dreaded Phyllis’s reaction. And yet, why protect Joanna? But she asked, “Kylie, we think, was worried about her wedding gown. We think she wanted to show it to someone. Was she particularly close to any of the girls?”

“She didn’t seem to be. She would laugh about them, you know, call Joanna stuck-up, and Phyllis ugly, and say she wasn’t going to be tied down doing accounts and sales for a plumbing firm. I know they all occasionally got together for a drink. That’s all. I mean, it would need to be someone pretty special to get her out in the middle of the night. What about Zak?”

“I don’t think she’d want him to see it before the wedding,” said Agatha.

“Have you seen Joanna?” asked Harry.

“Yes, she’s out of hospital and is fully recovered.”

“And did she actually see anything on Kylie’s computer?”

“No, she says she switched it on and then someone hit her on the head.”

“Will all this stuff on Kylie’s death be on telly?”

Roy spoke for the first time. “We’re doing some background on it because we can hardly do a programme on the youth of Evesham without mentioning her death. It’s been in all the papers.”

Harry laughed. “Phyllis won’t like that. Being upstaged by Kylie even when she’s dead.”

Agatha looked at his laughing face. “Didn’t you mourn Kylie’s death?”

“What? Well, of course. In a way. I mean, when she died, it wasn’t as if she was my girl any more.”

“But you had been intimate with her.”

“Not for a bit, though.”

He never really knew Kylie, thought Agatha. He had found her decorative and that had been enough.

♦

Agatha saw Roy off at the station that evening. After Harry, they had decided not to see anyone else. They had returned to Agatha’s cottage and had typed out what they had discovered and it seemed to lead absolutely nowhere.

After playing with her cats, Agatha went up to bed, feeling suddenly lonely. She showered and got ready for bed. She tried to read a light romance, but the words could not take her mind off the case. There was one little thing. One dangerous little thing she had missed.

Then she sat bolt upright. Had Joanna found anything among the e-mail on Kylie’s machine before someone hit her? And if she did, would she be stupid enough to try to use it to blackmail the murderer? If Joanna could have an affair with a man like Barrington and all because of money, would she not see incriminating evidence against someone as a golden opportunity to get out of the rut?

Agatha got out of bed and began to pace up and down. There must be some way of letting the police know that Joanna had been involved with Barrington. The silly girl’s life could be in danger. If she phoned, her voice might be recognized and she was hopeless at imitating accents. Then she thought, there was one accent, no longer hers, buried deep down inside her under layers of Mayfair – that of the Birmingham slums.

She went downstairs, picked up the phone and was about to dial Worcester police when she remembered the call could be traced. She pulled a long coat on over her nightgown, drew on a pair of thin gloves, and went out and got into her car. She drove steadily through the dark to Evesham and to the station. She went to the public phone outside and dialled Worcester police. “Listen ‘ere,” she said gruffly when a policewoman answered. “That Kylie Stokes murder. Joanna Field, her that was hit on the ‘ead, was having an affair with Barrington. She saw somethink on that e-mail and is going to blackmail someone.”

“Who is this?” demanded the voice sharply.

Agatha dropped the phone, got into her car, and drove off out by the ring road, knowing the police would trace the call to the phone box and send someone there as fast as possible. Her heart lurched as she remembered seeing a forensic-science programme which said they would soon be able to tell who had used a phone by their DNA. Anyone using a phone left a certain amount of their DNA on the receiver. How old had that programme been? Could they do it now? Then her hands relaxed on the steering wheel. Her fingerprints were on record from previous cases but not her DNA and they had no reason to ask for a sample.