M.C. Beaton - The Day the Floods Came

She felt sleepy by the time she arrived back home, relaxed now with the comfortable feeling that she had done her best.

♦

In the following days, Agatha put the case of Kylie Stokes out of her mind. It was suddenly a great relief to let go of it. She felt slightly guilty when she thought of Freda Stokes, but assured herself that she had done all that she could do. John Armitage was still in London. She would follow his example and leave well enough alone.

But by the end of the week, she decided it would be only decent to go and see Freda Stokes and tell her what she had decided.

Accordingly she went to Evesham Market to where Freda was working at her stall. “Don’t say anything here,” said Freda. She called to a woman at the stall opposite. “Could you mind things for me, Gladys? Going for a cuppa.”

“Sure,” said Gladys. “Quiet as the grave today.”

They went to a café at the back of the covered market. Agatha ordered two cups of tea and carried them to a table. Freda’s first words appalled her. “I suppose you’re worried about Joanna.”

“What about Joanna?” Agatha’s heart gave a lurch.

“She’s missing. I had the police round. She hadn’t been at work, but that wasn’t why they were worried. They had a mysterious call from someone telling them that Joanna’d had an affair with Barrington and was going to blackmail someone. They kept calling at her flat and when they didn’t get a reply, they finally broke in. No sign of her. No note. No clothes had been packed. Nothing missing. Except Joanna.”

Too late, thought Agatha. I was too late.

“It’s like a nightmare,” said Freda. “Some murderer’s prowling about. Why can’t the police do anything?”

Maybe because I kept the information to myself for just that bit too long, thought Agatha sadly.

“I’m not much of a help, Freda,” she said. “I’ve been trying and trying and all I do is dig up more muck without ever finding out who did the murder.”

“If we never know,” said Freda miserably, “I can never feel that my poor girl is resting easy in her grave.”

“Have they released the body for burial?”

“Yes, the funeral’s tomorrow. We’re keeping it quiet. Don’t want the press around.”

“Where is the funeral to take place?”

“At Saint Edmund’s up on Greenhill at eleven in the morning. Will you come?”

“Yes, I’ll be there.”

♦

The funeral of Kylie Stokes took place on a warm sunny Saturday. Zak was there with his father and the girls from the office, minus Joanna. The service was brief and simple. Freda was red-eyed but tearless, as if she had shed so many tears over her daughter’s death that there were none left. Zak was supported by his father. He had lost more weight and was white-faced with grief. Agatha was wearing a large hat and dark glasses in case any of the office girls should recognize her without her disguise. She wished she had not come.

Kylie might not have been the angel her mother had once elieved her to be, but she had been so young and pretty – too young and pretty to lie so soon in the warm earth on a sunny day.

I must find out who did it, thought Agatha. But how?

∨ The Day the Floods Came ∧

9

When Agatha returned home, she sat down at her computer to go through her notes. She managed to catch Boswell in mid-air as he was about to leap on the keyboard. She carried the protesting cat out to the garden, followed by Hodge. “Stay there,” she ordered. They both sat side by side on the lawn, staring at her, as if she had committed some outrage. Agatha shut the door on them and returned to the computer.

She printed out what she had written and retreated to the kitchen with the pile of papers. Agatha made a cup of black coffee and lit a cigarette. She sighed. It still tasted like burning rubber. She left it burning in the ashtray but a smell like smouldering tyres on a used-tyre dump began to fill the kitchen. She sighed again and stubbed it out. She opened the kitchen door to clear the air. “You can come in now,” she said to her cats. They turned their backs on her and strolled off down the garden.

Agatha shrugged and retreated to her notes. Now, was there anything she had missed?

There was something Mary Webster had said. Where was it? At last she had it. Mary Webster had said that she had caught Kylie in the ladies’ room smoking pot. Now, as pot was still an illegal substance, anyone who wanted it had to go to an illegal source and illegal sources often pushed harder drags. Why had she, Agatha, let this one slide by? Then there was one other thing nagging at her brain.

She closed her eyes and remembered looking down from the bridge at the flood, seeing Kylie floating underneath, her hair swirling in the water, the white wedding dress, like a shroud, the bouquet clutched in stiff hands. Her eyes snapped open. The bouquet! Yes, she could have gone to show someone the wedding gown. But the bouquet! She glanced at the clock. Freda would be at home. She had surely taken the day off for the funeral.

Agatha phoned Freda and when she got her on the line, she asked, “Freda, Kylie was clutching a wedding bouquet when she was found. How did she get it? Did you keep it at home?”

“No, the police asked me that. I’d ordered it from that florists next to the market. It was to be of red roses and lilies and some maidenhair fern. It hadn’t been collected. It hadn’t even been made. They were sending it round on the morning of the wedding day.”

“And that was Kylie’s choice?”

“Well, no. She’d left all the wedding arrangements to me and Terry. Terry was paying for the wedding, but I was paying for the wedding gown and the bouquet and the bridesmaids’ dresses.”

“Who were the bridesmaids? Anyone from the office?”

“No, Iris was going to be one bridesmaid, and my brother Frank’s girl, Ruby, the other. And then Iris’s little daughter, Haley, was going to be flower-girl.”

“Did Kylie object to the bouquet as much as she objected to the wedding gown?”

“Well, she did. She said she wanted white roses.”

“Did the police say anything about what the bouquet was like?”

“No, it was never found. It must have come loose from her hands. They said with so much debris and so much of the flood-water pouring into people’s homes and shops and basements, it could be anywhere.”

Agatha thought furiously. The drowned Kylie had been clutching that bouquet. Hard to tell with the swirling of the water what it had been like. Agatha was sure that bouquet had contained white roses.

“Do you know if Kylie told anyone about the fact that she didn’t like the bouquet you had chosen for her?”

“She was angry about it and the dress. I usually gave in to her, but not on this. As I told you, I couldn’t afford a new gown for her, and I didn’t see any reason to. Iris’s gown was beautiful and as good as new. I could have changed the order for the flowers, but to tell the truth, I was so mad because Kylie had taken no interest in the wedding preparations, I dug my heels in and said I’d no intention of changing anything at all.” Freda began to sob. “If only she were alive, she could have anything sh-she w-wanted.”

Agatha tried to comfort her but Freda said she was too upset to talk any longer. Agatha said goodbye and then sat biting her nails, a substitute for nicotine. Those flowers. Now if they had been in the deep freeze with Kylie’s body, they would be frost-blasted and black. So someone must have put the bouquet in the dead girl’s cold frozen hands before putting her in the river. She shuddered. There was something very evil about that macabre touch of the bouquet. It had been done with hate.