M.C. Beaton - The Day the Floods Came

“No, I’ve got the telly.”

“Then that’s why you haven’t heard of me.” Agatha looked out over the garden. “Don’t you like plants?”

“Waste of time. They get aphids and slugs and then they’re always dropping leaves and making a mess.”

“Some people think it worth the effort to look out at pretty flowers.”

“Some people need their heads examined. Are you married?”

“Divorced.”

“Have you any money?”

“I’m comfortably off.”

He suddenly leered at her. “Don’t do to be on your own. Tell you what. You can marry me. I’m tired of all the cleaning and scrubbing, and that’s women’s work.”

“Then you should employ a cleaner.”

“Pay someone to do it? No, that’s where you come in.”

“And this is where I go out,” said Agatha firmly, putting her glass on the table. The wine was sweet and heavy and she did not think she could bear to swallow another sip.

“You’re missing out,” he called after her as she snatched up the plan of the butchers shop and made for the side of the house and escape. “You’re lucky to get an offer at your age.”

∨ The Day the Floods Came ∧

10

Mrs. Bloxby called on Agatha the following evening, just as Agatha was ready to go out. The vicar’s wife gloomily surveyed Agatha in full disguise. “You’re actually going to do it?”

“Of course,” said Agatha calmly, just as if she had not been wrestling with doubts and fears all day.

“Is it any use me trying to point out to you that you are putting your life in danger?”

“None whatsoever. Anyway, I’m only going to locate the place – if they still have the freezer room. Then I’ll leave and phone the police.”

They walked outside together. “I’ll be all right,” said Agatha, getting into her car. “I tell you what. If I’m not back by midnight, then you can phone the police.”

Agatha parked in the car-park at Merstow Green and studied Mr. Gringe’s map. It was going to be difficult. Terry Jensen had obviously had the wall that had existed between the front and back premises knocked down to make room for the disco. Did the disco dance-room extend right through to the back door? Or was there still a space left at the back with a hidden door somewhere? There might be. Goods might be delivered at the back door.

Agatha got out of the car, wishing now she had let Charles come with her. She felt very alone.

Wayne, the bouncer, was standing outside the club. “Television again,” said Agatha briskly. “Just going to soak up the atmosphere.”

Wayne stood aside to let her pass. The disco was quieter than the last time Agatha had been there. There were fewer couples gyrating on the floor, although the music was still as loud as ever. She hoped it would soon fill up to disguise the fact that she would be be searching around the walls. She went to the bar where Terry was on duty. She shouted at him that she was just getting a feel of the place and ordered a bottle of beer. As she sipped her beer, she looked carefully round about. Then she thought, there must be a toilet somewhere. It might be situated in the back premises. “Got a ladies’ room?” she shouted at Terry.

He opened a door at the side of the bar which Agatha had not noticed before because it was part of a painted mural of a dancing couple. He jerked his head. Agatha walked through. “On the left,” he shouted.

There were two toilets, one marked ‘Gals’ and the other, “Guys.” As he was still watching her, Agatha went into the ‘Gals’ and into one of the cubicles. She sat down on the lavatory seat and took her map out and studied it again. Outside had been dark except for dim lights above the toilet doors. Surely Terry would have gone by now. He couldn’t watch every woman who decided to go to the toilet.

Agatha made her way out and looked quickly around. Beer crates and cases of soft drinks were stacked against the opposite wall. She looked at her map again. If the freezer room was still there, it would be behind those crates and cases. Quickly, she began to move them away from the wall, panting with the effort. The wall behind was covered with a dirty curtain. She paused in her efforts and tried the back door. It wasn’t locked. Good, thought Agatha. If I find something, I can escape that way. It was when she started on the cases in the central section that she realized they were empty. She began to throw them behind her, confident that the music from the disco would cover the noise. What if someone came in to use one of the toilets? But she would have to risk it. She would think of some excuse. She would scream and say she had seen a rat. When she had cleared a big-enough space, she lifted the curtain and peered underneath. It was too dark to see anything. She fumbled in her handbag until she located a pencil torch. She shone it up and down the wall.

And then her heart began to thump. There was a wooden door with a metal handle. The freezer room. She ducked under the curtain and seized the handle and pulled the heavy door open, to be met by a blast of icy air. Agatha went inside. She fumbled inside the door for a light switch until she found it and pressed it down. Fluorescent strip lighting snapped on overhead.

Agatha let out a cry of pure terror.

Sitting on the floor with her head at an awkward angle was Joanna Field. Agatha put a hand up to her lips. Move! screamed her brain. Get out! Get the police. The air was full of the thud of the disco music pounding in her ears. And then there was a louder thud. She swung round. The door had been slammed shut behind her.

♦

“Something’s worrying me, Alf,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “What is it, dear?” asked the vicar.

“It’s about Agatha Raisin.”

“Oh, that silly woman. What’s she been up to now?”

Mrs. Bloxby explained about Agatha’s visit to the disco and why she had gone.

“Then you must tell the police immediately,” said the vicar.

“She made me promise I wouldn’t.”

The doorbell rang. “Maybe that’s her,” said Mrs. Bloxby. She hurried to open the door. John Armitage stood there. “I’ve just got back from London,” he said. “Where’s Agatha?”

“Come in,” urged Mrs. Bloxby. “I’d better tell you.”

She repeated what she had just told her husband. “ You said you wouldn’t tell the police,” said John when she had finished. “I didn’t.”

“The phone’s over there,” said Mrs. Bloxby eagerly.

John phoned Worcester police, was put through to Brudge and began to talk rapidly, ending up with “You must get men there now. Her life could be in danger.”

He finally put down the phone. “They’ll get there as quickly as possible. I’m going there myself.”

“We’ll go with you,” said Mrs. Bloxby, ignoring the vicar’s pleas that any rescue should be left to the police. They piled into the vicar’s ancient Morris Minor and headed for Evesham.

“Can’t this car of yours go any faster?” asked John at one point.

“I am not ruining my engine for one silly woman,” remarked the vicar.

♦

Agatha walked up and down, desperately beating her arms at her sides. What a way to end! Frozen to death. And poor Joanna. She must have found something incriminating in Kylie’s e-mail and tried to blackmail them. Agatha felt sick with cold and despair. She was about to die and all because of vanity. She had wanted to solve the case herself, have all the glory. She would never see James again. There were shelves inside the room stacked with boxes. She pulled open one with frozen fingers and found plastic packets of white powder. So this was where they kept the drugs. Kylie must have known. Kylie must have found out. Poor Kylie. Poor Joanna. And poor Agatha.