M.C. Beaton - The Love from Hell

“Didn’t stop you shagging her,” put in Agatha. “Please.” He held up his hand. “I looked in the files and found she had indeed been sectioned at one time and diagnosed as such. She had got quite drunk over dinner one night and had told me she had a lot of money and was going to leave it to her old friend Megan, who, by coincidence, had married her ex-husband. She said Megan was the only friend she’d got. They’d been through some hard times together. Then, one day when I got home, I went out into the back garden. At first I thought it was a teenager and called to her sharply. She introduced herself as Megan Sheppard. I asked how she had got in. She said, ‘Over the fence.’ She said she had come to warn me to leave Melissa alone. She said Melissa was her friend.

“I got rid of her quickly. But something made me wonder if Megan was another psychopath, and if such, could be dangerous; if such, could only be interested in Melissa for the money.”

He sighed. “I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I simply had to go back to the psychiatrist and check the files. Yes, Megan had been in the psychiatric unit at the same time as Melissa. I felt I had not long to live. Our marriage was a disaster. I thought I could at least help Melissa.” Agatha winced. “There are different levels of psychopathy. I thought Melissa probably had a personality disorder, whereas the little I had seen of Megan pointed to a stone-hard psychopath.

“So I called on Melissa and told her about Megan’s visit. I said that Melissa would be better off leaving her money to her sister, and telling Megan that. Melissa’s eyes lit up at the prospect and I realized with a sinking heart that she was actually looking forward to the experience and that she was as incapable of affection and friendship as Megan.

“She must have told Megan it was I who had counselled her to change her will. Megan walked in on me and started berating me. She then swung a hammer at my head. I staggered off. I got in the car and drove until I realized I was too ill to drive any more. I got out. I wanted to get away from the whole mess. I hitched a lift and told the truck driver I had suffered a fall. He said he would drop me at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. I did not go in. I waited in the meadows until dawn and sponged the blood from my head.

“I got out on the A-40 and another truck driver took me as far as London. I got a bus from Victoria coach station to the coast. You see, in all my distress and shame, all I could think of was this monastery.”

“The police were looking everywhere for you,” said Agatha. “They must have missed the coach station. How did you get over to France?”

“Friends, with a yacht. I worked my way south until I got to here. I never thought for a moment Melissa was in danger. I thought someone would have seen Megan leaving my cottage, have heard the noise. I thought that by now Melissa would have realized that when I told her Megan was dangerous, she would now know it to be true.”

“So where do we go from here?” asked Agatha, searching his face for some sign of that old affection, but James’s face was set and bleak.

“I would like to join this order. I found a faith here, Agatha, and that faith cured me.” He smiled wryly. “I’ve always missed army life, and this is very like it, the order and discipline.”

“What about us?”

James looked at her sadly. “I hope you will give me a divorce, Agatha.”

Agatha shrugged. “Sure,” she said. Another woman she could have battled against, would have battled against, but how on earth did you fight God?

“I planned to return in a week’s time to clear things up. I shall see you then.” He stood up. “I must go. Someone will soon come looking for me and you should not be here.”

Agatha stood up as well. She held out her hand. James gave it a firm handshake. “See you next week.”

Then he smiled sweetly at her and raised his hand in benediction. Agatha suddenly found she was so angry, she was shaking.

“Get stuffed, James,” she said evenly.

He gave her a sorrowful look, and putting his cowl over his head, walked away through the garden.

Agatha felt old and weary and the sustaining anger drained out of her. She hoisted herself up the wall and rested for a moment, lying across the top. “Want me to come up and help you?” came Charles’s voice.

“No, I’ll manage.” Agatha fumbled her way down the other side.

“That was James,” said Charles, “and what did he have to say for himself?”

As they walked across the field to the other wall, Agatha told him. Charles made an odd sound. She stopped and stared at him. “You’re laughing?”

“I can’t help it,” chuckled Charles. “My husband, the mad monk.”

Overwrought, Agatha slapped him across the face. Charles promptly slapped her back, hard, and then fell onto the ground, rolling over and over, holding his sides and roaring with laughter.

Agatha stared down at him, holding her cheek where he had slapped her, the anger ebbing out of her.

And then she began to laugh helplessly as well.

“That’s better,” said Charles, getting up and putting an arm around her shoulders. “So does he want a divorce? You didn’t say anything about that.”

“Yes, and he’s welcome to one. He’ll be back next week to wrap things up.”

“How’s his tumour?”

“He says he’s cured.”

“I can see where he’s at,” said Charles. “If I’d had a brain tumour and a bunch of monks cured me with their religious belief, I’d be joining a monastery as well.”

“Not if you loved your wife, you wouldn’t.”

“So do you think you’ll be able to live with it?”

“Yes,” said Agatha. And with increasing surprise: “Yes, I think I can. It really is all over now.”

∨ The Love from Hell ∧

EPILOGUE

“AND is he definitely coming back?” asked Bill Wong. “Or we have to send out men to bring him back?”

“Oh, he’ll be back any day now. To wrap things up.”

“I don’t see that we can really charge him with anything,” said Bill. “A good lawyer would get him off like a shot. Attacked and injured, not himself, thought he was dying, didn’t look at newspapers. How did he get over to France?”

“Friends with a yacht.”

“I can understand James not knowing about the hunt for him, but his friends surely would. He’d better come and see us when he gets back and make a statement. I haven’t asked you: How did you know where to find him?”

“It was that diary of his.”

“But we went over it. Nothing there.”

“There was a bit about the monastery and the spiritual peace. Charles said it was a long shot, but James had been interested in miracle cures and he said it was worth a try.”

“Amazing how you pair discover things. Where is Charles by the way?”

“He felt like staying on in France, and he’d done so much for me that I got him to drive me to Marseilles and got a plane from there.” Agatha laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“I thought Charles had turned all generous, but before I left he asked for my share of the petrol money, and then he’d bribed some old fellow, and he asked for the money he’d given him because it was to find James. But it was good of him to urge me on to going to that monastery.”

“Megan is not going to trial.”

“Oh, why?”

“Unfit to stand. We’ve had every sort of psychiatrist to try to prove she’s faking it, but she does seem to be really mad.”

“I’m relieved I won’t have to go to court.”

“You still will have to. Luke Sheppard is being charged with conspiracy to murder. I’ll let you know the date of the trial. My bosses would have been really angry to find you were out of the country. They’d have expected you to be available for further statements. So I suppose I’d better put in a report about James.”