M.C. Beaton - The Love from Hell

“I think you should go to a doctor and get that head examined.”

“It’s just a bit of blood. Worse than it looks. I’d really like to get away, Harriet.”

“Got your passport?”

James searched in the inside pocket of his jacket. “Yes, I have,” he said with something like surprise. He tried to remember why he had his passport but could not.

“Luggage?”

“No luggage. I sent it on ahead,” said James, improvising.

“You look as if you’ve been sleeping in those clothes. It’s a good thing I know you to be a respectable gentleman or I would start to think you were on the run from the police.”

“Not from them,” said James. Harriet looked up at him curiously and then gave a little shrug.

“Come along, then. We’re nearly ready to set sail.”

∨ The Love from Hell ∧

3

THREE weeks had passed since the disappearance of James. Agatha had railed at the police. In these days of modern communications, someone must have seen him somewhere. He had not packed any clothes, although his passport was missing. He would have to buy clothes somewhere, draw money. There must be a trace of him.

But there was nothing.

It had been established that the blood in the cottage and in the car belonged to James. Bill told her they were still waiting for the results of further tests on hairs and threads and other bits and pieces carefully scooped up by the forensic team, but these days, he said, the lab was overloaded.

It is not only the police who suspect the nearest and dearest of murder. When Agatha went to the local pub or shopped in the village store, she could sense an atmosphere when she walked in.

She sank even deeper every day into depression. She had barely the energy to get out of bed, and when she did, she wandered around in a shapeless house-dress. From time to time, she would feel with a stab of deeper pain that she should be out roaming the countryside, looking for James. Then she would remember that the police were looking for him with all their resources, and sink back down into helpless misery again.

James’s relatives had given up phoning. His sister and his aunts all seemed to imply that such a worrying, disgraceful thing would not have happened if he had refrained from marrying Agatha. She had finally unplugged the phone from the wall.

At the end of the third week, Agatha reluctantly answered the summons of her doorbell. “I’ve been trying to ring you,” said the vicar’s wife, pushing a strand of grey hair away from her mild face. “No reply. I thought you’d gone away.”

“Come in. Like coffee?”

“Tea, please.”

In the kitchen, Mrs. Bloxby looked anxiously at Agatha. “I just wondered if you had had time to clean up James’s cottage.”

“I haven’t had the heart,” said Agatha dully.

She placed a mug of tea in front of Mrs. Bloxby, who picked it up, and then put it down, untasted, and said, “I really think, my dear Mrs. Raisin, that you should take some sort of action or you are going to make yourself really ill.”

“What can I do that the police can’t?”

“You’ve never let that stop you before. You see, I could help you tidy up the cottage next door. You could go through James’s papers – oh, I know the police have been through them – but there might be something there that they have missed.”

“Still can’t see much point in it,” said Agatha, lighting a cigarette.

“I cannot see much point in you letting yourself go to seed. One would think James was dead.”

“How do you mean, go to seed?” demanded Agatha.

“I shall put it bluntly. There are bags under your eyes, you have a moustache and hairy legs.”

A small spark of humour gleamed in Agatha’s bearlike eyes. “It’s women’s lib,” she said. “We only shave ourselves because of men.”

“I shave my legs because they get scratchy and itchy when the hair grows,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I thought your friend, Charles, would have been round to help you.”

“He tried, but I didn’t feel like seeing him.”

“Mrs. Raisin, are we going next door, or what? I haven’t got all day. There are other people in this parish in need of my help!”

Agatha blinked at her in surprise. She had hardly ever heard her friend speak to her sharply before.

“Okay. I’ll get the keys.”

“Clean yourself up first, there’s a dear.”

Agatha trudged upstairs. For the first time, it seemed, in ages, she took a good look at herself in the long mirror in her bedroom. She was appalled at the ageing mess that looked wearily back at her.

♦

Downstairs, Mrs. Bloxby waited patiently. If Mrs. Raisin was taking a long time, then it meant she was tidying herself up, and Mrs. Bloxby was still shocked by the deterioration in Agatha’s appearance.

At last, Agatha appeared, neat and tidy in a shirt blouse and skirt, her smooth legs in tights and her smooth face under a light mask of make-up. “Thanks for waiting,” she said gruffly. “Let’s go.”

“Haven’t you been to James’s cottage before?”

“Just on and off,” said Agatha, remembering nights she had cried into his pillow and days where she had sat with her face buried in his favourite old sweater. “I just couldn’t get round to straightening things, although the police did quite a good job after they had finished.”

They walked out into the sunshine. How odd that the world should look so normal, thought Agatha. Fluffy clouds, like clouds in a child’s painting, hung in a deep-blue Cotswold sky. The first roses were tumbling over hedges and the air was sweet and fresh.

Agatha unlocked the door of James’s cottage. Mrs. Bloxby stood back and looked at the roof. “The thatch needs done,” she called. “I can put you in touch with a thatcher. You might want to wait and see if he comes back. It’s an expensive job.”

She followed Agatha in. “I’ll draw the curtains back and open the windows.”

Soon sunlight was flooding the cottage. Mrs. Bloxby looked round. There was a thin layer of dust on the furniture and the carpet was still marked with blood-stains. “Perhaps if you start with his papers,” she said, “I’ll begin with the cleaning.”

Agatha went to the old roll-top desk in the corner where James kept his accounts and letters. The police had taken everything away to examine and the plastic bag holding all the papers they had returned lay on top of the desk. The fact that Agatha had taken some sort of action was beginning to send a little surge of energy through her.

Behind her, she heard the reassuring clatter of cleaning implements as Mrs. Bloxby fetched what she needed from the kitchen and got to work.

Agatha began going through piles of bills to make sure they had all been paid. Then she began on the little pile of mail which had been lying on the doormat when she walked in. New bills. Electricity, gas, water. Junk mail. One letter addressed in large looped handwriting addressed to James. She took up James’s silver letter opener and slit open the envelope.

It was dated the Friday of the previous week. “Dear James,” she read. “We really must sit down and talk. I hope you’re back by now. I’m sorry I told Agatha about your illness, but how could I possibly guess you had not told her yourself? You must come and see me. We have been intimate together, you’ve made love to me, you can’t just walk away and not see me again. Do please ring me, darling, or come round. Your Melissa.”

Agatha’s hands shook as she read the letter. A great wave of fury swept through her. She had almost been sanctifying James since his disappearance, crediting him with affections and little tendernesses that he had never demonstrated, blaming herself bitterly for everything. Despite what she had previously said, she had come to the conclusion that James had never been unfaithful to her. Such a straight, upright man would not. But now here it was. Proof. She forgot about his cancer. She only thought that he had cheated her. By God, she had to find him and tell James Lacey exactly what she thought of him. He could even be lying about having cancer! The police had checked every hospital in Britain without finding a sign of him.