“He must have done. It was in the newspapers, along with his photograph.”
“He may not have looked at the newspapers. Say you find him, Aggie? What then?”
“I want to hear his side of the story,” said Agatha, but the fact was she wanted to give him a piece of her mind. The oh-so-perfect James, who had always been picking on her, had made one big major mistake for which he ought to be deeply ashamed for the rest of his life.
“I suppose we’ll have to hang around for a few days,” said Charles. “In case they want to speak to us again.”
“I suppose,” echoed Agatha sleepily. “I’m off to bed.”
“Alone?”
“Alone. I don’t care now if I never have sex again. I don’t want any more casual sex.”
“Who said it was casual?” remarked Charles, but Agatha had already left the room and did not hear him.
¦
Mrs. Bloxby was their first visitor the next morning. “It was Mrs. Allan who really put me on the track,” said Agatha, “and that remark you once made about women marrying the same sort over again. I thought, why shouldn’t a man marry the same kind as well?” She told her all about Mrs. Green’s having seen a child on the night Melissa had been killed. “Megan must have parked the motorbike outside the village,” said Agatha, “put the vacuum and the hammer in that rucksack and headed for Melissa’s.”
She went on and told her everything and how Megan had threatened to shoot them. “She must have known as little about guns as I do,” said Agatha. “I wouldn’t have noticed whether the safety catch on a gun was on or off. I wonder where she got it.”
“Well, now you can leave all those details to the police,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Any news of James?”
Agatha shook her head. She flashed a warning look at Charles to stay quiet. She had a superstitious feeling that if she told Mrs. Bloxby about the possibility of James’s being in the monastery that he would turn out not to be there at all. It was such a slim chance.
After Mrs. Bloxby had gone, Charles said he would return home and join her again when she planned to set off for France. “Leave it a week,” said Agatha. “Everything will be properly wrapped up by then. I’m surprised the press haven’t been hammering at the door.”
“Oh, Wilkes will just have said a woman is helping them with their inquiries,” said Charles. “He’ll want to keep us out of it. Make it look like all his own work. Do you think we’re psychic, Agatha?”
“You called me Agatha. You’re improving. No. Why?”
“You must admit it was an amazing leap of deduction on the part of both of us.”
“I think it was because, for my part, I’d been thinking about nothing else for weeks. It’s a bit like a crossword. You stare at some clue and then decide you’ll never get the answer, and the next day you pick up the paper and glance at it and the answer I snaps into your brain.”
“Could be. I’m off then. See you in a week.”
“You really think there’s a chance of him being at that monastery?”
“A slim one, but yes, I do think it’s worth a try.”
¦
When Charles had gone, Agatha sat down, cradling a cup of coffee in her hands and thinking it was rather pleasant to be alone again, particularly now that she had nothing to be frightened of. Perhaps a lot of her discontent and frustration was because she would not accept middle age or the prospect of heading to old age. A life without men meant she could dress the way she wanted, be herself. No need to let herself go, exactly. She had a sudden sharp longing for a cigarette and tried to fight it down.
Then she could feel the comfort draining away. How quiet her cottage seemed! She had the cats, of course. She did not really need to do anything. After what she had been through, no one should be expected to do anything. But she rose and began to do some housework and then went out into the garden to pull up weeds. She was bending over a flower-bed when a sudden sharp longing for James engulfed her.
Faintly, she could hear her front doorbell ringing.
With relief, she went to answer it. It was Bill Wong.
“Do come in,” cried Agatha. “Has she confessed? How did it go?”
Bill followed her into the kitchen. “They both ratted on each other. Sheppard said it was all her idea, and he had not known she was going to do it. He only thought she was going to threaten Melissa. Of course, when she heard that, she said he had gone along with her every step of the way. It turns out she told him about the will. He was amazed Melissa had that amount of money. Then Megan got rattled when she learned James was romancing Melissa. She phoned her and asked her if Melissa had changed her will. Melissa said not yet, but that James had persuaded her that it would be a good idea to leave it in the family. Megan decided to act before the will was changed. There was the motive.”
“It’s amazing, with all that money, she chose to live in a small cottage in a village,” said Agatha.
“She was evidently always tight with money, preferred to spend other people’s. Not all that strange a situation. You get millionaires living in council houses. There was a man won four million on the lottery. Never told anyone. Lived in a council flat, worked at a jam factory, had a pint with his mates, just as always. Relatives found out the extent of his wealth when he died. In his will, he said he had realized the money would mean he would have to give up his mates and his job.”
“Is Wilkes giving me any credit for solving his case?”
Bill looked awkward. “He’s going around saying I solved it.”
“Oh, well,” said Agatha. “That way it keeps it in the family, so to speak. I tell you this, Bill. Never again. If a body with a knife in its back falls in front of me, I’ll simply step over it and forget about it.”
“Ever thought of starting a detective agency?”
“You know, I did at one time, but then I thought it would probably be nasty divorces and missing pets.”
“I told Ma she had been a bit abrupt with you and Charles and so she’s invited you both to dinner next Sunday.”
Agatha repressed a shudder. “We can’t. We’re going on holiday.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You mean, you and Charles?”
“Yes.”
“Am I looking at the next Lady Fraith?”
“No, nothing like that. He’s about ten years younger than me. We’re just friends.”
“Where are you going on holiday?”
“Prague,” said Agatha, having a sudden fear that if she said the south of France, Bill might check on her movements to see if she was trying to contact James.
“Prague, eh? Why Prague?”
“Sentimental journey. I spent part of my honeymoon there.”
“Have a good time. I see you haven’t given up smoking.”
Agatha looked at the smouldering cigarette between her fingers in dismay. “I thought I had. I didn’t even know I had started again.”
“If you hear anything at all from James Lacey, remember it’s your duty to contact me.”
“Will he be charged with anything? Leaving the scene of the crime?”
“No, I shouldn’t think so. Not now we’ve got the guilty parties. Megan had no end of luck. What if a chap at the night desk at the Randolph had seen her leave or return? What if Mrs. Green had had better eyesight? What if Dewey had not been so weird and distracted our investigations? And Melissa’s sister must be relieved it’s all over. Wilkes became convinced she was the guilty party and those students who lodged with her have been grilled over and over again. Aren’t you going to put that cigarette out – that is, if you really want to stop smoking?”
“Tomorrow,” said Agatha. “I’ll stop tomorrow.”
“That’s addict-speak. If you really wanted to stop, you’d stop now.”
“Will Megan be brought to court?”
“We’ll try, but last heard she was putting on a very good mad act. If she gets a sharp lawyer, she may be considered unfit. Oh, the vacuum cleaner. The stuff inside matches the fibres from Melissa’s carpet. She got rid of the weapon but forgot to empty the vacuum cleaner. Lucky, that.”
“Where on earth did she get a gun? And if she had one, why didn’t she use it on Melissa? I wouldn’t even know where to start buying a gun.”
