The Love from Hell

rotting food in the kitchen. Damn it, the bitch probably knows where James is and has gone to join him.”

“Agatha, please stop…”

But Agatha walked straight into the cottage, calling, “Melissa!”

The smell was getting stronger but fury drove her on. She opened the kitchen door and stood stock still. Melissa was slumped over her kitchen table. Flies were buzzing about her dead body: heavy flies, sated flies. Charles peered over her shoulder. “Get the police, Aggie.”

“Police,” whispered Agatha through dry white lips. “She may just have died.”

“Under the flies, her head has been bashed in.” Charles gave her a push. “Go, phone.”

Agatha stumbled into the sitting-room. She dialled 999 and gasped out the address and demanded police and an ambulance. Then she lurched out into the front garden and took in great gulps of fresh air. “Morning,” said an old man, peering over the fence at her. “Lovely day.”

“Yes, lovely,” said Agatha. He looked at her curiously for a moment and went on his way.

Oh, James, thought Agatha, what have you done?

¦

They were gathered in Agatha’s sitting-room later that afternoon, Wilkes, Bill Wong, another detective, and a thin, serious policewoman.

Agatha gave them the letter and she explained her reaction and her desire to confront Melissa. She did not say anything about trying to find James herself. Asked about her movements during the previous days, she said honestly that until Mrs. Bloxby had called, she had been too depressed to move much at all.

“I’ve heard it’s almost impossible to pin-point the exact time of death,” said Charles.

“The corpse was cold but not stiff, which means she had been dead over thirty-six hours,” said Wilkes. “Of course, I’m sure the flies will give us some clue.”

“Flies?” asked Agatha.

The policewoman, who had not previously spoken, suddenly threw back her head, closed her eyes and began to recite, “After death the body begins to smell, and attracts different types of insects. The insects that usually arrive first are the Diptera, in particular the blowflies, and the flesh-flies, or Sarcophagidae. The females will lay their eggs on the body, especially around the natural orifices and in any wounds. Flesh-flies do not lay eggs, but deposit larvae instead.

“After about a day, depending on the species, the eggs hatch into small larvae. These larvae live on the tissue and grow fast. After a short time, they moult, and reach the second larval stage. They continue eating and moult to the third stage. This takes about four to five days. When the larvae are fully grown, they become restless and begin to wander. They are now in their pre-pupal stage, about eight to twelve days after the eggs were deposited. Typically it takes between eighteen and twenty-four days from the eggs to the pupae stage. The exact time depends on the species and the temperature in the surroundings, so by estimating the age of the insects, scientist can estimate the time of death.”

She closed her mouth like a trap. “Are you for real?” demanded Agatha.

“Thank you, Constable Morrison,” said Wilkes. “But I think this is neither the time nor place for a forensic lecture.” He turned to Agatha. “The hunt has now intensified for your husband.”

“You think James did it, don’t you?” said Agatha. “I thought so at first. But why?”

Constable Morrison threw back her head again. “Crime of passion,” she said.

“We don’t know who did it,” said Bill Wong. “We have to look into Melissa Sheppard’s background, see what, if any, enemies she had. Mr. Lacey’s disappearance and her death may not be related.”

¦

The following day, Harriet Comfrey, her rotund figure bulging over a swim-suit, was relaxing on the deck of the Sleeping Princess in the harbour at Honfleur.

She saw her husband coming along the harbour, clutching a sheaf of newspapers. When he joined her, Harriet said crossly, “You’ve broken our holiday agreement. No newspapers!”

“I didn’t mean to buy them,” said Tubby, “but James’s face is all over the front page. Look!”

Harriet picked up the Daily Express. There, sure enough, was a photograph of James Lacey. She quickly scanned the story.

Some woman called Melissa Sheppard had been found battered to death. Police were anxious to contact Mr. Lacey to help them with their inquiries. Mr. Lacey had disappeared some weeks ago after evidence of a fight in his cottage at Carsely, Gloucestershire. He was wounded and believed to be suffering from a brain tumour.

Harriet raised shocked eyes to her husband’s face. “And we helped him out of the country! We’d better go to the police. Anyway, we may do him some good. We can tell them he left with us before this murder.”

“Who’s to say he didn’t go back?” said Tubby gloomily. “I mean, he got me to row him ashore at that rocky beach down the coast. Imagine what the police will say. Why didn’t you come forward before? You say he had a wound in his head? Aiding and abetting a criminal. All that stuff. Bang goes our holiday.”

Harriet bit her lip. “Better say nothing about it, then. I mean, he didn’t go through any passport control.”

“But they’re bound to get him. Then they’ll ask him how he got to France and he’ll say it was us.”

His wife’s face took on a stubborn look. “Let’s just forget about it. We don’t want to be involved. And no more newspapers, Tubby.”

¦

The press and television had come and gone. Carsely settled into a summer torpor. James had not been found.

Agatha and Charles had tried to get information about Melissa out of Bill Wong, but all he would say was that it was more than his job was worth to tell them anything. His bosses said they had suffered interference from them in the past. He was instructed not to tell them anything.

“The newspapers might have something,” said Agatha, two weeks after the murder of Melissa. “I mean, I’ve got to get something. I’m still a suspect. Even Bill looks at me in a funny way. They say she must have been lying there dead for five days. We don’t have a milkman round here anymore, and she picked up her papers from the village shop. If we still had milk delivered around here, then people would have noticed bottles piling up on the step.”

“What do you mean, the newspapers might have something?” asked Charles. “We’ve read them all, day in and day out.”

“What I mean is this. A couple of days after Melissa’s murder, there was that awful shooting at Mircester School. Five children dead. Awful. But it wiped Melissa’s murder off the papers. Now some reporter may have been working away at the background and then gets told to drop it. We could go to die Mircester Journal and ask.”

“Sounds a bit far-fetched.”

“You forget, I worked with the press for years. Anyway, it’s better than doing nothing.”

Charles made a steeple of his fingers and studied them while Agatha waited impatiently. It was at times like this that she wondered if she really knew Charles at all. Self-possessed as a cat, expensively tailored, sensitive face, but unreadable eyes under smooth fair hair.

“All right,” he said. “It’s better than sitting here.”

¦

The editor of the Mircester Journal looked more like Agatha’s idea of an accountant than an editor. Mr. Jason Blacklock was dry and precise, with strands of brown hair combed neatly over a pink scalp and gold-rimmed glasses perched on die end of a long thin nose.

“I gather you want my help, Mrs. Raisin,” he said, addressing Agatha. “I agreed to see you because there might be a story in it for us.”

“If you help us,” said Agatha, “we’ll give you an exclusive when we’re ready. Deal?”

“All right. So what is it you want?”

“I gather you would have had a reporter or reporters working on the murder of Melissa Sheppard.”

“Of course.”

“And pulled them off it when the shooting at the school happened?”

“Yes.”

“We wanted to find out a bit about Melissa’s background and wondered if one of your reporters would have something.”