“It’s a good thing Charles dug up a hot-shot lawyer or you might both have been charged with wasting police time. That Neighbourhood Watch woman, Miss Harris, has, fortunately for you, a record of seeing villains behind every bush. You’re interfering again, Agatha. I warned you.”
“Have coffee, sit down, and listen,” said Agatha. “Despite the police interruption, I felt I was getting somewhere.”
“Oh, yes? We’d already interviewed him.”
“But what did you ask, eh? Usual police stuff, where were you on the night of, and so on. What I’m trying to find out is what Melissa was
She handed Bill a cup of coffee. He studied her, his almond-shaped eyes curious in his round face.
“So what did you find out?”
“That she lived in a fantasy world and thought she was a detective, among other things, but I told you that. She was also prepared to cheat to maintain the fiction of being a perfect housewife. She would buy cakes and then say she had baked them.”
Bill laughed. “Do you remember how we first met? You’d entered a quiche in a baking competition, the judge dropped dead eating it, and we found out that you’d bought it and tried to pass it off as your own baking.”
Agatha flushed.
“So you’ll need to do better than that.”
“Why did you call, Bill?”
“I’ve been sent along to find out what you’re up to. Now, Wilkes, he says, give her her head. She’s blundered around before and unearthed a murderer. But I don’t want you to do that.”
“I’ll be all right. I can’t do anything the police can’t do, Bill. But you can’t stop me asking questions. Do you remember that television game, “What’s My Line?” When they would call something like, “Will the real airline pilot stand up?” That’s how I feel about Melissa. Will the real Melissa Sheppard please stand up?”
“How are you and Charles getting along?”
“As usual. He’s good company, but, well, you know, lightweight. Can’t really rely on him. He comes and goes. He reminds me of my cats. I think they like me, especially when I’m feeding them. I think Charles likes me, particularly on the occasions when he says he’s forgotten his wallet and I pay to feed him.”
“You’re just bitter. He’s a better friend than that.”
“If you say so.” Agatha suddenly felt weary. “How’s your love life?”
“All right. I’m taking it slowly this time. No pressing her for too many dates. No rushing her home to meet the parents.”
“Good plan,” said Agatha, who had met Bill’s parents and thought they were enough to kill any budding romance. “Anyway, I think Charles has dropped out. I got a very good cheque for my PR work on that boot. Would you believe it? The boss, Mr. Pier-cey, thought for a bit that I had arranged the police arrival to give the whole thing maximum publicity.”
“So what are you going to do today?”
“Oh, potter about. Got the ladies’ society tonight. I thought I’d take a cake along.”
“Not baking one, are you?”
“I might try. It can’t be that difficult.”
¦
Agatha played safe, or thought she had, by buying one of those cake mixes which said, just add water. But the oven must have been too hot, for the chocolate cake she had intended to produce came out crisp on the outside and soggy and runny on the inside. She scraped it into the bin and then went next door to James’s cottage to check his answering machine, but there were no messages. She sternly resisted going upstairs to bury her face in his pillow. All that did was bring savage waves of hurt. Any decent worries she might have about his brain tumour always seemed to get swamped out by feelings of rejection and loss.
She prepared herself carefully for the evening at the Carsely Ladies’ Society, putting on a pretty summer dress with slits up each side to reveal what Agatha considered her last good feature, her legs.
When she sat in the vicarage garden, balancing a cup of tea and a plate with a wedge of cake, she listened with only half an ear to Carsely’s unmarried mother, Miss Simms, read the minutes of the last meeting. Unmarried mothers in villages were hardly unusual, but Agatha always found it amusing that Miss Simms should have been elected secretary by this bunch of very conventional, middle-aged and middle-class ladies.
Mrs. Bloxby, who was now chairwoman – no PC rubbish about chairpersons in Carsely – rose to put forward the arrangements for the forthcoming village fete. For once, Agatha did not volunteer to do anything. She was tired of village affairs and felt she had done enough in the past.
The other women there did not cut her dead once the business part of the evening was over. But they would ask her if she had any word of her husband and then move quickly away. Only Miss Simms pulled up a chair next to Agatha and said, “Wouldn’t you feel better doing something at the fete, dearie? I mean, we need someone for the tombola. Take your mind off things.”
“The way I feel at the moment,” said Agatha, “a village fete would be incapable of taking my mind off things.”
Miss Simms tugged ineffectively at her short skirt, which was riding up over her lace-topped stockings. “Anything I can do to help?”
“I keep trying to find out what sort of person Melissa Sheppard really was.”
“Bit of a tart, if you ask me.”
“How come?”
“Went up to London with her a couple of months ago. I don’t have a gentleman friend at the moment, and she says there’s this singles’ bar with good talent and why don’t I come along. So I did. Well, it was really rough stuff, if you get me. I like my gents in suits and with their own car. We get tied up with three bikers, all leather and medallions, and Melissa, she says, “We’re all going back to Jake’s place,” Jake being one of the blokes. I take her aside and say, “What you on about, Liss? They’re a bit common and there’s three of them.” She’d drunk a bucketful, pretty quick, and she says, says she, “The more the merrier.” So I got the hell out of there and had to find me way to Paddington and pay for me fare home, ‘cos we’d come up in her car. I asked her later how she’d got on, and she says, “Okay, and I didn’t take you to be a Miss Prim,” so I never spoke to her again.”
At last I’m getting somewhere, thought Agatha. “I’d like to speak to those bikers,” she said. “Would you like to go to London with me and spot them for me? Did they seem like regulars?”
Miss Simms looked at her doubtfully from under a pair of improbably false eyelashes. “They did seem to be regulars, but…”
“Don’t worry,” said Agatha. “I’ll pay for everything, even for your baby-sitter, and I’m not looking for a fellow.”
“Right. You’re on.”
“What time did you turn up there before?”
“Bout nine in the evening.”
“Right. We leave about seven. Should make it in good time. The rush-hour traffic should be thinning out by then.”
Shortly after Agatha got home, the phone rang. It was Charles. “How’s it going?” he asked.
Agatha, glad that he had not abandoned her after all, felt relieved and told him about the singles’ bar.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Okay,” said Agatha after a little hesitation. “It’s a bit rough, so don’t look too posh.”
He laughed. “As if I could.”
And he really believes that, thought Agatha. How odd.
? The Love from Hell ?
5
HAD London always been so dirty and shabby? wondered Agatha. Surely not. The singles’
