“I know. But she did not have any friends. Husbands both finished with. Maybe when she was making out her will, she found Julia was the only logical person to leave it to.”
“Still, it’s odd. It would have been more like her to leave it to the cat’s home to spite Julia. I think your first move should be to start questioning the villagers again. That’s what police work is, Agatha,” he added sententiously, “plod, plod, plod.”
He glanced at his watch and gave an exclamation of dismay. “I’ve got to get back and I haven’t even had any lunch. Need to grab something from the police canteen. Tell you what, I’ll phone the wife. Why don’t you spend a nice day pottering round the shops and come home with me for dinner?”
Agatha repressed a shudder. His wife would probably throw the dinner in her face. “No, I’ve got to get back. Got things to do.”
They both stood up. “Well, as I’ve said before, Agatha, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be happily married now.” Jimmy smiled down at her.
Agatha felt like crying. But she said, “You deserve to be happy, Jimmy. You’re a good man.”
They emerged from the pub. The sky had clouded over and torrential rain was beating down. “Wyckhadden’s the same as ever,” mourned Agatha. “Dramatic weather.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Not far. In the central car-park.”
“Give me your keys and I’ll go and get it for you. You’ll get soaked otherwise. Tell me the make and registration number.”
Agatha was fishing in her handbag for her keys. She looked up and saw Jimmy’s wife, Gladwyn, bearing down on them, her eyes glittering with rage. “Get it myself,” gasped Agatha and took off, running as hard as she could. When she got to her car, she was soaked to the skin. She sat there miserably until the rain thinned and then stopped. She climbed out of the car and walked to a large department store which sold cheap clothes and bought herself a sweater and skirt, underwear and shoes, and, after she had paid for it all, put the lot on in the fitting-room and stuffed her wet clothes in a carrier bag. She was about to leave the store when she noticed it was raining again, so she retreated back in and bought a raincoat and umbrella. When she emerged, the sun was shining. “I hate this place,” she said loudly, and several passers-by edged nervously away from her.
As she drove the long road home, she told herself severely that the next man she became involved with would be someone who really loved her, not someone she irritated every minute of the day as she had irritated James, or a fickle lightweight like Charles.
If Charles comes around again, she told herself, I’ll tell him to get lost.
But when she turned the corner into Lilac Lane, and saw Charles’s car parked outside her cottage, she experienced a feeling of relief. Not yet, she told herself. I’ll tell him to get lost when all this is over.
? The Love from Hell ?
9
Charles had let himself in, having kept the spare key, and was watching television and drinking whisky.
“Back again,” he said lazily. “Where have you been?”
“Just around. Oh, you may as well know – I went to Wyckhadden.”
Agatha sat down with a weary sigh. Charles studied her. “I’d better not ask you why you went there. Whisky or gin?”
“Whisky with water.” Charles rose and poured her a drink and handed it to her.
“I went to tell Jimmy – remember Jimmy?”
“Could I forget? Found us in bed together and broke off your engagement.”
“I thought if I told him all about the case, he might come up with something.”
“And did he?”
“He had an idea. He said usually in cases, people would say they had seen or heard nothing, but if we asked again, someone might come up with something they thought was too ordinary or insignificant to mention.”
“He’s got a point there,” said Charles. “We never really questioned the villagers. That’s all been left to the police. Oh, God, that means going from door to door.”
“Maybe not. I’ve an idea. We could see Mrs. Bloxby and suggest a meeting in the church hall. Give them all sheets of paper and ask them to write down anything at all they might have seen or heard on the day James was attacked and on the night Melissa was murdered.”
“That’d be a start. I can’t help myself, Aggie. Did you actually go to Wyckhadden to kindle the old flame?”
“Of course not,” said Agatha quickly. “What about Tara?”
“What about her?”
“What about this gorgeous creature you were straining at the bit to see.”
“Didn’t work out.”
“What went wrong?”
“Well, I took her out for dinner. She said she was a feminist – she works for some magazine – and believed in women paying their own way, so we decided to split the bill. We went to Pere Rouge, a new place in Stratford. When the bill came round, she gave me exactly half. I said, ‘Wait a minute, you had the oysters to start, a whole dozen; I only had one glass of wine and you had the rest of the bottle; I had pasta and you had fillet steak; I didn’t have pudding and you had crepes Suzette;’ so I took out my pocket calculator and worked out her share of the bill, which seemed fair enough to me. Then I worked out the tip; she hadn’t even offered to cover that, and told her the total. She looked at me in a cold way and asked me if I was joking. I said I couldn’t see anything funny. She got to her feet, said, ‘Be back in a minute,’ and then she didn’t come back. So I had to pay the whole bill. Then when I got home, it was to find she had arrived before me in a taxi, kept the taxi waiting, packed her things and headed off.”
“Oh, Charles, couldn’t you just have left it? I mean, taking out a pocket calculator.”
“What’s up with that? She said she would pay her share and I wasn’t going to let her get away with just paying a measly half when the greedy cow had gorged her way through the most expensive things on the menu.”
“Charles, that meanness of yours will keep you a bachelor until the end of your days.”
“I am
“Never mind. Let me tell you what happened this weekend.” Agatha told him about the fete and Roy’s encounter with Dewey.
“Everything does seem to point to him. Did Jessop suggest anything else?”
“He did seem to think it was Julia. He said there were two good motives, money and hate. Also I still think it odd that Melissa left everything to Julia. And did Julia know about the will?”
Charles groaned. “I’ve a feeling we might have to make another trip to Cambridge.”
“Let’s try this village meeting first. We’ll see Mrs. Bloxby in the morning.”
¦
The next day, Mrs. Bloxby listened carefully to their suggestion. “I do not see what harm it will do,” she said. “Wait until I get the book and see when the hall is free. It had better be an evening, so that everyone will be back from work.”
She returned with a ledger and ran her finger down the pages. “Let me see, next Saturday evening is free. I’m afraid Alf might expect you to pay for the rental of the hall.”
“What! After all the money Aggie raised at the fete!” exclaimed Charles.
“That money went straight to charity,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“I don’t mind,” said Agatha. “I’ll pay half and Charles will pay the other half.”
Charles opened his mouth to protest but saw the gleeful look in Agatha’s eyes and closed it again.
Mrs. Bloxby carefully entered the hall booking and said, “You are both going to have a busy day.”
“Why?” asked Agatha.
