exactly did she go missing? Did she return after the hen party? But she must have gone home to get the wedding dress. And why would she put it on and leave the house dressed in it? To show someone? To show Zak? If only she had not adopted this stupid television role, she could revert to herself and ask questions until Zak and his father threw her out, but at least it would be more straightforward. She missed James. Even Charles would have done. She needed someone as back-up. Of course, she could always go and see Worcester police, but she was well aware that they considered her an interfering busybody.
Phyllis’s voice was churning on, about how her family didn’t appreciate her ambitions and that was why she had left home. They had been dragging her down. I’ll talk to the others apart from Sharon and Phyllis separately, thought Agatha, and set her clipboard down on the table and said resolutely, “I think that’s more than enough for now.”
Phyllis looked disappointed, but Agatha said she had other people to interview. She took a note of Phyllis’s home phone number and with relief escaped out into the evening air of Evesham. She glanced at her watch. Only six-thirty. Agatha felt that Phyllis had been talking for hours. She hurried off. Phyllis had gone to the loo in the pub but might appear at any minute and start talking again.
She walked off rapidly along the High Street in the direction of Merstow Green where she had left her car. She was passing a bookshop when she suddenly stopped and stared in the window, which was still lit. The shop sold remaindered books, but the bookseller often had a few books by popular authors at knock-down prices. There was a display of one of John Armitage’s books, not the one Agatha had read, and one of them was turned round to show the picture of the author on the back.
Agatha found herself looking down at the face of the man she had mistaken for a Mormon. The man she had seen digging the garden must have been a gardener he had hired. Damn Mrs. Bloxby for a devious woman. That’s why she had looked amused when she, Agatha, had described the gardener instead of the author. Well, it all went to show what a rotten influence the church was on people.
Agatha forgot her burst of temper as she drove homewards. John Armitage was certainly attractive. She would call on him and apologize and they would both laugh over her mistake…and…and…
Wrapped in rosy dreams, Agatha dashed into her cottage, removed the wig and glasses, changed into a clinging red dress and high heels, after putting on fresh make-up, and rushed next door. No one. The cottage stood dark and silent. And his car wasn’t parked outside.
¦
The next day Agatha received a visit from Detective Inspector John Brudge of the Worcester police. “Come in,” said Agatha, delighted. She thought he had called to enlist her help, for had she not solved an Evesham murder before? He was accompanied by a detective sergeant and a detective constable.
“Mrs. Raisin,” said Brudge severely, “we are questioning everyone connected with the death of Kylie Stokes.”
“Yes,” said Agatha eagerly. “I know a bit about – ”
He cut across her. “And it has come to our ears that some woman, saying she is arranging a television programme, has been asking questions. We have checked with all the television companies and not one of them knows of this woman.”
Agatha’s heart sank.
“What’s her name?” she asked feebly.
“That is what’s so amazing. She didn’t give one. Everyone is so gullible when it comes to thinking they are dealing with someone who claims to represent a television company. This woman was described as middle-aged, blond and with glasses. Now, we haven’t got a search warrant but we can get one today to find if you have a blond wig and glasses in this house. Do you want to tell us the truth, or do I have to get that warrant?”
Agatha bit her lip. Then she gave a shrug. “Yes, that was me.”
“Before I consider charging you with obstructing police business, tell me what you have learned.”
Too worried to hold anything back, Agatha told them what she had found out, about Zak’s distress, about Phyllis’s story, about the other girls.
Brudge listened to her impassively and then said, “Would you mind waiting in the other room?”
He saw her across the hall and into the kitchen and then shut the door behind her.
“What do you think?” Brudge asked his detective sergeant, a young man called Norris.
“Interfering busybody,” said Norris. “I’d book her, sir, and get her out of our hair.”
“That’s what I should do. On the other hand, she’s capable of digging up stuff the people concerned wouldn’t tell a policeman.”
“But, sir, we’re dealing with a murder investigation. She could get killed.”
“Yes, she could, couldn’t she? I’ll give her a rap on the knuckles but I won’t stop her.”
He went and jerked open the door, fully expecting to find Agatha listening outside, but he found she was still in the kitchen. She was sitting on the floor, playing with her cats.
“I must give you a severe warning, Mrs. Raisin, about the penalties of interfering in a police investigation. But as a favour to you for having been of some little, very little, assistance to us in the past, we will not tell those you have interviewed your real identity. That will be all. Oh, one other thing. Anything else you do find out, you are to report to me immediately. Here is my card. It has my office number, home number and mobile phone number.”
“Thank you,” said Agatha meekly.
After they had left, Agatha turned over what he had said and then her face cleared. They weren’t going to stop her.
¦
Agatha was admiring a splendid blond wig which had arrived by special delivery from Roy when the doorbell rang again. She found a woman she did not know standing on the step.
“Mrs. Raisin,” she said. “I am Freda Stokes, Kylie’s mother.”
“Come in,” said Agatha. “Come through to the kitchen. Would you like a cup of tea? I am very sorry about your sad loss.”
Freda Stokes was a sturdy woman with round apple cheeks with a high colour. Her grizzled hair was frizzy and her hands rough and red. She had large eyes of an indeterminate colour.
She refused the offer of tea and settled her battered handbag firmly on her capacious lap and studied Agatha. “I’ve heard you’re a sort of detective.”
“In a way,” said Agatha.
“I’ll pay you to find out who killed my daughter. Won’t be much. I’ve a stall at the market. Glass animals. Don’t make much.”
“I’ll do it for nothing,” said Agatha.
“I won’t take charity.”
“I’m fairly well off and you aren’t,” said Agatha bluntly. “I’ll do it. Wait till I get some paper. I’ll need to ask you questions. Do you feel up to it?”
“I’m up to anything,” said Freda grimly, “if it’ll nail the bastard who killed my daughter.”
Agatha darted through to her desk and returned with a sheaf of papers.
“So tell me when you last saw her?”
“It was two days before she died. She’d been to some sort of hen party with the girls in her office. She was a bit tiddly when she came home, that would be around midnight. I told her to get straight to bed. She said she’d had a good time. She said that girl, Phyllis Heger, who was always picking on her, wasn’t there. As she was off work, I thought I’d let her have a long lie-in. My husband’s dead. There was only me and Kylie.” A fat tear slid down her cheek. Agatha handed her a box of tissues and waited until she had composed herself.
“I went to the market early as usual. I came back at dinnertime.” Agatha knew she meant lunch-time. They still had dinner in the middle of the day in Evesham. “The house was quiet. Lazy girl, I thought, and went to wake her. Her bed was empty. Hadn’t been slept in. I called Zak, I called her work, I called her friends, then I called the police. They didn’t take it seriously. They said brides always got nervous before a wedding and she’d turn up. Then I found her wedding dress was missing. I phoned them again. But again they wouldn’t take me seriously. That was until she turned up dead.”
“What about Zak?” asked Agatha. “Could he possibly have done it?”
“No, he adored her, and he and his father have been marvellous to me. I couldn’t have got through the last few days without them. Zak’s broken up.”
