“She was lovely to look at. I mean, you see girls like that on the telly,” said Harry, “but you never expect to see one like that here. I couldn’t believe my luck when she agreed to be my fiancee. Mind you, I was a bit worried I’d got her on the rebound.”
John and Agatha exchanged glances.
“Who was she rebounding from?” asked John.
“Mr. Barrington.”
“What? The owner of Barrington’s.”
“Him. Yes.”
“Wait a bit. He can’t be a young man, surely, to own a firm like that.”
Harry scowled. “He’s a dirty old man, nearly fifty.”
“And not married?” asked Agatha.
“Yes, he is, but he told Kylie he would get a divorce.”
Agatha looked at Harry in amazement. “And what did the other girls think about Kylie dating the boss?”
“They didn’t know. She never told them. I knew, because I was mad about her.” He flushed an even deeper red than before. “I used to follow her. She’d told the other girls she was taking French classes at Evesham College, so after work, she’d walk to the car-park at Evesham College and he’d pick her up there.”
“And were they having an affair?”
“Kylie swore to me they’d never had an affair. He used to drive her out to restaurants in the country for dinner. He’d give her presents.”
“Like what?” asked John.
“He gave her a solid-gold necklace, that I know. She showed it to me and said she’d told her mum it was gilt.”
“So how did that end?” asked Agatha, who was rapidly revising her opinion of Kylie.
“A friend of his wife’s saw them together in that Greek restaurant in Chipping Camden and told her. Turns out his wife has a lot of money and he’d never intended getting a divorce. He managed to persuade his wife that Kylie had been thinking of leaving work and that because she was such a good worker, he had taken her out for dinner to persuade her to stay. Anyway, Kylie started going out with me. I thought all my Christmases had come. She was a beautiful girl.”
“But what was she
“Of course, you never met her. She had a sweet face and this long blond hair and a figure like a model and…”
Agatha did not want to say she had once seen Kylie at the beauticians because that might give Harry a hint that she was a local. “I’m not interested in what she looked like,” said Agatha. “I’m interested in her character.”
Harry blinked a little, a puzzled frown between his brows. John thought that Harry had never bothered much about what Kylie was really like.
“She chattered away about the office and the girls and things like that. Girl talk, you know. She said she was ambitious. She didn’t want to be stuck in Evesham for the rest of her life.”
Agatha sighed. “But that’s exactly what would have happened if she had married you. Was she a virgin?”
Harry turned red. “That’s a very personal question.”
“No harm in answering it now she’s dead.”
“No, she wasn’t,” he mumbled. “She was pretty hot.”
Agatha said, “I think we should have a word with Marilyn, seeing as how she lives above you. Do you think she’ll be awake now?”
“I’ll phone her.” He took a mobile phone out of his pocket and proceeded to dial. He turned a little away from them and muttered into it, but Agatha caught the gist of his remarks, which amounted to that he was with the television people and he didn’t want Phyllis to know because she would muscle in on the interview.
Agatha’s previous mental picture of Kylie, reinforced by the visit from her decent mother, was beginning to change. Instead of Kylie being a fresh-faced innocent, if Harry McCoy’s remarks were anything to go by, Kylie had been an empty-headed little tart. Still, the girl had been murdered and no one should be allowed to get away with that.
Marilyn arrived, breathless and excited, wearing black leggings, high-heeled white sling-backed shoes, a skimpy T-shirt, and a purple fake fur jacket. Her thin shoulders were hunched and her small mouth hung perpetually open under a long nose and heavy-lidded eyes.
“Is there a hidden camera?” she asked, looking excitedly around.
“It’s not
“What’s your names?” asked Marilyn.
“John Armitage,” said John with a smile. “And this is Pippa Davenport.”
He could have thought of a better name for me, thought Agatha. John took over the questioning. He started by asking her about her life. Marilyn flirted with him, giggling and punctuating her answers with hundreds of ‘you knows.’
Then he said, “Have any of you ever been in trouble over drugs?”
“Don’t think so.” Marilyn looked sideways under her heavy lids at Harry. “There’s Phyllis. She’s tough, you know. She could be taking something, know what I mean?”
“But no one you know has been in trouble with the police?”
Marilyn shook her head.
“How long had you all known each other?”
“‘Bout a year, you know. Phyllis has been with Barrington’s the longest. Maybe three years. Me, a year. The others had just joined before me. New business, you know. Been building up staff ever since, you know. They was a small firm in Worcester before then, you know. Just plumbing, like. Then Mr. Barrington decided to expand into bathroom fittings.”
“How old was Kylie?”
“Eighteen, same as me. She’d been working at the market with her mum when she left school at sixteen. She’d taken a computer course at the college. Said she wanted to better herself. Quite the little madam,” added Marilyn with sudden venom.
“You don’t seem to have liked her,” said Agatha.
The thin shoulders under the purple jacket shrugged.
“And yet you all gave her a hen party?”
“Oh, offices, you know. You get along, have a bit of a laugh.”
“So tell me about the hen party.”
“Mr. Barrington let us use the office after hours. We had drinks and a few laughs and then we dressed up Kylie in streamers and put on funny hats and walked her a bit of a way home through the town, you know. We was all a bit drunk, laughing, you know, and shouting rude remarks at the boys in the streets. Then we all split up when we got to the High Street.”
“And were there any quarrels?”
“Naw. Phyllis wasn’t there.”
“Trouble-maker, is she?”
“Yes, but don’t you go telling her I said so. She’s got a terrible temper.”
They asked her a few more questions and then parried her questions about when the programme was going to appear before taking their leave.
“There are lot of nice people in Evesham,” said Agatha as she and John walked to the car-park.
“But not that lot at Barrington’s,” commented John. “Which of the girls have you still got to question separately?”
“Three of them,” groaned Agatha. “Ann Trump, Mary Webster, and Joanna Field.”
“Got their addresses?”
“Yes.”
“So let’s try them.”
