Freda came back in. “I’ll get you some tea now.”
“There’s something here we should discuss first,” said Agatha. “Fifteen thousand pounds was deposited in your daughter’s account the week before her death.”
“That’s not possible. Let me see it!”
Agatha held out the relevant bank statement, which Freda snatched from her.
“I don’t understand,” Freda said piteously. “She was always broke. Always asking me for money. The bank must have made a mistake.”
Agatha took a deep breath. “I am sorry to have to tell you this, Freda, but your daughter, Kylie, was having an affair with her boss, Mr. Barrington. We fear she might even have been blackmailing him.”
Freda’s face was mottled with red. “I won’t listen to this filth. I’ll show you. That money probably came from Terry Jensen.” She walked to the phone and dialled a number. They heard her saying hullo and then asking Terry whether he had given Kylie a present of fifteen thousand pounds. The answer was obviously in the negative, for she put the phone down, shaking her head in bewilderment. Then she swung round on Agatha, her eyes glittering with rage. “Get out of here and don’t come back!”
“But, Freda – ”
“Don’t you Freda me. You’re nothing but an interfering old busybody. I should have listened to that Anstruther-Jones woman in your village. She stopped me after I’d called on you, saying I looked distressed and could she help. I told her why I had visited you and she said I was to be careful. That she had heard you hadn’t really solved any crimes at all. It was the police that did it every time. All you ever do is just ask silly questions or dig up dirt. Well, you’re not going to ruin my daughter’s good name. I’m finished with you.”
Agatha backed towards the door where John was already waiting, holding it open for her. She tried to protest. “Don’t you want to know who killed your daughter?”
“OUT!” shouted Freda.
And so they left. As they walked to the car, Agatha said in a small voice. “What now?”
“We’ll see Barrington another time. Let’s try Mary Webster again.”
¦
They drove to the Four Pools Estate, off the Cheltenham Road, past Evesham College where Kylie used to meet Arthur Barrington and turned right into the housing estate opposite Safeways supermarket. “Just there,” said Agatha, pointing to a house at the end of a row. “Yes, that’s it.”
Agatha still felt shaken after the confrontation with Freda. While she had been investigating on Freda’s behalf, she had felt like a real detective. Now she felt diminished. She longed to go home and forget about the whole thing. John wasn’t much company, handsome though he was. There was something almost robotic about his good looks, surely too smooth and unmarked for a man of his age. James Lacey was handsome, but in a high-nosed, rangy sort of way, and Charles was chatty. Maybe John Armitage had paid for a face-lift. As he rang the bell, she studied around his ears for any tell-tale signs until he turned and looked at her curiously with that green gaze of his that gave so little away.
The door opened. A tired, flustered woman faced them. From behind her came the wail of a baby. “We’re from television,” said Agatha. “Is Mary Webster at home?”
The woman turned and called, “Mary!” in a high shrill voice. Then, facing them again, she said, “I’m ever so sorry, I can’t ask you in. Mary’ll need to take you somewhere.”
She stood aside as Mary appeared, pulling on a raincoat. “Still wet, is it?” she asked.
“It’s stopped now,” said John.
“Take them somewhere for a coffee,” pleaded her mother. “Bunty needs her feed.” Another angry wail from somewhere inside the house bore out what she said.
“‘S awful,” grumbled Mary over her shoulder as she preceded them down the short garden path. “Mum’s too old to have more babies, but she would go and do it.”
“There’s a Little Chef round the corner,” said Agatha to John. “Let’s take her there.”
Mary was a very small girl wearing very high heels. She had perky features and an upturned nose. She reminded John of illustrations of Piglet in
Feeling weary, Agatha introduced John and then asked the same questions about the amusements of the youth of Evesham before turning to Kylie’s murder. “What we really want to know at the moment,” said Agatha, “is whether you think Kylie was taking drugs or not.”
“I know she did, just the once, like.”
“Tell us about it.”
She looked suddenly alarmed. “This won’t go out on the telly, will it? My ma would kill me.”
“No, I promise you,” said Agatha. “Look, no tape recorder, no camera.”
“I went into the Ladies’ at Barrington’s one day and Kylie was smoking. I said, “That cigarette smells funny.” She giggled and said it was grass and would I like a puff. So we shared the joint and we was laughing all over the place. She made me promise not to tell anyone.”
“When was this?” asked John.
“Oh, would be last year.”
“Was she with Zak then?”
“No, she was engaged to Harry – Harry McCoy.”
“Did she ever tell you where she got the joint from?”
Mary shook her head. “All I knew is that she and Harry had been clubbing in Birmingham. Probably bought some there.”
“What about heroin?” asked Agatha.
“Naw. Never a sign of the stuff. What’ll I have to wear for the telly?”
“We’ll be filming most of it in the disco. So whatever clothes you normally wear to that.”
“You going to give us a dress allowance?”
“I don’t even get one myself.”
“I can see that,” said Mary with all the brutality of the young to the middle-aged and surveying Agatha’s plain skirt, blouse and jacket. “You should get yourself something more trendy. Make you look younger.”
“I am not in front of the cameras. I merely do the research.”
“But maybe if you did something with your appearance and got a face-lift, you could make it big-time,” went on Mary with a patronizing kindness. “Look at Joan Collins.”
“Look at her yourself,” snarled Agatha. “Now let’s get on with this interview.”
Mary shrugged. “You don’t seem much interested in me. Only Kylie. And she’s dead.”
John took over and returned to questioning Mary about her life while Agatha stifled a yawn and gazed out of the window at the passing traffic.
At last, to Agatha’s relief, John smiled at Mary and said, “That will do splendidly for the moment. Coming, Pippa?”
Agatha hurriedly remembered that was supposed to be her name. “You’d best run me home,” Mary was saying.
They dropped her off.
“Back to the village,” said John, “and we’ll talk over what we’ve got. Your place or mine?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” teased Agatha flirtatiously, and then realized from his surprised look that it was a straightforward question and not an invitation to indulge in anything warmer than the murder investigation.
“Mine,” she said. “I’ve got to feed the cats.”
¦
“We’d better phone Worcester police,” said John, seated in Agatha’s kitchen.
Agatha, straightened up from petting her cats, and stared at him.
“Why on earth?”
“Because we’ve got to tell them about that bank statement.”
“I think, for the sake of Freda Stokes, we should try to protect her daughter’s reputation. I mean, it may have nothing to do with Barrington.”
“Even if it has nothing to do with Barrington, it has something to do with someone. The police can ask the
