“Maybe some other time.”
Agatha came into the room. She was wearing a soft blouse of swirling colours and a long black skirt slit up the side. John noticed she had excellent legs.
He drained his glass. “Just called in to say hullo. See you again, Agatha.”
He bent down and kissed her cheek. Agatha looked up at him in surprise.
When he had left, she asked Roy, “Why did he call?”
“Just to say hullo. I managed to imply we were having an affair.”
“What on earth did you do that for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a sudden burst of malice. He’s very good-looking, but there’s something smug about him.”
“I wouldn’t call him smug.”
“Anyway, trust me, he will now look at you with new eyes.”
“Roy, he will now find me pathetic.”
¦
Roy had brought Agatha a new wig. The heavy waves of hair hung down on either side of her face, making it look thinner, and the glasses were large, with fake tortoiseshell rims. She tried both on before they left the cottage the following morning. “Great,” said Roy, surveying the effect. “Doesn’t look like you at all.”
“I’d better take them off now and you can stop somewhere on the road to Evesham and I’ll put them on again. If John sees me in the wig, he’ll know I’ve gone back to investigating and he might turn all moral and phone the police.”
Roy looked shocked. “He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Maybe not. But I’m not going to risk it.”
On Agatha’s instructions, Roy drove into Broadway, instead of taking the bypass.
He pulled into a parking place and waited while Agatha put on the wig and glasses. “Property values here must have soared after they got the bypass,” said Roy, looking around. “I remember driving through here when I first came down to see you and the street was jammed with cars and trucks. Are you ready? And who do we try first? We should see Zak.”
“Let’s try Sharon Heath first. I’d like to know the repercussions from the attack on Joanna.”
“Talking about Joanna, maybe we should try the hospital later in case she’s recovered consciousness.”
“We’ll phone first,” said Agatha. “No point in going all the way to Redditch to find she’s still not being allowed visitors.”
Sharon was at home and delighted to see them. They didn’t even need to worry about broaching the subject of the attack on Joanna. It was the first thing Sharon wanted to talk about.
“It was ever so odd,” she said when they were seated in the Heaths’ cluttered living room. Mrs. Heath was not at home, so there had been no hurried cleaning. The remains of a pizza lay on the coffee table surrounded by empty Coke cans and bottles. “I mean,” Sharon went on, “she never worked late before. She said she had a couple of accounts to send out. The rest of us left and then I remembered I had left something in my desk.”
“What?” asked Agatha quickly.
“Eh?”
“I mean, what had you forgotten?”
“Oh, er, a scarf. Anyway, I went back for it but she was at her own computer. But she was found at Kylie’s computer. The police think she may have been looking for something in the e-mail and they checked out Kylie’s computer, but there was no e-mails on it at all. Wiped clean, the policeman said. You should see Mr. Barrington these days. Ever such a state he’s in. But when the attack took place, he and his missus were at the lawyers. She’s asking for a divorce.”
Sharon’s eyes gleamed with pleasure at imparting all this I delicious gossip.
“Is there any other way into Barrington’s, apart from through the front door?” asked Roy.
“Yes, that’s where that bastard, George, got into trouble. There’s a back door into the workshop and from there you can get along to the offices. The door was unlocked. Mr. Barrington was shouting at him something dreadful. George, he said that he never bothered because he always locked everything up after everyone had gone, and how was he to know someone would creep in and biff Joanna on the head. You never can tell what Joanna’s up to. In my opinion, she fancies herself a cut above the rest of us. If she’d told us what she was up to, we’d have stayed with her. So you’re still going to do the telly programme?”
“Oh, yes,” lied Agatha. “But these things take time. As it is all going to be filmed in the disco, we’d better go and see Zak and his father. Will they be at the club now?”
“Might be. They’ve got to work to clean up the mess from last night. I was there and it was full of people.” She peered at them anxiously. “You are going to ask me questions about me-self? I mean, you’re not going to drop everything to do a programme on Kylie’s death?”
“Of course not,” said Roy. He made a frame with his hands and looked at Sharon through it. “Yes, you’ll come across well on television.”
Sharon grinned with delight. “So tell us about your hopes and ambitions,” said Agatha.
“Before you lot came along,” said Sharon, “I thought I’d meet a nice fellow and have a big wedding and settle down. Maybe two kids. But now I think I’m meant for better things. I mean ter say, the sky’s the limit if you put your mind to it.”
Agatha experienced a stab of conscience which she quickly put down to indigestion. Sharon was going on enthusiastically.
“I mean, you know, I always suffered from low self-esteem,” Sharon went on. Agatha reflected that the late Princess Diana had educated the youth of Britain in therapy-speak. “You know, I’d never have thought I had the looks to go on telly. But it hasn’t stopped you getting a job.” She surveyed Agatha.
“I don’t appear in front of the cameras,” snapped Agatha.
“You poor old thing. I’ve got youth on my side.” She turned to Roy. “What about a bit of plastic surgery? Do you think my nose is too long?”
“No, just right.” They beamed at each other.
“To get back to Kylie,” said Agatha. “Surely her computer would be checked to see if there were any accounts that needed sending out.”
“Yes, Phyllis was asked to do that, and she ran off any stuff and dealt with it. No one thought about the e- mail.”
“Do you girls often get personal e-mail on your office computers?”
“Ooh, yes. I had this fellow last year who worked in a travel agents and when they weren’t looking, he’d send me an e-mail to Barrington’s.” She giggled. “Some of it was pretty hot, so I’d delete it after I’d read it.”
But would Kylie have deleted hers? wondered Agatha. Particularly if there was something she could use as blackmail. Her heart quickened. Or maybe she printed them off and took them home. Perhaps they were still there. But Freda would surely have read them. Still, worth a try. The day had turned warm and the little living-room was stifling and permeated with the smell of stale pizza, booze and Sharon’s cheap perfume.
“I think that’ll be enough for now,” said Agatha, rising to her feet.
“But you’ll be back?” asked Sharon.
“Yes, we’ll be back.”
¦
“Now what?” asked Roy when they were outside. “The club?”
“May as well try it.”
But when they got to the club it was closed and locked. “There’s a bell there. Might be someone about.”
“If there isn’t, we could call on Freda Stokes,” said Agatha. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe Kylie printed off any e-mail in case there was something she could use to blackmail Barrington.”
“Fat chance there’s anything at her home,” said Roy. “I mean, the police will have taken every scrap of paper away and they’ll have gone through her belongings.”
“You’re right,” said Agatha, downcast. “Particularly after that business with the bank-books. Ring the bell.”
Roy pressed it and they waited. They were just about to turn away when the door opened. Zak stood there, blinking in the sunlight. He looked as if he had lost weight and there were dark circles under his eyes.
