'Are you going out this Saturday?'
'Yes, I have to keep an eye on our detectives.'
'Pity. I've got people at the weekend and wanted to ask you over.'
Deborah spilled some coffee from her polystyrene cup. Damn the walkers. Should she say she would drop going with them? Would that look too eager? Would...?
'Of course, if you're all through by the evening, you can come for dinner,' she realized he was saying.
'What time?'
'Oh, eight or eight thirty.'
'Thanks awfully'
'My pleasure. Only hope you don't find it a bore. Gosh, I'm tired. Have you got your car?'
'No, I live quite close by'
'Then I'll walk you home.'
Dembley was an old market town which no longer boasted a market but sometimes on calm evenings still held a flavour of the old days. The market hall with its splendid arches and clock tower now housed an Italian restaurant and an auction room. The beautiful seventeenth-century house opposite had a garish neon sign in one window flashing out Chinese take-away. Concrete blocks of shops nearly obscured the view of the thirteenth- century church. White-faced youths leaned against lamp-posts at street corners and jeered at the world in a tired way, their speech liberally sprinkled with obscenities.
As they passed one group, a thin teenager shouted out, 'Getting your leg over tonight, guv?' and the rest sniggered.
To Deborah's horror, Sir Charles stopped dead in his tracks. 'Why did you say that?' he demanded, addressing the teenager.
The boy looked at his shoes and muttered, 'Sod off.'
Sir Charles stared at him curiously. Then he turned to Deborah and took her arm. 'It's not that they suffer from material poverty,' he said. 'It's a poverty of the mind, wouldn't you say?'
Deborah, head down, murmured, 'Oh, ignore them. They might have knives.'
Sir Charles turned back. 'Have you got knives?' he asked.
For some reason, his simple, almost childlike curiosity appeared to embarrass the youths more than a stream of insults would have done.
Muttering, they slid off, still in a group, used to being in a gang since they were toddlers, frightened to break away from each other and become vulnerable individuals.
'Here's where I live,' said Deborah, stopping in front of a dark doorway between a dress shop and an off- licence. 'Would you...would you like to come up for a cup of coffee?'
Unnoticed by Deborah, who was studying her shoes, a predatory gleam entered Sir Charles's eyes. He fancied her a lot, he thought. She was different from the girls he usually escorted. There was something so pliant and appealing about her thinness and whiteness. He was not used to shy women and found Deborah a novelty. 'Not tonight,' he said. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips. 'See you Saturday. Would you like me to send Gustav for you?'
'No!' said Deborah. 'I mean, I know the way.'
'And so you do. Bye.'
Deborah scurried up the stairs, her heart beating hard. She was going to be a dinner guest at Barfield House. She telephoned her mother in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mrs Camden, a tired, faded woman, worn out with years of work in looking after Deborah and her two brothers because Mr Camden had shot off for parts unknown shortly after Deborah, the youngest, had been born, listened to Deborah's excited voice bragging about how she was going to be a dinner guest at Barfield House.
'Make sure your underwear's clean,' cautioned Mrs Camden. 'You never know what might happen.'
And Deborah knew her mother did not mean that her daughter should be prepared for a night of lust but was simply expressing an old fear that one of her children might meet with an accident and arrive at the hospital in dirty underwear.
The next morning Agatha did not rush to get to the kitchen first to make a wifely breakfast. She was appalled at her behaviour of the night before. She was determined to back off and play it cool. So she mentally shelved all her earlier plans of cooking up breakfast in a hurriedly bought satin nightgown and negligee, and bathed and dressed in a plain skirt and blouse and sensible shoes.
When she arrived in the kitchen, James was cooking eggs and bacon. 'I put some on for you,' he said over his shoulder. 'Sit down and I'll serve you. There's coffee in the jug.'
Agatha saw the morning newspapers lying at the side of the table and looked hurriedly through them all. But there was no news of the rambler murder.
James served her and himself, ate hurriedly and then settled down to read a newspaper, allowing Agatha to reflect that this was probably more like real married life than any of her wild imaginings.
She finished eating and cleared away the dirty plates into the dishwasher. The flat, although expensively furnished, depressed her. It was the sort of place that reminded her of her London days, when she had allowed decorators to do the job for her and never revealed any of her own personality in the furnishings. She wished suddenly she had brought her cats with her. They were back in the care of Doris Simpson. Perhaps she would take a run home and collect them. She was sure James would not mind.
'So what are you going to do today?' asked James finally.
'I'm going to where Deborah lives,' said Agatha. 'I'll take a clipboard and say I'm a market researcher.'
'That's a good idea. But don't you think it might be easier just to question Mrs Mason?'
'I want to find out Deborah's movements before the murder. Mrs Mason won't know that.'
'But won't people think it odd that a market researcher would want to know about Deborah Camden?'
'Not the way I go about it. Look, you represent some product and suggest there's going to be a prize. They invite you in for a cup of tea. Once in, you start talking about the murder.'
James looked thoughtfully at Agatha, as if debating whether she was the type of woman that people asked in for a cup of tea, but he said, 'I'll see what I can find out about Kelvin. We'll meet up back here early evening, swap notes, and then go to that restaurant where Peter and Terry work.' He retreated back into his newspaper while Agatha's feverish mind planned what to wear to dinner.
Seeing she was going to get no more conversation out of James, Agatha found a clipboard among her belongings, attached several sheets of paper to it, and set out.
When she arrived at the doorway between the shops which led to the flats above, one of which was Deborah's, Agatha longed for the pre-security days when one just opened the street door and walked in. She studied the names on the bells: D. Camden, Wotherspoon, Sprott - her eyes narrowed - and Comfrey.
After a little hesitation, she rang the bell marked 'Wotherspoon'. No intercom. The buzzer went and Agatha quickly pushed open the street door and walked in and up a shabby flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs. An elderly man leaning on a stick was standing on the landing peering down at her as she made her ascent.
'I don't know you,' he said. 'If you're selling something, I'm not interested.'
Agatha pinned a bright smile on her face and went resolutely on up. 'I am doing some market research about the tea-drinking habits of the English. It will only take a moment of your time.'
He had a grey, very open-pored face, loose dentures, and thin hair greased in streaks across a narrow head. He was wearing a grey shirt and grey trousers and carpet slippers of a furry plum-coloured fabric, very new, probably a present from some grandchild, thought Agatha.
'Questions, questions,' he grumbled. 'I don't want to answer damn-fool questions.'
'We are paying ten pounds to each person who helps us,' said Agatha, all bright efficiency.
'Oh!' His truculence melted. 'Come in. As a matter of fact, I was just about to have a cup of tea.'
Agatha followed him into a sparsely furnished living-room. There was a photograph of him in an army uniform taken during World War II, when he was a young man. He had been very handsome. Age, it comes to all of us, thought Agatha, repressing a shudder. There was another photograph, a wedding one.
'That your wife?' asked Agatha, pointing to it.
'Yes, she passed on fifteen years ago. Cancer. Odd, that,' remarked Mr Wotherspoon, peering blearily at the photograph. 'I always thought Madge would see me out.'
'You must miss her.'
