them tick.”
“Why bother? Does it really matter who killed Rose?”
“Yes, it does!” said Agatha passionately. “It matters desperately who takes the life of another human being. They can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
“Suit yourself. But if you’re going to eat humble pie to that lot, do it on your own. I want lunch. We’ll go back to Kyrenia and find somewhere.”
“I’m going back to James. I said I would be back at lunch-time, or rather, he said he would be back at lunch- time.”
“Waste of space, Aggie,” remarked Charles. “He won’t care if you don’t turn up.”
“I shall find out who murdered Rose if it’s the last thing I do,” shouted Agatha.
“Oh, get in the car.”
Agatha took a step towards the passenger side. A rock sailed past her head and struck the rear window of the car, leaving a great jagged hole in the middle of the cracked and starred glass.
Charles, who had been unlocking the car door, stared at Agatha, white-faced.
Then he ran to the entrance to the car-park and looked wildly around. Groups of tourists laden with cameras wandered up and down the narrow streets. Agatha joined him.
“Let’s go back and see if they left that cafe.”
At the cafe, they were told that “their friends” had left a few minutes ago, got into their cars and driven off.
“It could have been kids,” said Charles as they emerged again. “But you’d better tell the police and then get the next plane out to England.”
“You forget. I’m a suspect, too. I’ve been told not to leave the island.”
“Well, I’ll need to report it anyway and get another car.”
They went into the Tree of Idleness and Charles asked the manager to call the police. Not only did the police arrive, but several detectives, and the road outside the Tree of Idleness was blocked by police vehicles with flashing blue lights.
Charles made his statement, which was duly recorded. They were told they would be contacted further. Police were fanning out to question tourists and locals if they had seen anything. It all took some time and so, when they finally drove back to Kyrenia and waited for Charles to get another rented car, Agatha realized she was shaken and very hungry. They went to Niazi’s, a restaurant famed for its kebabs and slow service, and ate a leisurely meal while Agatha went over and over it all again, debating that if the rock had been thrown at her deliberately, then it must be one of the English suspects.
Charles took himself off to the toilet as soon as the bill arrived. Agatha wondered whether to wait until he returned to see if he would pay it, but decided his sudden departure for the toilet was because he meant her to pay. And, indeed, on his return to the table he thanked her courteously for her “invitation to lunch,” said he would see her around, and drifted off.
Agatha drove back to the villa, feeling as she approached it like a guilty and adulterous wife-which was ridiculous, she told herself angrily.
She saw with a sinking heart that not only was James’s car outside the villa, but the long, low, official black one used by Pamir.
Agatha was suddenly very tired and upset. Her legs shook and her eyes filled with weak tears. She felt she had endured enough for one day.
James and Pamir were in the kitchen.
“What the hell have you been up to?” demanded James.
“Sit down, Mrs. Raisin,” said Pamir. “You have had an upsetting morning. It could have been children. A lot of the local children are very spoilt these days, just like in England. Videos and computers and no discipline. Perhaps some tea for Mrs. Raisin?”
James grumbled something under his breath but got up and switched on the kettle.
“Now, Mrs. Raisin,” said Pamir in a more gentle voice than he usually used, “perhaps you might begin at the beginning…?”
“I’m beginning to think if I ever hear those words again, I’ll weep,” said Agatha.
But she told him everything, about Trevor’s threats, which seemed to have been caused by the others’ frightening him into thinking that her investigations might cause the wrong suspect to be arrested, and then about the rock thrown at her.
James put a cup of tea in front of her and sat down again.
“And where does Sir Charles come into all this?” asked Pamir. “He was on the island at the time of the murder. I think I should ask him what he was doing.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” snapped Agatha. “He couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. He didn’t know any of them.”
“Nonetheless…”
“Nor is he magician enough to stand outside the car-park when he was already inside it and throw a rock at me.”
“Besides,” jeered James, “he’s a baronet, so he couldn’t possibly do anything wrong, could he, dearest?”
Pamir ’s black fathomless eyes flicked from one angry face to the other.
“Ah, jealousy,” he said. “What were you doing, Mr. Lacey, when all this was going on?”
“I was in Nicosia,” said James curtly.
“Doing what?”
James flashed Agatha a warning look. “Shopping.”
“Where? Which shops?”
“I haven’t any warm clothes with me and so I bought a couple of sweaters. I’ll probably still be here when the cold weather sets in.”
“Let me see.”
James went over to the kitchen counter and came back with a plastic bag. “You will find two sweaters in it and the receipt showing they were purchased today.”
“And that was all you did?”
“I went to the Mevlevi Tekke Museum near the Kyrenia Gate, had a look around and then came back here. I came back two hours before you arrived.”
Pamir turned and questioned Agatha again, taking her through her whole story, making various notes. Then at last he stood up.
“I would advise you to be careful, Mrs. Raisin. It would be as well if you kept away from the other suspects until this murder is solved.”
“I can’t be a suspect,” said Agatha. “Someone’s been trying to kill me.”
“Ah, if I were a cynical man, which I am not, I might say there is no evidence of that, only your word.”
“But the rock!”
“As I say, that could have been children. I will be talking to you soon.”
James saw him out. When he returned to the kitchen, Agatha said, “Before you start jeering about baronets: Like I told Pamir, I went to look for the others, heard they’d gone to Bellapais, and took Charles’s offer. I’m tired. Right now I want to forget about the whole thing. Maybe you’d better investigate on your own. Charles blew it for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Charles told them I wasn’t investigating anything. He called them a dreary, poisonous bunch of people.”
James smiled for the first time. “And so they are. I wouldn’t let that stop you. For some reason the Debenhams are staying friends with Trevor and Angus when they would, in ordinary circumstances, walk on the other side of the road if they saw them coming. You’ve only to show up and smile and apologize for Charles’s outburst and they’ll be all over you like a rash. Why didn’t you come back earlier?”
“I was shaken and hungry and I decided to take up Charles’s offer of lunch, only he turned it into my offer by skating off to the toilet when the bill arrived. He’s a cheapskate.”
James smiled again. “You’ll know to keep clear of him in future.”
“So what did you really get up to in Nicosia?”
