had always had my own money. My parents died in a car crash and left me comfortably off. He exhilarated me. 1 saw for the first time that it might be possible to find the courage to leave Pete. This is my house.”
She fell silent.
“Then what happened?” prompted Agatha.
“He made love to me and I felt beautiful.” Agatha felt a slight pang of regret that she hadn’t given the hairdresser a fling. “Then, after that, he was suddenly too busy to see me or even to do my hair. I was obsessed, frantic. The school holidays were coming to an end and I knew I wouldn’t have much freedom. So I wrote to him, reminding him of our love, of our afternoon of love.
“When he said he wanted to see me again, I was overjoyed. We met at those tea gardens on the river. He told me he wanted money, five thousand pounds. If I didn’t give it to him, he would send my letter to my husband. I hated him in that moment. I didn’t believe for a minute he would do it. So I told him to do his worst.
“I felt guilty about the way I had cheated on Pete over this useless, evil man. The next day, the very next day, Pete was off work with a cold. The post hadn’t arrived when I went out to work. So Pete got the letter. John must have posted it right after I left him the day before.
“When I got home, Pete had packed up and left. My letter was on the table and Pete left me his own letter, calling me all sorts of names… slut, whore.” Her voice broke.
“I’m so lonely without him. I never thought I would be. I used to dream day and night of getting my freedom and now I’ve got it, and it sucks.”
She began to cry.
Agatha handed her a pile of tissues from a box on the dusty table. Maggie blew her nose and wiped her eyes.
“Where is your husband now?” asked Charles.
“Over at his mother’s in Honeybourne.”
“Did either you or your husband go to the police?”
“Oh, no! I burnt my letter and Pete’s. And when I read about the murder I was frantic. I thought Pete had done it. But it was poisoning and Pete would have been more likely to club him to death. My Pete has a violent temper.”
“Perhaps we should have a word with your husband,” suggested Charles, thinking of Agatha’s description of the bruised face.
Agatha expected Maggie to exclaim in horror, but she pressed her trembling hands together and said, “If you could. He won’t speak to me and his mother takes all the calls and refuses to let me speak to him. Tell him I miss him. I mean, he wasn’t much company, but he was good at fixing things.”
“Give us the address,” said Charles, “and we’ll see what we can do.”
“It’s ten, Parton Lane, Honeybourne. But you mustn’t tell the police about me! I’m falling apart as it is. All I want is Pete back. You never know what you’ve got until you haven’t got it any more.”
If only James Lacey thought like that, mourned Agatha.
As Charles and Agatha got in the car again, Charles looked at his watch and said, “Can’t be too long on this next call. I’ve got to take Josie out for dinner.”
“We’ve got time,” said Agatha. “Honeybourne’s not far.”
They found the address quite easily. “Here goes,” said Charles.
The door was answered by a small, bent woman who peered up at them from under a thatch of grey hair.
“Mrs. Henderson?” said Agatha.
“Yes, and I’m not interested in buying anything.”
“We’re not selling anything.”
“We’ve come to see your son,” said Charles.
“Who are you?”
“Mrs. Agatha Raisin and Sir Charles Fraith.”
She scowled at them suspiciously and then retreated into the house. There was the sound of some altercation from the nether regions and then a large burly man filled the doorway. “Yes?” he demanded truculently.
How easy it would be to be a police detective, thought Agatha. Flash the identification and demand that they go indoors.
“It’s about that hairdresser, John Shawpart,” said Agatha.
“What the hell’s it got to do with you?”
“We wondered why you had beaten him up,” said Charles, edging in front of Agatha.
“You the police?”
“No, we became involved in the case.”
Pete Henderson roundly told Charles to go and perform an impossible anatomical act upon himself. The door began to close.
“Maggie misses you,” said Agatha desperately. “She really does.”
The door stopped closing.
“It’s her own fault,” said Pete. “Slut.”
“It was only one mistake,” cajoled Agatha.
“Serves her right,” he growled. “Did she think any man would be interested in her? She should have known he was a blackmailer.”
“But she was tricked,” said Agatha. “Now she misses you and she’s frantic with worry.”
A gleam of satisfaction replaced the anger in his eyes.
“I hope she’s suffering,” he said and slammed the door in their faces.
“Well, what did we get from that?” asked Agatha as they drove off.
“I think we can be pretty sure he’s the one that beat John Shawpart up. Better run you home, Aggie. Got to meet Josie.”
“I’ll wait up for you to hear your news.”
“Well… ”
“You wouldn’t, Charles! A young girl like that!”
“Don’t worry. She probably lives with her parents.”
After Charles had left, Agatha planned to have a peaceful evening but Worcester CID called and took her through her statement, demanding this time to know why she had lied about driving past Shawpart’s house. Wearily Agatha said it was because murder made everyone feel guilty and she had not wanted to sound like one of those ghouls who haunt the scenes of disasters. By the time they left, she felt almost as if she had committed the murder herself.
She had a hot bath and put on a night-gown and dressing-gown and sat in front of the television set, waiting for Charles to come home. She sometimes wondered if Charles regarded her as anything more than a sort of amusement to enliven his days. He was as neat and self-contained as a cat. Although he had temporarily moved in with her, he did not seem to take up any space at all.
It was around midnight, when she was just falling asleep in the armchair, that she heard him driving up.
She struggled to her feet and opened the door.
“Not trying to seduce me, are you, Aggie?” was Charles’s greeting as he surveyed her plain and serviceable dressing-gown worn over a high-necked cotton night-dress.
“Come in and tell me about it.”
Agatha led the way into the living-room and quickly switched off the television, where a rerun of “Star Trek” was showing in case Charles decided to watch it.
Charles poured himself a drink and sat down.
“I’ve found out the identity of the slim, rabbity blonde.”
“Who is she?”
He brought out his small notebook. “Jessie Lang. Evesham girl. Josie said bitterly that she came in one day and made a hell of a scene.”
“What about?”
“Seems he stood her up.”
“Another unhappily married woman?”
