when up ahead, through the swirling morning mist, she saw the white-coated figures of a forensic team.
Emma reversed slowly, and once out on the road, put her foot down on the accelerator and sped to the hotel.
She hurried to her room and packed up the few belongings she had taken for her overnight stay. She paid her bill and estimated she had a very short time before they found the coffee jar and the rat poison. She had not left fingerprints but knew that the very fact they were searching the tip meant they thought she was guilty.
Emma got in her car, wondering whether to risk going home and collecting some more things, but then decided against it. She had arrangements to draw money on a bank in Moreton, but if she wanted to clean out her account she would need to go to the head bank in London. An hour and a half to London. She might just make it.
There was an agonizing wait at the bank while they dealt with her request to draw out twenty thousand pounds. When she at last got the money, she went to the nearest hairdresser and got her heavy hair cut to a short crop and dyed dark brown. Then she went into a shop and bought jeans, sweaters, T-shirts and an anorak and trainers. She changed into a new outfit in the fitting room, where she left the clothes from her suitcase and filled it with the new purchases. A shop assistant, finding the clothes later, did not think to report the find to the police. She took the clothes home to her mother.
Emma knew she needed a new car, one that would not be traced for some time. She abandoned the car in a side street and took a taxi to Victoria Station and put her suitcase in the “Left Luggage” and then took the tube to the East End.
She found a shady-looking car dealer and paid cash for a small Ford van, then drove into central London, leaving it near Victoria in an underground car-park. Emma had a frightening time at the station, hoping any police there would not recognize her. She had bought a rain hat in the East End and had the brim pulled well down to shadow her face.
She got back to the van and slung her suitcase in the back. Now where? At first she thought of driving north and into the wilds of Scotland, but she had read stories of people who did that and found they were more noticeable out in the Highland wilderness than they were in a town.
Scarborough, she thought. A seaside town which would still have a lot of end-of-season visitors. She drove steadily north out of London. By the time she reached Yorkshire, the van engine was making strange clanking sounds. She thought of abandoning it on the Yorkshire moors and then decided against it. The police would be called to any abandoned car. She drove instead into York and parked in a suburb. She took out her suitcases and left the keys in the van, hoping someone would steal it.
Emma then caught a bus to the railway station and took a train to Scarborough. She longed to take a taxi into town because she was beginning to feel weary, but decided, despite her altered appearance, that it would be safe to take the bus. She then found a small, anonymous-looking bed-and-breakfast and checked in.
Only when she was in a small dingy bedroom with the door shut and locked did she collapse on the bed and feel anger like poison bubbling up inside her. Charles had betrayed her. Charles had humiliated her. He had called her a stalker and he should suffer for it if it was the last thing she did.
It was decided after four days to release Agatha and Charles from the safe house. “It's not as if they're prime witnesses to appear in court,” said Fother, “and it's costing the state money.”
“But someone might kill Mrs. Raisin,” said Detective Inspector Wilkes, to which Fother replied sourly, “Good. I can't stand amateurs.”
Fother went to the safe house to tell them they were now free to go about their business. “Emma Comfrey is still missing,” he said. “We found rat poison and the jar of poisoned coffee at the council tip on the old Worcester Road.”
Agatha glared at Terry. “You've been listening at doors.”
“You underestimate the intelligence of the police,” said Fother coldly. “I suggest, Mrs. Raisin, that in future you leave the Laggat-Brown case alone and concentrate on divorces and missing cats.”
Agatha and Charles were driven in a police car to Agatha's house. Charles collected his own car. “I'm going home,” he said to Agatha.
“Aren't you going to help me any more?” asked Agatha.
“I think we need a break from each other,” said Charles coldly. “All you've done in the last few days is pick on me when they weren't interrogating us over and over again.” Agatha had indeed taken her frustration at being cooped up out on Charles but would not even admit to herself that she was guilty of anything.
“Just like you,” she snapped. “Selfish to the bone.”
“You should know,” retorted Charles, getting into his car. “You wrote the book on selfishness.”
He drove off. The police car followed him. Agatha stood forlornly on her doorstep and watched them go. Then she put her key in the lock and went inside.
No cats came to greet her. She phoned Doris Simpson, who said, “I've got them. They've been playing with my cat, Scrabble. I'll bring them around. I didn't want to leave the poor things there. When the police were finished, I scrubbed everything clean.”
“I'll give you a bonus,” said Agatha. “See you soon.”
She phoned the agency. Patrick Mullen answered the phone. “Don't worry about a thing,” he said. “Everything's been running smoothly. There's no such thing as bad publicity and we've got as much work as we can handle. I took the liberty of getting a girl from a temp agency to answer the phones because your MissSimms is a dab hand at detecting. Got a natural bent for it. Are you coming in?”
“I'm waiting for my cats,” said Agatha, “and then I'll be with you in about an hour.”
When Doris arrived, Agatha, suddenly lonely, tried to get her to stay but Doris said she was working a shift at a supermarket in Evesham and couldn't wait.
Agatha sat on the kitchen floor and petted her cats. Then she rose and took some fish out of the freezer, defrosted it and cooked it for them. After they were fed, she patted them again and then left for Mircester.
When she entered the agency and saw Patrick sitting behind her desk she couldn't help thinking he looked like the real thing compared to herself.
“I need some lunch, Patrick,” she said. “Join me and fill me in.”
Patrick said he wanted sausage, bacon and eggs. Agatha, aware that the waistband of her skirt was uncomfortably tight after her days of inactivity in the safe house, opted for a salad.
“As far as I can gather, this Mulligan is known to Special Branch from the days he worked for the Provisional IRA. They are trying to figure out why he came after you. The only case you have, they say, which involved a shooting was the Laggat-Brown one.”
“Laggat-Brown changed his name from Ryan,” said Agatha. “Why?”
“The cynical cops think it was because he wanted to marry Mrs. Laggat-Brown and all that money from dog biscuits, and she didn't think his name was grand enough. But he seems to be squeaky-clean. He left the firm of stockbrokers he was workingfor with a clean bill of health. He runs an import/export agency selling electronic parts here and there. Mainly a one-man operation, but he was trained in electronics. He also got a first in physics from Cambridge University. Parents both dead. Lived in Dublin but moved with young Jeremy to England when he was fifteen. Mother, housewife; father, a plumber.”
“A plumber! Can't have been much money in the family.”
“Then you don't know much about plumbers. They can earn a mint.”
“I had dinner with Jeremy Laggat-Brown. He was charming.”
Patrick looked at her with his lugubrious eyes. “If he asks you out again, don't discuss the case with him.”
“Why not? You say he's squeaky-clean.”
“That's what the police say. But better to be careful. As to Harrison Peterson's death, it seems that he was given a massive dose of digitalis, not in the vodka but in some coffee. He had a dicky heart and that's what killed him. The pathologist who performed the first autopsy said he had missed the real cause of death because he was overworked and it looked from the police report like an open-and-shut case of suicide. They found traces of coffee in his stomach. They think when he passed out that the murderer heaved him onto the bed.”
“So his murderer must have known about his medical condition?”
“Right. So take time off and forget about the Laggat-Browns for the moment.”
Agatha gave a little sigh, thinking that an evening out with a handsome man like Jeremy Laggat-Brown was
