“I’ll get you the form to sign,” said Emma, going to a filing cabinet. Agatha’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t even know they had a suitable form. Also, Emma was no longer wearing the old tweed suit but a smart linen skirt and blouse. I hope the cow isn’t thinking of taking over, thought Agatha sourly.
“Here we are,” said Emma. “I’ll fill in the money—here— and then you sign here and here. Fill in your address and your phone numbers and an e-mail address if you have it. If you will give us a cheque for a hundred pounds now, then we will bill you for any expenses.”
He brought out a battered wallet. “Credit card?”
“No,” said Emma with a smile. “Cheque and bank card, please. Oh, and we’ll need a photograph.”
He took a photograph from his inside pocket and was about to hand it to Emma, but Emma, conscious of Agatha’s eyes boring into her, said, “Please hand it to Mrs. Raisin.”
Agatha looked down at the photograph in surprise. “This is your car. Haven’t you got a photograph of your son?”
“Oh, him. Yeah, got one here.” He ferreted back in his inside pocket and produced a small passport photo.
Wayne had black hair gelled up into a crest on top of his head. He had a nose stud and five little earrings in one ear. His face was thin and his lips were curled in a sneer.
“Do I get my money back if you don’t find my car. .. I mean, him?” asked Mr. Johnson.
Agatha looked at Emma. “No, but you will not be charged expenses,” said Emma.
“Right, I’ll be on me way. Keep me posted.”
There was a silence after he had left, and then Agatha said, “We didn’t charge enough. The rent of this place is awful, not to mention the business tax.”
“I thought it might be an idea to keep prices low until we have built up a reputation.”
“In future, consult me. Right? Now, Ed better get started.”
“Do you want me to go and look for the boy?” asked Emma.
“Remember this. You’re a secretary. So stay here and man the phones.”
Agatha went straight to Mircester Police Headquarters and asked to speak to her friend. Detective Sergeant Bill Wong. She was in luck; Bill was not out on a case.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been round to see you,” said Bill. “I read in the paper that you’d opened up your detective agency. How’s it going? Who is this Emma Comfrey who found the cat?”
“She’s only my secretary. She’s my new neighbour and wanted the job. Actually, she got lucky, that’s all. I’m thinking of replacing her with someone young. I mean, she’s sixty-seven, for God’s sake.” Like a lot of people in their fifties, Agatha considered sixty-something ancient, as if it were an age she would never reach.
“Fit and well?”
“Yes.”
“I’d think that’d be an asset, Agatha. I mean, if you’re out and about and someone calls, it would be reassuring to have a mature woman there instead of some little girl.”
“I think she’s too pushy.”
Bill roared with laughter. Then he said, “Coming from you, that’s rich. Don’t glare at me. You want something. What?”
Agatha told him about the missing Wayne.
“Oh, that one,” said Bill. “I’ve picked him up a couple of times for drunk and disorderly. He wasn’t driving at the time. Has he got a licence?”
“I didn’t check,” mumbled Agatha, and then in a stronger voice. “That’s Emma’s fault. She was the one asking all the questions. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.”
“Talking about licences, Agatha. Do you have one for the agency?”
“Don’t need one yet in the UK. You should know that. How do I start looking for Wayne?”
“Every pub and club in Mircester. Last time I arrested him was outside Poppy’s Disco.”
“He’s taken his father’s Rover and Pa wants that back more than his son. Could you be an angel and run the registration through your computer and see if it’s turned up smashed anywhere?”
“Just this once,” said Bill severely. “You can’t expect me to do all your detecting for you. Wait here.”
“As if I hadn’t helped you before,” grumbled Agatha to his retreating back.
Bill Wong was Agatha’s oldest and first friend. When she had sold her public relations business and taken early retirement and moved to the Cotswolds, Bill, son of a Chinese father and Gloucestershire mother, had investigated what Agatha remembered as her first case. Before that, grumpy and prickly Agatha had not had any friends.
While Bill was away, Agatha wondered what to do about Emma Comfrey. Mrs. Bloxby was so pleased she had employed Emma and Agatha did not want to disappoint Mrs. Bloxby, but she regarded Emma as a rival.
While she was waiting, her mobile phone rang. It was Emma.
“Mr. Johnson has just called,” she said in those clear upper-class accents which made Agatha feel so diminished. “He says the car has been returned and is outside his house. He says it’s all right—no scratches and a full tank of petrol. He tried to cancel the investigation and get his money back, but I told him that it would look extremely bad for him if anything had happened to his son and he had done nothing to find him. So he agreed.”
“I’d better get round there,” said Agatha.
She rang off just as Bill returned. She told him about the reappearance of the car.
“You’re a waste of time, Agatha,” said Bill. “But there’s one thing I do remember. Wayne had a girl-friend. She hit me with her handbag last time I arrested him.”
“What’s her name?”
“Sophy Grigson. You’ll find her at the check-out at Bran-ford’s supermarket in the square.”
“Thanks, Bill. I owe you.”
Agatha made her way to the supermarket. She asked the manager if she could speak to Sophy Grigson about a missing person. “She’ll be on her break in ten minutes,” he said.
“I’ll wait.”
Agatha sat down on one of the hard plastic chairs at the supermarket entrance, placed there for elderly customers.
In ten minutes’ time, the manager led a surly, plump girl up to Agatha and said, “Sophy Grigson,” and walked off.
“Please sit down, Miss Grigson,” said Agatha.
“What’s this about then?” Sophy asked, moving a wad of chewing gum from one cheek to the other.
She had blonded hair scraped up on top of her head. Although young, her face was prematurely set in an expression of discontent. “It’s about Wayne Johnson.”
“Oh, ‘im. Bastard.”
“He’s missing.”
“ ‘E’s missing his marbles, that’s what.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
“Naw. Heard ‘e’d gone peculiar.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“ ‘Is pal. Jimmy Swithe, ‘e comes in this mornink, and he says, ‘You’ll never guess what’s ‘appened to our Wayne.’ I asks him what ‘e means and ‘e starts to talk but the Nazi ower there says, ‘You ‘ave customers waiting.’ Cow!”
“Where can I find Jimmy?”
“At Stonebridge services.”
“The petrol station.”
“That’s it.”
Agatha was just leaving the supermarket when her phone rang. Emma again. “Mrs. Raisin,” said Emma formally, “I think you should return to the office. We have a client.”
Agatha hurried back to the office. An expensively dressed woman was sitting in one of the visitors’ chairs, being served coffee by Emma.
“Mrs. Benington,” said Emma, “this is our private investigator, Mrs. Raisin.”
Everything about Mrs. Benington looked hard, from her lacquered hair to her glittering red nails. She had
