Fairy moved a wad of gum to the other side of her mouth and volunteered, “Yeah.”
“Were you doing any sort of work with Jessica after school?”
They stared at her with flat eyes.
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm her?” pursued Agatha.
“Maybe her boyfriend.”
“He has a cast-iron alibi. Anyone else? Boy at school?”
“Naw. She was crazy about her fellow. Said they was going to get married. Can we go to my room, Mum? This is boring.”
They’re old, so old, thought Agatha, with their flat, dead eyes. I wonder if they do drugs. I must ask Bill if that club has ever been raided.
“Run along,” said Mrs. Sommers. She smiled weakly at Agatha. “It’s all a front, you know. Trixie will soon grow out of it.”
“Wait a bit,” said Agatha to the girls. “Did you see her at the club the night she was murdered?”
“Sure,” said Fairy. “She was there but she started rabbiting on about having to get home, so we left her to it.”
With that, they both slouched out of the room.
“Didn’t get much there,” said Agatha outside. “Now what?”
“Maybe send young Harry back to the club this evening,” suggested Phil. “He might be able to find out more.”
Agatha made an appointment with Richard Rasdall, the masseur in Stow-on-the-Wold, for early evening. All her hip needed, surely, was a bit of massage. The massage room was in the bathroom above a sweet shop called The Honey Pot.
Lyn Rasdall, Richard’s pretty wife, looked up from serving chocolates and said, “You know the way. He’s waiting for you.”
Agatha climbed up the steep stairs at the back of the shop where Richard was standing on the landing. He retreated while she stripped down to her knickers, covered herself with a large bath towel and climbed on the table.
When Richard came in, Agatha said, “I’ve got a little twinge of pain in my hip.”
“Arthritis?”
“Of course not! I’m too young!”
“Can hit at any age. If I were you, I’d get that hip x-rayed. But let me see what I can do.”
While he worked on her, Agatha told him about trying to find Jessica’s murderer.
“It may turn out to be some stranger who just picked her up on the road,” said Richard.
“I don’t think she’d have got in a car with a stranger. Not these days.”
“She was stabbed, wasn’t she? She could have been forced to get in.”
“With a gun, maybe. But a knife?”
“Maybe whoever it was saw her standing, waiting to cross. You said you didn’t think she’d use the bridge at that time of night. He might have looked quite safe. Middleaged. Gets out the car and says, ‘Are you all right?’ She replies that she’s going home. He asks, ‘Where’s home?’ She tells him. ‘Funny thing,’ he says, ‘I just happen to be going that way. Hop in.’ Was she murdered in the car?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should ask.”
When Agatha left—pain in the hip gone, arthritis—rubbish!—she took out her mobile phone and called Bill Wong.
“Was Jessica murdered in a car? What do forensics say?” she asked.
“Looks that way. Not enough blood at the scene. She could have been murdered anywhere and then dumped. We’re going on television tonight again to appeal to any driver who might have seen her.”
“The other thing. Has Mrs. Smedley been accused of murdering her husband?”
“He was poisoned in his office. She was in the church in Ancombe all morning, cleaning the brass and doing the flowers. We’ve got nothing to hold her on.”
“What about that girl I saw him with?”
“His secretary. She said her mother, who lives in Bath, was poorly, so he drove her over.”
“Come on! What were they doing listening to the band?”
“We checked up. Mother is in a residential home in Bath. Yes, they did call on her. Maybe they decided to enjoy the sunshine. Relax, Agatha, it’s not your case.”
Agatha rang off and went home and fed her cats. Doris Simpson, her cleaner, had probably fed them earlier, but feeding them made Agatha feel less guilty for leaving them so much on their own.
She started to heat up her own dinner. And then she stiffened. There was the sound of movement upstairs. She looked wildly around for a weapon and seized a bottle of spray detergent. She stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Who’s there?” she called.
“Me, Charles,” came a voice. “Be down in a minute.”
I’m going to take my keys away from him, vowed Agatha. He might have phoned to warn me he was coming.
She said as much when Charles pattered down the stairs.
He kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry. I’ll phone next time.”
“What happened to your gorgeous lady?”
“You’ll never believe it.”
“Try me.”
“I was just moving in for the kill when she pushed me away and said she couldn’t because she had found God.”
“Excellent,” said Agatha cynically. “I must try that next time. What a put-down! I mean, there really is no answer to that.”
“I haven’t noticed men queuing up to get you into bed.”
They were just glaring at each other when the doorbell rang.
Agatha went to answer it and found Mrs. Mabel Smedley standing on the doorstep.
“Come in,” said Agatha.
She led Mabel into the kitchen. Charles wandered off into the sitting room.
“Coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“Please sit down. You must be very upset.”
Mabel did not look upset. She was dry-eyed and composed. Agatha sat down opposite, reached for her cigarettes and then decided against smoking.
“It’s like this,” said Mabel. “My husband has been poisoned at work. The police have been questioning me all day—as if I had anything to do with it! I want you to find out who killed my husband.”
“Very well,” said Agatha. “I will get Mrs. Freedman to draw you up a contract. Now, did he have any enemies?”
“No, everyone loved Robert.”
Agatha gave a little sigh. “Look, I do not want to add to your grief, but I cannot envisage everyone loving Mr. Smedley. I mean, someone must have hated him enough to poison him. Do they know how the poison was administered?”
“In his morning coffee.”
“And who took him his coffee?”
“His secretary, Joyce Wilson.”
“Does Joyce have red hair?”
“Yes.”
“I saw Joyce with your husband in Bath last Sunday.”
Did her eyes glint a fraction? But she said in an even voice, “Robert told me about that. Poor Joyce had been to visit her mother.”
“So he wasn’t having an affair?”
