“Don’t know. I’ve just arrived. But I hear the rumble of approaching vehicles. Probably them.”
Agatha darted to the mirror and, opening her handbag, took out a lipstick and compact and began to make quick repairs to her make-up.
The doorbell rang. “I’ll put them straight,” she muttered.
“Aggie, if you do Phil down and contradict his story, you’ll look ungracious and mean.”
“Mind your own business.”
The doorbell rang.
But Agatha was a shrewd operator. Charles heard her praising Phil and saying how lucky she was to have him. “I am tired of ageism,” he heard Agatha say. “People should be employed because of their brains and talents irrespective of age.” She then went on to credit Phil with the idea of retracing Jessica’s journey home and then carefully went on to explain how her own brilliance and intuition had been instrumental in finding the body.
When she had finished, she came back in and sat down again on the sofa beside Charles. “Look at it this way,” said Charles, “and be fair. If it hadn’t been for Phil’s idea you wouldn’t have found the body.”
“Oh, I suppose so. I suppose that case is over. I was charging the parents a modest fee. They don’t have much, so I’d better leave the rest to the police.”
“What’s happened to your wits? You volunteer to find out who killed their daughter for nothing. Good publicity. And down under that hard shell of yours, there must be a decent human being who wants to find out who murdered a young girl.”
A picture of Jessica’s dead body rose up in Agatha’s mind. “Excuse me,” she gasped. She darted up to the bathroom and was violently sick.
After she had bathed her face and reapplied her make-up, she went shakily back downstairs.
“You’re right,” she said. “Publicity or not, I’ll do it.”
“Good. Let’s walk up to Phil’s cottage. The fresh air will do you good.”
On the road there, they met Patrick Mulligan, a retired detective who had left Agatha’s employ to live with Miss Simms. Miss Simms had been the unmarried mother of Carsely, her scandalous affairs with various married men delighting and shocking the village. People were almost disappointed that she had settled down.
“Saw that business on the news,” said Patrick. “Funny, I’ve been getting bored and I was going to ask you for my old job back.”
“Well, you’re a day too late,” said Agatha. But she stopped short, thinking that all the publicity would surely bring in new cases and Patrick still had ties to the police and was efficient at getting information out of them. “Oh, you can start again tomorrow, Patrick. Come with us to Phil’s and we’ll have a council of war.”
When Phil let them in, Agatha was glad she had re-employed Patrick. Phil was looking older and quite frail.
“It’s the shock,” he said weakly. “It hits you afterwards. For years I ran my own photographic shop in Evesham, nice quiet existence, chatting to the customers, and then this.”
“It’ll pass,” said Agatha. “I’ve just been sick myself. By the way, are you a grandfather?”
“Never got married.”
“The papers’ll ignore that. Patrick, Phil came up with the idea that Jessica might have stopped on the dual carriageway, waiting to cross because it’s a steep climb up to the bridge. He suggests she might have got into a car driven by someone she knew. We’ll all start from there.
“Phil had better come with me to Ancombe tomorrow because we’ve got another case, but if you, Patrick, could start asking about uncles or friends or boyfriends, anyone the poor girl might have had the bad luck to trust.” She glanced at her watch. “We’re still in time to make the morning editions. Charles, could you phone the Associated Press and whomever and say I’m going to solve the murder for nothing?”
“Have you got numbers?”
“Right here.” Agatha opened her capacious handbag and took out a thick notebook. “All the press numbers are here.”
Charles retreated to the garden with his mobile phone and Agatha’s book of numbers.
“I heard some bits and pieces,” said Patrick. “Nothing really to help you. In these cases, the police look very hard at the family and relatives first. Then they search around for boyfriends. No particular boyfriend.”
“I bet there was someone.”
“Did you find out who she went clubbing with?” asked Patrick. “Girls of that age won’t want to go to a disco alone.”
“Her friends Fairy Tennant and Trixie Sommers. I’ve talked to them. I thought they were a bit cagey, but their parents kept interrupting.”
“Okay. I’ll try them both again. Why are you going to Ancombe?”
“Some businessman thinks his wife is cheating on him. She’s going to be at a sale of work in Ancombe tomorrow. I want to have a really good look at her.”
Agatha went to the office late in the morning after buying all the newspapers. As she had expected, Phil was prominently featured, but there was a paragraph in each newspaper saying that she was determined to solve the case and would not be charging the parents a fee.
“More cases, Mrs. Raisin,” said Mrs. Freedman. “A missing husband, a missing teenager and two more cats.”
“Give me the stuff on the missing people. I could really do with an animal detective.”
“You need someone young and energetic who wouldn’t charge much.”
“Sounds as if you’ve got someone in mind.”
“There’s my nephew, Harry Beam. He’s taking his gap year before starting university. I’m sure he’d do it just for expenses.”
“I’ll give him a trial. Get him to come along tomorrow. Now, I’m off. When Patrick comes into the office, give him the file on the two new missing people. On second thoughts, I won’t take the files with me.”
“Do you want me to phone him?”
“No, he’s out checking on Jessica’s friends. He thought he would try them at their school. I saw them with their parents present and it was a washout. He’ll call in sometime or another.”
Agatha drove to Carsely and collected Charles.
“Where’s Phil?” he asked.
“Meeting us there.”
When they arrived at the church hall in Ancombe, it was to find Phil surrounded by admiring women, all praising him. Agatha scowled horribly but went up to Mrs. Bloxby.
“Is she here?”
“Over in the comer, selling jam. They won’t think it odd of Phil to take photographs. He always does. And he’s now a local celebrity.”
“And a bachelor,” said Agatha sourly. “Look at all those widows clustered round him.”
“It is so good of you to employ him, Agatha. He does need the money.”
Mrs. Bloxby fixed Agatha with her clear gaze. Agatha shifted uneasily, thinking of Phil’s low wage. She realized she would need to give him a raise, and fast, or Mrs. Bloxby would haunt her conscience.
At first, she wondered whether she should approach Mabel Smedley. Everyone knew she was a detective. But surely quiet Mabel would not suspect for a moment that her husband would hire a detective to check up on her. She approached the jam stall and smiled at Mabel. “I don’t think we’ve actually ever met,” said Agatha.
Charles came to join Agatha. “I’m Agatha Raisin and this is my friend, Sir Charles Fraith.”
Mabel Smedley was wearing a dreadful print dress, no make-up and her hair scraped back, but she turned out to have a beautiful smile which she directed at Charles.
“Did you make all this jam yourself?” asked Charles.
“Yes, I can recommend the strawberry.”
“Oh, I’ll buy a couple of pots of that. What about you, Agatha?”
“Eh? Oh, can you recommend anything else?”
“I think the quince jelly is all right. Rather nice with game.”
“I’ll have one of those, then.”
Charles claimed to have left his money behind, so after glaring at him, Agatha paid for the jam.
“Your feet must get tired standing here all day,” said Charles.
