James dropped the basket and rushed back home. He switched on a twenty-four-hour news service and waited impatiently. At last the news item he wanted came up on the screen. There was a brief account of the kidnapping and the search over the downs for the armed gunman. There was film of Agatha and Patrick leaving the police station. Agatha looked terrible.
* * *
“You’re what?” demanded the vicar.
“I’m just going to take the car and drive down to Snoth-on-Sea. I feel Mrs. Raisin needs me.”
“I forbid you to go. That woman is trouble, has always been trouble, and I don’t want you involved in it,” raged the vicar.
Mrs. Bloxby pushed a strand of grey hair from her face. There was an unfamiliar edge in her voice as she said, “I am going, Alf, and that is all there is to it.”
“What about the parish duties?”
Mrs. Bloxby had been packing a travelling bag. “The parish can do without me for a couple of days. When did we last have a holiday?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Just that Mrs. Raisin needs me and I need a change of scene. There is enough food in the deep freeze to keep you going. Stop looming over me, dear.”
“But I need the car!”
“There is a perfectly good bicycle in the shed. Stop fussing.”
Deborah Fanshawe returned later that day with a pile of groceries. As she worked preparing an elaborate meal, she smiled as she thought of Agatha Raisin. From the village gossip she had regarded Agatha as competition. That was until the previous evening, when she had seen a group photo of the Carsely Ladies’ Society and Agatha had been pointed out to her. Really, the woman was no competition at all. She was short and stocky and had funny little eyes.
Deborah suddenly noticed a red light on her phone was flashing, indicating she had a message.
She picked up the phone and listened impatiently to the British Telecom voice saying she had one message and if she wanted to hear it, to press one. She pressed one and found herself listening to James Lacey’s voice. “Deborah, I am so sorry I must cancel this evening. My friend Agatha is in trouble and I must go and see if I can help. I’ll phone you when I get back.”
Deborah slowly put down the phone. Then she ran out of her cottage and down through the village to Lilac Lane. Curtains at cottage windows twitched. Elderly voices marvelled she could run so fast in such high heels.
She arrived breathless and panting at James’s cottage. She rang the bell and hammered on the door. No reply. Then she turned slowly around. His car had gone. She simply could not understand it. What had this Agatha Raisin got to offer that she hadn’t?
Agatha, finally released by the police, slept most of the day in her bedroom with the door locked and a chair propped under the handle. If only the police had caught Terry or whatever his name was. She was terrified that he might come back looking for her. She had not thought she would be able to sleep, but when she woke, it was early evening and the phone was ringing.
It was Patrick. “I’ve just come back from the police station. They got fingerprints from the cottage. Terry Armstrong is actually Brian McNally. He’s wanted by Interpol for drug dealing and for murder.”
“There’s an extradition treaty with Spain,” said Agatha. “He said he had a place in Marbella.”
“Interpol’s checking that. If he has, he won’t dare go near it. All ports and airports are being watched. There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Bloxby’s just arrived.”
“Oh, that’s marvellous. Send her up.”
Agatha got out of bed and scrambled into her clothes. But when there was a knock at the door, she asked cautiously, “Who is it?”
“Mrs. Bloxby.”
Agatha removed the chair and unlocked the door. She felt she had never before been more delighted to look into the mild grey eyes of her friend.
“Come in. You shouldn’t have come all this way, but it’s marvellous to see you!”
Mrs. Bloxby came in carrying her bag. “I haven’t had time to check in yet,” she said.
“You must let me pay for your room. Wasn’t your husband furious at you going?”
“He will miss me because of the parish duties, but he can manage for a couple of days. Now tell me everything that has happened.”
“I’m hungry,” said Agatha. “The food here’s turned out not bad and at the moment I don’t feel brave enough to risk leaving the hotel. If I eat something, I’ll get my courage back. After that, we’ll check you in.”
Mrs. Bloxby was a good listener. She had years of practice from listening patiently to parish complaints.
The evening grew dark outside as Agatha talked and spray from the rising waves hammered against the windows.
“It’s interesting,” said Mrs. Bloxby when Agatha had finally finished and coffee was being served.
“Which part?”
“Well, the husbands.”
“Which ones?”
“Archie Swale and Fred Jankers.”
“What about them?”
“I was just wondering if either of them had a record.”
“The police said nothing to me.”
“They wouldn’t. You see, I think a noisy, coarse sort of woman like Geraldine Jankers would like criminals.”
“But as far as I gather, she was after money. She pretended to be all meek and mild before her weddings.”
“Still, I have found in the parish that battered wives who are finally persuaded to leave their husbands somehow manage to find another one the same. Mrs. Jankers may have thought she was simply after the money, but there might have been something villainous there which subconsciously attracted her. Take Mrs. Prissy Burford, for example.”
“That odd little woman who lives up Back Lane?”
“The same. Now, before you arrived in the village, she was married to Paul Burford, a raving alcoholic. She had a terrible time with him. Then he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and the change was miraculous and we were all so happy for her. But she divorced him and took up with a much younger man and he drank like a fish. If he hadn’t left her, she’d still be with him.”
Agatha saw Patrick entering the dining room and waved to him. “I hope there’s some food left,” he said, sitting down with them.
Agatha told him about Mrs. Bloxby’s idea and Patrick said he would walk along to the police station after he had eaten. “That is, when the tide goes down,” he said. “It’s getting dangerous out there. A chunk of masonry fell off one of the buildings on the front, they say, and still the council will do nothing about it.”
Mrs. Bloxby and Agatha said goodnight to him. Agatha waited while Mrs. Bloxby was checked into a hotel room, and was delighted to find the room next to her own was available.
“I thought the hotel would be full of press,” said Agatha to Nick Loncar, the receptionist.
“It was, but some big story broke over in Brighton and they all rushed off.”
Agatha sat up late into the night, going over her notes. She jumped nervously when her phone rang and looked at her watch. Two in the morning. She gingerly picked up the receiver.
“It’s James here, Agatha,” said that once-loved voice. “I’ve arrived.”
EIGHT
