“JAMES,” said Agatha faintly. “What are you doing here at this time of night?”
“I thought I’d better come,” he said awkwardly.
Agatha pulled herself together. ‘Til see you tomorrow—if I have time.” She put down the receiver.
James stared at the dead phone. He felt he should have apologized Maybe tomorrow.
Agatha switched off her computer. She felt she should be feeling some sort of excitement over the fact that James had come back, but all she knew was that she was suddenly very tired.
She undressed and crawled into bed. Her last waking thought was a hope that Charles was having a miserable time.
James was taken aback when he entered the dining room next morning for breakfast to find Mrs. Bloxby placidly tucking into a plate of bacon and eggs. He was very surprised to see her and then surprised again by the fact that Mrs. Bloxby did not seem in the least surprised to see
“Why are you here?” he asked, joining her.
“For the same reason as you, Mr. Lacey. Agatha needs all the support she can get. I knocked on her door before I came down. She will be joining us shortly.”
James felt guilty and uncomfortable. When Agatha walked into the dining room he jumped to his feet and pulled out a chair for her. Mrs. Bloxby had just finished her bacon and eggs and wondered for a moment whether to leave them, but Agatha looked fresh and brisk, and not at all flustered by the presence of her ex-husband.
“I’m waiting to hear from Patrick,” said Agatha. “He’s checking out your theory, Mrs. Bloxby.”
“What theory’s that?” asked James.
Agatha’s bearlike eyes turned on him, cool and efficient. It’s as if I’m now a stranger, thought James. Agatha described how Mrs. Bloxby had thought that the two ex-husbands might have something criminal in their backgrounds.
Under her apparent calm, Agatha was privately praying that the gunman, Brian McNally, had gone back to Spain, or anywhere out of the country for that matter, and would not come back to try to assault her again.
Outside the long windows of the dining room the day was bright and sunny. James and Agatha ordered breakfast. Mrs. Bloxby decided to withdraw tactfully to another table, assuming James would want to make some sort of apology, if he had not done so already.
“So what’s the plan for today?” asked James.
“I think your plan for the day should be to go back to Carsely,” said Agatha.
“I suppose you must be upset with me…”
James’s face flamed with temper. “You should be grateful, yes
“I have Patrick. You weren’t around when I was being kidnapped. Fat lot of good you were. Eat your breakfast and stop staring at me.”
“I did nothing wrong,” said James stiffly. “We were supposed to be going on holiday together, but you changed your mind, not me. I was very angry with you, but I have forgiven you.”
“Were you always such a pompous prat, or have I just begun to realize it?” said Agatha, stabbing her fork into a poached egg. “Oh, thank goodness, here’s Patrick.”
“It’s been interesting,” said Patrick. “Any hope of breakfast?”
“Sure.” Agatha signalled to the waitress. She waited impatiently while Patrick gave his order.
“Well?”
“Minor stuff. Fred Jankers once set fire to his school. Served time in a juvenile offenders hostel. Nothing that anyone knows since then.”
“What about Archie Swale?”
“When he was serving in Northern Ireland with the paras—he was a corporal—he attacked one of the soldiers in a drunken rage. Spent some time in the glasshouse, but not discharged from the army.”
“Be back in the minute,” said Agatha. “I’ll just tell Mrs. Bloxby to come back and join us. She should hear this.”
When Mrs. Bloxby joined them, Agatha said, “You’re such a shrewd judge of character. I would like you to get a look at both Jankers and Swale.”
“I’d better try to do that today. I promised my husband I would be back tomorrow. He telephoned me this morning.”
“I’ll drive you to Brighton,” said Agatha. “We can park outside his house and when he leaves you can get a look at him. Good. There’s Fred Jankers just coming in. I’ll take you over and introduce you.”
Agatha is going on as if she’s forgotten my very existence, thought James.
Agatha introduced Mrs. Bloxby to Fred Jankers. Mrs. Bloxby began to talk in her soothing voice about how sorry she was to hear of his wife’s death. Agatha made an excuse and left her to it.
“I’m going up to my room to make some calls,” said James, getting to his feet.
“You do that,” replied Agatha.
“What’s going on with you and your ex?” asked Patrick.
Agatha was suddenly furious. “He said it was my fault he had gone off and left me.”
“I always thought he was a confirmed bachelor,” said Patrick. “Anyway, what do you want me to do now?”
“I’d like you to come with me and Mrs. Bloxby to have a look at Swale. I think he’s too old and frail to have committed such a violent murder, but I’d like to see what you think.”
Upstairs in his room, James paced up and down. He had been so sure that Agatha would treat his arrival with gladness and relief. And he had turned down a dinner with a very attractive woman. He fished in his pocket and riffled through some cards until he found Deborah’s.
His ego was bruised. It was just that adoring Agatha hadpreviously always been there in his life. Perhaps he had vaguely thought, forgetting the disaster of their marriage, that they would settle down together at some point.
James decided that he should really phone Deborah and apologize properly for having rushed off. It never dawned on him that a proper apology to Agatha would have mended fences.
He dialled her number. “Deborah?”
“James, darling,” she cooed. “How nice of you to call. Where are you?”
“Snoth-on-Sea.”
“What a funny name! And how is Mrs. Raisin?”
“Detecting as usual. I really shouldn’t have come. I thought she would be shattered after her experience, but she’s as tough as old boots. The reason I phoned was to apologize for having dashed off like that.”
“Don’t worry. We can make it another night. When are you coming back?”
James hesitated. He was the one who had worked on cases with Agatha in the past. He had a sudden desire to find out something that would impress her.
“Maybe another day or two,” he said. “I’ll phone you when I get back.”
Deborah replaced the receiver and sat at her kitchen table deep in thought. Her cottage was decorated in what she fondly considered to be true country style, with chintz and horse brasses and bunches of herbs hanging from hooks on the kitchen ceiling. She had just been beginning to wonder why she had buried herself in the country when she had come across James Lacey and had decided she wanted to marry him.
She had invited several of the members of the ladies’ society for dinner that evening, but as she looked around the piles of ingredients spread about her kitchen, she wished she hadn’t bothered. Deborah was strictly a colour-supplement cook. She specialized in recipes that demanded a whole string of totally unnecessary herbs.
She had bagged her previous husband after a ruthless campaign, forgetting that it was that very ruthlessness of hers which had eventually made him ask for a divorce.
At last she picked up the phone again and rang all the women she had invited and cancelled the dinner. Then she got out a road atlas and searched it until she found Snoth-on-Sea. She conjured up a mental image of Agatha
