She carried her suitcase up to the bedroom and unpacked her clothes. She looked sadly down at all the ridiculous filmy underwear and then stuffed it all into a bag to leave in the clothes bin at Budgen’s supermarket in Moreton.
After she had had a bath and changed her clothes and put on fresh make-up, she decided to visit Mrs. Bloxby.
Before she left she remembered guiltily that she had sent Harry to find out about Fred’s businesses in Lewisham. She phoned him up and told him to forget it.
“Why?” demanded Harry.
“Because the police say she was murdered by some associate of McNally’s.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”
“Are you all right? I read about the last attempt on your life in the papers.”
“I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The vicar seemed to delight in telling Agatha that his wife was not at home, so Agatha retreated to her cottage, heated up a portion of the casserole in the microwave and ate it at the kitchen table.
She had just finished when the doorbell rang. Again Agatha peered through the spyhole and saw Mrs. Bloxby.
She flung open the door in welcome. “My husband told me you were looking for me,” said Mrs. Bloxby, “but I was out on parish duties.” Actually, what her husband had said was, “That bloody Raisin woman’s been round here asking for you.”
“Come in. I’ve just eaten some of that casserole you gave me. Delicious. Thank you so much. We’ll go into the sitting room. Doris has left the fire ready to be lit. What a summer! At least it’s stopped people complaining about global warming.”
Agatha lit the fire. As she straightened up, that stabbing pain in her hip struck her again.
“Drink?”
“I’d like a sherry,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “I am really quite tired.”
Agatha poured her a glass and then one for herself. Mrs. Bloxby sat down on the sofa and Agatha in an armchair beside the fire. “I should use this room more,” said Agatha, looking around. “I always seem to live in the kitchen.”
“Are you feeling all right after your adventures?”
Agatha sighed. “I feel safe now that I’m home. It’s all made me grateful for what I thought were the piffling little cases at the agency—you know, lost dogs and cats.”
“They are very important,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Think how you would feel if your cats went missing. And how are things with James?”
“Definitely finished. Do you know he even gave me an ultimatum? He offered me this holiday trip again and said it was my last chance.”
“Oh dear.”
“It’s a good thing in a way. It’s brought me to my senses at last.”
“I hope you have not only finished with James but with everything to do with that dreadful place.”
“Snoth? What a name! Yes, definitely. Everything solved.”
“Including the murder of Geraldine Jankers?”
“Yes, the police have decided it was one of McNalry’s hit men.”
“How convenient,” murmured the vicar’s wife.
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s just that it seems too neat. Perhaps it was because I was part of it for a little while.”
“For once in my life,” said Agatha, “I’m going to accept the police decision. In fact, now that Harry and Patrick will be back at the agency, I can relax. I might even take time off and do something with the garden.”
Mrs. Bloxby sipped her drink and looked at the flames in the hearth. She knew Agatha had two obsessions. One was James Lacey and the other was danger. She wondered how long Agatha would last before she started to stir things up again.
But the weeks moved past and as the weather turned fine, Agatha showed no signs of either approaching James Lacey or worrying about Geraldine Jankers. She had told everyone in her office not to talk about the case to her. An Indian summer bathed Carsely in golden misty mornings and hot bright days.
She did pedestrian detecting during the day and sat in her garden in the warm evenings, watching her cats playing on the grass. She had hired a gardener, having decided she really did not want to do the work herself, and admired the smooth green of the lawn and the gaudy splash the dahlias made in the flower beds.
And then her friend Roy Silver arrived to stay one weekend. He had once worked for Agatha when she had run her own public relations firm. Agatha told him to meet her in her office on the Friday evening.
Roy appeared wearing a white Indian-style suit and leather sandals. His hair was dyed black. His face was brown with fake tan.
“What’s with the Indian look?” asked Agatha.
“I’m dressing fashionably for the hot weather,” said Roy. “Are you ready?”
“Just a few things to wrap up.” Agatha stared at her computer. “Won’t be a moment.”
“You could really do with some good magazines,” complained Roy, flicking through a pile on the coffee table in front of him. “Dear me. Old colour supplements are not the thing.” He shifted them to one side and found a file marked “Jankers.”
He opened it up. Harry Beam had written up everything to do with the murder of Geraldine Jankers. Roy had taken a course in speed reading and soon finished it.
“Ready,” said Agatha.
“Ready. Just been reading up on the Jankers case. Fascinating.”
“Where did you get that?”
“It was under these tatty magazines. Harry Beam’s done a good job.”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Why?”
“Because that case is closed.”
“Okay. Let’s have dinner. I’m starving. I want to go to an Indian restaurant.”
“In that outfit? The waiters will think you’re taking the piss. I feel like comfort food—roast beef, steak-and- kidney pud, that sort of thing.”
“Well, it’s your waistline, duckie.”
* * *
They went to a pub called the Foxy Ferret. Roy chattered on about his latest PR ventures with a pop group called Hellish People. “I tried to tell them the gothic look was out,” he said. “But they insist retro-punk will soon be all the rage. Very hard to sell a line about them to the newspapers.”
“What’s their music like?”
“Hellish.”
“Lost cause.”
“I hate lost causes,” said Roy petulantly. “It’s not my fault I can’t publicize them, but the boss seems to think it is. Talking about lost causes—what about the Jankers case? I didn’t read in the newspapers of any arrest. Who do you think did it? Cyril Hammond, who inherited close to a million? But then, how would Cyril know that Wayne would get shot so he could inherit? Fred Jankers, whose businesses were on their last legs and who got the insurance money? Or that old boy, Archie Swale, who for some reason your Harry thinks is a possible candidate?”
Agatha said in an even, measured tone, “I won’t say this again, Roy. It’s over. Case solved. One of the drug baron’s men did for her.”
“There was nothing about that in Harry’s file.”
“Shut up about it.”
But that night, while Roy slept in the spare room, Agatha’s memories of all the violence she had endured came flooding back. She remembered her fear when Brian McNally had abducted her and then when Deborah had been found shot. Once again memory dragged her back to the bar of the Palace Hotel and Brian McNally pointing a gun at her as the waves came crashing through the window.
