“Can’t be. She drew up that will leaving everything to me right before we went on our honeymoon.”
Asked Agatha, “Did you never think that Cyril might have murdered her?”
“No. The police say it must have been one of Brian McNally’s men.”
Harry said, “We were just wondering, now that it’s all over, if you happened to remember something about that night that might have escaped your memory up until now?”
“Can’t remember a thing except falling asleep and then waking up to the news that she was dead. I’m a heavy sleeper.”
Fred looked at them, a glint of suspicion in his eyes. “Why are you two still ferreting around? The case is closed. Geraldine’s murder was the result of clever planning. A pair of amateurs like you will never find out if anyone did it apart from that drug baron.”
“If you thought we were so amateurs,” said Agatha, “why did you ask me to investigate?”
“I was in shock and grasping at straws.”
“How did you feel when you read in the papers that Archie Swale had been arrested?”
He goggled at her. “What! I haven’t been reading the newspapers.”
“He had a drawerful of jewellery from that robbery that Charlie Black committed. Thousands of pounds’ worth of stuff. Geraldine had given it to him for safekeeping.”
Fred jumped to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. “That bitch,” he said savagely. “She told me she was loaded. Why else do you think I married a tart like that? Told me she would see me all right. Then that ghastly so-called honeymoon and I learn I’m to pay for bloody Wayne, creepy Cyril and their wives. Now all I hear is that she was out to see everyone all right except me.”
Agatha felt suddenly calm. All the bits of the jigsaw seemed to be clicking into place.
“You murdered her,” said Agatha. “How did you get her down to the beach? Did you suggest a romantic walk in the moonlight because you had a present for her, say, a valuable present?”
He sat down again, his head drooping, staring at the floor. “You’ll never prove it.”
Heart beating hard, Agatha said gently, “I know. But you’ll feel better for telling someone. You’re quite right. There’s no proof. You must have been awfully clever.”
He raised his head. “I was, wasn’t I? I found those bits of jewellery under the mattress and I knew immediately where they must have come from because she actually seemed proud of having been married to a villain. So I told her I knew something that would put her in prison, but I didn’t want to tell her in the hotel. I suggested a walk.
“When we were down on the beach, I told her I had found those items of jewellery under the mattress and if she didn’t pay me off handsomely and give me a divorce, I would go straight to the police and turn her in for harbouring stolen property.
“She started to howl insults at me, sexual insults, coarse and horrible. She turned her back on me and said over her shoulder, ‘I’ll tell Cyril and Wayne. You little wimp, by the time they’re finished with you, you won’t dare go near any police station.’
“That bright scarf was fluttering behind her in the breeze. I seized the ends and twisted them and twisted them, hearing her gurgle. I was mad with rage. I only meant to frighten her or something. I don’t know now. I only know I wanted to shut that awful jeering voice up. She fell silent. I dropped her down onto the beach.
“I ran back to the hotel. That night receptionist was nowhere in sight. I ran all the way to our room, took strong sleeping pills and went to bed. So now you’ve got what you want, you can leave. Oh, you can tell the police, but I’ll deny every word and they’ve no proof. Get out!”
Agatha jumped to her feet and backed away. Fred was no longer a pathetic little figure, but a madman capable of anything.
She and Harry ran to their car and got in. Agatha drove off and stopped round the corner.
“Who would have thought it? We’ve no proof, he’s right about that, but I’m going to tell the police anyway.”
Harry grinned. “Oh, we’ve got proof of every word. I’m wired for sound.” He opened his jacket. There was a tape recorder against his chest which he had hung round his neck with two strings.
“Oh, Harry Beam, I love you!” cried Agatha, giving him a hearty kiss on the mouth.
“That’s all right,” mumbled Harry, turning away but not quickly enough to hide the fact from Agatha that he was wiping his mouth.
EPILOGUE
AGATHA scanned the newspapers during the next few days looking for any reports of an arrest.
She was just on the point of phoning Barret when Bill Wong arrived. “I’ve got news for you,” he said, settling himself in a kitchen chair with her cats.
“About time,” said Agatha. “I was just about to phone Barret. Has Jankers been arrested?”
He shook his head. “After you delivered that tape, they sent Lewisham police to bring him in. There was no reply but his car was parked outside. They broke down the door and found him as dead as a doornail. He had taken an overdose.”
“Did he leave a letter, a confession?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, so he’s dead. So why was there nothing about him being the murderer in the newspapers?”
“The case was considered already closed and the police want to keep it that way. So no statement to the newspapers. Barret doesn’t want to look a fool and have to explain how a Gloucestershire detective agency managed to find out what he could not. Anyway, praise from me, Agatha. Good work. There’s something else. Ages ago, a girl accused Jankers of rape, but he managed to get off with it.”
“So Mrs. Bloxby was right,” said Agatha. “She said that subconsciously Geraldine would be attracted to villains.
“I suppose I’m glad it’s all over. But I must give praise where it’s due. If Harry Beam hadn’t continued to research the case, I’d never have got back onto it.”
Bill looked amused. “Where’s the old Agatha gone who would have taken all the praise herself?”
“I’m not like that,” said Agatha huffily, “and never was.”
“Talking about a changed Agatha, how’s James?”
“He’s in his small corner and I’m in mine.”
“He isn’t in his corner any more. He’s gone.”
“How do you know?”
“You weren’t in earlier, so I knocked at his door for a chat. No reply and no car. So I went to the village stores to get a soft drink and they told me he’d dropped in to buy the papers and said he was going abroad.”
Now Agatha desperately wished she hadn’t cancelled that message.
James drove steadily to Heathrow Airport to catch a flight to Istanbul on his way to the holiday resorts of southern Turkey. He had been commissioned to write another travel book. If Agatha hadn’t been so stupid, she could have come with him. Why wouldn’t she answer her phone when he called?
He had planned to stay overnight in Istanbul. He decided he would write to her from there.
Cyril Hammond turned up the volume on the television set to drown out the sobs of Lin, whom he had locked in the bedroom after having given her a sound thrashing with a leather belt. The feeling of power and euphoria that the administered beating had given him was fast evaporating. To his relief, the sobbing suddenly stopped.
In the bedroom, Lin dried her eyes. Cyril would never let her use the phone, but her brother had given her a tiny mobile phone for emergencies just before she had moved in with Cyril. As soon as she was settled in, Cyril had told her she was not to go out without his permission or make any phone calls, and then the beatings had started. She had endured them for too long, hoping always that he would change. Lin fished under the mattress where she had hidden the phone and called her brother at his Chinese restaurant and began to whisper rapidly in
