'You'll find Jill, the groom, in the stables. Ask her. Now if you don't mind...'
Jill was a cheerful young woman. She said, sure, she'd run them back, and soon they were jolting down the drive in an old Land Rover. 'Does Mrs Tamworthy keep many horses?' shouted Agatha over the roar of the engine.
'No, not her. She rents the stables out to people in the local hunt. Makes a lot.'
Agatha fell silent. She kept wondering why Mrs Tamworthy had put herself in so much danger.
When she was driving Roy back to Carsely, she asked, 'What are you going to do with yourself next week while I'm at work?'
'Lead a healthy lifestyle. Go for walks.'
'You'll get bored.'
'I doubt it. I'll be so busy wondering about this birthday party. It's all very weird. Like an oldfashioned detective story.'
'Don't worry,' said Agatha. 'Nothing will happen. I've come to the conclusion that she really is a bit unbalanced.'
Sunday was a wearisome day for Agatha and several times she considered going into the office just to get away from an ecstatic Roy, who had bought ten copies of
Toni turned up promptly for work on Monday morning. She was looking forward to her new job. She had no illusions about the detective work she would be doing, but she could make her own hours and be her own boss, and that appealed to her.
'Now,' said Agatha, 'we've got an odd case here.' She told them about Mrs Tamworthy. Then she said, 'Patrick, I'd like you to go to that pub in Lower Tapor and find out just how angry the locals are and who the ringleader is. Phil, I'd like you to go to a newsagent's in Upper Tapor and see what Jimmy Tamworthy is like. Running a shop was his mother's idea. If my mother was rich and possessed a large estate, I might think running a village shop was beneath me. See if you can get some idea. After that, I'd like you to check out applications for planning permission. I can't see the villagers getting so hot under the collar if she was just going to sell the village. They might hope for a more generous benefactor. But Mrs Tamworthy likes making money. What if she hoped to get planning permission for more houses? Or planning permission for something the villagers would hate?'
'Also, Patrick, while you're in the pub, get an idea of what the locals really think about Mrs Tamworthy. Any scandal. Do they think she's mad? That sort of thing.'
'There's that divorce case,' said Patrick. 'We really should wrap it up. Mrs Horrington is paying a lot. Then there's the one Phil is on. Mr Constable.'
'I'll take Horrington. I can't be seen near that village before next weekend. I'm going as a friend of the family.' Agatha turned round and looked at Toni, who was sitting quietly on the visitors' sofa. She was wearing clean jeans, a white T-shirt and sandals.
'Toni, I'm going to throw you in at the deep end. Can you take photographs?'
'Yes, I was in my camera club at school.'
'Phil will give you the Constable file and a camera. Have you a car?'
'I can't drive. I've got a bike.'
'That'll do. No one will suspect a teenager on a bike of spying on them.'
Phil handed Toni a file. Goodness, he was old, thought Toni. Must be in his seventies, though he seemed fit enough. 'It's the usual thing,' said Phil, sitting down on the sofa beside her. 'The husband, Mr Constable, thinks his wife, Hetty, is having an affair. I'd only just started following her at the end of last week. There's the address. It's out in the northern end of Mircester, where all the large villas are. But just at the end of the street is a supermarket with a big car park. If you go to the end of the car park, you can get a good view of the house because it's the one nearest the supermarket.'
'She drives a BMW, so I hope you can chase her on a pushbike.'
'The traffic's so bad in Mircester, I should be able to keep her in view,' said Toni.
'Right. I'll give you a camera and a telescopic lens and a camera bag. The equipment is expensive, so take care of it. I'll also give you a small powerful tape recorder in case you get close enough to her to record anything.'
Toni's heart began to thump against her ribs. Mrs Freedman, who felt sympathetic in a motherly way to the young girl, had told her that morning just before Agatha arrived that her predecessor, Harry, had found a lot of cats and dogs at the animal shelter and had never told Agatha the reason for his successes. So Toni had been looking forward to an easy first day.
As Toni pedalled in the direction of the supermarket, she wondered nervously how she was supposed to remain unnoticed standing at the edge of a car park with a telescopic lens fitted to a camera.
She had an idea. When she got to the supermarket, she went in and bought a packet of chocolate chip cookies and a packet of sandwich bags. Outside, she tipped the cookies into a sandwich bag and sealed it. Then she got straight back on her bike and pedalled up to Mrs Constable's house.
She rang the bell. She would say she was selling cookies for the Girl Guides. That way she would find out what her quarry looked like.
When the door opened, Toni stared at the woman looking at her. 'Mrs Mackenzie! What are you doing here?' Mrs Mackenzie was her next door neighbour.
'I'm cleaning, that's what.'
'Is Mrs Constable in?'
'No, she's out.'
Toni took a deep breath. 'Can I talk to you?'
'I was just about to take a break. Come in. We'll have a cuppa.'
Toni followed her through to the kitchen. 'I've never seen a kitchen like this outside of advertisements,' she marvelled. 'It's huge.'
'Fortunately for me, madam doesn't do any cooking, or hardly ever. She eats carrot sticks at home or dines out. So what is it, Toni, love? How do you know her?'
'I don't,' said Toni, and then she plunged in, telling Mrs Mackenzie all about the detective job and how she had to find proof that Mrs Constable was having an affair.
'Oh, she's having an affair all right, and with a right bit of rough.'
'How do you know?'
'I've got the keys, see. I'd left some shopping by mistake one day and came back. I opened the door quiet- like, and went to the kitchen. They were hard at it on the kitchen floor.'
'Do you know the chap's name?'
'No; I didn't see his face, neither, only his great hairy bum.'
'It would mean a lot if I could get a photograph,' said Toni.
'I don't like her and that's a fact,' said Mrs Mackenzie. 'Get her out of the way and I'd have peace and quiet just cleaning for Mr Constable. He's ever so nice.'
'Maybe I could hide in the back garden and hope she and her pal choose the kitchen again,' said Toni.
'Here, have your tea and get out of here in case she comes back sudden-like. I don't want to know any more about what you're going to do and you never heard a word from me, mind.'
'Sure.'
Toni drank her tea rapidly, thanked Mrs Mackenzie and left. But she wheeled her bike round to the back garden and hid it in some bushes. Then she crouched down below the kitchen window and waited.
Fortunately, the garden was surrounded by a high fence and bordering trees and could not be overlooked from any of the neighbouring houses.
Toni waited. And waited. The garden grew hot. After an hour she heard the front door slam. She hoped it was Mrs Constable returning home but then she realized it was probably only Mrs Mackenzie leaving. She opened the sandwich bag and took out a cookie. The chocolate had melted and stuck to her fingers. How odd that chocolate chip biscuits were the only ones in England called 'cookies'.
