She parked in the Aldi supermarket car park and walked through to Bridge Street. Outside Achille, the hairdresser’s, she turned and looked down towards the bridge. Police barriers were up. She walked down and joined the crowed of sightseers on the bridge. Waterside on the other side of the bridge was flooded. A large mobile home came hurtling down the river and smashed into the bridge. Bits of it appeared on the other side as if it had been through a giant shredder.
Agatha debated whether to return home while there was still time, but without her hair done she felt insecure.
Jeanelle, her hairdresser, greeted her with surprise. “We’ve been phoning up clients telling them not to come,” she said.
Agatha’s mobile rang. It was Toni. “We’re evacuating the office,” she said. “The police have been round telling us the water’s rising. The street below is flooded. We’re on the first floor, so with luck the water won’t come this high. But Phil’s found a man with a tractor and we’ve all been loading up the files and computers. The car park’s still dry, so once the tractor gets the stuff there, we can load it into our cars and take it to a storage unit we’ve rented on high ground.”
“It’s really bad, isn’t it?” said Agatha.
“Nobody’s seen anything like it.”
“Phone you later,” said Agatha.
But she insisted on getting her hair done.
As she joined the queue inching out of Evesham, she wished she had never come. She had complained about the rap music playing in the hairdressing salon. It had crashed around her ears sounding like “Ugh, hunna hunna mudda fudda bitch, ugh.”
“Who likes that awful music?” she had asked Jeanelle. “Young people,” said the hairdresser. “It’s our music, if you know what I mean.”
I feel on the outside looking in, mourned Agatha. I feel trapped in an age group that’s out of touch with every other age group.
It took her three hours to reach the Carsely turn-off on the A44 by managing to plough through areas of flooding on the road.
When she got down to just before the centre of the village, she was met by a flood. Groaning, she parked the car, took off her shoes and began to wade through the swirling water. A dead cat floated past and a spasm of fear clutched her as she thought of her own cats.
The rain was still falling in torrents. She slipped and stumbled, several times nearly falling, until at last she reached dry ground on the other side. Agatha put on her shoes and hurried to Lilac Lane. Water was swirling down the lane. She rushed to her cottage. Charles had barricaded the front door with sandbags.
Agatha let herself in. He had left her a note on the kitchen table.
“Gone to check my own place. Keep dry! Love, Charles.”
Agatha checked her cats were safely indoors before going upstairs to change into dry clothes.
“It can’t get any worse,” she muttered.
But it did. Gloucestershire and the counties round about went under water. Her cottage stayed dry, but she had to house three elderly couples from the village who complained constantly that all the food she seemed to have were microwave curries.
Just when Agatha felt like committing murder herself, the sun came out and the waters receded. With great relief she saw her unwanted house guests leave. But then she was drafted in by Mrs. Bloxby to help clean out flooded cottages and to make frequent trips to the supermarket in Stow to bring back supplies of bread and milk.
At last she was free to go to her office in Mircester. Her staff were all there, unloading computers and other office equipment.
Gradually everything got back to normal and Agatha was just considering one evening whether to pursue the Comfrey Magna poisoning when she received a visit from Bill Wong.
“Survived the floods, Bill?”
“Just about. Agatha, this isn’t a social call.”
“What’s happened?”
“Someone masquerading as Arnold Birntweather, the accountant, and with all his identification called at the bank with the safe deposit key. He said the money needed to be counted again. He put it all in a large holdall and disappeared. In appearance, he seemed to be like the accountant, elderly and stooped.”
“But did the police hand this impostor the key?”
“They seem to have handed it over to the genuine man just after the flooding was over. He was accompanied by the vicar. When the vicar did not hear from him, he called at his house. Mr. Birntwweather had been killed by a savage blow to the head.”
“But they had seen Mr. Birntweather at the bank before.”
“Mr. Birntweather was old, with a dowager’s hump, thick glasses and dyed brown hair. The impostor looked exactly like that.”
“But how did the impostor get the number of the safe deposit box?” asked Agatha.
“Arnold Birntweather had a card inside his wallet with the number of the box on it. It was conveniently marked, ‘Safe deposit box number eleven.’”
“Snakes and bastards! When I went to see that precious pair, Tolling and Tubby, they told me that everyone in the village knew I had the safe deposit key, which probably explains the break-in at my cottage.”
“Do be careful, Agatha. I’d better get back to work.”
