‘Blackmail,’ whispered Agatha. ‘They tried to frighten me off with that head.’
‘I never saw anything. I’ve only just got home.’
Agatha took a deep breath. ‘I’m calling the police.’
Roy was taken out of the van and thrust into a half-derelict cottage. At gunpoint, he was shoved into a small room and the door was shut and locked behind him.
He looked around wildly. There came a great crack of thunder, and then a flash of lightning lit up the room. He caught a glimpse of a mattress on the floor and a bucket in the corner. The window was barred.
He sank down into the floor and burst into tears.
The police refused to let Agatha go out hunting for Roy. They said it would be better if she stayed by the phone in case there was a ransom demand. Toni, Phil and Patrick all set off in their cars to scour the countryside.
Roy had been taken at dinnertime – teatime for the elderly residents – and everyone in the village had been indoors, or that was the way it seemed, because the police received the same reply as they went from door to door – no one had seen anything.
Roy scrubbed his eyes dry with the sleeve of his shirt as the cottage seemed to rock under the ferocity of the storm breaking overhead.
In all his misery and fear, there was one little nugget of comfort – he had not fouled himself. He had read in books that people did that under duress.
He tried to be calm and search the room for any possible means of escape, but his legs were trembling too much and he sat down on the floor and began to sob. He had never believed in God, had been almost proud of the fact, but now, in extremis, he prayed for deliverance as he had never prayed before as the storm roared in ferocity.
Then, as his sobbing subsided, he suddenly felt exhausted and weary.
His eyes were just closing as he sat with his back to the wall when there was a tremendous explosion. He was to find out later that a thunderbolt had hit the roof. The door to his room was blown open as if by dynamite.
He staggered to his feet, his only thought one of escape. He no longer cared if his captors were lurking around. He ran through a wrecked, smouldering kitchen and out into the driving rain.
Roy looked around wildly. A jagged flash of lightning lit up his surroundings. Nothing but fields on either side. But far in the distance, he could see headlights of cars on a road.
He half ran, half stumbled, across fields, soaked to the skin, as the thunder rumbled off in the distance, and on the horizon, he could see one small pale star in the sky.
He finally reached the main road and stood waving his arms frantically at cars. He looked a weird figure, and at first, it seemed as if no one was going to stop. At last a small Volkswagen pulled up. A man in a dog collar got out and asked, ‘Are you in trouble?’
‘Take me to the nearest police station,’ begged Roy.
Agatha sat by the phone in her cottage. Her friend Mrs Bloxby held her hand. Equipment had been set up to record any calls. Two men crouched over it. Alice Peterson, the pretty detective constable, was making another pot of tea.
‘I’ll never forgive myself,’ said Agatha for the umpteenth time. ‘The whole horror of finding that head is beginning to get to me. I should never have let Roy come on a visit.’
‘You weren’t to know. Where is Mr Lacey?’
‘Out searching for Roy.’
‘And Sir Charles?’
‘Haven’t even tried to reach him. I’ll put on the television.’ There was a small set on the kitchen counter.
Agatha switched it on to the 24-hour BBC News. Alice said, ‘If he had been found, he would have phoned you.’
‘Not if it’s his dead body that’s been found,’ said Agatha.
The evening dragged on into the early hours of the morning. Agatha fell asleep with her head on the table. Mrs Bloxby quietly left.
Alice, seated on a chair next to Agatha, felt her eyes begin to close. Suddenly, the voice of the news presenter crashed into her thoughts: ‘Breaking news. Public relations officer Roy Silver, friend of detective Agatha Raisin, who claims he was kidnapped, is at Chipping Norton Police Station, and we are just awaiting his comments.’
‘Wake up!’ cried Alice, shaking Agatha.
‘What?’
‘Roy’s been found. He’s in Chipping Norton Police Station and about to emerge and make a statement.’
The camera showed the outside of the police station, where a large number of press and television reporters and cameramen were gathered.
‘The bastard!’ hissed Agatha. ‘Do you know what he’s done? Somehow he got free and got help, and instead of phoning me or the police at Mircester, he must have got hold of someone’s phone and called Associated Press and every television company he could think of. I’d better phone Mrs Bloxby. No, on second thought better not. The vicar would be furious if I woke them up in the middle of the night for any reason.’
‘Would you like to go over to Chipping Norton?’
‘No,’ said Agatha grumpily. ‘I’m going to bed.’
Roy had forgotten about the miracle of his deliverance. He was addicted to appearing on television.
He had begged the vicar for use of his mobile ‘to phone his mother’. Roy’s mother had died when he was still a child. Clutching the phone, and as soon as he was in the police station, Roy begged to use the lavatory, and once in there, he began assiduously to phone the press.
He then emerged, thanked the vicar, handed over the mobile and was examined by a police doctor before the questioning began. To his fury, after only half an hour, he was rushed out of the back of the police station and into a waiting car to take him to Mircester. Frantic, Roy could see his moment of fame slipping away.
He tried to reassure himself with the thought that the press would no doubt guess where he had gone. But to his dismay, he was taken to a safe house, told to rest and put under guard.
For the first time, he thought of Agatha and realized how furious she would be. He slept uneasily and woke in the morning to the sound of a policeman delivering his overnight bag. ‘May I use the phone?’ asked Roy.
‘No, you may not,’ said the policeman heavily. ‘The vicar, Mr Prentice, who rescued you, checked his mobile and found you had made ten phone calls, most of them to London. He will send you a bill.’
Roy flushed miserably. He dressed and was served two soggy croissants and a cup of instant coffee before being taken off to police headquarters to endure hours of questioning.
He had planned to give a highly embroidered account, but faced with Wilkes’s severe face and Bill Wong’s admonitory stare, he told nothing but the truth. He omitted only his frantic prayer. In the light of day, praying to God seemed such a wimpish thing to have done. I don’t want to lose my street cred, thought Roy.
At last the questioning was over. Now to face the cameras, thought Roy. But he waited over an hour before being hustled out of a back door where Alice was waiting to drive him to Carsely.
‘The press are following us,’ said Alice. ‘Do you want me to shake them off?’
‘No, no!’ screeched Roy. ‘I can handle them.’
To his delight, just after Alice drove off after leaving him outside Agatha’s cottage, he saw the vanguard of the press arrive. He had changed into jeans and a T-shirt because his retro clothes were a wreck.
He was standing on Agatha’s doorstep, clearing his throat and waiting for his big moment to begin, when the door behind him opened and Agatha Raisin said, ‘You horrible little man,’ in a loud, clear voice.
‘But Aggie,’ pleaded Roy, ‘I’ve been kidnapped and could have been murdered.’
James appeared behind Agatha and drew her back into the house. ‘He’s been through a lot. Let him have his bit of fame.’
Roy rallied but gave a plainer statement than he would have otherwise done and therefore a more impressive one.
When he finally joined Agatha and James in the kitchen, it was to find Mrs Bloxby there as well.
Agatha gave him a cup of coffee. They had heard his story through the open front door.
