“I’ll take you for dinner to celebrate.”
Agatha brightened. “That’ll be nice. Where?”
“There’s a French restaurant in Oxford, Ma Belle, in Blue Boar Street. They’ve got tables set out in a courtyard in front of the restaurant, and if the weather stays fine, we can go there. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
¦
After he had left, Bill Wong arrived with more flowers. “Agatha,” he said, “I hope this is the last time I have to visit you in hospital after a case. You did a very dangerous thing.”
“Does that man Brudge do nothing but complain about me?” demanded Agatha furiously.
“I called at the vicarage yesterday. It’s Mrs. Bloxby who worried about you. If John Armitage hadn’t decided to call the police, you would have been frozen meat.”
But Agatha, as usual, was not going to take the blame for anything. She gave him a long speech about the fact that it was due to her own brilliance that the police had wound up such a successful case.
“That’s an expensive bouquet,” said Bill, who had not really been listening to her and was pointing to John’s offering.
“It’s from John Armitage,” said Agatha proudly. “He’s taking me out for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Be careful.”
“I’m not a virgin.”
“It’s just you had enough pain and trouble over falling in love with your last neighbour.”
“I’m not going to fall in love with John Armitage,” howled Agatha.
¦
But the next day, as she left the hospital to be driven home by Mrs. Bloxby in the old Morris Minor, Agatha made polite conversation while all the time her mind was plotting and planning what to wear for dinner that evening.
Once home, she resisted the impulse to rush out and buy something new. She had plenty of clothes. It was just a matter of choosing the right things. After having taken every item out of her wardrobe, she settled for a deep-crimson silk evening skirt, slit up the side, and a soft white silk blouse with a plunging neckline.
That evening, made up with care, scented, hair brushed and burnished, she felt she had never looked better. John arrived at seven and they set off for Oxford. It was a warm, glorious evening, with the sun sending down shafts of golden light between the trees, which were still fresh and green, having not yet taken on the dull heaviness of summer.
For once Oxford looked to Agatha like the city of dreaming spires instead of what she usually saw as a mess of bad traffic system, panhandlers and drunken fourteen-year-olds.
John had booked a table in the courtyard of the restaurant. They ordered their meal and a bottle of wine. They talked about the case, going over and over it, until John asked, “You seemed to think my book, the one you read, was not quite real. Why was that?”
They were on to their second bottle of wine. Agatha, mellow and secure in his company, began to tell him about her upbringing in the Birmingham slums while he listened, fascinated.
Agatha hardly ever told anyone about this background from which she was so anxious to distance herself.
When she had finished, John ordered brandies and then leaned across the table and gazed into her eyes.
“What about it, Agatha?”
Agatha looked at him, puzzled.
“What about what?”
“You and me making a night of it.”
Agatha still did not understand. “You mean you want to go on somewhere?”
“Come on, Agatha. You know what I mean. The somewhere is your bed.”
“You’ve got a cheek,” said Agatha.
“We’re both adults.”
Agatha’s self-worth, never very high, sank like a stone. It was because she had told him about her upbringing that he thought that no preliminaries were necessary. She rose to her feet. “Excuse me.”
She walked into the restaurant and past the bar and the diners to a door at the side. She went out into a lane leading up to the High. She hailed a taxi and got in. “Carsely,” she said. “Near Moreton-in-Marsh.”
“Cost you,” said the driver.
“Just go!” ordered Agatha.
She was too upset and humiliated even to cry. Not once had John tried to kiss her or show any sign of affection. He had wanted to get laid and she seemed easy.
When she got home, she sat down and switched on her computer and sent an e-mail to Marie, saying that she had changed her mind. She would like to go back to Robinson Crusoe Island. What dates?
Later that evening, she heard her doorbell. She was sure it was John. She put her head under the duvet. The ringing went on for some time. Then, after that, the phone began to ring. She got out of bed and pulled the jack out of the wall.
She would wait for Marie’s reply and then book her planes. Tomorrow, she would pack up her computer and luggage and move to a hotel in London until it was time to leave. She would tell Worcester police where she was and make them promise to tell no one else.
Agatha felt a pang. She would need to leave her cats again, but her cleaner, Doris Simpson, would look after them and they adored Doris.
She felt she hurt all over.
? The Day the Floods Came ?
EPILOGUE
Once more on Robinson Crusoe Island, Agatha sat with Marie and Carlos in the lounge and watched the rain clouds sweep across the bay. It was cold. She should have realized it would be winter in August on the Juan Fernandez Islands.
But somehow there was still that atmosphere of peace and comfort, that feeling of being very far away from worries and troubles. Marie and Carlos were good listeners and took Agatha through her story over and over again, until it all seemed so incredible, almost as if it had all never happened.
“This Evesham sounds like a wicked place,” said Marie.
“On the contrary, the people are wonderful. That’s what makes it seem so odd,” said Agatha.
“And has this Marilyn Josh been arrested?”
“Yes; I read about it in the newspapers before I left. The police are keeping very quiet about me. I think they don’t want anyone to know I was masquerading as a woman from a television company. So I don’t get any glory.”
“You get the glory of knowing that a lot of villains are locked up,” pointed out Carlos.
“True,” agreed Agatha, although she privately thought it would have been nice to get some praise and recognition for her efforts.
When Carlos took himself off to go for a long walk, Maria asked, “And what about you ex-husband?”
“Oh, that’s definitely over,” said Agatha. “I’ve closed that chapter in my life.”
“So what about this writer who was supposed to be helping you?”
“He insulted me. I don’t want to have anything to do with him again.”
“Why?”
“He took me out for dinner. He is very attractive-looking. We went to a restaurant in Oxford.” Agatha broke off and bit her lip.
“So what happened?”
“You may as well know. He wrote a detective story I’d read based in the Birmingham slums, only you don’t call them slums any more. You refer to them politely as inner cities. I had said the background didn’t ring true and he asked me how I knew.”
