Agatha Raisin and The Walkers of Dembley

Seven

Deborah drove out to Barfield House wearing the black velvet dinner gown. She had consulted the buyer in Dembley's most expensive dress shop and the buyer had said a dinner gown was de rigueur. The stultifying gentility of the buyer had impressed Deborah no end.

She was also clutching a silver sequinned evening bag.

Deborah was unlucky. It could easily have been formal dress and then her dinner gown, although a bit over the top for a young woman and more suitable for a dowager, would have fitted in with the scenery, but as the guests were simply some old friends Sir Charles had staying for the weekend, the dress was informal. She found that out as soon as she entered the drawing-room. Certainly the men were wearing collar and tie, but the women were in summer dresses. Deborah stood awkwardly in the doorway, feeling like a child widow.

Sir Charles sailed up and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. 'You're looking very slinky,' he said, and just when Deborah was beginning to feel better, he added, 'Like that woman in The Addams Family.'

Although his aunt should have introduced Deborah all round, as she acted as hostess for Sir Charles, Mrs Tassy had not even looked up when Deborah entered, so Sir Charles did the honours. There were a Colonel and Mrs Devereaux and their daughter, Sarah. Then a thin young man called Peter Hailey and his friend, small, chubby and noisy, a Henry Barr-Derrington; and a heavy-set, brooding type of girl, Arabella Tierney. They all stared at Deborah when she was introduced. She said to each, 'Pleased to meet you.' Deborah would normally have said, 'Pleased ter meet you,' but she had been refining her accent.

It was not that anyone was precisely rude to her but more slightly surprised and then dismissive. That was it. She felt she had been summed up and dismissed. She thought she heard Henry murmur, 'That must be Charles's latest aberration,' but decided, as she had done in the past, that nervousness was making her hear insults that had never existed.

Mrs Tassy then bore down on Deborah with the weary air of one recollecting her duties. 'My dear child,' she said, 'such a warm frock. Aren't you too hot in that?'

'No, thank you, I'm fine,' said Deborah, catching a malicious smile on the face of Gustav.

Gustav announced dinner, and Deborah was relieved to learn she was sitting next to Sir Charles.

The table looked pretty with candles and flowers, and as the meal progressed, Deborah could not help noticing that it was a much simpler affair than the heavy lunch that had been inflicted on her when she came with Agatha. But, oh, she wished she had not come. They were all such dreadful snobs...

And then conversation turned to the murder and Sir Charles said that Deborah was one of the Dembley Walkers and Deborah immediately found herself the focus of attention. She was asked to tell them all about it. She did so, at first shyly, but then gaining confidence from their rapt attention, and when she finished up with a description of that day's walk and the confrontation with Farmer Ratcliffe, she had the table's sympathy.

'That man is a boor,' said the colonel roundly. 'It's a pity your friend Jeffrey didn't manage to punch him.' And so the conversation went on about the iniquities of Ratcliffe until Mrs Tassy rose to indicate the ladies should follow her to the drawing-room.

In the drawing-room Mrs Devereaux sat down next to Deborah and asked her what subject she taught, and having learned it was physics asked her advice about helping a young nephew who was deficient in the subject, and that took up the time until the men joined them.

Deborah found that, by ignoring the very presence of Gustav, she was able to relax. Everyone was nice, after all. She became elated and quite pretty and when Peter and Henry began to tease her and flirt with her, she positively glowed.

When the evening finished and Sir Charles kissed her warmly on the cheek, she drove off feeling that no drug in the world could possibly give her the high she was on.

Later, Gustav stacked the glasses in the dishwasher. Mrs Pretty, hired from the village to cook for the evening, was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of port. 'So who's this girl Sir Charles has got?' she asked.

'How did you hear about her?' asked Gustav.

'People talk. They were seen together in Burger King. Is he serious about her? Will he marry her?'

'Over her dead body,' said Gustav, and the cook laughed.

At one in the morning, Jeffrey heard a knock at his door. He had been watching a late movie and so had not gone to bed. At first he wondered whether it might be the police again and if he could pretend to be asleep, but as the knocking increased in force, he decided he had better answer it.

He opened the door. 'Oh, it's you,' he said, his voice light with relief. 'Come in. I thought it was the police.'

Agatha awoke to the sound of police sirens. She ran out of her bedroom and looked down from the kitchen window, which overlooked Sheep Street. Another police car raced past underneath.

James awoke with a start and stared at the white, mask-like face of Agatha Raisin looking down at him. She had forgotten all about the face pack she had put on before going to bed.

'What is it?'

'Police cars, lots of them, tearing out of Dembley,' said Agatha. 'Something's happened.'

'May have nothing to do with our ramblers,' said James sleepily.

Agatha tugged impatiently at his pyjama jacket. 'Oh, come on, James. I feel it's something to do with our lot. Hurry!'

James grumbled but nonetheless got ready with such speed that he was down in the car and waiting for Agatha when she ran down to the street. 'You've got little bits of face mask still about your ears,' he said, and that miserable thought preoccupied Agatha as they drove out of Dembley, with her squinting into a compact mirror and scrubbing at the white clay with a handkerchief.

They were automatically heading for the Barfield estate when, across the fields in the light of the rising sun, they saw in the distance a little cluster of flashing blue lights.

'Ratcliffe's land,' said James. They drove on in silence.

James stopped near the stile they had climbed over the day before, parking behind the police cars. A group of uniformed and plainclothes men were over by the gate where Jeffrey had had his fight with Ratcliffe.

As they walked up to the group, a policeman detached himself and ran towards them, holding up his hand and shouting, 'Stay back!'

But then Bill Wong appeared and waved them forward. 'What are you two doing here?' he demanded sharply.

'We heard the police cars and followed. What's happened?' asked Agatha, all the time praying: Don't let it be Deborah. If it's Deborah, I've failed.

'It's Jeffrey Benson,' said Bill. 'He's dead.'

'Shot?' asked James. 'Did Ratcliffe shoot him?'

'Ratcliffe's over there. What's this about Ratcliffe?'

James told him about the fight the day before. 'We'll be questioning Ratcliffe,' said Bill grimly. 'He's the one who found the body. But at the moment it looks like an accident. Jeffrey was cutting the padlock on the gate, or that's what it looks like, when he fell and struck his head on a rock. But we'll know more after the pathologist gets a look at the body. We'll need a full statement from both of you and the other walkers.'

'Do you think if he was murdered that it might be the IRA?' asked James.

'Hardly think so. A bullet in the back of the head is more their style. Or such an insignificant cog as Jeffrey was would get knee-capped at the most.'

'Can we have a look?' asked Agatha. 'We may be able to notice something that's different to yesterday.'

'Wait there,' commanded Bill. He went over and talked to his superiors. Several heads swivelled in their direction and then they were called forward. The crowd of men parted to let them through.

Jeffrey Benson lay sprawled on the ground below the gate. Beside him lay a huge pair of wire-cutters. On the other side of him lay a sharp rock.

'That rock wasn't there before,' said Agatha.

'Are you sure?' demanded Bill.