Agatha Raisin and The Walkers of Dembley

Alice's eyes flashed with jealousy. 'Now, we're not going to have a row about that again.'

'So what should I do?' asked Mary. 'Call the police?'

'We don't want to have anything to do with the filth,' said Jeffrey, and there was a general murmur of agreement. 'I'll ask Jones if he's heard anything from her.' Mrs Jones was the head teacher.

'I've already done that,' said Deborah. 'I asked this morning. She hasn't phoned in sick or anything.'

'Then maybe you'd better ask your friend, Sir Charles, if he saw her on Saturday,' suggested Jeffrey, looking at Deborah.

'No friend of mine,' muttered Deborah. She had not told the others of her date with Sir Charles. She had enjoyed her evening, although, in her case, seeing Citizen Kane for the umpteenth time and then being entertained to supper in a Burger King had not seemed like an upper-class evening out. But Sir Charles had been easy company, although he had not suggested seeing her again. She longed to phone him. Now, surely, she had an excuse to do so.

'I could phone him up,' she offered.

'Knowing Jessica,' tittered Peter, 'she could already be shacked up with him.'

'I'll ring,' said Deborah.

She went over to the public phone in the corner. Gustav answered. She breathlessly asked for Sir Charles.

'Sir Charles is not at home,' said Gustav.

'Oh, I wondered if you had seen anything of my friend, Miss Jessica Tartinck?'

'No.'

And then, somewhere in the regions of the house behind Gustav, Deborah distinctly heard Sir Charles calling, 'Who is it, Gustav?'

'No one,' called back Gustav and put the phone down.

Deborah stared at the receiver in baffled fury. Then she slowly replaced it. Pride stopped her from telling the others she had been snubbed by a servant.

'No, he hasn't heard anything,' she said.

Jeffrey looked at her in surprise. 'But didn't one of his keepers or gardeners see her?'

'No,' said Deborah, head bent.

'Now what do we do?' demanded Alice.

'We're not in the pages of a Gothic romance,' said Jeffrey. 'I mean, if you're thinking she's in the deepest dungeon of Barfield House in chains, forget it.'

'It may have nothing to do with Sir Charles,' said Gemma. 'All sorts of awful things happen to women these days.'

'Wimmin like Jessica mug folks, they don't get mugged themselves,' said Kelvin.

It was at last agreed to leave the matter for another couple of days. A few more drinks and they all began to feel confident that Jessica was staying away to get even with them for having stood up to her.

But two more days passed, and the Dembley Walkers met in the school.

No Jessica. It was Jeffrey who addressed the group. 'I think we should all get together after work tomorrow and go out there and see if we can find any sign of her.'

'No need for that,' said Mary Trapp. 'I'm convinced she is staying away to punish and frighten us.'

'An' I say, whit do we pay taxes for?' demanded Kelvin truculently. 'Call the cops.'

'No,' retorted Jeffrey fiercely. 'Let's see what we can do ourselves first.'

It was a clear warm evening when they all met up again. Ill-assorted as they were, Jeffrey could not help thinking how relaxed and happy they all were without Jessica around. She had dominated them so much. He mentally pulled himself up. He was already thinking of her in the past tense. They marched out of Dembley in the golden evening. When they reached Sir Charles's estate, Jeffrey unfurled a large Ordnance Survey map of the Pathfinder series and with one grubby fingernail outlined the route.

A silence fell on the group. Without the militant Jessica heading them, none could get away from an uneasy feeling of trespass. The evening was very still and quiet. They carefully shut farm gates behind them. Jessica would have left them open. Soon they reached the field of oil-seed rape blazing golden in the westering sunlight.

'Look!' said Jeffrey, stopping at the edge of the field. Jessica, they assumed it must have been Jessica, had certainly marched right into the field, trampling and stamping down the flowers.

'She must have jumped her way along to do this damage,' said Alice, quite awed.

They fell into single file, Jeffrey at the head, and followed the track. Over the trees at the far end of the field rose the bulk of Barfield House.

'The track stops here,' said Jeffrey. 'Was she burying something?'

They all gathered around and looked down at the mound of earth and torn yellow flowers.

Kelvin edged forward and scraped at the earth with one large foot. A little cascade of loose earth fell from the mound and there, sticking out, was a booted foot and a white leg, a white hairy leg. Jessica never shaved her legs.

'Oh, God,' shrieked Alice. She knelt down and scrabbled at the earth with her fingers. Gradually Jessica's body was exposed. Her earth-soiled face stared sightlessly up to the calm evening sky.

Deborah turned away and was violently sick, Gemma began to weep, and Mary Trapp fainted, falling over the dead body in a grotesque embrace.

Kelvin pulled her away. 'We've done enough. Get the police. Don't you daft pillocks see? Someone's murdered her.'

It was quickly discovered, once Jessica's body had been turned over, that someone had struck her a vicious blow on the back of the head with a spade, striking down with the edge, and then had made an ineffectual attempt to bury her. Bill Wong, waiting patiently by the tent which now covered Jessica's body for one of his superiors to give him instructions, had a fleeting thought that it was odd that Agatha should return from London to take up rambling and now here was a rambling murder. The lights placed on the field round the tent blazed into the darkness. An owl hooted from the trees. A rising wind rustled the oil-seed-rape blossoms, bleached white by the lights.

Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes came up to him. 'They're all at the house, are they?'

Bill nodded.

'We'd better start questioning them. We've learned all we can at the moment. She was struck violently from behind.'

'Must have been a pretty powerful man.'

'No, a woman could have done it. One good swing. It was a heavy spade.'

'So who would have a spade to hand?'

'That's what we've got to find out. Too early for fingerprints yet. And it's been raining since the murder, if she set out last Saturday, as she threatened to do.'

'Think Sir Charles lost his rag and biffed her?'

'We'll get a better idea of what sort of man he is after we speak to him. I hear the bane of your life is back in Carsely'

'My friend Agatha?' Bill grinned. 'I wonder what she'll make of this.'

Wilkes shuddered. 'Don't even tell her.'

Gustav greeted them at the door. 'I have put the persons you wish to question in the ballroom.'

'We would like a word with Sir Charles first, if we may?'

Gustav inclined his head. 'Come this way.' His formal manner suddenly dropped. 'And don't take all night over it.' He looked over their shoulders. 'What is it, Parsons?'

The policeman turned round. A tall thin man with a broken shotgun in the crook of his arm stood there.

'I have shut the gates, Gustav,' said Parsons. 'But the press are trying to get to the house.'

'Then shoot them,' said Gustav patiently. 'This way, gentlemen.' He held open the door of Sir Charles's study. Wilkes hesitated a moment, obviously wondering if that order to shoot the press was to be taken seriously, and then decided it wasn't.

He introduced himself and Bill Wong.

Sir Charles sat behind a large leather-topped desk. He folded his hands neatly on top of it, and surveyed them