“You need to lose weight,” said Roy.
“I’ve only put on a little. It was that cream tea. They were heading up the hill.”
They hurried up to Pierrepoint Street. “No sign,” panted Agatha. “I’ll go right and you got left.”
“I don’t know what they look like. They were gone by the time I looked!”
“He’s portly with thinning hair, tight blazer, white trousers. She’s rabbity with red hair, lots of it, wearing a blue-and-white-patterned dress and very high heels. She can’t have got far in those heels. We’ll meet back here.”
They split up. Agatha went as far as the Grand Parade on her side and Roy went along Manvers Street, Dorchester Street and then St. James’s Parade.
When they met up again, they were hot and tired. “I know,” said Agatha. “Hotels.”
“There are loads of hotels. Loads!” screeched Roy.
“Let me think. He was so solicitous, I think it must be a new love, so he’d take her somewhere posh.”
“Like where?”
“Like the Granton Crescent Hotel. We’d better get a cab. It’s a long climb up.”
But there did not seem to be any cabs available. By the time they had trudged up to the Royal Crescent, where the hotel was situated, Roy was flushed with heat and cross with Agatha.
They entered the cool hallway of the hotel and approached the reception desk. “Yes, madam?”
The receptionist was cool, slim and foreign.
“I wonder if a friend of mine has checked in?” asked Agatha. “A Mr. Smedley?”
Long painted nails rattled efficiently over the keys of a computer. The receptionist raised her head. “I am afraid we have no one of that name.”
“May I just see the book? Such a rogue. He may have signed in under another name.”
“What book?”
“The book the guests sign,” said Agatha impatiently.
“No, that is so old-fashioned. They sign cards and their bookings are logged on the computer.”
“Oh, if you could just give me a printout.”
“The details are private. Please leave.” The receptionist turned away to where an overdressed woman was waiting. “Mrs. Bentinck, how nice to see you again.”
Agatha saw a bar leading off the hall. “I’m having a nice cold drink.”
“Remember, you’re driving,” cautioned Roy.
“I don’t think one mimsy gin and tonic is going to make a blind bit of difference. Come on.”
The bar was cool and dark. Agatha lowered herself into an armchair with a sigh of relief and wiggled her toes inside her sandals.
A waiter came up and they gave their orders. When they had been served, Roy said, “I know you like to take long shots, but this was a very long one indeed.”
“I know,” conceded Agatha. “Still, I must have lost some weight with all that walking. I’ll tell Patrick about it.” She took out her mobile phone. “He’s supposed to be on the Smedley case and I’m supposed to be finding Jessica’s murderer. Now I feel guilty for having taken time off.”
She spoke to Patrick and then said, “We’ll collect the car and park somewhere on the road out. See if we can catch them leaving. I mean, it’s Sunday. Maybe he wants to get home before the wife suspects anything. Maybe he’s not booked into a hotel.”
“They may not be leaving,” complained Roy as they sat in the sun inside the car by the side of a road leading out of Bath.
“This is the road they’ll take if they’re heading back to the Cotswolds.”
“But they may be shacked up somewhere for another night of mad passion. Isn’t there any air conditioning in this car?”
“No.”
“What happened to the Saab? What happened to the Audi? Why are we sitting in a small hatchback Rover which looks as if it had five hundred previous owners?”
“I wanted an anonymous-looking car. No one notices a cheap car. This is a very good Rover and I got it second-hand. Keep your eyes on the road behind.”
“It’s all right for you. You’ve got the rear-view mirror. I’ve got a crick in the neck from twisting around.”
“Phil’s got the number of the wife’s car,” said Agatha half to herself. “He wouldn’t be driving that. I wonder if he knows the number of Smedley’s car.”
She phoned Phil and asked him. “Yes, I’ve got it,” said Phil. “I went round after dark and photographed both cars in the driveway. It’s a BMW. Dark green.” He gave her the registration number.
Agatha thanked him, rang off, and gave Roy the details. They waited patiently. “This is hopeless …” Roy was beginning to say, when Agatha exclaimed, “Here they come!”
The BMW driven by Smedley roared past.
Agatha set off in pursuit.
“I don’t think you should be so close behind him,” shouted Roy over the noise of the engine. “Let another car get in between you and him.”
But Agatha hung on grimly, only glad that Smedley showed no sign of exceeding the sixty-mile-an-hour speed limit.
Smedley cut off the A-4 and onto the A-365. “Where’s he going?” muttered Agatha. On they flew in pursuit— the A-365, then the A-361, A-360, and turned off again on the A-344. “Is he going to Amesbury?” wondered Agatha.
“I think he’s going to Stonehenge,” said Roy.
Sure enough, that turned out to be where Smedley was headed. A car park attendant directed Smedley to a parking place on the right and then guided Agatha down to one on the far left.
“Quick!” said Agatha, turning off the engine. “We don’t want to lose him now.”
They scrambled out of the Rover and ran to where they had seen Smedley directed to park—just in time to see the BMW roaring out of the car park.
“I told you not to drive so close,” grumbled Roy. “They must have seen us and driven in here to shake us off.”
They went back to their car and Agatha set off in pursuit, but nowhere on the road back did they spot the BMW.
They drove to Ancombe. Roy, instructed by Agatha, got out and crept up the Smedleys’ drive. He returned with the news that the BMW was parked outside. “He must have dropped her off somewhere or maybe it’ll turn out she was a family relative and the wife knows he was taking her for an outing.”
That evening Agatha drove Roy down to the station to catch the London train and then returned to find Bill Wong waiting for her.
“What’s the news about Haviland?” asked Agatha eagerly.
“Let me inside and make me a coffee and I’ll tell you.”
Seated in the kitchen over mugs of coffee, Bill said, “Haviland was dating Jessica. He’s in his thirties. They didn’t want the parents to know, him being so much older. He’s got a good alibi.”
“Like what?”
“He’s a sales rep for Smedleys Electronics. He was down in Exeter for a week and just got back when we picked him up. He was attending a convention at a hotel there. We checked it out and he never left Exeter.”
“He could have done,” said Agatha. “I mean, conventions are such boozy affairs, he could have nipped back and no one would have noticed. They can check his DNA—”
“That’s the trouble. Jessica was not sexually assaulted.”
“But she was naked from the waist down! And I found a pair of ripped knickers.”
“Jessica Bradley was a virgin.”
“What! In this day and age? Going to the club and dating an older man?”
“I tell you, this Burt Haviland was definitely in love with her. He’s really cut up about everything.”
“So did she tell him anything about anyone? Anyone she was frightened of?”
Bill shook his head. “Haviland said they were waiting until she finished school and then they were going to announce their engagement.”
