Part 7 (1/2)

”It's well known you are a friend of his,” said Mrs Bloxby tactfully. ”People would a.s.sume that you knew.” She knew that the reason had been that people did not want to hurt Agatha. ”But there's a thing. Although he stayed on friendly terms with her, he definitely cooled off her when you arrived back. It might be worth finding out why. I feel if we all knew Mary Fortune better, then we could learn who murdered her and why. You will be finding out, will you not? It is not only the murder, you see, that destroys and rips apart the tranquillity of the village, but the intrusions of the press. Such a colourful murder, you see. The press are already arriving in droves.

Sooner or later, someone is going to check the press library and find out about your previous investigations and your phone will start ringing and your doorbell.”

As if in reply, the doorbell shrilled. ”I will deal with it,” said Mrs Bloxby. Agatha heard the vicar's wife open the door, then the murmur of voices, then Mrs Bloxby saying firmly, ”Mrs Raisin has had a bad shock. She is not to be disturbed,” and then the slam of the door.

”Thank you,” said Agatha when Mrs Bloxby returned to the kitchen, although her vanity stabbed her. If she had been on her own, she would probably have invited the press in.

Then the phone rang. Without asking permission, Mrs Bloxby answered it, repeated that Mrs Raisin was not well enough to be interviewed, and then returned. ”I pulled the phone out from the wall. You will not be disturbed again. I'll just go upstairs and unplug the extension as well.”

Agatha rose to her feet and opened her mouth to say she was well able to deal with the press, but her knees trembled and she felt weak and shaky. ”You know,” she said, ”I think I will go to sleep.”

But half an hour later when she closed her eyes, visions of James in the arms of Mary Fortune swam in her mind, and with a great effort she willed herself to go to sleep to make all those nasty pictures go away.

James called for her at nine the following morning. In an obscure way, Agatha was glad the old elation at the thought of going out with him had gone. She felt like a silly middle-aged woman. She had once had a crush, when she was at school, on one of the older boys, and she had behaved with James Lacey just like that. Her distress at learning of his affair with Mary had gone, to be replaced with a strange kind of relief to be free of what had gradually been becoming an obsession. She had put on the minimum of make-up and a plain white blouse, a tailored skirt, and low-heeled shoes. ”We'll take my car,” said James. ”Silly for both of us to drive separately.”

They drove off. The silence lasted all the way up to the A44. Then James said, ”Have you been thinking about it?”

”The murder? Of course. Thought of nothing else.”

”Maybe after we have made our statements, we should have lunch and talk about it.” He glanced sideways, wondering at the unusually silent response. ”If you want to,” he added finally.

”Yes, all right,” said Agatha. Her reluctance came from a new desire to stay free of any emotional entanglement, that is, her emotional entanglement with James. She could never believe now that at any time he had felt anything warmer for her than friends.h.i.+p.

”Good, then we'll leave the talking until then.”

At the police headquarters in Mircester, James and Agatha were interviewed together and then separately. This time Agatha was not interviewed by Bill Wong. She asked for him and learned he was in Ca.r.s.ely with the other detectives who were investigating the case.

She had her statement read over to her and signed it. She had been asked if there had been any man in Mary's life and had replied with a firm negative. It was up to James to tell them if he wanted to.

She waited in the entrance hall of the police station for James and was almost beginning to wonder if they had arrested him on suspicion when his tall figure appeared.

”Well, now, what sort of food do you want to eat?” James asked.

”Something light,” said Agatha. ”I'm still on a diet of sorts.”

He glanced down at her. ”Yes, it shows. There's a new place in the square. They do very good salads and things like that and the tables are set well apart, so we don't have to worry about anyone overhearing us.”

They walked together across the square. The sunny day was now overcast and an irritating, busy little wind tugged at Agatha's hair and blew swirls of dust about their feet. It had been an unusually dry summer and to date the gardeners had complained about the need for the constant watering of plants.

The restaurant was quiet and they were given a table at the window. Agatha asked for a Caesar salad as a main course and James ordered grilled steak and fried potatoes and onion rings.

”Now,” he began, ”have you thought of anything?”

Agatha hesitated. Before she would cheerfully have repeated everything Mrs Bloxby had told her, laying the confidences of the vicar's wife on the altar of desire, but a queer loyalty stopped her this time, and she said instead, ”I do not think Mary was as popular as I believed her to be.”

”What do you mean?”

”She would never usually say anything directly nasty, but she had a way of making people feel silly and provincial.”

”Perhaps. But not enough to cause murder. It surely has something to do with gardens. In some way it all must tie in with the destruction of the gardens.”

Agatha thought again about Mrs Bloxby and wished she could tell him. Instead, she said, ”Whoever did the murder must have been mentally unbalanced. It was a murder that was planned and thought out, thought out in a sort of smouldering, burning hate. Let's see. You said she had a daughter. She seemed to be a very wealthy woman. Money might be the motive, with the ruin of the gardens and the elaborate way of dealing with the body as a sort of smokescreen, to make it look as if it had been done by some sort of barmy local. The daughter, you said, is at Oxford University. She could be somewhere abroad during the holidays. But if not, she'll be there today. I wonder if she inherits, and how much. I suppose the press will hang around.”

”Even with a murder like this, only a few days and then they'll leave it to the local men. We could call at Mary's this evening to offer our condolences, if the daughter is there.”

”There'll be press at the gate and a copper on the door,” Agatha pointed out. ”I think we should leave it. I would like to ask some of the people who knew Mary what they really thought of her.”

”She's too recently dead. I don't think anyone's going to come right out at the moment and say they didn't like her.”

Agatha thought of Mrs Bloxby, Mrs Bloxby of all people, whom Mary had managed to rile up. ”I don't know about that,” she said cautiously. She looked at him awkwardly. ”In your situation, you must have known her better than anybody.”

”I didn't, actually. It was a brief fling.”

”And why did the brief fling, as you call it, come to an end?”

There was silence as their meals were delivered to the table. When the waitress had left, James said, ”She came on to me very strongly and she gave the impression that she was used to affairs and only wanted to have a good time. She was charming and she could be very funny.” He s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. Mary's humour, he remembered, had often consisted of being funny about the villagers. And then Agatha Raisin had come back among them, squat, blunt Agatha, who somehow seemed very much a part of the village. But it was not only that contrast that had brought about the end of the affair.

”I think,” he said slowly, ”that Mary had begun to expect marriage. She became very proprietorial.” Then he thought, the s.e.x was competent and efficient but lacking tenderness or warmth, and a feeling of revulsion had set in, a feeling of shame.

”You're not eating your steak,” said Agatha, looking at it longingly.

”You're not giving me much of a chance.”

She waited until he had eaten several mouth-fuls and then asked, ”You must have said something to her to break it off.”

”Well, yes, of course. At first I did the usual cowardly masculine thing of staying clear. But then she called at my home and asked me bluntly what I was playing at. I told her it was over. For one awful moment I thought she was going to strike me. Her eyes blazed with pure hate. But the next moment, she laughed and said, ”Well, you are quite right. You are not exactly G.o.d's gift to women in bed,” and...and...a few other things I do not care to repeat, but all in an amused voice and I did not get angry because I thought I deserved it. We agreed to remain friends. I then began to see more of her again when she became so unpopular in the village. I thought it unkind. She never at any time referred to our affair.”

”Do the police suspect you?”

”A crime of pa.s.sion? Possibly. They've certainly searched my house thoroughly in the middle of the night looking for bits of rope and examining my clothes and fingernails for traces of earth.”

”So you told them about your affair?”

”Of course.”

So Bill Wong would know, thought Agatha miserably.

”That friend of yours, Bill Wong, took me aside and told me to make sure you did not interfere in the investigation,” said James.

”Considering the success I've had in the past we've had in the past,” added Agatha charitably, ”I think that's a bit cheeky.”

”It's because he's fond of you and doesn't want you coming across some maniac of a murderer on your own.”

Agatha thought guiltily of her garden. She sent up a prayer that the CID would not decide to turn over her house. They would see the garden and the sight of that bare garden with the huge high fence might lead them to believe she was mentally unstable.

”So,” she said, ”it looks as if we'll have to let the dust settle before we start asking questions.”