Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body (11 page)

‘Agatha! Listen! Sharon’s dead.’

‘How? When?’

‘She was found a few hours ago. She had been stabbed and strung up on a lamppost on a back street. Her mouth was stuffed with grass. I know some of the bikers, went to school with a few.
Said Sharon had been drinking and drugging and bragging how she was really working undercover. Her boyfriend, Jazz Belter, had just dumped her and it’s thought she was trying to scare
him.’

‘Who did it?’

‘We’re looking for Jazz at the moment.’

‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

‘You can’t do anything. Get a good night’s sleep.’

Toni looked at Agatha white-faced as Agatha slowly replaced the receiver.

Agatha told her the story. Toni began to cry, dismal wracking sobs shaking her whole body.

Agatha flapped hopelessly around her, wondering what to do. I should hug her or something, she thought. Then she went through to the sitting room and called Mrs Bloxby, who said she would be
around immediately.

Agatha walked up and down the garden fifteen minutes later, smoking furiously, while Mrs Bloxby, the expert comforter, got to work. Agatha could hear the vicar’s
wife’s soothing voice through the open kitchen door.

‘Of course her death has nothing to do with you, Toni. It wasn’t your fault that she started taking drugs and got into bad company. Everyone feels guilty when someone close to them
dies, wondering this way and that if they could have done anything. Now, dry your eyes. No, don’t drink coffee. Drink this hot sweet tea. So much better for shock. You gather up your things.
You’re coming home with me for the night.’

Agatha would have gone with them, but Mrs Bloxby stopped her with a little warning shake of the head.

Doris Simpson was still looking after Agatha’s cats. ‘I wish I had someone to look after me,’ said Agatha.

‘My shoulders aren’t very broad,’ said a familiar voice. ‘But you could try and lean.’

‘Charles!’ Agatha burst into tears.

‘Good heavens! What’s happened to old iron-knickers Raisin? Come on, girl. Up on your feet. We’ll move into the sitting room, get ourselves a drink and you can tell me all
about it.’

Charles listened while Agatha talked on and on about Sharon’s death and then about her trip to Philadelphia. ‘You did well,’ he said when she had finished
talking. ‘I thought Courtney was weird. As for Sharon? Well, that was always going to be a disaster, but you couldn’t seem to see it.’

‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘Would you have listened?’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Did you tell her to go undercover and find out about these bikers?’

‘No.’

‘Well, there you are. It’s a damned shame. There’s nothing we can do tonight. Let’s get some sleep. I’ll just get my bag out of the car.’

But when Charles returned, Agatha was fast asleep. He lifted her legs up and stretched her out on the sofa, went upstairs and came back with a duvet to cover her, and then took himself off to
bed in the spare room.

Agatha was awakened early the next morning by the shrilling of the doorbell. She struggled up from the sofa and went to answer it.

A policewoman stood there. ‘Mrs Raisin, I’m to take you to headquarters to go over your statement.’

‘Give me a few minutes to wash and change,’ groaned Agatha. ‘Don’t you want to come in?’

‘I’ll wait in the car.’

Agatha had a quick shower and change of clothes. Then she went into the spare room where Charles lay peacefully sleeping. She shook him awake. ‘I’ve got to go to headquarters. Are
you coming?’

He yawned and turned on his side. ‘You’ll do fine all by yourself.’

‘Story of my life,’ muttered Agatha, stomping down the stairs.

Agatha learned that the American police were currently hunting for both Tom Courtney and his sister. Tom had left the UK the day after Agatha had taken her flight to the
States. Harriet Temple had cracked and said that Amy had initially told her she needed an excuse because she was having an affair. After the murder, when Harriet read about it and phoned her, Amy
had threatened to kill her if she ever breathed a word. Dr Bairns was crying and bewildered, saying he did not know where his wife was. The Courtneys had cleared out their bank accounts and
disappeared.

Agatha thought they must have moved very fast indeed. It seemed likely that Tom had fled just after Amy had telephoned him to report Agatha’s visit.

‘So when we get them and have them extradited, Courtney will be charged with the murder of his mother and also of John Sunday.’

‘But why on earth would he kill John Sunday?’

‘He knew where his mother lived. The killing of Sunday was just setting the scene.’

‘But is there any record of him entering the country at that time?’

‘No, but we’re working on it. He may have played the same trick on someone that his sister played on Harriet and got another passport. He was setting the stage. It turns out that
both he and his sister have at various times been hospitalized for drugs and depression. There are psychiatric reports claiming they both suffered from a form of narcissistic psychopathy. They were
the children of Mrs Courtney’s first marriage. He thought with one murder already in that village, we wouldn’t look at him.’

‘Why employ me?’

‘Because he felt perfectly sure you wouldn’t find anything. He told Bill Wong that perhaps he had made a mistake employing what he called “a mere village sleuth” but that
he was willing to try anything.’

‘I don’t think the murder of John Sunday had anything to do with it,’ said Agatha. ‘It’s just one elaborate step too far.’

‘So you say. But as far as we’re concerned, that murder is solved. The American police will get a confession out of him.’

‘If they ever catch him,’ said Agatha cynically. ‘At the moment, I’m going all out to get the bastard who killed Sharon.’

‘You needn’t bother. It was Jazz Belter. Real name Fred Belter. We’ve got him in the cells.’

‘How did you get him so quickly?’

‘Detective Wong interviewed an old lady who lived in the flats overlooking where the dead girl was found. She doesn’t sleep much. She saw Belter drag Sharon out of the boot of a car,
stuff her mouth with grass, sling a rope over the lamppost – it’s one of those old-fashioned kind – and string her up. He was so high on drugs when we picked him up, it took four
officers to hold him down and handcuff him.’

Agatha left police headquarters feeling very low. Somehow, if finding out the murderer of poor Sharon had turned out to be a complicated affair, it might have made the girl’s death seem
less useless, less of such a complete waste of a young life.

She had a sudden vivid memory of looking down from the office window and watching Sharon and Toni going off for the evening, laughing and with their arms around each other.

She went round to the office. Patrick and Toni were out on jobs. Mrs Freedman had gone off to do some shopping and Phil Marshall was manning the phones. Phil was in his
seventies, a quiet man with a shock of white hair. He had retained a good figure. He was an expert cameraman.

‘Bad business about Sharon,’ said Phil. ‘Mrs Freedman won’t be long. Do you want me to give you a rundown on what we are all doing?’

‘Not at the moment. I need to get back to thinking about the murder of John Sunday to take my mind off Sharon’s death.’

‘So you don’t think the Courtneys did it?’

‘No. It’s nagging at the back of my mind that it was someone in that village. You see the trouble with being a town person and not a village person and meeting so many other incomers
these days,’ said Agatha. ‘I can’t help feeling that people like me don’t really know village life, what really goes on in the minds of the genuine villagers. It’s not
even like some of those television series you see based on supposed village life. All so politically correct. If the local retired major was in the army, then he’s either a fascist or a
closet gay. Gypsies are always good people and not understood. I saw one with eight murders and not a pressman in sight.

‘No. I suspect there are undercurrents in an off-the-tourist-map sort of place like Odley Cruesis. Unless it was someone at John’s work . . . Oh, Mrs Freedman, you’re back.
Would you please look me out the files on John Sunday?’

‘No need for that,’ said Phil. ‘I’ve got it all on the computer.’

Agatha fetched herself a strong cup of coffee and lit a cigarette. Mrs Freedman stifled a sigh and opened a window. Agatha sat down in front of the computer and began to read all the reports
along with Phil’s photographs. Then she said, ‘Something’s missing.’

‘What?’ asked Phil.

‘Where did John Sunday live?’

‘I remember that. A terraced house. Oxford Lane in Mircester. Patrick said the police could not find anything that related to the murder.’

‘And who got the house?’

‘Wait and I’ll get my notebook.’

‘Phil, it should be in here with the rest.’

Agatha bit her lip in vexation. What with the murder of Miriam and then her own hip-replacement operation, she felt she had often too easily assumed that both murders were connected.

‘Let me see.’ Phil came back with a notebook and flicked the pages. ‘Ah, here we are. I went with Patrick. Number seven, Oxford Lane. Two up, two down terraced house. Small
front garden. Neighbourhood slightly run down. He was never married. His sister inherited. A Mrs Parker. Probably sold the house.’

‘Maybe not. I’d love a look inside, just in case there’s anything left. Let’s drive round there.’

The house had a small, weedy front garden. As Agatha pushed open the front gate, a neighbour opened her door and called out, ‘Are you the house clearance people?’

‘Yes,’ said Agatha on the spur of the moment.

‘Wait and I’ll get the key,’ said the neighbour. ‘Mrs Parker’s still up north but she’ll be here tomorrow. She’s been right poorly and hasn’t been
able to get round to doing anything about her brother’s house before this. She got in touch with you lot to sell off everything. She and her brother had a quarrel a long time ago and she
didn’t want to have anything to do with his stuff. She came down after his murder – poor man – and took away a few things, but she didn’t want the rest.’

‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ muttered Phil.

‘Shh! This is a great opportunity.’

When the neighbour came back with the key, Agatha said, ‘I’m surprised Mrs Parker took so long to call us in and put the house up for sale.’

‘Well, like I said, she’s poorly and she couldn’t find the time before. Let me have the key when you’ve finished.’

Once inside, Phil said angrily, ‘And what do we do if the real people turn up?’

‘We’ll leave the front door open,’ said Agatha. ‘If we hear them arriving, we’ll just nip out the back way.’

The downstairs consisted of a living room and kitchen on one side of the dark passage and a study on the other. Upstairs were two bedrooms and one bathroom.

‘I suppose the study’s the place to start,’ said Agatha, ‘although the police are sure to be still hanging on to all his paperwork until his sister claims it.’

‘I’ll try the other rooms,’ said Phil. ‘Have you considered, Agatha, that when the real clearance people turn up, that neighbour is going to report us to the police and
give our descriptions?’

‘She seemed to be very shortsighted,’ said Agatha hopefully.

Phil went off and Agatha began to search diligently, but it all too soon appeared that the police had taken away every bit of paper they could get their hands on. She took out the desk drawers
in case anything was taped to the undersides, but there was nothing, except on the bottom of one drawer was ‘A119X’ written in felt-tipped pen. Agatha wrote it down.

They spent over an hour searching for secret hiding places but finding none. It was bleakly furnished with the bare essentials. It seemed as if John Sunday had liked puzzles and jigsaws. One of
the few human touches in the living room was a bookshelf containing boxes of jigsaw puzzles and crossword books. There were no photographs. A mirror hung over the fireplace reflecting the gloomy
room. Phil thought that maybe the houses had been built for workers because the terrace faced north and didn’t get much sunlight and he had noticed the building bricks were of poor
quality.

They even searched under the cushions of the shabby brown corduroy sofa and down the sides of two armchairs. Phil reported that only one of the upstairs bedrooms had been used and that the other
was completely empty.

When they left and locked up, Agatha had an idea. She took the key back to the neighbour and, reverting to the Birmingham accent of her youth, she said, ‘Made an awful mistake, love.
Should’ve been round the corner in Oxford Terrace. Please don’t tell Mrs Parker or we’ll get in awful trouble.’

The neighbour peered at her. ‘Don’t you be worrying yourself, m’dear. We all get like that when we get older. Didn’t I put the kettle on yesterday and clean forgot till
it nearly burned dry?’

‘That woman can hardly see a thing,’ muttered Agatha crossly to Phil. ‘I’m hungry. I need something to eat.’

They decided on a pub lunch at the George in Mircester. ‘I wish I knew what A119X stood for,’ said Agatha, ‘and why it was written on the underside of the drawer. He liked
puzzles. Nasty, devious mind, he probably had. He was probably the sort who would go to endless lengths to hide something somewhere difficult instead of just renting a safe deposit box.’

‘Library!’ said Phil suddenly.

‘What library?’ asked Agatha.

‘I mean A119X looks like a number on the back of one of the Mircester Public Library books. They send a mobile library van round the villages and I borrow books from them. The library
still uses the old card system.’

At the library, by asking at the desk, they discovered that A119X was a book entitled
Go to the Ant
by Percival Bright-Simmel. ‘I’m afraid it hasn’t
been returned,’ said the librarian. ‘We meant to send out the usual letter reminding the borrower that the book was overdue but when we found out it was that John Sunday who was
murdered, well, we just needed to give it up for lost. We would have got rid of it pretty soon as we’re due for an overhaul. No one else had taken that book out for a long time.’