Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body (19 page)

‘I’m hot and hungry,’ said Simon. ‘What if we buy some lunch and drive up out of the village and find a pleasant place for a picnic?’

‘But not at the local store,’ said Toni. ‘I can’t bear any more of their hate. You said they wouldn’t attack us in daylight, but remember those kids throwing clods
of earth at us.’

‘School’s in so we should be safe. But there’s a shop at a garage out on the ring road. We’ll get some stuff there.’

Armed with sandwiches and soft drinks, they drove back through the village and up to the top of a hill, where there was a bench overlooking a hay field.

The hay had been bundled up into great round bales. ‘How peaceful and rural it all is,’ said Toni, as a tractor made its way across the field, picking up each bale with a spear
mounted at the front and heading back to the barn.

‘They have to get the spear right in the middle of the bale,’ said Simon. ‘If it scrapes against the ground, it can foul the whole thing up. Have a salmon sandwich.’

‘Thanks. Here comes the tractor again.’

The tractor chugged back. The spear was thrust into the next bale. Simon stared. Something black, which yet glinted red in the sunlight, was oozing out from the bale. He vaulted the fence,
crying, ‘Stop! Stop!’

The tractor driver could not hear him above the noise of the engine but saw Simon shouting and yelling as he raced across the field.

He switched off the engine and asked truculently, ‘What’s up with ye?’

‘There’s blood coming out of that bale,’ gasped Simon.

‘So what? Probably a fox or rabbit or something.’

‘Don’t move that bale another inch. I’m calling the police.’

‘I’ve already phoned them,’ said Toni, joining him. ‘Call Agatha.’

A tall man in a blue open-necked shirt and jeans strode rapidly across the field. ‘Here’s the boss,’ said the tractor driver with gloomy relish. ‘You’re for it
now.’

‘I’m Gerald Fairfield, the farmer,’ said the man. ‘What’s up, Andy?’

‘This ’ere precious pair’s screaming there’s blood coming out of the bale.’

‘So it’s some animal or other,’ said Gerald impatiently.

Toni rapidly explained about the missing journalist.

Despite his shock, Simon noticed the farmer was quite handsome. His angry face softened as he looked at Toni as she blurted out the explanation about the missing reporter.

‘Well, young lady,’ he said. ‘We’ll wait until the police get here, but I think you’ll find you’ve just made great fools of yourselves.’

Bill Wong was the first to arrive, followed by two policemen. He studied the bale and then said, ‘We’ve got to wait for SOCO to arrive.’

‘You’re surely not taking this seriously,’ protested Gerald.

‘Very seriously,’ said Bill. ‘Here come the scene-of-crime operatives. I suggest we all back off before we’re accused of compromising what may be a murder
scene.’

They all retreated to the edge of the field as the white-coated figures advanced with their equipment. Simon found a pair of binoculars in his car and studied the scene. The wire around the bale
was cut and SOCO began their search.

Out of the hay finally tumbled a crumpled body.

Gerald and Andy were standing with Simon and Toni and the waiting police.

‘Didn’t you do that field the night before last, Andy?’ asked Gerald.

‘Yes, boss. You know that. All day yesterday as well and right on into the evening after dark, it was.’

Agatha arrived with Phil and Patrick. She handed Bill Ruby’s card. ‘You’d better send someone up to Hackney in London to fetch her to identify the body,’ she said.

‘There’s still mud down by the millpond lane with a lot of footprints in it,’ said Simon.

‘Right,’ said Wilkes. ‘We’ll get on to it.’ He turned to Agatha. ‘I want you to leave all this to us. We can’t have private detectives cluttering up the
scene.’

‘You wouldn’t be cluttering up the scene yourself,’ protested Agatha, ‘if my detectives hadn’t found the body.’

‘I want your two detectives to go back to headquarters with you, Mrs Raisin, and make statements.’

Bill whispered to Agatha, ‘Call on you later.’

Agatha and her staff, with the exception of Mrs Freedman, waited anxiously that evening in her cottage for Bill to arrive. Charles had joined them, saying he had ordered steak
pies to be delivered from the pub, therefore saving everyone from a selection of supermarket curries from Agatha’s freezer.

Bill arrived just as they were finishing their dinner. ‘It’s a right mess,’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s Dan Palmer and it’s worse even than you think. The preliminary
autopsy shows that he was possibly unconscious but alive when the baler scooped him up and stabbed him as a final insult. He was probably smothered to death.’

‘How’s Mrs Palmer taking it?’

‘Pretty easily. In fact, so easily that Wilkes got a check on her, but she was definitely back in Hackney after she left you. Also, she’s too small a woman to hit a man like Dan and
then somehow get his body up into the hay field. They estimate the hay was still uncut when the body was dumped but that it was placed just where the baler would be bound to pick it up. Andy swears
he saw nothing. We’ve got men going from door to door. We cannot find Palmer’s car.

‘There’s another thing, Simon. Are you really sure you saw footprints in the mud in Mill Lane?’

‘Yes.’

‘Something had flattened them over. Why did you think footprints in Mill Lane were particularly interesting?’

Simon looked at Agatha. ‘Oh, go on, tell him,’ said Agatha.

So Simon told of the attempt on his life and how he had lied to the vicar and told him he could not swim.

‘Now, listen to me carefully,’ said Bill. ‘We have set up a mobile unit again in the village and the place is swarming with detectives and police officers, not to mention the
press. I want you all to keep clear. We don’t want another dead body on our hands.

‘Even out of the village, in Mircester, I want you to be careful. You found the body, so the murderer might consider life safer with one of you out of the way, probably Simon. You’ve
got other cases, haven’t you? Get on with them.’

James Lacey sat in his hotel room in Singapore and watched the latest news from Odley Cruesis on BBC TV international news. Agatha was in the thick of it, as usual, he thought.
He missed her. He really had to admit that he missed her. But he dreaded the contempt in her bearlike eyes when she looked at him. He wondered if she would ever forgive him for having fallen for
that airhead he had so nearly married.

After they had all left, including Charles, Agatha made herself a cup of strong black coffee and lit a cigarette. She had recently given up smoking when other people were
around unless they were outside in the open air. She decided to sit up during the night and carefully read all the notes on the case of John Sunday from beginning to end. At last she struggled up
to bed with a nagging feeling she had just missed something important.

In the following two weeks, Agatha and her staff diligently went about their work, Agatha trying to put the murders of John Sunday and Dan Palmer out of her mind. The police
had drained the millpond in the hope of finding Dan’s car, but there was no sign of it, only the remains of Dan’s listening device.

‘I daren’t go back to that village,’ said Agatha to Mrs Bloxby one evening, ‘but I would like to get another look at all of them. I know!’

‘Know what?’ asked the vicar’s wife uneasily.

‘Well, the Ladies’ Society here is always hosting other villages and they host us. Why don’t we invite Odley Cruesis for . . . let me think . . . a special cream tea event in
the village hall here. Teas at two pounds a head, plus coaches to bring them over. Give the money to charity. Alzheimer’s could do with the money.’

‘Mrs Raisin! Think of the expense. We could not recoup enough to cover our own costs, let alone give anything to charity.’

‘I’ll pay for the lot. I will not let this murderer go free. Don’t worry. I’ll organize everything. Oh, and the village band to be hired to play jolly sounds.’

There was a ring at the doorbell. Mrs Bloxby went to answer it and returned with Charles. ‘Oh, Charles,’ said Agatha, ‘I’ve had a great idea.’

Charles sat down on the sofa next to her and listened to her plans. ‘You’d better hire a couple of portaloos as well,’ he said. ‘Think of all the wrinklies that’ll
turn up. Think of all the weak bladders and swollen prostates. As far as I remember, the hall has only the one toilet.’

‘I’ll fix it,’ said Agatha, her eyes gleaming.

‘Agatha,’ said Charles plaintively, ‘you haven’t told me why.’

‘I want to be able to sit there and
study
the lot of them.’

‘And you think your feminine intuition will kick in and you’ll stand up and shout “Eureka!” and point at someone. When a photo of a murderer appears in the newspapers, a
lot of people say things like, “Look at the eyes! Now, there’s a killer.” Whereas before they were trapped, they probably looked very ordinary.’

‘There must be something. Two weeks’ time. I’ll get the posters printed off tomorrow and send them over to the vicarage.’

‘What if no one comes?’ asked Charles. ‘I mean, I bet they know you live here and think there might be something fishy.’

‘For a cream tea at two pounds a head and free transport, they’ll come.’

‘Pity it’s tea and not liquor,’ said Charles. ‘Might loosen them all up a bit.’

‘There’s a point,’ said Agatha. ‘What’s that woman’s name, Mrs Bloxby? The one who sells sloe gin and elderberry wine at the markets?’

‘Mrs Trooly.’

‘Get me her number. Good idea of yours, Charles.’

‘Mrs Raisin,’ said Mrs Bloxby severely, ‘have you considered that an inebriated murderer might put you, for example, very much at risk?’

‘All the better,’ said Agatha cheerfully. ‘Flush ’em out! I think there’s more than one.’

Mrs Bloxby hoped it would rain on the great day, anything to stop this tea, which she considered at best a waste of money and at worst highly dangerous. But the sun shone down
and the coaches bringing the visitors were all full. Agatha had hired caterers. Mrs Trooly was moving amongst the tables, offering sloe gin and wine. The band was playing old favourites and there
was a general air of good will and jollity. Even Giles Timson smiled on Agatha. ‘How very kind of you. Just what our villagers needed to take their minds of the horrors of the
murders.’

Simon and Toni sat together at a table at the door. They had collected the money from the visitors and were now relaxing. ‘They do seem to be enjoying themselves,’ said Simon.
‘Even May Dinwoody was nice to me.’

‘Agatha believes in stirring things up,’ said Toni. ‘What are we to do with the money?’

‘Count it up,’ said Simon. ‘Then we give it to Mrs Freedman to put in the bank and she writes out a cheque to the Alzheimer’s Society.’

‘We’d better start,’ sighed Toni. ‘Some of them must have been raiding the piggy bank to pay their two pounds.’

‘Agatha thinks of everything. She’s left us piles of these little plastic bags from the bank, some for pennies, some for twenty-pence pieces and so on. Let’s see how quickly we
can do it and then we’ll go in there and sample the sloe gin, if there’s any left.’

Penelope Timson brought over a chair and squeezed next to Agatha. ‘This is such fun,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Agatha bleakly. No one looked edgy. No one looked frightened or ill at ease. ‘I’ll just see how the young people are getting on.’

She went to the door, where Toni and Simon were putting coins into bags. ‘Nearly finished,’ said Toni cheerfully.

‘I’m going outside for a smoke,’ said Agatha.

She sat down on a bench outside and lit up a cigarette. Must give these wretched things up, she thought for the umpteenth time. From inside she could hear the chatter of voices rising above the
noise of the band. Charles came out and joined her. He was wearing a deep-blue cotton shirt, open at the neck, and blue chinos and yet somehow looked as neat and composed as if he were in suit,
collar and tie.

‘Give me one of those.’

‘A cigarette, Charles? Bad for you.’

‘Too right. Hand one over.’

He lit it and settled back on the bench. ‘Hasn’t something struck you as funny?’

‘No. What?’

‘Look at it this way. We know they’re a sour lot and Carrie Brother, for example, is hardly the flavour of the month in that village, and yet they’re all wolfing down cream
teas, gulping back sloe gin, and going on like a love-in.’

Agatha sat up straight. ‘You mean, they’re all putting on an act?’

‘Looks like it to me.’

‘But why? I mean, they must think there’s a murderer amongst them.’

‘Maybe they have a good idea who it is.
They
feel safe. Look at it from their point of view. John Sunday was an interfering pest, Dan Palmer was just asking for it, Simon was a
cheat and a spy and so on. I should think every man jack of them has guessed why this sudden burst of generosity on your part and they’re playing up to the hilt.’

‘Well, thank goodness the proceeds are going to the Alzheimer’s Society,’ said Agatha gloomily. ‘I may need their help soon. Should I stir things up? Should I go in there
and say I know the identity of the murderer?’

‘And like Roy, the same thing could happen to you. Forget it. Enjoy the day.’

‘Got over Sharon?’ Simon asked Toni as they finally finished bagging up and recording all the money.

‘Not quite,’ said Toni. ‘I keep thinking I see her. I’ll see someone ahead of me in the street, some girl with multicoloured hair wearing a boob tube and torn jeans and I
want to run after her. I keep wondering if I could have done anything. I shouldn’t have let Agatha turn her out of my flat.’

‘And then you might have been dead as well. She’d have started inviting her biker friends back to the flat. Would you like to go to a movie with me tonight?’

‘Fine. Which one?’

‘I don’t know. I’d just thought of the idea.’

The day was finally over. Not one scone or bit of strawberry jam or bowl of whipped cream was left. Mrs Trooly had taken away the remainder of her drinks after handing Agatha a
bill. The men came to take away the portaloos and complained bitterly at the state of them. ‘Some of them just peed on the floor,’ complained one of the men. ‘Dirty old
hicks.’ He was a Birmingham man and considered the countryside outside the city to be peopled with inbred imbeciles.