There Goes The Bride (5 page)

Boase was a tall man with a sagging grey face, grey hair and weak, watery eyes. Falcon was smaller and plump with black hair and surprising large blue eyes.

‘Now, Miss Gilmour,’ began Falcon, ‘what were your movements leading up to the wedding?’

Toni told him. Boase took out a cigarette and lit it and puffed a cloud of smoke up to fog the large no smoking sign on the wall.

‘Do you still have the note Mrs Raisin left you?’

‘I’m sure I have,’ said Toni.

‘We’ll get it from you later. Now, we have reason to believe that Mrs Raisin was not happy about this marriage, that she is still obsessive about her ex-husband.’

‘I don’t know of any reason to think that.’

‘Are you aware that Mrs Raisin followed Mr Lacey as far as the Ukraine and then Turkey?’

‘No, I was not,’ said Toni, taken aback. Agatha had merely told her that she had gone on holiday to Turkey, but nothing about having seen James anywhere. ‘I certainly knew she had gone to Turkey on holiday, to Istanbul. But she had been there before and is fond of the city.’

The questioning went on. How long had she worked for Agatha before setting up a detective agency of her own?

A tape recorder hummed on the desk. Toni began to feel really frightened for Agatha.

‘Who would you say is Mrs Raisin’s closest friend?’

‘We are all close friends,’ said Toni, ‘but I suppose you could say that Mrs Bloxby is the closest.’

‘We’ll have her in. Do not leave Hewes until we give you permission to do so.’

As Mrs Bloxby was told to go to the office, Toni sank down in a chair and said, ‘We’d better get out in the morning and see if we can find out where she bought that hat. Then we’ll try and trace her movements from there.’

‘Do they really want to waste time interviewing all of us?’ asked Charles.

‘Looks like it,’ said Toni. ‘I’m going to bed so I’ll be fresh enough in the morning to do some detective work. Let’s say we all meet for breakfast at eight o’clock – that’s us detectives – me, Harry, Patrick and Phil. What about you, Charles?’

Charles smiled lazily. ‘I’m not a detective.’

Toni thought that she had never been able to figure Sir Charles out. He was a beautifully tailored figure of a man with neat features and fair hair. He was as self-contained as a cat. He came and went in Agatha’s life as he pleased. Bill had told Toni that he thought Charles and Agatha had once had an affair but Toni had never been able to see any signs of it.

Bill tossed and turned that night. When he had phoned his headquarters again to say that he should be back in Mircester by Monday, Wilkes had demanded to know why he had been overheard saying Mrs Raisin had not been stalking her husband. Bill had described Agatha’s visit to the two battlefields and said it was because Agatha was competitive and wanted to impress her ex with her military knowledge. The fact that James Lacey had been there around the same time was sheer coincidence. Now, he felt he had been disloyal to Agatha.

He wanted to stay on but had been told firmly by Boase that his help was not needed. As Bill had left the Hewes police station, he had seen Patrick deep in conversation with the desk sergeant. He had been going to approach him and then decided to leave Patrick to it.

They all met in the dining room in the morning. Toni had a copy of the Yellow Pages and was marking off all shops likely to sell hats.

The dining room door opened and a familiar voice said, ‘Pour me a cup of black coffee, someone. I’m knackered.’

They all stared with a mixture of relief and amazement as none other than Agatha Raisin walked up to their table.

‘Where’s the hat?’ asked Roy and then gave a nervous giggle as Agatha’s bearlike eyes focused on him.

‘They’re holding it as evidence,’ said Agatha. ‘Coffee, please. I wish I could have a cigarette. Stupid nanny state.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Toni. ‘Did your lawyer get you out?’

‘No, my stupid hat got me out. I bought it in Delia’s Modes in the High Street. The salesgirl told me it was just like the one that the Duchess of Cornwall had worn for the French president’s visit to Windsor.’

‘It certainly looked like roadkill,’ sniggered Roy.

‘It looked all right in the shop,’ snapped Agatha. ‘Anyway, I still had time to go back to the pub and accompany Toni, but I wanted to be on my own to think. I got a cab out to Downboys and was going for a walk when I met James. We walked and talked. Then his best man came looking for him and they left for the church. I sat down on a bench. I wanted some more time to myself.

‘Villagers passed me. A few stopped, looked at my hat, and asked, “Aren’t you going to the church?” The police had been doing a door-to-door in the village after the murder. So they collected evidence that I was where I said I was and the taxi driver confirmed taking me to Downboys. Of course all this took a long time to come in and they were reluctant to release their prime suspect.’

A policeman appeared and said, ‘You all have to report to the police station to confirm your statements. You first, Mrs Raisin.’

‘Has my lawyer arrived?’

‘Yes, he is waiting for you.’

The day dragged on with interview after interview. At last, they found they were all free to leave. ‘I wish I could have a word with James before we leave,’ Agatha fretted.

‘Let it go,’ said Charles. ‘Just be glad you’re off the hook.’

Agatha and Toni went up to their room to pack. ‘I hate to quit like this,’ said Agatha. ‘Who on earth would want to kill Felicity?’

‘This is one we have to leave to the police.’

The phone rang. Agatha picked up the receiver. A voice strangled with tears said, ‘This is Olivia Bross-Tilkington.’

‘Look,’ said Agatha defensively, ‘I’m terribly sorry for your loss, but –’

‘I’m sorry for what I said in church,’ said Olivia. ‘I want to hire you to find out who killed my daughter. I’ve been checking up on you.’

‘I don’t have the resources of the Hewes police,’ said Agatha cautiously.

‘But you have found out things in the past that the police could not. Please, Mrs Raisin, come and stay as our guest.’

‘Is Mr Lacey there?’

‘He is leaving in the morning, which in the circumstances is the most unfeeling thing I have ever heard of.’

Agatha made up her mind. ‘I’ll be along in the morning.’

She put down the receiver and turned to Toni, her eyes gleaming. ‘That was Olivia Bross-Tilkington. She’s engaged me to find out who killed her daughter.’

‘Want me to stay with you?’

‘No, Charles will do. He’s helped me before. I’ll just phone him.’ But Charles was not in his room and a call to reception informed Agatha that he had already left.

‘I’ll stay,’ said Toni. ‘For a bit anyway. You’ll need an assistant. I’ll run along and tell Harry to man the fort until I’m back, and you’d better get hold of Patrick and get him to take over your business.’

As Agatha and Toni drove to Downboys the next day, the weather had broken and a miserable drizzle was oozing down from a grey sky.

‘I’m not much looking forward to staying with them,’ said Toni.

‘I was just thinking about that,’ said Agatha. ‘I might suggest we continue to stay at the pub and just turn up every day. We have to find out more about Felicity. Damn James. I hope he hasn’t left. Maybe he has some idea if she had any enemies.’

The large electronic gates to the Bross-Tilkingtons’ house were closed. Agatha groaned when she saw the press gathered outside.

‘Reverse fast,’ she ordered Toni.

When they were once more outside the village, Agatha phoned Olivia Bross-Tilkington and asked if there was a back way into the property. Then she turned the phone over to Toni, who scribbled down instructions.

By approaching the village from a different angle, they found themselves outside a small lodge house where a man was waiting by the gates. He studied their car and then opened the gates.

‘Odd, very odd,’ said Agatha as the car bumped up a narrow road leading to the back of the house. ‘Why all this security?’

‘Yeah,’ said Toni. ‘I wonder if they were afraid of something even before the murder.’

G
EORGE BROSS–TILKINGTON WAS
waiting for them when they arrived. He was a thickset man with a pugnacious tanned face under a thatch of grey hair.

‘I don’t want you here!’ he said.

‘But your wife –’ began Agatha.

‘I don’t care what my wife says. Shove off!’

Olivia appeared behind him. ‘I invited Mrs Raisin,’ she said. ‘I told you. She has the reputation of being a good detective
and I want to know who killed our daughter!
’

‘The police –’

‘I am not waiting for the local plods. Besides, Sylvan agrees with me.’

‘He what?’

‘Talking about me?’ Sylvan strolled into the hall. Agatha’s heart beat a little faster. Then she remembered the humiliation of that phone call to Paris.

‘I encouraged Olivia to call in the services of Agatha,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ mocked Sylvan. ‘One would think you did not want the identity of the murderer to be discovered.’

‘Oh, do what you like,’ said George and stomped off.

‘I’m so sorry about that,’ said Olivia. ‘Poor George is grieving and so he covers it up by getting angry.’ Her eyes were puffy with weeping. ‘First, I’ll show you to your room. I was only expecting you, Mrs Raisin.’

‘Call me Agatha. This is another detective, Toni Gilmour, who is going to assist me. But I think it would be better if we both continued to stay in Hewes. That way we can take a more objective view of things.’

‘Very well. Let’s go into the lounge and discuss the matter.’

Toni looked around the drawing room, or lounge, as Olivia had called it. It certainly looked more like a hotel lounge than a room in a private house. There were little islands made up of polished tables and tapestry-upholstered chairs embellished with gilt paint on the woodwork. There was no fire burning on the hearth. Instead the grate was decorated with orange crinkled paper. On a table by the french windows stood a large vase of silk flowers. A polished yacht wheel emblazoned with the name
CYNTHIA
in gold letters hung over the fireplace. In one corner was a padded leather bar with glass shelves behind it full of all those odd bottles of drink that people usually collect on package holidays, and the shelves were illuminated with pink strip lighting.

Sylvan, Agatha, Toni and Olivia sat down round one of the tables. Toni took out her notebook.

‘Why is there a ship’s wheel over the fireplace?’ asked Toni.

‘That was my husband’s first boat. Cynthia was his first wife.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘She died of cancer.’

Agatha was painfully aware of Sylvan Dubois. He was every bit as attractive as she remembered, with his thick fair hair going slightly grey, his hooded eyes and his slim figure.

‘Now, about your daughter,’ said Agatha. ‘Did she have any enemies you can think of?’

‘Everybody adored her.’

‘Had she been married?’

‘No.’

‘But she was very beautiful,’ said Toni. ‘Surely she must have had a lot of offers.’

‘Of course.’

‘So was there a rejected man who might have wanted to kill her?’ asked Agatha.

‘It was the other way round,’ said Sylvan, his French accent light and mocking.

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Toni.

‘She was what you call a dumpee.’

‘And what does that expression mean exactly?’ demanded Agatha.

‘It means she was engaged two times and two times the fellow called the engagement off.’

‘Sylvan,’ said Olivia, beginning to cry, ‘if you were not a friend of my husband’s I would ask you to leave.’

‘How did you come to be a friend of James Lacey?’ asked Agatha.

‘I spilt some beer over him in a brasserie by accident. I apologized and we got talking. I gave him my card and said if he was ever in Paris again to look me up and I would buy him dinner. He did. I told him I was going to a friend’s party and took him along. That was where he met Felicity.’

Olivia dried her eyes. ‘It was love at first sight,’ she said.

‘How do you know the Bross-Tilkingtons?’ asked Toni.

‘I was on holiday in Cannes. I met them there – oh – ten years ago and we’ve been friends ever since.’

‘What does Mr Bross-Tilkington do for a living?’ pursued Toni.

‘George is retired,’ said Olivia. ‘He dealt in real estate. Foreign properties, mostly.’

‘In Spain?’ asked Agatha.

‘Yes, Spain and other countries.’

‘A lot of angry people have lost their homes in Spain. They’ve found out that the properties their flats were in had been built on agricultural land and after they had invested their life savings, the local Spanish council came along and bulldozed the buildings. A lot of them claim they had been tricked. The estate agents would say, “Don’t worry about a solicitor. We’ll supply one.” And so they never found out about the danger until it was too late.’