Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham (17 page)

At last Agatha had her hair shampooed and was led through to Marie.

‘Now, how do you like it?’ asked Marie, raising the hair-drier.

‘Sort of smooth. I wear it in a smooth bob.’

‘Right. You’ll find that tinge of auburn works great.’

She worked busily. The hairdresser’s was thinning out. Apart from Agatha, there was only one other customer left.

Finally Agatha looked with delight at her gleaming hair. ‘Oh, that’s very good,’ she said with relief.

‘Your hair’s in very good condition,’ said Marie, sitting down beside her. ‘Are you from Evesham?’

‘No, Carsely.’

‘Raisin! That’s it! I knew I’d heard that name. Oh, dear, your husband was murdered.’

‘Yes, but I’m over that now.’

‘And you were there when John Shawpart died?’

‘It was awful.’

‘It must have been.’

‘You don’t expect murder and mayhem at a hairdresser’s,’ said Agatha.

Marie laughed. ‘I don’t know about that. There’s times I could have committed murder myself.’

‘Awkward customers?’

‘No, other hairdressers. It’s a bit like the theatre. Lots of rivalries and jealousies. I had most of my staff poached by a rival last year, and just before Christmas. I was so down,
I didn’t feel like going on. But I’ve got a great team now.’

‘I see that,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll make another appointment.’

She paid and left, scurrying to the sanctuary of her car in case the wind messed any of the glory of her auburn hair.

‘That’s better,’ said Roy when she arrived home. ‘I put your cats in the garden. Have you fed them?’

‘Yes. Any phone calls?’

‘That aristo friend of yours.’

‘Charles?’

‘Yes, him.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Didn’t say. Why not call him?’

‘Later,’ mumbled Agatha.

‘So, do we go detecting?’

‘Maybe, if you’re fit, I’ll drive to Portsmouth tomorrow. I spent so long at the hairdresser’s, there’s not much of the day left. I’ll have a bath and change,
have a drink and watch some television and then we’ll be off. What time did you book the table for?’

‘Eight o’clock.’

Agatha forced herself to make up and dress with care, just as if she were about to go out with a glamorous man and not Roy, whom she had first employed as an office boy all those years ago. He
was a good public relations officer, particularly with pop groups, who hailed him as one of their own kind.

When she went downstairs, Roy was lounging in front of the television set. ‘Aren’t you going to change?’ demanded Agatha.

‘Nobody dresses up to go out for dinner these days,’ said Roy, flicking aimlessly through the channels with the remote control.

‘I do. So you do. Hop to it!’

Grumbling, Roy went upstairs to change.

The restaurant in Stratford-upon-Avon was crowded. They were given a corner table which commanded a good view of the rest of the customers.

And then Agatha saw Charles. He was sitting with a blonde who had one of those rich-monkey-Chelsea faces. He was telling jokes and laughing uproariously. Agatha noticed with a certain sour
pleasure that the girl looked bored.

Roy, on an expense account or had Agatha been paying, would have ordered all the most expensive things on the menu, but as it was, he said he wasn’t feeling very hungry and would skip a
starter and watched moodily as Agatha ate her way through quail and salad before going on to Steak Béarnaise while he himself had pasta as a main course. He ordered the house wine, saying
with a false laugh, ‘I don’t see any point in ordering anything else. I find the house wine is usually just as good.’

Oh, James, thought Agatha, you were never mean. I feel at this moment, if you walked in the door of this restaurant, I would forgive you anything.

A young man approached Charles’s table and hailed his companion. She introduced the newcomer to Charles and asked Charles something. Charles gave a grumpy nod. A waiter was called, another
chair brought and the newcomer joined Charles and his lady. She proceeded to sparkle at the newcomer and give him all her attention while Charles, after a few jocular remarks to which neither paid
any attention, relapsed into a moody silence.

‘Revenge is mine,’ said Agatha.

Roy looked at her, puzzled. ‘What?’

‘Nothing. Yes, I think we’ll go to Portsmouth tomorrow.’

Agatha sat uneasily on the passenger side of her car as Roy hurtled down the motorways towards Portsmouth the following day. She had wanted to leave her cats in the cottage for
the day, but Roy had pointed out that the murderer might come looking for her and destroy her cats in revenge, so Hodge and Boswell had been put in their cat boxes and taken round to the cleaner,
Doris Simpson’s, for security.

Agatha realized that all her hurt over Charles had dulled the fact that she might be at risk.

‘Portsmouth’s a big place,’ said Roy, ‘and there must be an awful lot of hairdressers.’

‘We can only ask around a few places,’ said Agatha. ‘Oh, rats!’

‘Rats what?’

‘I forgot to switch on the burglar alarm. I’m always doing that.’

‘Want to go back?’

‘Not now. We’ve already gone miles. Just need to hope everything will be safe.’

‘You know, I think it will be,’ said Roy, ‘now that I’ve had time to think about it.’

‘How come?’

‘Well, how’s our murderer supposed to know you’re ferreting around?’

‘Easy,’ said Agatha. ‘I think it’s one of the ones who were being blackmailed, or someone like Mrs Friendly’s husband or Maggie Henderson’s husband. Why did
you really come to visit me, Roy?’

‘Told you. Had a few days off and wanted to see you.’

‘It’s just when you’ve turned up before it’s mostly been because your boss wants me to do some freelance work.’

‘Why do you always pin the worst motives on people?’ said Roy crossly. ‘Or is the idea of friendship so foreign to your twisted mind?’

‘Sorry,’ mumbled Agatha. ‘Couldn’t help wondering.’

‘Well, here comes Portsmouth. Park in the centre?’

‘Yes, John would have had somewhere right in the centre.’

After several frustrating waits in traffic jams, Roy managed to find a place in a multi-storey car park near Queen Street.

‘Now what?’ he asked as they walked out into the morning bustle of shoppers.

‘Find a library or post office, find a business phone directory and start off at the nearest hair-dressing salon.’

They hit gold at the first salon, called A Cut Above. The proprietress had known John Shaw-part. Her name was Mary Mulligan. ‘He had a place round the back of Queen
Street,’ she said. ‘Called Mr John. He and his wife ran it a few years ago. Then the place caught fire. It was arson. The gossip was that they had done it themselves, but John got the
money from the insurance. The business was in his name. After that, Elaine Shawpart set up on her own, but she didn’t do very well. He did all right after he’d had the place redone.
Then he sold up and disappeared and his wife – they’d got a divorce by this time – she sold up and went off as well.’

‘Do you happen to know where he lived?’

‘Don’t know. Wait a bit. I’ve got some old phone books in the back. Never throw them away. Might be in one of those.’

They waited while she went to look. Driers hummed and the air was full of the bad-egg smell of perms. Beyond the plate-glass windows, people went to and fro. Perhaps one of them had been
blackmailed by John, perhaps one of them followed him to Evesham.

‘You’re lucky,’ said Mary, bustling back. ‘Here we are. Shawpart. Blacksmith’s End. Number two. Blacksmith’s End is one of those private builder’s
projects out on the west of the town.’

She gave them directions.

‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ said Roy, retrieving the car.

Blacksmith’s End turned out to be a quiet cul-de-sac of stone-built houses, very quiet and suburban with manicured lawns at the front and lace curtains at the windows.

They walked up the neat path of number 2 and rang the doorbell, which emitted Big Ben chimes.

A little woman as neat as the house – neat permed hair, neat little features, trim pencil skirt and tailored blouse – answered the door.

‘I never buy from door-to-door salesmen,’ she said.

‘We’re simply asking questions about John Shawpart.’

‘But I’ve told the police everything!’

Agatha felt like the amateur she was. Of course the police would have been checking into his background.

‘I was the person who found him when he was dying,’ said Agatha.

‘Come in. I’m Mrs Laver.’

‘Agatha Raisin and Roy Silver,’ said Agatha as they followed her into a sparklingly clean living-room: three piece suite in Donegal tweed, glass coffee-table, stereo, television; pot
plants everywhere, green and lush.

‘It must have been dreadful for you, seeing him dying like that,’ said Mrs Laver. ‘But really, I don’t know anything other than we bought the house from him.’

‘Did he live here with his wife?’

‘No, I gather he moved here after they split up.’

Agatha looked around at the plants as if for inspiration. ‘Did anyone come calling, looking for him, after you moved in here?’

‘A couple of women – not together – at separate times. They seemed quite distressed.’

‘Did you get their names?’

‘No, when I said he had gone, they asked where to, but he didn’t leave a forwarding address.’

‘That’s odd,’ said Roy. ‘What did you do with the mail?’

‘Just marked it “Not Known at This Address” and gave it back to the postman.’

Agatha noticed a faint flush rising up on Mrs Laver’s face and the way her hands twisted together nervously in her lap.

‘It must have been a bit of a chore,’ said Agatha, ‘remembering to return all that mail to the postman. I had that to do when I first moved into my cottage. I got so fed up I
forgot to return a couple of letters, and after two months, I regret to say I just threw them on the fire. Did you do that?’ she demanded sharply.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that. That’s criminal!’ cried Mrs Laver. ‘But . . .’

‘But what?’ demanded Agatha eagerly. ‘You’ve still got one, haven’t you?’

She flushed again. ‘It arrived some time after he’d gone from Portsmouth. My husband was away on business and I had the flu, so I put it in the kitchen drawer and thought I’d
give it to the postman when I felt better. But then I forgot about it and I was too ashamed to hand it over after all this time.’

Agatha felt her heart beating hard with excitement. ‘If you give it to us,’ she said, ‘we’ll give it to the Worcester police. You don’t need to worry. We’ll
just say it got stuck under the doormat.’

‘Oh, you couldn’t say that,’ said Mrs Laver. ‘People would think I didn’t clean under the doormat in my own home.’

Agatha looked at her impatiently.

‘Then we’ll say it came through the letter-box and slipped under a crack in the skirting in the hall.’

‘But I don’t have crack in the skirting. This is a very sound house!’

Agatha felt like tearing her hair in frustration.

She forced herself to say gently, ‘Then I’ll just tell them the truth. You were ill. You put it in the kitchen drawer and only remembered it when we called.’

‘I won’t get into trouble?’

‘Not at all. I am very friendly with the police and have helped them on many cases.’

‘Oh, well, I s’pose . . .’

She got up and went through to the kitchen.

Agatha looked at Roy and rolled her eyes. What if the silly woman changed her mind?

But Mrs Laver came back and handed Agatha a thick brown envelope. Agatha tried not to snatch it.

She stood up. ‘We’ll be on our way.’

‘Aren’t you going to see what’s in it?’ asked Mrs Laver.

‘No, we’ll leave that job to the police. Come along, Roy.’

They made their escape. As they were getting into the car, Mrs Laver called after them, ‘I’d better take a note of your name and address. You’re Mrs Anderson, didn’t you
say?’

‘Drive off!’ hissed Agatha to Roy. ‘Let the silly woman think I’m Mrs Anderson in case she calls the police.’

Roy accelerated off.

‘Now when we’re clear of this place, stop somewhere,’ ordered Agatha, ‘and let’s have a look at what we’ve got.’

Roy drove for several streets and then pulled into the side of the road.

Agatha took out the envelope, which she had stuffed in her handbag. She was about to open it when Roy grabbed her hand.

‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘You’ll get us into trouble. This is police evidence.’

‘I found it, they didn’t,’ growled Agatha. ‘Get off, Roy. I’ll take the responsibility.’

She opened the envelope. It was crammed with fifty-pound notes. ‘Must be blackmail money,’ she said. ‘There’s a letter.’

She pulled out one sheet of paper and opened it. She read, ‘This is all I can afford. I think you’re a wicked, evil man. After all we were to each other, I can’t believe you
would do this to me. Harriet.’ Agatha counted out the money. ‘There’s five thousand pounds here!’

‘Is there an address?’ asked Roy.

‘Yes, 14A, Hanson Street, Portsmouth.’

‘I’d better stop at a stationer’s and get a street map.’

When they had found a map, Hanson Street turned out to be a small street running off London Road in the centre of the town.

‘Back to that car park,’ grumbled Roy, ‘and let’s hope there’s a space left.’

They had to wait a frustrating half an hour for a car to drive out and leave them a space. They walked to Hanson Street. Fourteen A turned out to be the basement of a shop.

‘Doesn’t look very prosperous,’ said Agatha as they walked down the steps.

Roy rang the bell. A tired-looking middle-aged woman answered the door.

‘Harriet?’ asked Agatha.

‘Yes, who are you?’

‘We’ve brought you this.’ Agatha handed her the envelope full of money.

Harriet turned a muddy colour.

‘Are you the police?’

‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘Just a couple of people trying to make sure that blackmailing bastard doesn’t continue to ruin people from beyond the grave. Can we come
in?’