‘Ah, yes . . .’ Guy beamed. ‘The great moment. If you will just pass me that envelope, Mayor. Who have we here?’ He grinned at the audience. ‘And the winner is . . .’ Long silence.
Someone shouted, ‘Oh, get on with it!’
Guy scowled. ‘The winner is . . . Mrs Agatha Raisin! Come on up, Mrs Raisin!’ he cried.
Cameras flashed as Agatha made her way to the little stage. Guy flung an arm around her shoulders. ‘What have you got to say? You must be overwhelmed.’
‘I have to say this,’ said Agatha, seizing the microphone. ‘I am sure you would all like to know how the judging is done. Listen to this.’ She held a tape recorder up to the microphone and switched it on. The whole room could clearly hear Guy suggesting she pay him and the other judges for the prize.
When the recording had finished, Guy began to back off the stage, and a chorus of jeers and catcalls rang in his ears. The newspaper reporters were furious because all this was too late for the morning editions and television would scoop the lot. But each reporter decided to do a really nasty piece on Guy for the day afterwards.
Agatha raised her hands for silence. ‘In view of this chicanery,’ she said, ‘I think the prize should be divided up amongst the three other nominees and that each of them should be given the title of Woman of the Year. Come along, girls.’
Guy fled. The three women who had spent the evening loathing Agatha all now joined her with beaming smiles.
Bill Wong, watching local television news before he went to work, stared at the screen in a mixture of anger and dismay. Didn’t Agatha know that it was important these days to keep a low profile? Guy Brandon was interviewed. He said it had all been a bit of a joke that Mrs Raisin had taken seriously. She had a reputation as being a pushy and ambitious woman, and he had just wondered how far she would go. The interviewer then demanded why he had gone ahead and elected her. He hummed and hawed and mumbled something and then fled the studio after unplugging his microphone.
Agatha found Bill waiting for her as she opened up her office. She had never seen the usually placid detective so angry.
‘How could you?’ he raged. ‘The minute you had that tape you should have come to us. This is not the time to have a high profile. You’re as bad as Roy. Grabbing publicity no matter what. You are a very silly woman.’
‘It was nothing to do with the case,’ howled Agatha defiantly. ‘Anyway, I’ll bet you’re no further forward in finding who murdered either Gary Beech or his ex-wife.’
‘We’re pursuing certain leads,’ said Bill.
‘Oh, yeah? Well, that means you’ve got zilch. I watch these real-life forensic programmes on TV and they always seem to find someone through a bit of hair or dust.’
‘If you were watching properly, you might have noticed that some of them take years to solve. Just be careful,’ he said in a quieter voice.
When he had left, Agatha sat down suddenly. The fear of whoever it was who had sent her that head two months ago had never gone away. She had a craving for sleep most days. She often thought during the day of the moment when she could get home and pull the duvet up round her ears. Death by duvet.
The fear ebbed as her temper rose. She must find out something, anything, to try to break the case. She could not go on living like this.
Agatha looked up as her staff filed in. They discussed jobs to be covered that day.
‘Aren’t we ever going to find out what happened to Beech?’ asked Toni.
‘No,’ said Agatha sharply. ‘We will drop that one. Leave it to the police.’
‘When did we ever leave anything to the police?’ said Patrick plaintively, but Agatha ignored him.
‘And what are you doing today?’ asked Phil after they all had their assignments.
‘I’ve got paperwork to do,’ said Agatha. ‘Off you go.’
She cast a quick suspicious glance at Toni as the girl left. Toni appeared to be carrying a golden glow around with her. I hope she’s not found another unsuitable older man, thought Agatha.
Toni’s job was to find a missing teenager. She had not told Agatha that she had found the girl the night before and had returned her to her parents. She needed the day free to meet Simon. They had arranged to meet in a teashop in Winter Parva, the one place Toni was sure Agatha would not visit. Simon had got in touch with her as soon as he had returned from Afghanistan on leave. He had told her his impending wedding had all been a mistake. Susie, his intended, had turned out to be bossy. He had phoned Toni the night before to arrange to meet her, where he said he would explain everything.
As Toni parked near the teashop, Winter Parva was not living up to its name. Great fluffy clouds sailed in the blue sky above, and the trees in the main street were ruffled by the lightest of breezes. The old village cottages and shops lining the main street appeared to crouch beside the road like very old villagers surveying the passing of time. In these days of chain shops, Winter Parva had retained its individuality. There were teashops, souvenir shops, an ironmonger, a baker, a fishmonger and a butcher – all the traditional fabric of a Cotswold village. There was a huge church at one end, built by rich merchants in the days when the wool trade was at its height. Its huge Gothic spire cast a long finger of shadow down the main street like the pointer on a giant sundial.
Toni’s heart rose as she saw Simon seated at a table in the bay window of the teashop. She recognized his thick hair and his jester’s face.
When she joined him, they began to talk at once about the perfidy of Agatha Raisin, until Toni said sadly, ‘You can hardly back out of the wedding now.’
He hung his head and mumbled, ‘It’s all got out of hand. The regiment’s on leave and they’re all going to be there. It’s going to be a big production. Toni, the mayor is going to attend. I’m trapped. It’s all Agatha’s fault.’
‘Hardly,’ said Toni. ‘She wasn’t in Afghanistan. She didn’t make you propose to Susie.’
‘No, but I was feeling flat, and Susie’s a good sort. She was very sympathetic, and one thing led to another.’
‘There’s still time to get out of it,’ urged Toni. ‘Think of the misery of a loveless marriage.’
‘Oh, Susie does love me. Oh, what is it?’
‘The waitress wants your order,’ said Toni.
They both ordered tea and scones. The shadow of the church spire moved across the window of the tearoom. Toni felt bleak. When Simon had phoned her, she was sure he was going to tell her the marriage was off.
‘So you are going ahead with it,’ she said in a small voice.
‘I have to—’ Simon broke off as tea and scones arrived.
Toni gave a little sigh. ‘It’s up to you. Why did you let it get so far?’
‘She’s pregnant.’
‘Oh, Simon!’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe being a dad will have a lot of compensations.’ He looked at her eagerly. ‘We can still see each other.’
‘No, we can’t,’ said Toni roundly. ‘I’ve got my own life to lead, and creeping around meeting a married man doesn’t come into it.’
There was a long, awkward silence. Then Simon said, ‘Tell me about this dead policeman case.’
Toni gave him a précis. ‘It sounds like a gang,’ she concluded. ‘Look at all the criminal gangs Britain let in after the European Union opened the borders: Bulgarians, Romanians and so on.’
‘But what is there for them in Mircester, of all places?’ said Simon. ‘It’s hardly a big city like Birmingham. For one thing, there’s nowhere really to hide out. And is this Tom Richards squeaky clean? Seems a bit of an odd fish wanting two women to have plastic surgery.’
‘It’s not as odd as you think. The divorce cases we handle are usually instigated by the women. The husband sees all these sexual fantasies on television and wants to try some of them out at home. The woman says no. Fights ensue. Divorce follows. I suppose wanting the wife to have plastic surgery is another part of the fantasy. Agatha’s told us not to go near anything to do with the murders.’