Dishing the Dirt Read online

  By the time Agatha got to Arras, she was feeling tired and grumpy but was mothered by an efficient French steward into her little cabin on the Orient Express. She settled for the late dinner at ten in the evening and began to unpack a few things, including a black velvet dress for dinner because formal dress was mandatory. It was a beautiful train, all shining wood and inlaid marquetry. The lavatory was at the end of the corridor, a large room and the toilet had an old-fashioned pump.

  When she reached the dining room that evening, she wished she had gone for an earlier meal because the liquored-up pseuds were out in force, talking in loud baying voices, trying to outposh each other. But the food, even to Agatha’s not very sophisticated palate, seemed to be the best she had ever tasted. For the first time, she began to relax and hard on the heels of that relaxation came the guilty feeling that she had been rude to her helpful friends and had not thanked Charles enough.

  In her compartment was a little pile of free postcards with an instruction just to hand them to the steward for posting. Before she went to bed, Agatha wrote to Charles, Mrs. Bloxby and her detectives, thanking them all for their concern and saying she missed them.

  * * *

  In the morning, she raised the blind. Outside was a panorama of the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva, benign in the sun. Agatha’s heart rose and with it her hopes. Perhaps in Venice she might meet some handsome man. She settled down to enjoy the rest of the journey.

  At Venice, an Orient Express helper led them off the train and there was a long wait while all the luggage and passengers going to all the different hotels were sorted. It was warm for late September. Then she was led to a launch to take her to her hotel on the Grand Canal, and the whole magnificent glory that is Venice burst before her eyes.

  The launch cruised up the canal, past the old palaces, past the gondolas, past boats loaded with paparazzi because of George Clooney’s wedding to Amal Alamuddin, and stopped at the hotel landing stage. Charles had booked a room with a balcony overlooking the canal in the hope that Agatha would have a place to smoke, but the window only opened a few inches.

  She had heard the Piazza San Marco was near the hotel, so after she had unpacked and put on a summer dress, she walked out of the back of the hotel, through several alleys, over a bridge, through a shopping area and arrived at the square. She found a table at Florian’s in the sun, ordered a gin and tonic and felt as if she were coming alive again. She wished Charles had come with her. They had been on holiday together before. But she was only in Venice for four days—Charles’s generosity having limits—before getting the train back. The orchestra was playing old-fashioned favourites like “La Paloma,” the tourists came and went and Agatha could feel every tensed up muscle in her body beginning to ease.

  She returned slowly to her room, suddenly tired, and went to bed, plunging down into a deep healing sleep.

  * * *

  Charles was trying to settle down in his study to read a detective story, but he was distracted by Gustav who, overcome with gratitude by his present of a motorbike, had decided to take on extra work, which meant clearing the bookcase and dusting the books.

  “Oh, leave it alone!” complained Charles. “I want some peace. Sod off on your damned bike somewhere.”

  Gustav sulkily jammed the books back on the shelves, and as he did so, a small, shiny square black object fell onto the floor. “This yours, sir?” he asked, handing it to Charles.

  Charles stared at it in horror. “It’s a tape recorder. Who put it there?”

  “Blessed if I know,” said Gustav.

  “But who could get into the house?”

  “Don’t let anyone. Oh, except at the fete. Some old lady wanted the loo.”

  Shocked to the core, Charles told Gustav to phone the police and set off for Gatwick airport.

  * * *

  On the last day of her visit, Agatha felt tired, “touristed-out” as she thought of it, having diligently visited all the sites up and down the canal. She had found that smoking was allowed in an open-air bar on a platform overlooking the canal.

  It was late in the evening. The only other customer was a man in a panama hat, sitting by the rail of the bar. He turned and nodded to Agatha and smiled. Agatha, still on the alert, as if by some chance Anthony had followed her to Venice, stiffened and then relaxed and smiled back. He had a white beard, neatly trimmed and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a white linen suit over a striped shirt and silk tie and his build was medium, without the stockiness and burliness of Anthony.

  The water flowed by. A late gondolier with a cargo of four tourists sailed past. Because of the strong current, the gondolas moved fast down the canal and then had to labour back up. Agatha had expected the canal to smell, but the only odour was from the cigar that the man in the panama hat had just lit. He rose and went to the rail at the edge of the canal. “Well, I’m blessed!” he exclaimed. “Look at that!”

  Agatha joined him at the rail. “What? Where?”

  “It must be my eyesight,” he said ruefully. “I’ll swear I saw some fool swimming in the canal.”

  Agatha shrugged and sat back down and sipped her brandy. She began to feel a lethargy creeping over her body and decided it was time to go to bed. That was when she found she could not move. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

  The man in the panama hat came down and sat next to her.

  “It’s a wonder what plastic surgery, contact lenses, a beard and a strict diet can do,” he said. The only part of Agatha still working was her brain. What had happened to her famous intuition? This was Anthony Tweedy and he was going to kill her.

  “I put a drug in your drink,” he said. “It paralyses you. I want to see you suffer before I shove an overdose of heroin into you, you interfering horrible woman. Yes. I went to see Jill Davent. She seemed so easy to talk to and I wanted to tell my secret to just one person. She tried to blackmail me! Me! It was a real pleasure to get that neck of hers and wind a scarf round it and pull it till she choked to death.

  “You bothered me, although I felt sure that all the stories about your detective abilities had been wildly exaggerated. I knew who Tremund was because before I killed Jill, I watched to see who called on her and found out who they were. He met me down by the canal because I said I had the dirt on Jill, so goodbye to him. And goodbye to Bannister, Herythe and Dell. Getting bored? I’ll put an end to you soon. Oh, what is it?”

  “Anything more to drink?” asked the waiter.

  Agatha tried to signal something to him but even her eyeballs seemed frozen.

  “No, we’re fine.” Anthony put his hand over Agatha’s.

  The waiter left them and went to tell the other staff that the nice Englishwoman had found romance. Agatha was considered nice because she tipped generously.

  Anthony stifled a yawn. “I’m tired. Let’s make an end of it before I bugger off to South America and forget you ever existed.”

  He took a syringe out of his pocket. God, thought Agatha, get me out of this and I’ll give up smoking.

  Anthony pulled Agatha’s limp arm towards him. “Nice bare arms. Makes it easy.”

  At that moment, Charles, standing at the entrance to the bar, seized a champagne bottle from the drinks trolley and threw it with all the skill he had learnt playing village cricket with deadly accuracy. It struck Anthony on the head and he collapsed like a stone.

  Horrified staff clustered in the doorway. “Ambulance!” yelled Charles. “Police!”

  He gathered Agatha in his arms. “What has he done to you? Can’t you speak? Is that Anthony with a face change?”

  He waited in agony until a police launch roared up to the landing stage, closely followed by the ambulance launch. Charles insisted on going to the hospital with Agatha and said he would make his statement there, but he was sure the man he had struck down was the murderer, Anthony Tweedy, wanted by Interpol.

  Charles was relieved to find out at the hospital that Agatha had a strong pulse. The doctors s
aid they would not know exactly what drug had been given her until they did tests. But he was puzzled when the police told him they had not been alerted to any danger to Agatha. Surely, before he had rushed to the airport, he had told Gustav to phone the police.

  Anthony Tweedy had suffered a severe concussion but was going to live. He had been travelling under a fake passport, but his real passport had been found amongst his luggage, although the police were waiting for the results of DNA tests to make absolutely sure of his identity.

  Anthony recovered consciousness but continued to fake being unconscious. He waited until a nurse came to give him a sponge bath and a policeman unlocked the padded chain that held him to the bed. Through half-closed eyes he saw that the policeman had retreated to his post outside the door. Then he was in luck. Another nurse popped her head round the door and shouted that George Clooney and his wife were coming down the canal in a launch.

  The nurse fled. Anthony eased himself up. There was a trolley of drugs over by the wall. With a superhuman effort, he made it out of bed. On the trolley, he found a syringe and bottles of morphine. He injected himself with an overdose and slowly collapsed onto the floor and died as the cheers from the crowds outside, watching George Clooney’s launch, sounded in his ears.

  * * *

  Agatha was interviewed over the next few days by Wilkes and Bill Wong, who had flown out, and several hard-faced men from Interpol, along with Italian detectives, going over everything again and again until she felt she could scream. The paralysing drug that had been injected into her had such a long and complicated name, she could never remember it. She welcomed the news of Tweedy’s death with relief. Agatha felt that, if he had lived, she would never have been free of the fear of him because she was sure he would have found some way to escape.

  At last she was able to leave the hospital. She emerged into a strangely empty Venice compared to the last time she had seen the Grand Canal. George Clooney had left, taking with him all the world’s press and all the tourists who had come to watch the show.

  Charles had suggested one more night at the hotel, having cheerfully moved into Agatha’s room because it had twin beds and he felt he had spent enough money on her. Using her insurance, he had cancelled her journey on the train back and booked flights home for them instead.

  While Agatha and Charles sat in the bar on the last evening, Charles looked at her serene face and for once did not regret a penny he had spent on her. The old Agatha was back. Later, he thought of joining her in her bed, but resisted, feeling that a grateful Agatha might let him, and he didn’t want that, although he wondered why he was suddenly developing a conscience. Agatha had asked him why he had not called the police before leaving for the airport. Charles had told her that he had asked Gustav to phone. “Better sack him,” said Agatha. “He obviously didn’t phone and could have got me murdered.”

  * * *

  Back home in Carsely, Agatha felt rejuvenated and that nothing could ever upset her again. That was until Mrs. Bloxby called on her after the Sunday service to see how she was getting on and hear all about her adventures. Agatha dutifully recounted everything that had happened, but felt she had told her tale to the police so many times that her own voice sounded in her ears as if it were coming from an echo chamber.

  “I still would have liked to get Gwen Simple for something,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Bloxby reluctantly, “you did miss the wedding.”

  “What wedding?”

  “Mrs. Simple and Mark Dretter were married in Carsely church. They are honeymooning in Dubai.”

  “So all he was doing was cosying up to me to report back to that conniving bitch!”

  “Mrs. Raisin!”

  “Well,” said Agatha huffily, “he was.”

  * * *

  After the vicar’s wife had left, Agatha sat and fretted. Gwen had not only got off scot-free, she had nailed the prize of a husband. There must be something on her. What about Jenny Harcourt’s desk at Sunnydale? Could there be something else in there?

  Motivated by jealousy, Agatha set out for Sunnydale. Once more, she introduced herself as Jenny’s cousin. “Mrs. Harcourt is at lunch,” said a nurse. “If you would care to wait?”

  “If I could please wait in her room?”

  “Very well.”

  “It’s all right,” said Agatha. “I know where it is.”

  She ran lightly up the stairs in a new pair of flat shoes. She had not promised God not to wear high heels again although she had promised to give up smoking and so far had superstitiously kept to that promise.

  Agatha opened the secret drawer in the desk. There was a magpie assortment of things from lipsticks to cheap jewellery. She was about to give up when she saw a square envelope stuck against the front flap of the drawer. She pulled it out and opened it. It was a CD. She thrust it into her handbag, just as a nurse ushered Jenny into the room.

  “There you are again, dear!” cried Jenny.

  “I brought you something,” said Agatha, handing over a box of chocolates.

  “How kind. Jenny adores chocolates. And Belgian, too!”

  Her eyes fastened greedily on Agatha’s handbag. Agatha immediately zipped it up. She was anxious to escape. “I’m sorry I’ve got to rush, Jenny, but I didn’t know you would be at lunch and I’ve got another appointment.”

  “No matter, dear. Bargain Hunt is about to come on the telly. Run along.”

  * * *

  Once back in her car, Agatha was overwhelmed by a craving for a cigarette. “Sorry God,” she muttered. Before driving off, she searched in the pocket of her linen skirt for her cigarette packet, which she carried around just in case she weakened. She looked back up at the building. Where she guessed Jenny’s room was, the window was open and a thin trail of blue smoke was wafting out into the air.

  * * *

  Back in her cottage, Agatha put the CD in the player and then crouched forward in excitement. It was a recording of Jill’s therapy sessions. There was Victoria confessing to drowning the dog, Doris complaining about her shoulders, Anthony Tweedy, not exactly confessing, but giving a long diatribe about how he had hated his “brother” and his fears that the fire might prove not to be accidental. Agatha only half listened to the next few sessions and then stiffened as Gwen Simple’s voice began to sound. In increasing disappointment, she heard Gwen complaining about her son and wondering how on earth he could have done something so horrible without her knowledge. Nothing incriminating at all.

  “I can’t even give it to the police,” Agatha said to her cats. “I can’t have some of these poor people’s sad little secrets exposed.”

  Although the Indian summer still seemed to stretch on forever, Doris Simpson had set a fire in the living room. Agatha lit it, waiting until there was a blaze and threw the disk onto it.

  * * *

  That evening, she put a cottage pie in the microwave, and then, when it was ready, picked at it, before giving up and throwing the remains on the smouldering fire.

  Again, she was assailed by a terrible craving for nicotine. She hurried up to the pub. A damp breeze had sprung up. The evening sky was covered in thick black clouds. Far away came rumbles of thunder as if giants in the heavens were moving furniture.

  She hurried up to the pub where she bought a packet of cigarettes, a glass of wine and a ham sandwich and walked through the pub towards the garden, getting rather sour nods by way of greeting. The villagers were beginning to think that Agatha Raisin’s dangerous presence in the village was affecting house prices.

  Agatha ate her sandwich and then opened the packet of cigarettes, extracted one, lit it and gratefully inhaled. There was a great flash of forked lightning, which stabbed down, missing her by inches.

  She threw her cigarette away and fled back through the pub and down to her cottage through a burst of torrential rain.

  “Coincidence,” she muttered savagely, as she changed into dry clothes.

  * * *

  At the sa
me time, Mrs. Bloxby heard the doorbell ring. “If it’s that Raisin woman again, tell her to get knotted,” shouted the vicar.

  Mrs. Bloxby opened the door. A tall man stood on the doorstep, his face shaded by a large umbrella. “I’m new to the village,” he said. “My name is Gerald Devere.”

  “Come in out of the rain,” urged the vicar’s wife. “Welcome to Carsely. Leave your coat on the stand there and let me have your umbrella. Come near the fire. Such a nasty evening. Sherry?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Mrs. Bloxby returned, carrying a tray with the sherry decanter and two glasses. She paused for a moment in the doorway and studied her visitor. He had an interesting mobile face with a thin nose, fine grey eyes, and odd black brows that slanted upwards under a thick head of black hair with only a few threads of grey. He looked athletic, his slim body clothed in a well-tailored charcoal grey suit.

  When the drinks were poured, Gerald leaned back in his chair with a sigh of satisfaction. “This is nice.”

  “Which cottage have you taken?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.

  “Poor Mr. Dell’s.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No, I bought it from his niece. I’ve lived in London all my life and thought I would like to bury myself in the country. I’m retired.”

  “You look too young to retire,” commented Mrs. Bloxby, guessing he must be in his middle fifties.

  “I was a detective with the Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard. I came into a good inheritance. I’d become weary of crime. I may have chosen the wrong village.”

  “Oh, we’re all quiet and peaceful now.” Here’s someone for Mrs. Raisin, she thought. Gerald had an attractive, husky voice.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “I should think you must have such a hardworking life.”

  Mrs. Bloxby blinked in amazement. Apart from Agatha, no one else ever seemed interested in her days.

  “It’s all the usual stuff,” she said.

  He grinned. “I know, therapist, mother’s help, fetes, disputes, and all exhausting and no thanks. Should I say hullo to your husband?”