Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell (25 page)

He parked outside the main door of the monastery. There was one of those old bell-pulls at the side. Charles gave it a tug.

‘Charles,’ said Agatha urgently, ‘maybe it’s not such a good idea, you being with me. I mean, if James is here, it might upset him.’

‘If James is here, I’ll make myself scarce.’

A panel in the door opened and a monk looked out at them through the grille.

In French, Charles asked if they had a Mr James Lacey in the monastery.

‘I do not recall anyone of that name,’ said the monk courteously, replying in English.

Agatha pushed forwards. ‘I am Agatha Raisin,’ she said eagerly. ‘And he has been missing, and we knew he came here before and we wondered . . .’ Her voice faltered and died. She suddenly felt silly. What on earth was she doing outside a monastery in the south of France?

The monk bowed his head. ‘I will make inquiries.’

They waited. A cloud passed over the sun and the cicadas set off a droning chorus.

They seemed to have been waiting for quite a long time when the monk came back. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I cannot help you.’

They walked slowly back to the car.

‘That’s that,’ said Agatha gloomily. ‘All this way for nothing.’

Charles stood frowning. ‘He was away a long time, and when he came back, he did not say, “We have no one of that name here.” He said, “I cannot help you.”’

‘Forget about the whole thing,’ sighed Agatha.

‘I could do with a bit of a holiday after all we’ve been through,’ said Charles. ‘We passed through a village before we turned off to climb up here. I saw a little auberge. Let’s book in. Do no harm to ask a few questions before we call it quits. I saw monks working in the fields. They have to sell their produce. Maybe someone’s heard of an Englishman at the monastery.’

He swung the car round, and as they drove down, Agatha saw the monks working in the fields. But she did not think James could be one of them. James was probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere in England.

The landlord of the auberge said that, yes, he had one double room vacant. His wife was an excellent cook. Would they want dinner?

Charles said cheerfully, yes, they would. The landlord replied that as they were such a small inn, the guests ate en famille. Would they mind? Charles, with a grin, said, ‘Of course not,’ although wondering what Agatha would make of a dinner during which she would not be able to understand a single word.

The room was clean and dominated by a double bed. ‘You on your side and I on mine,’ said Agatha firmly.

‘The bathroom’s along the corridor. No ensuite bathrooms here, Aggie.’

Agatha felt better after a soak in a deep and ancient tub. She had carried her clean clothes to the bathroom, so she dressed there and made her face up in an old greenish mirror.

The landlord, his wife, and two sons and one daughter were at the dinner table when they entered. Charles rattled on in French while Agatha ate a delicious fish soup followed by roast guinea fowl.

As the wine passed round, Charles, taking a chance, began to talk about the reason for their visit. The family listened electrified to the story of murder and lost husband. Then, when he had finished, the landlord began to talk. Charles listened carefully and then at last turned to Agatha.

‘The landlord says he buys vegetables from the monastery from an old boy called Pierre Duval. Duval comes at six in the morning. He says if I’m up and about by then, I can question him. I gather that Duval doesn’t talk much, but our host is hinting that for a little bit of money, he might tell all he knows.’

‘I don’t know how you can keep on hoping that James is there when I’ve given up hope,’ said Agatha.

‘Just a hunch.’

The meal ended with an apricot tart with lashings of cream. How on earth did they manage to produce such first-class food in such a tiny place? wondered Agatha.

She had been sleepy after the long drive and all she had eaten and drunk, and when the alarm went off at five-thirty she would have gone back to sleep had not Charles shaken her awake again. ‘May as well do our investigations thoroughly,’ he said, stripping off his pyjamas and searching in his suitcase for underwear. It must be great to be able to be so unselfconscious in one’s nakedness, thought Agatha, as she retreated to the bathroom. Or maybe men didn’t bother. Maybe it was only women who worried about love handles and unshaven legs.

When she emerged, it was to find Charles had already gone downstairs. She walked down, following the sound of voices, and found Charles at the kitchen door talking to a wizened old man while the landlord listened intently. Correctly assuming the old man to be Pierre Duval, Agatha saw him repeatedly shaking his head.

Then Charles took his wallet out of his back pocket. He opened it and slowly began counting out notes. Some deal seemed to have been struck. The old man took the money and counted it with maddening slowness, and then he began to speak.

Agatha waited impatiently. He must be telling Charles something. Charles would never have paid up unless he was sure of getting some hard information.

At last the old man shuffled off.

‘Well?’ demanded Agatha.

‘It seems as if there is an Englishman at the monastery,’ said Charles. ‘Sounds a bit like James. He should be working in the vegetable garden at ten this morning.’

‘But how do we get near him?’

‘There’s a little lane leads up to the back of the monastery. If we go up there, there’s only a low wall at the back. We climb over that and we’re in the vegetable garden.’

Agatha clasped her hands. ‘Do you really think it might be him?’

‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high. Duval says there are all sorts of nationalities amongst the monks. We’ll try anyway. Plenty of time for breakfast.’

As they ate buttery croissants and drank bowls of milky coffee, Charles told their landlord of what he had learned.

Then the landlord fetched a piece of writing paper and began to draw a sketch map.

‘He suggests we leave the car at the foot of the side road and walk,’ said Charles. ‘The back of the monastery sprawls down the hillside and it would be easy to miss the lane if we were driving. It’s a bit overgrown.’

They set out at nine o’clock. Charles parked the car at the side of the road and locked it. Agatha found her heart was beating so hard that she was beginning to pant as they made their way up the steep side road, looking for the lane. She forced herself to be calm. James was probably not there. They would be ticked off if any other monk found them trespassing, and that would be that.

‘There it is,’ said Charles. ‘Hasn’t been used for anything in ages. Those bushes in front of the lane have practically grown across it.’

They climbed on up. The lane was rutted and grassy and at times almost seemed to disappear. The sun was hot. Stunted pines growing out of the rocky outcrop on either side afforded some shade at the start of their climb, but now they were out in an unshaded bit.

After what seemed an age, the monastery towered up before them and they plodded on.

‘Is that what you call a low wall?’ asked Agatha in dismay as the lane ended against the stonework of an eight-foot-high wall. There were newer stones set into the ancient ones where the lane came up against the wall, as if there had once been an entrance and it had been sealed off.

Charles cupped his hands. ‘I’ll give you a leg up. When you get to the top, tell me what you can see.’

Agatha struggled to the top and heaved herself up until she was straddling the wall. ‘There isn’t a garden here,’ she said. ‘That old man tricked us. Nothing but a weedy field.’

‘Go over anyway,’ said Charles, ‘and I’ll join you. The gardens might be on the other side of the field.’

Agatha tried to climb down, missed her footing and fell heavily. As nimbly as a cat, Charles climbed over and dropped easily to the ground beside her. ‘Haven’t you got any sensible shoes?’ he complained.

‘I’m wearing flats,’ said Agatha, struggling to her feet and brushing herself down.

‘Thin sandals with thin straps are hardly suitable for a walk in the country. Okay, look over there at the end of the field. There’s another wall with a gate. That could be the vegetable gardens. I gather they’re pretty extensive.’

They walked across the field, trying to keep clear of thistles and nasty jagged bits of dried plants. Agatha felt her tights rip on a particularly evil thorny plant. Why on earth had she decided to go on this hike wearing designer sandals and ten-denier tights? Madness. But it had been cool in the darkness of the inn and she had envisaged nothing more arduous than a gentle stroll.

They came up to a wrought-iron gate set into the wall. ‘Locked,’ said Charles. ‘Sorry, Aggie, it’s another wall and a higher one. But it’s so broken in places with bits of stones sticking out, we should find an easy way of getting over.’

‘Why are you whispering?’ demanded Agatha.

‘It’s very quiet and sound carries a long way here.’

‘If it carries a long way, then everyone in that monastery is dead. No chanting, no prayers, and worse, no sounds of digging coming from anywhere.’

‘Here’s what looks like an easy bit,’ said Charles. ‘The wall has broken away at the top and it makes it lower and it’s bulged here with age and bits of stone are sticking out. Should be like walking up a ladder.’

James Lacey had retreated to the quiet calm of the herb garden to rest and contemplate. He had not yet told Brother Michael the truth about his marriage. He had told him everything else, about the attack on him, about his shame and fear of death. He would shortly be taking leave from the monastery. He said he had to return to put his affairs in order, to sell his cottage. He was afraid Agatha would not agree to a divorce. If she did not, then he would simply return and carry on as a single man. The monastery was where he had been cured and he did not want anything to stand in his way of joining the order.

He tried to conjure up a picture of Agatha, but could not quite remember what she looked like.

And then there was a great thump from the bed of orange thyme behind the stone bench on which he was sitting. He leaped up in alarm and turned round.

Agatha Raisin was lying among the crushed plants. She straightened up, her face flushed and hot.

She looked at the robed figure of the monk standing in front of her and said in a faint voice, ‘James?’

Charles, who had reached the top of the wall, saw the scene below him and quietly backed down again. Let Agatha get on with it. But what a strange pair they made. What a tableau! Agatha, hot and dusty, struggling to her feet. James, thin and robed, his eyes very bright blue in his tanned face. Charles sat down and prepared to wait. Agatha’s cigarettes and lighter had fallen out of her pocket when she was climbing the wall. He leaned his back against the warm stone and lit a cigarette. He hoped for Agatha’s sake that this was the end to her romance.

‘You are not supposed to be here,’ James was saying sharply. ‘There are official visiting days twice a year, and this is not one of them.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’ demanded Agatha, her hands on her hips. ‘Melissa gets herself murdered, there’s a police hunt for you, I think for ages you’re probably dead, and all you can come up with is that it’s not a visiting day!’

James sat down suddenly on the bench and put his head in his hands. Agatha sat down beside him, suddenly weary.

‘Tell me about it,’ he said.

So Agatha told him all about Melissa’s murder and how she had finally discovered that Megan was the culprit. ‘If you had not run away,’ she said waspishly, ‘then Megan would have been arrested for assault and Melissa would still be alive.’

James looked at her. Under his tan, his face had gone quite white.

‘So why did you run away?’ asked Agatha.

‘I was a mess,’ he said. ‘I thought you were having an affair with Charles.’

‘Don’t judge other people by yourself,’ snapped Agatha.

‘I started spending some time with Melissa. But she began to frighten me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I had been consulting a psychiatrist in Mircester and he let slip that he had all the files from the psychiatric unit. I had begun to think Melissa was a classic example of a psychopath . . .’

‘Didn’t stop you shagging her,’ put in Agatha.

‘Please.’ He held up his hand. ‘I looked in the files and found she had indeed been sectioned at one time and diagnosed as such. She had got quite drunk over dinner one night and had told me she had a lot of money and was going to leave it to her old friend Megan, who, by coincidence, had married her ex-husband. She said Megan was the only friend she’d got. They’d been through some hard times together. Then, one day when I got home, I went out into the back garden. At first I thought it was a teenager and called to her sharply. She introduced herself as Megan Sheppard. I asked how she had got in. She said, “Over the fence.” She said she had come to warn me to leave Melissa alone. She said Melissa was her friend.

‘I got rid of her quickly. But something made me wonder if Megan was another psychopath, and if such, could be dangerous; if such, could only be interested in Melissa for the money.’

He sighed. ‘I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I simply had to go back to the psychiatrist and check the files. Yes, Megan had been in the psychiatric unit at the same time as Melissa. I felt I had not long to live. Our marriage was a disaster. I thought I could at least help Melissa.’ Agatha winced. ‘There are different levels of psychopathy. I thought Melissa probably had a personality disorder, whereas the little I had seen of Megan pointed to a stone-hard psychopath.

‘So I called on Melissa and told her about Megan’s visit. I said that Melissa would be better off leaving her money to her sister, and telling Megan that. Melissa’s eyes lit up at the prospect and I realized with a sinking heart that she was actually looking forward to the experience and that she was as incapable of affection and friendship as Megan.

‘She must have told Megan it was I who had counselled her to change her will. Megan walked in on me and started berating me. She then swung a hammer at my head. I staggered off. I got in the car and drove until I realized I was too ill to drive any more. I got out. I wanted to get away from the whole mess. I hitched a lift and told the truck driver I had suffered a fall. He said he would drop me at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. I did not go in. I waited in the meadows until dawn and sponged the blood from my head.