Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (12 page)

‘If we had not interfered, as you put it,’ said Agatha hotly, ‘you would have gone on thinking Paul Bladen’s death was an accident.’

‘And Mrs Josephs might still be alive. Leave it to us, Agatha.’

After the police had gone, James said reluctantly, ‘It seems we’re not exactly popular.’

‘Yes, I suppose we’d better drop it.’ Agatha looked reluctant. ‘Perhaps I should think about some gardening.’

‘Your lawn at the front could do with treatment,’ said James. ‘Come and I’ll show you what I mean.’

Agatha was first out of her front door. She glanced down the lane and saw Freda Huntingdon standing on James’s doorstep and retreated so quickly she bumped into him.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said, slamming the door and leading the way back to the kitchen. ‘Have another cup of coffee and I’ll tell you about it.’

‘Now,’ she began when they were seated, ‘the way I look at it is this.’

Her doorbell rang, sharp and peremptory.

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he asked.

‘I suppose so.’ Agatha got reluctantly to her feet. She peered through the spyhole. Freda was standing on the step. Agatha returned to the kitchen and sat down.

‘Double-glazing salesman,’ she said. ‘They’re so pushy. Not worth answering the door.’

The bell shrilled again and Agatha winced. ‘I’ll go,’ said James, rising.

‘No, sit down, please. I think we should go to Leamington and question Miss Mabbs. How can that be called interfering? Just a few questions. If we knew more about what Paul Bladen was like, then we might know what lies behind his death. After all, what makes someone kill?’

‘Passion,’ said James. ‘One of his jilted ladies.’

‘Or money,’ said Agatha, thinking of her unfortunate experience in London.

But James, secure in the comfort of a private income and an army pension, shook his head. ‘He hadn’t much to leave, not by today’s standards.’

The doorbell rang again.

‘No,’ said Agatha sharply. ‘Just wait and whoever it is will go away. Whereabouts in Leamington does Miss Mabbs live?’

He took out a notebook and flipped the pages. ‘Here we are. Miss Cheryl Mabbs, aged twenty-three, employed for only the short time the surgery lasted in Carsely, lives at 43, Blackbird Street, Royal Leamington Spa.’

Agatha’s straining ears could not hear anything from outside, but then the cottage was so insulated, she hardly ever did. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and put some make-up on,’ she said, ‘and then we’ll go. If that doorbell rings again, ignore it.’

Upstairs, she peered out of her bedroom window and saw with satisfaction the slim retreating figure of Freda.

She put on a little make-up, not too much or he might be frightened off again, sprayed some Rive Gauche over herself, and went back downstairs. She fed the cats, and as the day was not particularly cold, let them out into the back garden.

‘Why don’t you get a cat door?’ asked James.

‘I’ve had a few scares before,’ said Agatha, ‘and when I think of a cat door, I think of a small burglar, writhing his way through it like a snake.’

‘That doesn’t happen. Tell you what,’ said James, feeling obscurely that he had to make amends for deserting his post the night before, ‘buy one and I’ll fix it for you.’

Agatha beamed at him. How domestic they were becoming. A simple wedding in Carsely Church. Too old to wear white. Perhaps a silk suit and a pretty hat. Honeymoon somewhere exotic. ‘Famous Detective Agatha Raisin Weds,’ that’s what the local headlines would say.

James looked at her uneasily. Her small eyes had an odd glazed look. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ he asked. ‘You look just the way I feel when I have indigestion.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Agatha, returning to earth with a bump. ‘Let’s go.’

Leamington, or Royal Leamington Spa, to give it the full title which few people hardly ever use, was a relatively short drive and they arrived there in under an hour.

The day had become grey and overcast, but unusually mild. Although in the centre of the country, Agatha thought Leamington had the air of a seaside town like Eastbourne or Brighton and kept expecting to turn a corner and see the sea.

James, to her irritation, said he wanted to view the public gardens before they started any detective work. Agatha stumped along angrily beside him while he enthused over plants and blossom. She was obscurely aware she was jealous of the scenery and wished some of his raptures could be directed at her. She glanced at him sideways. He was strolling easily along with his hands in his pockets, at peace with the world. She wondered what he thought about her. She wondered what he thought about anything. Why wasn’t he married? Was he gay? And yet look at the way he had left that splendid clue to go running after a stupid bitch like Freda Huntingdon.

He was staring up in dazed wonder at the cascading blossoms of a cherry tree when Agatha suddenly snapped, ‘Are we going to commune with nature all day, or are we going to get on with it?’ He gave her a glance, half-rueful, half-amused, and all at once Agatha had a picture of him escorting some woman who would share his enthusiasm for the scenery, who would know all these county names he had talked about at that old manor house, and felt bullying and coarsegrained.

‘All right,’ said James amiably, ‘let’s go.’

He took out a small street map and consulted it. ‘We can walk,’ he said. ‘It’s not far.’

They set off. ‘Where does she work?’ asked Agatha. ‘Oh, and how did you find out about her?’

‘I don’t know where she works, but I got her address from Peter Rice in Mircester. She isn’t a veterinary nurse, simply a sort of receptionist.’

Agatha began to wonder if they were ever going to get there, James’s idea of ‘not far’ not being her own. But they finally arrived at a long street of shops with flats above them. The shops had probably always been shops. The buildings were Georgian and run down, with cracked stucco and grimy fronts dating from the days before the Clean Air Act, when soot fell on everything.

It was six o’clock. Most of the little shops were closed and the street was quiet. Agatha could remember the days when a street such as this would resound with the cries of children: children playing hopscotch, children playing ball, children playing cowboys and Indians. Now they were probably all indoors watching television, videos, or playing computer games. Sad.

Number 43 turned out to be a staircase between two shops leading to flats above. At the top of the staircase was a battered wooden door and beside it a row of bells with names on cards beside each bell. There was no Mabbs listed.

‘Must have the wrong address,’ said James.

‘I didn’t walk all this way for nothing,’ said Agatha impatiently, for her feet were sore. She pressed the nearest bell.

After a few moments the door was opened by a thin, anaemic-looking girl with blonde hair gelled up into spikes. ‘Wotyerwant?’ she asked.

‘Miss Cheryl Mabbs,’ said Agatha.

‘She’s on bell 4,’ said the girl, ‘but you won’t find her in. She and Jerry has gone out.’

‘Where?’ asked James.

‘How should I know, mate? They usually has fish an’ chips and goes to the disco.’

‘Where is this disco?’ James smiled at the girl, who smiled back.

‘Not your style,’ she said. ‘It’s down the road. Rave On Disco. Can’t miss it. Wait till later and you’ll hear the noise.’

‘Well, that’s that,’ said James as they emerged out into the street again.

‘No, it’s not.’ Agatha looked up at him. ‘We could have a bite to eat and then go to the disco ourselves.’

He shied slightly and looked off into the middle distance. ‘I really think I would rather go home, Agatha. As the young lady there pointed out, discos are not my style.’

Agatha glared at him. ‘Hardly mine either,’ she said, feeling her feet throb.

He stood there, looking down at her in polite embarrassment and obviously waiting for her to give in.

‘Dinner and think about it?’ suggested Agatha.

‘I suppose I am hungry. It’s a bit early for dinner. We’ll find a pub.’

Over drinks, followed later by a modest dinner in an Indian restaurant, Agatha reflected that the more time she spent with James, the less she seemed to find out about him. He seemed to have an endless fund of impersonal topics to talk about, from politics to gardening, but what he really felt or thought about anything, he did not say.

But he agreed to try the disco.

Back along Blackbird Street they went. They heard the thud, thud, thud of the disco music as they approached.

The disco was called Rave On and was a club, but they got inside easily after paying a modest entrance fee. ‘Enjoy yourself, Grandma,’ said the bouncer to Agatha, who glared at him and said, ‘Get stuffed,’ and then realized that James’s face had taken on that shuttered look again.

Inside it was full of bodies writhing under strobe lights. Following closely behind James, Agatha shouldered her way to a black plastic-padded bar in the corner.

James ordered a mineral water for Agatha because she was driving and a whisky and water for himself. ‘How much is that?’ he shouted at the barman, a white-faced youth with a pinched, spotty face.

‘On the house, officer,’ said the barman.

‘We are not police officers.’

‘In that case, pay up, guv. Four pound for every drink. Eight quid, squire.’

‘Do you know Cheryl Mabbs?’ asked James. ‘We’re friends of hers.’

He pointed. ‘Over there in that booth, her wiff the orange-and-pink ’air.’

Through the stabbing strobe lights and shifting gyrating bodies, they could make out a gleam of orange and pink in a far corner.

‘Drink up,’ said James and tossed his back.

‘I’ll leave mine,’ shouted Agatha above the din. ‘I never did like gnat’s piss anyway.’

His eyes had that blank look which Agatha had come to interpret as a sign of disapproval. But he said, ‘We’d better dance our way over. Less conspicuous.’

He joined the gyrating figures, cheerfully waving his arms in the air and dancing like a dervish. Agatha tried to follow suit but felt ridiculous. Teenagers were stopping their own dancing to cheer James on.

Inconspicuous, thought Agatha with a groan. The whole damn place is looking at us.

A few more whirls and turns and James came to a stop at Cheryl’s booth, wildly applauded by the customers.

It was a different Miss Mabbs from the quiet, pallid girl in the white coat Agatha had first seen at the vet’s. Her hair was sprayed pink and orange and arranged in what Agatha could only think of as tufts. She wore a black leather jacket with studs over a yellow T-shirt with some slogan on it that Agatha could not read in the gloom. Beside her was a leather-jacketed young man with a face like a tipsy fox.

‘Miss Mabbs!’ cried Agatha. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ said the girl and picked up her drink, which was of as vile a colour as her hair, nudged aside the little paper umbrella on the top with her nose and took a sip of it through a straw.

‘I am Agatha Raisin,’ said Agatha, thrusting out her hand.

‘So what?’ mumbled Cheryl.

‘I met you at the vet’s in Carsely. I came along with my pussy.’

‘Took your pussy along, did you?’ demanded Cheryl’s escort with a cackle. ‘Any luck?’

Cheryl sniggered.

‘Look here,’ said James in the authoritative tones of the upper class, ‘can we go somewhere quiet where we can talk?’

‘Sod off,’ said Cheryl, but the young man put a hand on her arm. His foxy eyes glinted up at James. ‘What’s it worth to us?’

‘A tenner and a drink,’ said James.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Come on, Cher.’

They were soon all seated in a quiet dingy pub, perhaps one of the few left in Britain without a slot-machine or juke-box or piped music. A few old men sat around in corners. The bar smelt of must and old beer and old men.

‘What do you want to know?’ asked Cheryl Mabbs.

‘About Paul Bladen,’ said Agatha eagerly. ‘It now seems he was murdered.’

Interest showed in her face for the first time. ‘And I thought nothing exciting would ever happen in that dump of a village. Me, I prefer the more cosmopolitan life, like,’ she stated, as if Leamington Spa were Paris. ‘Who done it?’

‘That’s what we want to find out,’ said James. ‘Any ideas?’

She scowled horribly and took a hearty swig at her glass of vodka and Red Bull. ‘Could be anyone,’ she said finally.

‘There’s Mrs Josephs as well,’ said Agatha and told of that murder.

‘I told him trouble would come when he destroyed her old cat,’ said Cheryl. ‘He didn’t like cats, and that’s a fact. Hated the beasts. But he sweet-talked those old dears in the village a treat. Always taking one or the other of them out for dinner.’

‘Why?’ asked Agatha.

‘Why else?’ countered Cheryl. ‘After their money, I suppose. I mean, what other reason could there be?’

‘And why would he want their money?’ demanded James, flashing a sympathetic look at Agatha, who was now outscowling Cheryl. ‘I mean, he left a fair bit.’

‘It was an impression, that’s all. He was keen on that Freda Huntingdon. I caught them hard at it.’

‘Where?’ demanded Agatha with a triumphant look at James.

‘Right on the examining table. Her skirt was up around her ears and his trousers were down round his ankles. Laugh! I nearly died. But the others? Holding hands and taking them out for dinner was about as far as he got, I reckon. Course he had to soft-soap Mrs Josephs, didn’t he? I mean, she was making things hot for him over that cat. Then there was that funny old creature, Webster. That’s it.’

Agatha’s scowl came back. She estimated that Josephine Webster, she who ran the dried-flower shop, was probably younger than herself.

‘None of these ladies is really old,’ she protested.

Cheryl shrugged. ‘All look like a hundred and two to me,’ she said with all the callousness of youth.

‘Did he get up to any of this philandering in Mircester?’ asked James.

‘Didn’t know him then,’ replied Cheryl. ‘Saw the ad for a vet’s receptionist and got the job.’

‘So what are you doing now?’

‘Kennels. Out Warwick way.’ Cheryl’s face suddenly softened. ‘I like animals. B’etter’n people any day.’