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 look at her, puzzled. “What?”
“Nothing. Yes, I think we’ll go to Portsmouth tomorrow.”
SEVEN
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 free-lance 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 hairdressing salon.”
They hit gold at the first salon, called A Cut Above. The proprietess had known John Shawpart. 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 went on 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 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,” sad 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… ”