‘I think she’ll want to be on her own for a bit,’ said Charles. ‘I couldn’t get anything out of them. Has Tulloch been found?’
‘Wilkes told me they’re still looking for him. I don’t like it. What if that psycho decides to take revenge on one of us?’
‘I think he’s probably long gone,’ said Charles, stifling a yawn.
‘I should call the hospital,’ said Agatha, ‘and find out how Simon is getting on. I wonder if I should reemploy him.’
‘What! You must be mad. He was spying for Mixden.’
‘I know, I know. But look at it this way. Us amateurs have none of the resources of the police. What policeman would have the imagination to figure out what a man with a lot of money he had to keep hidden would do? Who else would think about his longing for a posh car?’
‘See what Toni thinks of the idea,’ said Charles.
‘I’m not going to do anything about it now. I’ve got to phone my car insurance and get a courtesy car. Shall we ask the coppers to drive us back?’
‘I’m sick of them,’ said Charles. ‘Let’s take a taxi.’
At Agatha’s cottage, Charles said he would go home and maybe see her later. As she watched him drive away, Agatha felt strangely bereft and then gave herself a mental shake. Charles was like a will-o’-the-wisp, coming and going, never dependable.
Her cleaner arrived with Agatha’s cats, who studiously ignored her and waited by the garden door to be let out. ‘You should get a cat flap,’ said Doris.
‘What if some intruder uses it to crawl in?’
‘Nobody would be that skinny enough.’
‘Well, they could shove a petrol bomb through it.’
‘They could do that through the letterbox.’
‘You’re a barrel of laughs this morning,’ said Agatha, and burst into tears.
Doris looked at her in shock and then hugged her. ‘I’m getting Mrs Bloxby here right now.’
Mrs Bloxby was shocked at Agatha’s appearance. Usually Agatha was an advertisement for the saying that the fifties were the new forties, but she was white-faced and haggard.
After a cup of hot sweet tea laced with brandy, and two cigarettes, Agatha began to recover. ‘I’ve never seen you wearing a tracksuit before,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
‘Police supply from their safe house in Dover.’
‘I heard about it on the morning news. Of course, not much came out because of the impending court case. Tell me about it.’
Mrs Bloxby listened in horror to Agatha’s tale.
‘Where is Toni?’ she asked.
‘Back at her flat.’
‘And this Tulloch is still at liberty! I’m going to Mircester to get her right away.’
Charles arrived home to be told by his man Gustav that Penny Dunstable was in the sitting room. Penny was one of Charles’s old flames. Gustav privately thought that if he did not get Charles married off to someone suitable, then one day that Raisin female might be in residence.
Penny rose to meet him. She was tall and rangy, with square hunting shoulders, thick brown hair and a long face. Charles remembered she had been an enthusiastic lover.
‘I’m done in,’ said Charles. ‘Darling Penny. Wrong day for a visit. I’m going to bed.’
‘Good idea,’ said Penny huskily.
Sex, thought Charles. Lots of it. Just what the doctor ordered. Then a vision of Agatha’s sad white face watching him as he left rose before his eyes. Damn Agatha.
‘Sorry, darling,’ he said. ‘I’m knackered. Another time.’
He walked away quickly. Gustav started to follow him up the stairs. Charles swung round. ‘I can put myself to bed, thank you. You invited her, didn’t you?’
‘I met Miss Dunstable at the farmer’s market and thought you would be glad to see her.’
‘Not now,’ said Charles. ‘Give her a drink and get rid of her.’
Toni answered the door to Mrs Bloxby and meekly accepted an invitation to stay at the rectory. Mrs Bloxby helped her pack. ‘I’m supposed to get a call from Victim Support,’ said Toni.
‘Did you give the police your mobile phone number as well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then they’ll be able to find you. Before you leave, wouldn’t you much rather be with your mother?’
‘She did call, but she’s just got a new job. I told her I would be all right and that I might see her at the weekend.’
When they got into Mrs Bloxby’s ancient Morris Minor, the vicar’s wife looked in the rearview mirror before she drove off. If only the police would come through with the news that Tulloch had been found.
She heaved a sigh of relief when she finally turned down into the tree-lined road leading to Carsely. There were no cars behind her.
Once at the vicarage, she told Toni to go and find a seat in the garden. Toni stretched out in a deck chair and felt the warm sun on her face. The peace of the vicarage garden enclosed her.
Soon she was asleep.
That evening, Agatha sealed her letterbox shut with super-glue, knowing the postman would leave any letters for her at the village store. She tried to phone Charles, but Gustav told her he wasn’t available; but then that was what Gustav always said.
She went up to the landing and looked longingly at James’s cottage, but no light showed and his car was not parked outside.
The doorbell rang, making her jump nervously. She went down the stairs and looked through the spy hole. Bill Wong’s face stared back. Agatha opened the door.
‘Come in. Has he been caught?’
‘Who?’
‘Tulloch, of course.’
‘We’re working on that. We might get one of the gang to talk soon. One of them seems weaker than the others. We’re hoping to hear that Richards got rid of him. We’re winding up the whole business. Imagine having a successful chain of supermarkets and that not being enough. The drug lab was to be a new venture, all set up to make crystal meth, as far as forensics could gather from the burnt-out remains. Where is Toni?’
‘Staying with Mrs Bloxby.’
‘The best thing she could do.’
‘She would have been quite safe with me,’ said Agatha huffily.
‘Let’s hope you’re not in any danger,’ said Bill, looking at the bars on the kitchen window.
Agatha followed his gaze and said bitterly, ‘I’m in a sort of prison when Tulloch may be out there, roaming free. Hey, what about Fiona Richards? Did she know anything about all this?’
‘She denies it vehemently and tearfully. All she can wonder about is what is going to happen to her previously expensive lifestyle.’
‘And is Richards really the head of things?’
‘Before his ambition to join the drug market, it was pinching cars and expensive farm machinery and shipping it to Eastern Europe. Among the men we picked up, there were two Albanians, one Kurd, and I regret to say two residents of Mircester, the latter both having spent time in prison in the past for grievous bodily harm.’
Bill’s phone rang. He walked out of the kitchen to answer it. When he came back, his face was grim. ‘One of the gang has started to sing. He says that Beech would earn money by telling Richards which combine harvesters were left out on the fields and where to pick up expensive cars. Maybe the P in his ledger was for Porsche. He also tipped Richards off when it looked as if one of the gang might be under suspicion and managed to ‘lose’ the evidence. But he felt he wasn’t getting enough and started to blackmail Richards. Richards ordered a man called Boris Ahmid and one of the Englishmen, Marty Gifford, to deal with Beech in such a way as to frighten off anyone else who might want to play the same trick. The roast pig idea was Boris’s. The missing feet and arms have been found in a freezer at the back of the main supermarket store in Mircester.’
‘Wouldn’t one of the staff have found them?’