The previous night’s fog had thinned to a mist. Bill went along a path at the side of the house. There was a conservatory at the back of the house. Bill looked in.
It was a mess. Plants had been pulled out of their pots and lay on the floor. Bill called Alice, who came hurrying round to join him.
‘We’re going to have to break in,’ said Bill.
‘Try the conservatory door first,’ urged Alice.
Bill turned the handle and the door opened. ‘We’d better suit up,’ said Bill. When they were covered in their blue plastic forensic suits, they stepped inside, calling, ‘Beech!’ in loud voices.
They entered the kitchen. Every canister, box of cereal and bag of flour had been emptied on to the floor. They then went to the living room, followed by a search of a small dining room, and then went upstairs to the bedrooms. Chaos was everywhere: drawers pulled out, clothes thrown around, mattresses slit open. Everywhere in the house appeared to have been frantically searched. Floorboards were torn up, curtains pulled down and carpets ripped up.
The sinister silence of the house and the outside village seemed to press on their ears. Bill opened the door to the bathroom and let out an exclamation of dismay.
There was blood everywhere. It was spattered up the walls and all over the bath.
They retreated outside and sat in their car with the engine running to keep warm. ‘Agatha was right,’ said Bill. ‘How does she do it?’
‘I noticed something odd,’ said Alice.
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve a brother in the antiques business. Some of those pieces of furniture in the living room are very valuable. How could a mere constable afford, say, a Georgian bureau?’
‘Beats me. I hear sirens. There’s nothing we can do now until the Scenes of Crimes Operatives are finished. I hope they find the head.’
‘What?’
‘Gary Beech’s head. I wonder what happened to that?’
Agatha and Roy went to the pub for dinner that evening. The pub was crowded, but Agatha managed to thrust her way through to the only vacant table, reaching it before a stocky villager, Mrs Benson, was about to claim it.
‘I’ll just need to join you,’ said Mrs Benson.
‘You can’t,’ said Agatha, still too upset by the horror of the murder to be polite. ‘We want to talk in private.’
‘Well, I never did!’ exclaimed Mrs Benson.
‘Then start,’ said Agatha, sitting down and turning her back on the woman.
Mrs Benson glared at her and then left the pub in a huff. She looked at her watch. It was coming up to seven o’clock. If she hurried, she could listen to The Archers on Radio 4 and make some toasted cheese.
Before The Archers, the news came on. She listened as the announcer said that the murdered man was a policeman named Gary Beech. All of a sudden, Mrs Benson remembered Agatha Raisin shouting threats against Beech in the village shop and saying he should be roasted on a spit. The Archers forgotten, she phoned police headquarters in Mircester.
The last train to London had left Moreton-in-Marsh, so Agatha drove Roy to Oxford and waved him goodbye.
As she drove back, snow was beginning to fall. She still felt very tired after a gruelling drive. Her car had skidded several times on the road down into Carsely.
Her heart sank as she saw a police Land Rover parked outside her cottage.
‘Now what?’ she demanded of the uncaring white wilderness outside.
As she got out of her car, a policeman approached her and said, ‘You are to come with us to police headquarters.’
‘Why?’ demanded Agatha truculently.
‘You’ll find out when you get there,’ said the policeman.
Mircester looked like a Christmas card with the tall towers of its snow-covered and floodlit abbey looming behind police headquarters.
Agatha was told to wait in the reception area. It had recently been redecorated in the hope that it might look more people-friendly, but the plastic palms were dusty and the walls painted sulphurous yellow. Agatha wondered if it had been painted on the cheap, because little patches of the former institutional green were showing through in places.
Detective Alice Peterson appeared and summoned Agatha, who followed her to an interview room. Agatha sat opposite Bill and Wilkes. Alice put a tape in the recording machine and the interview began.
‘We are awaiting DNA results,’ said Wilkes, ‘but a search of policeman Gary Beech’s house led us to believe he is the victim. Now, you were heard in the village shop in Carsely threatening Gary Beech’s life and saying that you hoped he would roast on a spit in hell. What have you to say to that? And despite the thick fog at Winter Parva, you immediately identified the supposed pig as a man.’
Agatha briefly remembered when she had first moved to Carsely that it had been more of a close-knit village community. Now newcomers came and went. Who had reported her? Her thoughts flew to Mrs Ada Benson.
‘We’re waiting,’ snapped Wilkes.
‘It’s like this,’ said Agatha. ‘Gary Beech gave me a ticket for blowing my nose while my car was parked in a queue of cars on the Carsely road because of roadworks. He then ticketed me for doing thirty-two miles an hour. I was very angry and let off steam in the shop. I had a guest for the weekend.’
‘Name?’
‘You know who.’
‘Stop being obstructive and answer the question for the tape.’
Agatha heaved a weary sigh. ‘Roy Silver.’
‘And?’
‘And I saw the pig roast advertised amongst local events. My detective, Toni Gilmour, was invited and she came with a friend, Paul Finlay. Charles Fraith opted to join us as well. When we got to the pig roast . . . I’ve told you all this already.’
‘Just go over it again.’
‘When I got to the pig roast, the fog shifted a bit and some of the villagers were holding flaming torches – flambeaux. I saw a tattoo on what I at first took to be the pig’s haunch. Then I realized it was a heart with an arrow through it and the name Amy.’
‘Other people,’ said Wilkes, ‘would have assumed someone had been having fun with the pig.’
‘I shone my torch on the pig’s head and saw it had been stitched on. In a flash, I realized it was the body of a naked man,’ said Agatha defiantly.
‘Had you ever come across Gary Beech before he charged you in those two incidents?’
‘No.’
‘And yet you suggested to Detective Sergeant Wong here that the body might be that of Gary Beech? That seems very suspicious.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sakes,’ howled Agatha, ‘I didn’t mention his name. I suggested the victim might be a policeman. If I had anything to do with the pillock’s murder, would I have made such a suggestion?’
‘You may have done.’ And so the questioning went on and on until Agatha, warned not to leave the country, and with her eyes gritty with fatigue, was allowed to leave.
Alice ran her home. ‘I’ll be glad to get some sleep,’ she said. ‘And I hope I don’t get nightmares.’
‘What was at his house?’ asked Agatha.
Alice was sure Wilkes would be furious with her for discussing the murder, but Agatha was a friend of Bill’s and she liked Bill.
‘Blood everywhere in the bathroom, in the bath and up the walls. Why did you really think the dead man might be him?’
‘I didn’t. But he must have infuriated an awful lot of people apart from me,’ said Agatha. ‘You see, I rely a lot on intuition, as I don’t have the resources of the police. Was he married?’
‘Divorced. The ex-wife is on holiday in Florida.’
‘Really? Does she have a lot of money of her own?’
‘Not unless she met a rich man we don’t know about. Before her marriage, she worked as a checkout girl at a supermarket. But Gary must have had some money because I spotted some good antiques in his living room. The place had been ransacked.’