Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death (4 page)

Agatha did not like the flick of the whip. ‘You get what you pay for when you hire me,’ she said evenly. ‘Now, if that is all, gentlemen . . .?’

‘Bit tasteless that last remark of yours, bro,’ murmured Guy after Agatha had left.

‘Rolls off that sort of woman. Hard as nails.’

‘Sexy with it, though,’ said Guy reflectively, staring at the door through which Agatha had just exited.

Agatha arrived back in Carsely to find the press waiting on her doorstep. Mindful of her new role, she invited them all in for drinks and, after describing how she had found
the body, put in a good plug for the new water company.

After the press had left, Roy Silver phoned her, eagerly asking how she had got on. ‘Very well,’ said Agatha, ‘although there was a nasty crack from Peter about what they were
paying me. I assume you are giving me my usual fee?’

‘Told you so. Told them if they wanted quality PR, they had to pay for it.’ Agatha told him about the meeting in the village hall.

‘I’d better be there, too,’ said Roy. A picture of the glamorous Guy rose in Agatha’s mind.

‘Don’t want you around,’ she said gruffly.

‘Who got you this job?’

‘Want it back?’

‘Just my little joke, Aggie.’

Agatha hung up.

She realized that if she kept a bright picture of Guy Freemont at the front of her mind, then the image of James Lacey’s face was blocked out.

With more cheerfulness and energy than she had felt for a long time, she got out her laptop and began to work busily, writing down the names of journalists she could lure to the opening.

After several hours she stretched and yawned, feeling all the satisfaction of having done a good job. She corrected what she had written, ran it off on the printer and then drove over to
Mircester, where she left her papers at the reception desk addressed to the Freemont brothers.

She was driving back through Mircester when she saw Bill Wong just leaving police headquarters. She called to him and stopped the car. He came over.

‘What’s all the news?’ she asked.

‘Park and come for a drink. I’ll tell you the little I know.’

Agatha parked and walked with him to the George, a gloomy pub in the shade of the abbey.

‘It was murder,’ said Bill, when they were both settled. ‘Someone clubbed him on the back of the head.’

‘And laid him backwards in the spring?’

‘Yes, but forensic say there is every evidence that he was killed elsewhere, carried to the spring and dumped there.’

‘Must have been someone very strong, or more than one.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And do you think it had something to do with this water business?’

‘It certainly looks that way. Mr Struthers was a widower. He lived alone. He has a son down in Brighton who was certainly in Brighton on the night of the murder. He hadn’t all that
much money to leave. Anyway, the son has a first-class job in computers and has no need of money.’

‘What are the other members of the parish council like? Miss Mary Owen, for example.’

‘She’s quite a commanding personality, tall, thin and leathery. One of those ladies who does good works, not out of any feeling of charity for the less fortunate, but because
that’s the sort of work ladies do. She’s independently wealthy. Some family trust.’

‘She’s going to make some sort of protest speech. Has she enough personality to sway the villagers?’

‘Yes, I should think so.’

‘Rats. What about the others?’

‘The others against the water company. I’ll start with them. Mr Bill Allen. He runs the Ancombe Garden Centre. Very class-conscious and got a bit of an inferiority complex. Father
was a farm labourer. So Mr Allen supports all the things he considers Right. Bring back hanging, slaughter the foxes, bring back National Service, that sort of thing.’

‘Then I would have thought he would have been all for this water company. Capitalism rules, okay.’

‘I believe Miss Owen implied that the Freemont brothers were not gentlemen. Enough said. Now the last of those against is Mr Andy Stiggs, a retired shopkeeper. He’s seventy-one and
hale and hearty.’

‘Maybe there’s something in this water after all.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, he loves the village and thinks that lorries rumbling through it to take away the water will be a desecration of rural life. Do you remember that supermarket that was
proposed for outside Broadway? Well, he got up a petition against it.’

‘So what about the ones in favour?’

‘There’s Mrs Jane Cutler. She’s a wealthy widow, sixty-five but doesn’t look it. Rumoured to be on her third face-lift. Blonde and shapely. Not very popular in the
village but I can’t see why. I found her charming. She says the village could do with more tourist trade and Ancombe Water will publicize the village and bring trade in. Then there’s
Angela Buckley, big strapping girl, forty-eight, but still called a girl. Not married. Rather loud and red-faced, good-natured, but apt to bully the villagers in a patronizing
I-know-what’s-best-for-the-peasants manner which irritates the hell out of them. Fred Shaw is the last. Electrician. Bossy, sixty, aggressive manner, powerful for his age.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Agatha. ‘Those against sound more palatable than those for.’

‘So what did you make of the Freemonts?’

‘Peter Freemont seemed like the usual City businessman. Guy Freemont is charming. Where did they come from?’

‘I gather that they ran some export-import company in Hong Kong and got out like everyone else before the Chinese took over. What do you think, Agatha? That they murdered someone to get
the publicity?’

‘Hardly. I’m sure it’s a village matter and it may have nothing to do with the water. People always think of villages as innocent places, not like the towns, but you know what
it’s like, Bill. An awful lot of nasty passions and jealousies can lie just beneath the surface. I’ve a feeling in my bones that it’s got nothing to do with that spring at
all.’

James Lacey was driving past when he saw Agatha and Bill emerge from the George. He longed to be able to call to them, to discuss the murder, but he had to admit to himself that after the way he
had been treating Agatha, he could hardly expect a warm reception.

Give Agatha an inch, he thought sourly, and she’ll take over your whole life. He drove on, but feeling lonely and excluded and knowing he had only himself to blame.

Two weeks later, with the police no farther on in their murder investigations, Mary Owen’s protest meeting was scheduled to take place in the village hall. Agatha
arranged that she and Guy Freemont should have places on the platform to present the firm’s viewpoint.

Agatha had visited the company’s offices in Mircester, presenting outlines for publicizing the water, but each time it was Peter Freemont who saw her. Agatha began to wonder if she would
ever see Guy again, but on her last visit Peter had assured her that Guy would call for her before the village meeting so that they could arrive there together.

‘Calm down,’ Agatha told herself fiercely. ‘He’s at least twenty years younger than you.’ She was torn between trying to look sexy and trying to look businesslike.
Common sense at last prevailed on the evening of the meeting, and businesslike won. She put on a smart tailored suit but with high-heeled black patent-leather shoes and a striped blouse, her hair
brushed to a high shine, and painted her generous mouth with a Dior lipstick guaranteed not to come off when kissed.

She was ready a good half-hour before Guy was due to arrive. Perfume! She had forgotten to put on any. She rushed upstairs and surveyed the array of bottles on her dressing-table. Rive Gauche.
Everyone wore that, particularly now that cut-price shop had opened in Evesham. Champagne? A bit frivolous. Chanel No. 5. Yes, that would do. Safe.

She returned downstairs and checked her sitting-room. Log fire burning brightly, magazines arranged on the coffee-table, drinks on the trolley over at the wall. Ice? Damn, she’d forgotten
ice. He wouldn’t have time for a drink before they left but perhaps, just perhaps, he might come back with her for one. She went to the kitchen, filled the ice-trays and put them in the
freezer.

Then she felt a spot sprouting on her forehead. She tried to tell herself it was all her imagination and rushed upstairs. Her forehead looked unblemished, but she put a little witch hazel on it,
just in case. The witch hazel left a round white mark in her mask of foundation cream and powder. She swore and repaired the damage.

By the time the doorbell went, she was feeling hot and frazzled. Guy Freemont stood on the doorstep, black hair gleaming, impeccably tailored, dazzling smile. Agatha felt miserable, like a
teenager on her first date.

The village hall was crowded. The press were there in force, not only the locals, but Midlands TV, and some of the nationals. The murder had put Ancombe on the map.

Miss Mary Owen got to her feet to address the crowd. She had a high, autocratic voice and a commanding manner. She was dressed in an old print frock with a droopy hem but wore a fine rope of
pearls around her neck.

She began. ‘I have been against selling the water all along. It is a disgrace. It is desecration of one of the famous features of the Cotswolds, something that by right belongs to the
villagers of Ancombe. You have heard complaints, have you not, about how the life is being drained out of our villages by incomers?’ Agatha shifted uneasily. ‘I do not think the water
should be sold off without the villagers’ permission. I suggest we put it here and now to a vote.’

Oh, no, thought Agatha, not before they’ve heard me. She was about to get to her feet when a woman stood up in the audience. ‘It’s
my
water,’ she said.

‘Come up and let’s hear you,’ called Agatha, glad of the distraction.

The woman was helped up on to the platform. Miss Owen gave her a filthy look but surrendered the microphone to her. ‘Who are you?’ asked Agatha, lowering the microphone to suit the
height of the newcomer.

‘I am Mrs Toynbee and the spring is in
my
garden.’

Mrs Toynbee was a small, ‘soft’ woman, rather like marshmallow, though not plump. She had silver hair which formed a curly aureole about her head. She had the kind of face which
romantic novelists call heart-shaped. She had large light blue eyes and fair lashes. Her soft bosom was covered by a glittery evening sweater, white with silver sequins, worn over a long floral
skirt. Agatha judged her to be in her forties but when she started to speak, she had a clear, lisping, girlish voice.

‘As you all know,’ she began, ‘I am Mrs Robina Toynbee and I have had a hard time of it since my Arthur passed away.’ She paused and carefully dabbed each eye with a
small lace-edged handkerchief. Agatha, strictly a man-sized Kleenex woman, marvelled that there were obviously still lace-edged handkerchiefs on the market. ‘The water rights are mine to
sell,’ went on Robina Toynbee.

‘But the actual fountain is
outside
your garden!’ cried Mary Owen, leaping to her feet.

Robina Toynbee cast her a look of pain and shook her head gently. ‘If that is what troubles you, then I have the right to block the spring and they can take the water from my
garden.’

‘Too difficult,’ murmured Guy in Agatha’s ear, ‘we need that skull for the labels.’

Agatha marched forward. ‘If I might have a word, dear.’ She edged Robina Toynbee away from the microphone.

‘Perhaps I can explain things,’ said Agatha. Her eyes flew to where James was standing at the back of the hall, his arms folded. She gave her head a little shake, as if to free it
from thoughts of James Lacey. She mentally marshalled her facts and figures and proceeded to bulldoze her audience.

‘The company are paying Mrs Toynbee for the water, yes, but they are also paying a generous yearly sum to the parish council which, I gather, if accepted, will go towards the building of a
new community hall. Yes, the publicity will bring tourists to the village but tourists will bring trade to the village shops. From nine in the morning each day until the following dawn, the spring
will belong to the villagers as it always has.’

Bill Wong leaned back in his seat and smiled appreciatively. It was nice to see Agatha Raisin back on form. He had been worried about her since her break-up with James.

‘Wait a bit,’ shouted Andy Stiggs. ‘I know you, Mrs Raisin. You’re one of those incomers, one of those people who are ruining the village character.’

‘If it weren’t for incomers, you wouldn’t have any village character,’ said Agatha. ‘Those cottages down the lower end of the village, what about them? They were
derelict and abandoned for years. Then some enterprising builder did them up, lovingly restored them. Who bought them? Incomers. Who made the gardens pretty again? Incomers.’

‘That’s because the local people couldn’t afford the prices,’ panted Andy.

‘You mean they’re all broke like you, Miss Owen and Mr Bill Allen?’

Agatha winked at the audience and there was an appreciative roar of laughter.

‘I must and will have my say.’ Bill Allen, the owner of the garden centre, got up and stood in front of the microphone. He was dressed in a hacking jacket, knee-breeches, lovat socks
and brogues. A pseud, if ever there was one, thought Agatha, listening to the genteel strangulation of his vowels.

He began to read from a sheaf of papers. It soon became apparent to all in the hall that he had written a speech. A cloud of boredom settled down. Agatha despaired. She wanted the meeting to end
on a high note. But how to stop him?

She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Bill Allen. He glanced at it, turned brick-red and abruptly left the platform.

Gleefully Agatha took his place. ‘The other thing I meant to tell you is that to launch the new bottled water, we are going to have a splendid fête right here in Ancombe, a good
old-fashioned village fête. Yes, we’ll have film stars and people like that present, but I want you to have all your usual stalls, home-made jam, cakes, things like that, and games for
the children. It will be the village fête to end all village fêtes. Television will be there, of course, and we will show the world what Ancombe is made of. Won’t we?’