At the grandest, most fabulous party ever seen in the Cotswolds, Agatha was the centre of attention, surrounded by a crowd of handsome men and glamorous women, all stylishly dressed, sipping champagne and complimenting her on what a wonderful job she had done in staging the event, what a wonderful outfit she was wearing and how wonderfully slim she looked. Everything was wonderful. It was a word Agatha heard repeated over and over again, “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, darling!” Music was seeping through the waves of conversation from somewhere and the party atmosphere was positively tingling, yet, scanning all the happy faces gathered round her, Agatha was having trouble recognising any of them.
Then she spotted one man standing alone near a doorway. He was wearing a battered hat, a long black cloak, black knee breeches and grey stockings. She watched him looking furtively this way and that, uncomfortable and out of place. It seemed he knew he shouldn’t be there and, when it slowly dawned on Agatha who he was, she could only agree—it was William Harrison! He looked straight at her, fear and panic in his eyes. She tried to push through the crowd towards him but a forest of partygoers’ shoulders and elbows kept getting in her way. Harrison had spotted the exit and was hurrying to make his escape. She would never reach him before he got away! Then she then heard a noise loud enough to cut through the party chit-chat and background music—a regular, rasping, grunting noise that sounded for all the world like … snoring! That explained everything. It was a dream. She was asleep.
With the party swiftly dissolving around her, her eyes opened and focused on her bedroom, dimly lit only by the Lilac Lane streetlight filtering through the curtains. She glanced down at the foot of her bed where she could make out the shapes of Boswell and Hodge, sleeping peacefully. Neither of them was snoring. She tutted. Had she really woken herself up with her own snoring just when she’d had the chance to question William Harrison? Don’t be ridiculous, she scolded herself. How could he tell her anything if he was only in her dream? He was simply part of her imagination. All he would have been able to say was whatever she imagined him saying.
She rolled over, half hoping that she might be able to slip back into the party dream. She recalled being able to do that once or twice in the past but, annoyingly, it wasn’t something over which she had any real control. She tried silently repeating, “Wonderful-wonderful-wonderful,” in her head until she fell asleep, soon drifting off to find herself not at the Cotswolds’ most fabulous party of all time, but gliding across the ballroom floor on the Ocean Palace Splendour in the arms of John Glass. This wasn’t the party. This was way better. This was a dream to stick with, and as her feet moved rhythmically in time to the music in her head, Boswell and Hodge abandoned the bottom of the bed for the safety of their basket in the corner of the room.
On the outskirts of Mircester town centre, just a few miles away from where Agatha was dreaming of a romantic interlude on a luxury cruise liner, the small, chic and exclusive jewellery store owned and run by designer Aurelia Barclay stood in silent darkness. Any passersby, and in this deepest, darkest pool of the night there were none, would have seen only an unlit shop with a desolate window display, the expensive, precious items that glistened there during daylight hours having been removed for secure overnight storage.
The flat above the shop showed no lights and the illumination on the elegantly lettered AURELIA DESIGNS shop sign was extinguished. The business, like all those around it, was locked down for the night.
Had anyone who chanced upon the shop looked closely, however, they might have seen a shadow flitting softly across the interior, and then, perhaps, another. With a little patience, anyone lingering outside might then have spotted the faintest glow of shielded torchlight. Despite the CLOSED sign on the door, Aurelia Designs had visitors.
Inside the shop, two black-clad figures crept into the jeweller’s workshop, making straight for a tall steel safe that stood immovably fastened to both the wall and the concrete floor by hidden bolts. Making barely a sound, they knelt by the safe, examining its electronic keypad. Suddenly the room was a blaze of light and the two figures, their faces concealed behind black balaclavas, leaped to their feet.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” roared Aurelia Barclay, standing in the doorway that led to her flat upstairs. She was tall and slim with an unruly mane of red hair that tumbled down to the shoulders of her dressing gown.
The two intruders immediately dashed for the open back door but Aurelia bounded forward to cut off their escape, thumbing the mobile phone in her hand. In one fluid movement, the shorter of the two burglars swept a small hammer from the workbench, swinging it in Aurelia’s direction. She raised an arm in an attempt to block the blow but the hammer slammed into the side of her face. Both raiders disappeared out the back door and Aurelia slumped to the floor. Her phone lay on the cold concrete by her head and, having already dialled 999, she heard the operator’s voice asking, “Emergency—which service please?”
“Aurelia Designs,” was all she could whisper before her eyes fluttered and closed.
The following morning, Agatha Raisin guided her car gently into her usual parking space in Mircester, the windscreen wipers working double time to clear the rain that was hammering down on the glass. Just as she switched off the engine, the rain turned to hail that drummed on the car’s roof and bounced off its bonnet. This, she decided, was a squall she should wait out. Retrieving her handbag from the passenger seat, she rummaged for her lipstick then flipped down the car’s sun visor to check her make-up in its mirror. No repairs were necessary but, she told herself, it was best to be prepared. A girl never knew who she might meet on her way to the office, even in filthy weather like this.
The hailstones continued to batter the car and Agatha watched them perform acrobatics on the bonnet. Not so long ago, she mused, she would have used the storm as an excuse to light up a cigarette. She was proud of the fact that she had given up, although she still found the smell of tobacco smoke so alluring that she could tell if someone was standing smoking on the pavement outside the King Charles pub in the lane opposite her office before she turned the corner from Mircester High Street.
The hailstorm passed as quickly as it had blown in, heading northeast to pummel the countryside all the way to Banbury. The rain then eased slightly as well and Agatha judged it safe to make a break for the office, pulling her collapsible umbrella from her bag. Stepping out of the car, she pressed a button on the umbrella handle to deploy the canopy. The spring-loaded red panels opened out, clicked into place, caught in the wind and shot off the end of their shaft, sailing towards entanglement in the barren branches of a tree fifteen yards away.
Agatha cursed and hurried round to the back of the car where she vaguely remembered that a proper, more robust, full-sized umbrella had been languishing in the boot for a few weeks. Opening the larger brolly into the wind, she sheltered beneath it, shaking water from her hair. She could feel her normally sleek, brown bob was in danger of being washed out of shape by its brief exposure to the rain. She sighed. Why was it when she’d spent so much time that morning to achieve the simple yet elegant style of classic Quant, she was probably going to arrive at her office looking like a jet-washed otter?
She hurried off along Mircester High Street.
The Raisin Investigations office was above an antiques shop in a winding, cobbled lane that led from the high street down towards Mircester Abbey. It was in the old part of the town centre where some of the buildings dated back more than three hundred years. Agatha far preferred this area of Mircester to the modern, drab concrete that dominated most of the rest of the town centre. She hated the soulless grey shopping precinct and municipal buildings that had been imposed upon the town in 1970s redevelopments, although she had nothing against modern design in principle. The latest clothes fashions, after all, were every bit as desirable as classics from the years gone by—well, some of them were. The wide-legged black trousers she was wearing were a bit of a blast from the past and were flapping like loose sails in the wind. She congratulated herself on not having chosen to wear the pleated skirt she’d been considering that morning. By now the skirt hem would have blown up into her armpits two or three times on the heavier gusts of wind. In any case, the trousers gave her the ideal opportunity to wear boots with precipitously high heels that were all but hidden, maintaining the secret of her overnight increase in height. She felt the wind tug at her umbrella and concentrated on keeping it under control.
As was so often the case, Agatha’s first real problem of the day was how to cross the cobblestones of the old lane in order to reach her office. They were treacherously slippery when wet and there were heel-snapping cracks to negotiate. She crossed the cobbles on tiptoes, balancing like a tightrope walker with her bag in one hand and her umbrella in the other. Only when she reached the other side did she notice the large furniture truck parked outside Mr. Tinkler’s antiques shop, completely blocking the door that led upstairs to Raisin Investigations. There was no one in the cab and when she ventured closer, carefully avoiding a spout of water cascading from a blocked gutter somewhere up on the roof of the building, she could see that the truck was parked too close to the wall for her to be able to squeeze through to her door.
Suddenly a gust of wind came howling down the lane, billowing into her umbrella and dragging it to arm’s length before snapping it inside out. Agatha screeched in outrage, then gasped with shock as the cascade of water from the gutter was fanned directly onto her. Her hair was plastered to her head and icy rivulets ran down her neck.
“Snakes … and … bast…” was all she could whisper through the film of water streaming down her face. A moment later, a hand gently grasped her arm and she was led aside, out of the waterfall, out of the rain.
“Oh, dear, Mrs. Raisin,” came a man’s voice. “That was most unfortunate … most unfortunate. Please do come inside.”
“Mr.… Tinkler,” Agatha said, blinking water from her eyes. The antiques dealer was leading her into his shop. “Thank you.”
“Oh, dear, dear me,” said the portly shopkeeper, surveying her over his half-moon glasses with a look of grave concern in his misty green eyes. “I’m afraid this is all my fault, Mrs. Raisin. I am so very sorry. Please, you must stand here and warm yourself by the heater.”
“What do you mean? How was this your fault?” She looked at him suspiciously, feeling the warmth from an electric fan heater permeate her damp trousers.
“The truck outside was delivering furniture to me.” He indicated two comfortable-looking leather armchairs. “The driver and his mate must have popped round to the sandwich shop in the high street for some breakfast.”
“Popped round to the…?” Agatha gritted her teeth. “I’ve a good mind to pop round there myself and—” She caught sight of herself in an ornate wall mirror. Her hair was flat, making her ears stick out like jug handles, and the mascara that had promised to be “one hundred per cent waterproof” had lied. She had black streaks running down her cheeks and eyes like a post-punk panda. “On the other hand,” she said quietly, “maybe not looking like this.”
“I’m sure I have something in here that might help,” said Mr. Tinkler, hurrying across the room to retrieve a large, plain cardboard box from the rear of his shop. It was the perfect accessory for his beige cardigan and baggy brown trousers. “Ah, yes!” he announced triumphantly after a short rummage, holding up an electric hair dryer. “It came in a batch of stuff from a house clearance, but I think it’s almost new.”
He placed the hair dryer on a side table and disappeared through an adjacent door, returning immediately with a clean, fluffy white towel.
“Take this,” he said, “and use my bathroom to dry off. Let me take your raincoat. I’ll hang it near the heater and, while you’re sorting yourself out, allow me to make you a coffee…”
He waved a hand towards a shining machine made of copper and brass with a pressure gauge, various metal tubes and a large wooden-handled lever.
“The machine’s not as old as it looks,” he explained, “but I have a penchant for good Italian espresso.”
Agatha took a quick look in the bathroom, which was small but neat and immaculately clean with a decent mirror above the hand basin. She had never taken time to get to know Mr. Tinkler, despite walking past his shop almost every day, and had always regarded him as a little odd, even slightly creepy. While it wasn’t in her nature ever to admit that she might be wrong, her opinion of her downstairs neighbour was rapidly changing.
“In that case,” she said, slipping off her coat, “I’d love to join you for a coffee, Mr. Tinkler.”
Once she had restored her hair, her make-up and her dignity, Agatha settled into one of the leather armchairs opposite Mr. Tinkler, who handed her a plain white coffee cup on a matching saucer. She looked around the room. She had never been inside Mr. Tinkler’s shop before, although she had glanced through the window many times in passing. The whole place was far more spacious than it looked from the outside and far less cluttered. There were many things displayed around the room but it was all actually quite neatly and logically laid out. There were brass coal scuttles and fire irons beside an ornate fire surround, crystal decanters and glasses sitting on a highly polished rosewood sideboard, Venetian glass ornaments in a display cabinet, leatherbound books in an oak bookcase, paintings, prints, ornaments, mirrors and even a suit of armour standing in a corner, clutching a wicked-looking battleaxe in its gauntlets. She took a sip and was very pleasantly surprised, declaring it to be the most delicious coffee she had ever tasted.
“And these chairs,” she went on, “are actually very comfortable, aren’t they?”
“They’re Victorian,” he said. “Finely crafted mahogany and leather in excellent condition. I have a client I know will want them, so I snapped them up when I saw them in the auction.”
“You bought them at an auction?” Agatha said slowly, an idea slowly forming in her head. “Do you go to many auctions?”
“Quite a few,” he replied. “There are always some bargains to be had if you know what you’re looking for.”
“I have an event that I’m running in the not-too-distant future,” she explained. “There will be lots of wealthy people there who have more money than they know what to do with. I think an auction in aid of charity might be rather fun, but I’ve never been to a real auction before.”
“If you would like to see how an auction’s run, I’m going to one this afternoon. There are a couple of things in the catalogue I’m interested in. Would you care to join me?”
“Mr. Tinkler, I think that’s an excellent idea—I’d love to come along. It’s a date!”
“A date? Really … I … dear me … all I meant was…” His cheeks flushed pink and he stared down into his coffee cup.
Agatha looked at him and smiled. Having met and spoken to him, she realised that he wasn’t as old as he seemed, probably only in his early sixties, but he was clearly very shy.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Tinkler, it’s just an expression. It doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything!” She laughed, trying to make light of the situation, but he was glowing ever more pink. She felt a twinge of exasperation at his timorous nature, then decided that it was endearing rather than annoying. He had, after all, been very kind about her drenching. She adopted what she hoped was a calm, reassuring tone. “I would be very grateful for your advice and guidance.”
They agreed to meet in the shop later that day and, the furniture truck having gone, Agatha made her way upstairs to her office.
Her unscheduled coffee break with Mr. Tinkler meant that she was last into the office, her staff all settled at their desks by the time she strode in.
“Morning, boss!” Simon Black called, the young man looking up from the computer on his desk to give her his trademark wrinkled grin.
Agatha greeted him in kind, as she did with Patrick Mulligan, the sombre-looking former police officer, when he nodded a greeting. Helen Freedman, Agatha’s secretary, bustled over to her as she crossed the floor to her private office, handing her three folders of paperwork for her attention—one with items to be signed, one with today’s mail and the third with items that were least urgent. Toni Gilmour, Agatha’s trusted deputy, then intercepted her before she could open her office door.
“You have an early visitor. I put him in your office and Helen brought him a cup of tea,” she said, brushing a lock of blonde hair off her cheek. Her skin was smooth and flawless. Agatha was glad she had spent some time in Mr. Tinkler’s bathroom reapplying her make-up. Toni wore very little make-up. She had no need of it. Youth and beauty walked hand in hand, but when youth fell behind, cosmetics were there to pick up the pace. In Agatha’s opinion, knowing how to look good required a certain style, and that was something Toni had yet to acquire. She didn’t like to admit to herself that she was jealous of Toni, yet, when she was being honest with herself, of course she was.
“Who is it?” Agatha asked.
“Mr. Mason from Mircester Chamber of Commerce,” Toni said. “He wasn’t supposed to be here until ten-thirty.”
“Give me a couple of minutes to get settled,” Agatha said quietly, “then come and join us, please, Toni.”
Mr. Mason was a thin, small man wearing a dark grey suit and an unremarkable blue tie. Sitting in a chair in front of Agatha’s oversized desk, he looked, she thought, too much like a mouse to be representing Mircester’s business community, but he did have extraordinarily sharp, intelligent dark eyes. She bade him good morning, placed her phone and the folders on her desk, hung her coat on the stand in the corner of the room and dropped her handbag into a desk drawer while commenting on the foul weather and the leaking gutter. He said nothing. Not even a squeak.
“I wasn’t expecting you quite so early, Mr. Mou … er … Mason,” she said, thanking Helen for the coffee she delivered, as she did every morning. Mr. Mason declined a tea refill.
“I won’t beat about the bush, Mrs. Raisin,” Mr. Mason said twitchily. “I came early because the matter about which I have been instructed to talk to you has now become desperately urgent.”
“Really?” said Agatha, sipping her coffee and immediately deciding that it wasn’t a patch on Mr. Tinkler’s. Toni then entered the room. “I believe you’ve met my colleague Miss Gilmour. She works with me on all our most important cases.”
“Good, because the reason the chamber of commerce is seeking your assistance is of the utmost importance to the whole of Mircester,” Mr. Mason assured them. “Our members include all of the most prominent businesspeople in the area. I assume you will have heard about the recent spate of burglaries at business premises?”
“I have,” said Agatha. “The break-ins have been mentioned in the Mircester Telegraph.”
“Indeed,” Mr. Mason agreed, “but the latest burglary has yet to make the papers, and it is the most serious of all.”
“What was taken?” Toni asked, poised with a notebook and pen.
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Mason, “but one of the leading lights in the Mircester business community was brutally assaulted. Aurelia Barclay disturbed the thieves as they tried to open her safe and was bludgeoned as they made their escape. She is now in hospital.”
“That’s dreadful!” Agatha said. “I’ve met Aurelia. I even bought some earrings from her. She’s an extremely talented designer. How badly was she hurt?”
“That I don’t know,” Mr. Mason said, “but the chamber decided at the end of last week, before this latest outrage, to ask you to step in. We would like you to catch whoever is responsible. As of this morning, we want you to do so before anyone else is injured … or worse.”
“But the attack on Aurelia Barclay and the other robberies are surely matters for the police,” Toni pointed out.
“I agree, Miss Gilmour,” said Mr. Mason, nodding and becoming increasingly agitated, “but the police have completely failed to stop the crime wave and now, especially considering what happened to Miss Barclay, we need to find the perpetrators of these crimes and protect our businesses. The members of the chamber are more than willing to cover whatever fees you may charge, Mrs. Raisin. We must put an end to this outrage whatever it costs!”
“First things first, Mr. Mason,” Agatha said, holding up a hand as if to stop the rampaging mouse in his tracks. “I want to find out how badly injured Aurelia is and if she’s able to talk to us. That may give us a better idea of who we’re dealing with. I need to consider the scale of the operation we would have to mount, and how it would affect our current caseload. Then, if I’m confident we can help, we may be able to come up with a plan and, if our proposals meet your approval, then we can discuss fees.”
“I can’t stress how urgent this is, Mrs. Raisin…”
“I understand, Mr. Mason. I will get back to you within twenty-four hours.”
Agatha showed Mr. Mason out, promised again to be in touch the following morning, then addressed her staff in the main office.
“I’m postponing the usual Monday morning case catch-up,” she said. “I need to get to the hospital to see Aurelia Barclay. Patrick, I want you to find out all you can about this morning’s visitor, Mr. Mason, and who’s involved at the chamber of commerce. Usual rules—I don’t want us working for anyone until we’re sure who they are.
“Simon, take a look at our current cases. See if there’s anything urgent needs doing today and let me know. Helen, Roy Silver will be arriving at some point this morning. Let him have the desk by the window. He’ll be working on a special project with me. Toni…” Agatha glanced out the window to see the rain falling relentlessly and decided against a second drenching, “… hang on a second.”
She popped into her office, fished her handbag out of its drawer and then stood in the doorway.
“Toni, you’re with me. Bring my car round, would you?” She tossed her car keys to Toni. “I need to take a quick look at the paperwork on my desk.”
Had Agatha not known she was walking along a corridor in Mircester General Hospital, had she suddenly been transported there with a wave of a magician’s wand, she would have realised in an instant where she was. The diffused lighting that left barely a shadow anywhere yet rarely provided enough illumination either, coupled with the aroma of disinfectant and linoleum polish, created a uniquely flat atmosphere that was utterly unmistakable. It was vaguely depressing, as though it were a place that offered no hope, which, she considered, wasn’t actually what you wanted from a hospital, was it? Maybe the place should be more jolly. Maybe it should make you smile. Still, clowns, jugglers, disco lights and dancing kittens wouldn’t really be appropriate either, would they? Maybe the sombre, serious atmosphere was about right after all.
The nurse walking ahead of them, whose rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the linoleum every second step, showed Agatha and Toni into a small ward where there were just four beds. One was occupied by a very old woman who was fast asleep and so small that she made scarcely a lump in the bedsheets. In two others sat women who were only marginally younger and took an avid interest in the new visitors, studying them intently from behind glossy showbiz gossip mags. Agatha glowered at them and they both swiftly lowered their eyes back to their reading material.
Aurelia Barclay was sitting up in the fourth bed. Her jaw was supported by a wide dressing that ran up each side of her face then disappeared round the back of her head beneath her hair, turning it into even more of a fiery red mane than it was normally. The nurse drew a curtain around the bed to give them more privacy.
“Good morning, Miss Barclay,” Agatha said, shaking her hand. “I’m Agatha Raisin and this is my associate, Toni Gilmour.”
“Please, call me Aurelia,” came the reply; Aurelia’s lips were moving but her teeth remained clamped shut. “I remember chatting with you in my shop, Agatha. I never forget a customer, especially one who regularly appears in the Mircester Telegraph tracking down murderers. You bought the gold cascade earrings.”
“I’m glad you remember me,” Agatha said, “and thank you for agreeing to see us. Please don’t try to say too much if it’s causing you pain. I wanted to explain that we’ve been approached by the Mircester Chamber of Commerce…”
“I know,” Aurelia interrupted her. “It was my idea to bring you in on this. I wish we’d done it sooner, then maybe those bastards in my workshop last night wouldn’t have broken my jaw!”
“I take it the police haven’t made much progress in tracking down the burglars?” Toni asked.
“None at all as far as I can tell,” Aurelia said, then grunted, clearly experiencing a pang of pain. “Excuse me,” she apologised. “I have to be careful how I speak. The police have told us they’re doing their best, but they’re understaffed and overstretched. I even heard one of the detectives—a tall, skinny idiot, seemed quite senior—describing the robberies as ‘victimless crimes’ because everything that was taken would be covered by our insurance.”
“Ah, yes,” Agatha said, nodding. “I think I know who you’re talking about. There’s no such thing as a victimless crime, and certainly not in your case. Can you tell me what the intruders looked like?”
“One was taller than the other but it was difficult to tell their actual heights,” Aurelia explained. “They went from crouching by the safe to sprinting for the door, so they never really straightened up. Both were dressed all in black with black balaclavas. The shorter one hit me in the face with a hammer.”
“A broken jaw is bad enough,” Toni said, “but a hammer could have done even more damage.”
“It was a small hammer—a planishing hammer for smoothing metal,” Aurelia explained. “I use it a lot on my jewellery. It only weighs about five ounces.”
“Nevertheless, it was a vicious attack,” Agatha said. “I understand you lost consciousness, so it’s remarkable that you can remember it all so well.”
“Oh, I’ll never forget those two scumbags,” Aurelia said, stiffening with anger. “Some of last night is a bit woozy, but I can’t get the image of that pair squatting by my safe out of my head.”
“They weren’t able to open it, were they?” Toni asked.
“No, but they looked like they knew what they were doing,” answered Aurelia. “They didn’t have time to get into the safe. I heard a noise and came straight downstairs. They’d already disabled my alarm system. They were real professionals.”
Raised voices could suddenly be heard echoing along the hospital corridor and Agatha’s heart sank when she immediately recognised one of them.
“Well, she’ll see me!” bellowed a man’s voice. “This is important police business. We are investigating an attempted murder!”
“I think we’d best go,” Agatha said, standing to leave. “Thanks again for seeing us, Aurelia.”
“You will take on the case, won’t you, Agatha?” Aurelia pleaded. “I’d feel so much better knowing you were out there tracking them down.”
“I’d like to,” Agatha said, “but it depends on a number of other things. I’ll be able to take stock of it all during the course of today.”
Agatha and Toni pushed aside the curtain to be confronted by a tall, gangly man wearing a limp brown suit that hung on his bony frame like cast-offs on a scarecrow—Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes. He was accompanied by Agatha’s friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong.
“What’s this interfering woman doing here, Wong?” Wilkes barked, glaring at Agatha.
“I’m doing my job,” Agatha said, fixing him with her bear-like eyes. “You should try that sometime.”
“Don’t try to bait me, Mrs. Raisin. I’m not interested in any of your drivel,” Wilkes snorted. “Out of my way. This is official police business, not the lost cats and seedy snooping that fill your days. This is a serious crime.”
“It’s a shame Miss Barclay had to get hurt before you started to take things seriously.”
“I don’t need any lectures from a rank amateur like you. I think you’d best step aside.”
“You think? I wondered what the burning smell was. Your brain cell’s overheating again, isn’t it?”
“Now you listen to me, you irritating upstart! If you get in the way of me investigating an attempted murder…”
“You’re joking, right?” Agatha’s head tilted slightly to the right. “This was a horrible incident, but you’re wasting your time trying to make a charge of attempted murder stick. You’ll never be able to prove the burglar used that hammer with intent to kill. The most you’ll likely get is aggravated burglary and, knowing you, you’ll probably bugger that up anyway!”
“Sergeant Wong!” roared Wilkes. “If this woman says another word, you are to arrest her for obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty!”
“The only obstruction here is between your ears and…” Agatha paused as Bill stepped forward, giving her a look she knew meant she should bite her lip. On balance, she considered she had too much else she wanted to do that day than to give Wilkes the pleasure of leaving her twiddling her thumbs for hours at Mircester Police Station. She allowed Bill to lead her off to one side while Wilkes marched into the ward, demanding to know which of the two women peeking out from behind their magazines was Aurelia Barclay.
“Don’t push him, Agatha,” Bill said softly, once they were out of Wilkes’s earshot. “He can make life very difficult for you.”
“Well, he’s had plenty of practice at that,” Agatha said, sighing. “How can you stand working for him?”
“In the police service we don’t get to choose our bosses,” Bill said, smiling. “Miss Barclay’s been asleep, so we haven’t had a chance to talk to her properly yet. I take it she’s in there?” he added, pointing towards the curtained bed. Agatha nodded.
“She’s wide awake now, Bill, and very angry,” Agatha advised. “She’ll have heard Wilkes out here and she’ll be ready for him. I don’t think she’ll be as gentle with him as I was.”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t clobber him,” Bill said, laughing, before stepping through the curtains just ahead of Wilkes.
“Aurelia seemed like a really nice woman,” said Toni, “but we can’t really help her, can we? Wilkes will throw the book at you if he thinks you’re trampling all over his investigation.”
“We’ve also got so much on at the moment that I think committing to tracking down burglars is a bit crazy,” Agatha replied, “but, after that little run-in with Wilkes, well … life would be pretty dull if we didn’t go a bit crazy now and again, wouldn’t it? We’ll nail those rats who battered Aurelia and to hell with Wilkes!”