Killing time, p.1
Killing Time, page 1
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For Mateu and Joana,
who always provide such a wonderful welcome at Llenyater in Pollensa
Foreword
How many cameras can you count in your street, or in the area where you live? You can spot them on buildings, on masts, attached to streetlights, mounted on traffic lights or on the lights at pedestrian crossings. Maybe you can hazard a guess at how many there are near where you live, but what about across the whole country? In the UK, including the relatively new “doorbell cams” that have become ever more widespread over the past few years, there are around six million cameras keeping an eye on us. There are even more in the United States and plenty all over Europe, not to mention China.
For some people here in the UK, six million cameras is a disturbing figure, conjuring up old Orwellian paranoias that “Big Brother is watching you.” The truth is that the vast majority of the footage captured on camera in the UK is never watched at all. Unless an incident has occurred that might warrant a householder, a business owner or a police officer trawling through hours of recordings, most camera footage is simply stored for a while and then deleted.
If officers can get their hands on them before they’re wiped, video recordings can be incredibly useful to the police in establishing exactly what happened at a crime scene or tracking suspects and their vehicles. Police officers use camera images on a daily basis. Not everyone, however, is keen to share their video with the authorities and, in many cases, those running businesses with security cameras don’t even know how to retrieve the footage. If you own a shoe shop, after all, you can be expected to know all about shoes, but maybe not so much about video technology. You can be fairly sure, therefore, that, most of the time, absolutely no brother, big or little, is watching you. On the other hand, if you were to get yourself caught up in any dodgy dealings in Carsely, Mircester or any other part of Agatha Raisin’s stomping ground in the Cotswolds, you can bet your burglar’s balaclava that Agatha will be watching.
For a private detective like Agatha, a strong grasp of how useful tech works is a necessity. When M. C. Beaton—Marion—first sat me down to talk to me about Agatha and the other characters in her books, she was able to describe Agatha’s approach to gadgets in no uncertain terms, mainly because, as in so many things, Agatha’s attitude was very similar to her own. She explained that Agatha might, at first, be suspicious of something new but, whether it be a new TV remote, a new phone, a new computer, a new iPad or a new camera, Agatha would doggedly stick at it until she had mastered the thing. She would never allow the youngsters on her staff to think that she couldn’t keep up, even if it practically drove her doolally trying to do so.
Cameras, of course, in all their forms, are an essential tool of the investigator’s trade. Agatha almost came a cropper once while up a ladder at a bedroom window trying to take a picture of a philandering husband with his mistress, so she’s well aware of how vital photographic evidence can be. In Killing Time, it’s fair to say, she and her team make good use of security cameras at home in Carsely, in Mircester and even in London, just as any investigator in the real world would want to do. Photographs and video images can provide cast-iron evidence and make or break an alibi, but, for Agatha, things that remain unseen on the video screen become paramount. Her understanding of the tech helps to keep her ahead of the game.
Real-world places often sneak into Agatha’s world and that was always an entirely deliberate ploy on Marion’s part. She was happy to send Agatha off to distant lands, generally to some of Marion’s own favourite places—France, Cyprus, Turkey or even South America—but always stressed that Agatha had to come home to the Cotswolds because the area is one of the book’s main characters, and the most important elements of the story should unfold there. Some rules, as Agatha points out towards the end of Killing Time, are there to be broken and Marion certainly wasn’t averse to doing so. In this book Agatha’s foreign jaunt gives her a major headache but also a little respite just when she looks like she might be overwhelmed by events. Where better to recharge your batteries than in the loveliest area of a beautiful Mediterranean island? Agatha ends up in Pollensa in Mallorca (yes, it is one of my favourite places) but, don’t worry, she’s back home in the thick of things before long.
The real world and real places may always have a part to play, but in Killing Time, Agatha also delves into a real-life mystery. The Campden Wonder is the story of the strange disappearance of William Harrison in 1660. For those of you who may be reading this before having read the book, I won’t go into Harrison’s tale here save to say that people have been puzzling over it for the best part of four centuries. The version outlined here is really just the bare bones of the story. If you want to find out more about it, the Campden & District Historical & Archaeological Society published a very informative booklet written by Jill Wilson, Mr. Harrison Is Missing, which is well worth a read. There are also masses about the whole mystery online, as you would expect. One thing I wasn’t able to find was a theory anything like Agatha’s, although that doesn’t mean it’s not already out there somewhere!
I hope you enjoy Agatha’s latest adventure and meeting up with all our old Cotswold friends for another bout of murder and mayhem!
R.W. Green, 2024
Chapter One
“So this is where the murder was committed…” Agatha Raisin leaned against a wooden gate, craning her neck to peer into the meadow beyond. The shallow, grassy slope glistened with moisture, the morning sun having banished the overnight frost, leaving only furtive patches of white cowering in the sparse shade of leafless trees and the more substantial shadows lurking behind stone walls.
“It was around here that William Harrison’s slashed hat and bloodstained scarf were found.” Sir Charles Fraith stood behind her, leaning against his Range Rover, the large car dominating the roadside turn-off leading to the gate.
Agatha gave up straining to see into the meadow, instead stepping towards a stone stile set in the perimeter wall that gave access to a public footpath. She put one foot on the stile, then changed her mind. The four-inch heels on her mauve suede shoes were not designed for climbing over walls, even this low, waist-high boundary. Slipping off the shoes, she handed them to Charles.
“Here,” she said. “Look after these. I want to take a look at the crime scene.”
When she pushed herself up onto the stile step, she felt the unmistakable pop of a seam stitch at the back of her skirt. She sighed. The skirt had been a little tight when she first eased herself into it earlier that morning but it was the perfect purple to complement her new shoes. Surely it should have slackened off with wearing, not shrunk even tighter? She hitched it up, easing the strain but raising the hemline well above her knees. There was a murmur of approval from behind her. She turned and glowered at Charles.
“Well,” he said, shrugging and smiling, “you’ve always had great legs.”
“You’d best not try lines like that on any of your new employees, Charles,” she warned him with a wag of her finger. “You’ll be accused of using inappropriate language and sexism, and likely be sued for compensation for the distress you’ve caused.”
“You needn’t worry about that,” Charles said, smiling. “I’ve brought in the very best people at the vineyard, in the winery and in the ice-cream business for that matter. I’m not going to risk losing any of them now that we’re up and running. You can count on that, Aggie.”
She gave him a cool look out of the corner of her eye. He’d used that name again. It was fine when they had been together, when they had been lovers, but once his dalliances with younger women had put an end to that, the pet name, “Aggie,” had become an irritant. She had warned him countless times not to call her that, but old habits, especially in a man like Charles, who had never grown accustomed to letting anyone tell him what to do, died hard. In any case, she had a murder scene to scrutinise. She concentrated on traversing the stile without splitting any seams and took a couple of paces on the meadow’s wet grass, ignoring the moisture seeping into the soles of her tights.
To her right she could see the graveyard of St. James’ Church in Chipping Campden and the ornate church tower. In front of her, across the wide, grassy slope, lay fields and trees stretching off towards distant, hazy hills. The far edge of the meadow was marked by another stone wall and, dominating the wall, a curious, three-storey stone building with twin gables in its slate roof. Four pinnacles, like small minarets, rose from each corner of the building. Although poor imitations of their far more majestic counterparts proudly adorning the church tower, they still managed to lend the building an air of grandeur.
“What’s that house over there
“That’s the East Banqueting House,” Charles replied. “Looks rather splendid in this light, doesn’t it?” He reached into the pocket of his heavy tweed shooting jacket, retrieving his phone to snap a picture of the scene. “It was once part of Campden House, although the old mansion was burned down in 1645.”
Agatha turned to face him. She had seen no sign of any police tape, nor notices warning the public to stay clear, nor anything at all to indicate that a murder investigation was underway. She frowned at Charles, then instantly imagined her eyebrows, normally high, graceful, well-manicured arches, stooping to meet low on her forehead like two kissing snakes. She felt a wrinkle puckering. That would never do. She released the snakes.
“When exactly did this murder take place?” she asked.
“Ah, yes,” Charles said, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “That’s the really interesting bit. William Harrison went missing on the sixteenth of August 1660.”
“The sixteenth of…?” Agatha stomped back to the stile as well as anyone could stomp in stockinged feet on soggy grass, mounting the stile with scant regard to the danger of a split seam. “You told me there was a mysterious murder to be solved here, not some ancient fairy tale from nearly four hundred years ago! You’ve hoodwinked me into coming along this afternoon!”
She snatched her shoes from him, managing to fix him with a look of simmering fury while still accepting his arm for balance as she crammed her damp feet back into her shoes.
“I promised you a proposition that would interest you, a murder case that would fascinate you, and Sunday lunch,” Charles said calmly, trying hard not to seem too amused by what he recognised as a relatively mild manifestation of the infamous Raisin temper. “We haven’t even scratched the surface yet.”
“Well, you can scratch it on the way to the restaurant,” Agatha said, yanking open the car’s passenger door. “Let’s go!”
“First, the murder,” Charles said, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. “William Harrison was a well-respected man in this area. He was steward of the estate that belonged to Lady Juliana Noel, whose father built Campden House. Lady Juliana no longer lived in the area, but she trusted Harrison, who had worked for the family since her father’s time, to run the estate. He set off to collect rents from Lady Juliana’s tenants one afternoon, telling his wife he would be home in time for supper, but he never returned. She sent their servant, John Perry, out to look for her husband, but Perry didn’t come back that night either.”
“Was he killed, too?” Agatha slipped her shoes off again, letting the car’s heater warm and dry her feet.
“No, he showed up the next morning when Harrison’s nineteen-year-old son, Edward, went out looking for his father.”
“Where was Harrison going?” Agatha asked, and Charles felt a flush of triumph. In that instant, with those two questions, he knew he’d piqued her interest and that now there would be no stopping her until she knew all the details.
“Actually, we’re heading in that direction now,” he explained. “Harrison aimed to collect rents from the villages of Charingworth and Paxford, and also call in at Ebrington on the way home. We’re booked for lunch at the Ebrington Arms.”
He pulled out onto the road, heading away from Chipping Campden.
“We’ll be there in no time,” he said. “It’s only a couple of miles, a little less the way the old man would have walked across the fields.”
“Old?” Agatha asked. “How old?”
“He was probably in his mid-sixties, but it was a journey he’d taken many times. He had worked for the Noel family pretty much all his life. He was also on the board of the local grammar school—a very methodical, particular and proud man by all accounts.”
“He’d also have been very old for the time, wouldn’t he? People didn’t live so long back then.”
“There’s certainly some truth in that,” Charles said, his head rocking from side to side as though weighing points for and against with his ears. “Infant mortality was dreadfully high but if you made it to adulthood and then into your twenties and were still reasonably healthy, you were clearly made of strong stuff. If you ate well and kept active, you could expect to live on into your seventies.”
“So what did actually happen to him?”
“Therein lies the mystery!” Charles slapped a hand on the steering wheel to emphasise his point. “John Perry’s account of how he went looking for his master didn’t make much sense, so the local magistrate had him locked up to make sure he didn’t disappear. Villagers were organised into search parties to try to find Harrison, but all they turned up was the hat and scarf.”
“I assume the magistrate would then have suspected foul play.”
“Quite right. John Perry was questioned again, and this time he pointed the finger at his brother, Richard, and their mother, accusing them of having bumped off old Harrison to rob him of the rents he had collected. He said they told him they were going to dump the body in a pond or a cesspit.”
“Yuck! Were the mother and brother still in the area?”
“Yes. They were arrested but denied everything. Look—we’re almost there.”
An attractive, modern-looking house faced with mellow Cotswold stone came into view on the left, and the ditches and hedgerows that had lined the road gave way to neatly trimmed grass verges. Charles followed the road round to the right where Ebrington’s older cottages crowded in on both sides before they came upon a short yet elegant terrace of houses with expertly thatched roofs. Agatha made a mental note to make enquiries with the owners should she ever need work done on the thatch of her own cottage in Carsely.
Turning right onto a road signposted for Paxford and Blockley, the Ebrington Arms appeared ahead of them, the sign above its quaint bay window announcing it as a LICENSED VICTUALLER AND RETAILER OF SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. Agatha hoped they also served hearty meals as she hadn’t eaten a thing since the lasagne ready meal she had nuked in the microwave the evening before. Her quiet, relaxing Saturday night in had almost been ruined when she’d attempted to watch some mindless garbage on TV, but she had rescued herself from the professionally feigned exuberance of a game-show host and the ecstatic howling of his studio audience simply by pressing the “off” button on her remote. She had then curled up on her sofa with her two cats, a glass of wine, and a much-thumbed copy of Agatha Christie’s Problem at Pollensa Bay short-story collection.
Pollensa, on Mallorca, had a special relevance for her right now as the Spanish island was the next port of call for the Ocean Palace Splendour cruise liner. On board was John Glass, a former detective inspector with Mircester Police. The two had spent a great deal of time in each other’s company since they had danced together at the wedding of their mutual friends, police officers Alice and Bill Wong. John was an expert dancer and Agatha had allowed him to sweep her off her feet during a subsequent series of dance dates. Their romance blossomed, their mutual love of dancing whisking them forward from dance partners to lovers. On retiring from the police, John had accepted a job as a dance instructor on the cruise liner but Agatha had refused to travel with him. Instead, they had agreed to meet in all the most romantic places visited by the ship on its voyage around the world. Their next rendezvous was to be in Mallorca.
Charles pulled into the car park at the side of the pub and they walked into the traditional country inn, its low ceilings supported by ancient oak beams. The bar was of gleaming, polished wood, proudly displaying pump handles labelled with a variety of real ales and, behind, shelves groaning under the weight of an impressive array of spirits. At one end of the room, beneath a massive timber mantelpiece, a log fire blazed in an age-blackened stove. Although it was distinctly chilly outside, the Ebrington Arms offered a cosy welcome, a little too warm for Agatha near the stove, so she was glad when the waitress who greeted them showed them to a table that wasn’t too close to the fireplace.
