Dishing the Dirt

“Be your age.”


“No wonder our marriage didn’t work out,” snarled Agatha. “Always nitpicking and complaining. Furthermore…”

The office door opened. “You’re to go in,” said the assistant.

They walked in. Davent stood up to meet them. Agatha introduced herself and James.

“I don’t know how I can help you,” he said. “I have had so many grillings from the police.”

“Just a few questions, Mr. Davent.”

“Call me Tris. It’s short for Tristram.”

He was a good-looking man in possibly his early forties. He was of moderate height with a thick head of hair with auburn highlights. He was wearing a charcoal grey suit with a striped shirt and blue silk tie. He had neat regular features and a square chin with a dimple in it.

“Please sit down,” he said. Tris sat behind his desk and Agatha and James took chairs in front of it.

“It’s like this,” said Agatha. “In order to find out who murdered your late wife, we have to know more about her background. Was she a therapist when you met her?”

“No, she was a tart.”

“Why did you marry her?” asked James curiously.

He sighed. “I’ll begin at the beginning. I went to a computer conference in Chicago, ten years ago. Jill was blond then. She just seemed to be one of the computer crowd. My wife had died of cancer the year before. Jill was a good listener. She was English and I was lonely. We ended up in bed together. In the morning, she said she had an important appointment and had to rush. We arranged to meet in the hotel bar that evening. That’s when I found my wallet was missing.”

“Did you tell the police?”

“I felt I had been conned. I was too ashamed. I still turned up in the bar that evening at the appointed time and wasn’t much surprised when she didn’t turn up. I put it down to experience. Two months later, she turned up at my address in Evesham in tears, saying she was pregnant. I accused her of stealing my wallet and she looked horrified. She denied the whole thing and said someone must have picked my pocket when we were in the bar. She said she was a qualified therapist. My late wife could not have children and I wanted to believe her. So we got married.

Then after four months, she said she’d had a miscarriage. I had begun to get suspicious of her. She was somehow so … how can I describe it?… glib.

One day when she was out, I searched her things. I found my wallet. No money, but the cards were there. I taxed her with it and she said that she had been unable to keep her appointment in the bar but had been so worried about the missing wallet that she had got hold of the hotel detective. The wallet had been found in the hotel trash. When I was in my shop, I phoned the hotel and asked to speak to the detective. He said no one had asked him to look for any wallet. He asked for Jill’s name. I told him her maiden name was Jill Sommerville. He told me to phone him the following day, which I did. He said Jill had been working for a high-class escort agency and I had been well and truly conned. I confronted Jill again and said unless she agreed to an immediate and uncontested divorce, I would take her to court. She agreed. She moved out immediately. She was as cold as ice. She jeered at me and called me a boring fool. She said she had been tired of the life.”

Agatha supressed a groan. Prostitution, however classy, often came with a package of drugs, crime and pimps. Someone could have followed her from America. It could even be some other man she had cheated. Agatha felt deflated and at a complete loss. She could not bring herself to believe that this ex-husband might be a murderer.

“Are you two an item?” asked Tris.

“We were married but it didn’t work out,” said Agatha.

Tris grinned. “Join the club.”

Outraged, James got to his feet. “I will wait for you outside,” he said coldly to Agatha, and stalked out.