Dishing the Dirt

Frustrated and angry, Ruby decided to drive on to Carsely and confront Agatha Raisin.

Simon’s flat was in a pedestrian area and so Ruby had left her car in the main square. Before she reached it, the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down. A flash of lightning lit up the square and she saw to her dismay that the back window of her car had been smashed. She slid into the front seat and tried to dry her sopping hair with some tissues. Police headquarters were beside the square but she decided against going in to report the window; they would consider that she was poaching on their territory. She noticed the streetlights were out. The storm must have caused a power cut.

Wearily, Ruby decided to forget about the whole thing and go home.

She was just about to switch on the engine when a wire was slid around her neck and viciously pulled tight. Ruby was a strong woman and tried to get her fingers under the wire without success. With one dying hand, she punched the hazard warning lights before everything turned black.

*

Bill Wong put up his umbrella as he left headquarters. Agatha Raisin had been released an hour before, after what Bill considered a merciless grilling from Wilkes, who seemed to persist in thinking that Agatha was impeding police enquiries.

As he made his way to his car, the rain suddenly switched off, as if some Olympian god had turned off a tap. Behind him he could hear the rumble of the police generator as it coped with the power cut.

He saw a car with flashing hazard lights and approached it curiously in case someone was in trouble. He rapped on the driver’s window. He could see a dim figure at the wheel through the steamed-up glass. He opened the car door and Ruby’s lifeless body and horribly contorted face slid out halfway, held by the seat belt.

*

Agatha Raisin was awakened the following morning by Toni with the news that Simon had been arrested for the murder of Ruby Carson. The CCTV cameras in the square had filmed her going to Simon’s flat as had the one in the pedestrian area. But after the power cut, the cameras had stopped working.

Agatha swung into action, hiring a criminal lawyer, and then arrived at police headquarters to find that an exhausted Simon had just been released. The messages from Ruby, which he still had on his mobile phone, showed he had not wanted to see her. Chief Superintendent Alistair White did not say he had been having an affair with Ruby but had said she had called him round to tell him of Agatha’s find and that she was waiting for Simon.

He backed Simon’s story that he had heard insulting remarks from Ruby about himself through the open window.

There was a tent over Ruby’s car in the car park. Simon told Agatha the police reckoned that the murderer had been tailing Ruby and had smashed the back window and climbed into the passenger seat. A garrote had been found lying on the floor. It had been made from cheese wire with polished cylindrical pieces of wood attached.

“Surely there must be more than one person involved,” exclaimed Agatha.

Despite the heat of the day, Simon shivered. He thought Ruby’s dead contorted face would haunt him until the end of his days. “I feel some twisted mind is playing cat and mouse with us and knows our every move,” he said.

Agatha stared at him. “Bugs!” she said. “I wonder if my cottage is bugged? We’ve got a radio frequency detector in the office. Go and get it, Simon, and I’ll do a sweep of my home.”

*

When they arrived, Charles was on the kitchen floor, playing with the cats. Agatha signalled him to be quiet and led him out into the garden where she told him about Ruby’s murder and that they were going to sweep the cottage for bugs. “And what are my cats doing back here?” she asked.

“Doris is working upstairs,” said Charles.

“What! This isn’t cleaning day?”