Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon - M. C. Beaton [38]
At last the ordeal was over. “Go into the garden,” said Bill, “and I’ll bring the coffee out to you.”
“It’s raining,” said Agatha, finding her voice.
“I’ve built a little conservatory,” said Bill proudly. “Come and I’ll show you.”
He led the way out through the kitchen. But as he closed the dining room door, Agatha could hear the Wongs breaking into animated speech. Evidently the ban at speaking at the table only extended to visitors. What were they talking about? Probably complaining about me, thought Agatha.
The conservatory was a small room with a few potted plants and an iron table with chairs round it.
“Did you do all this yourself?” asked Charles.
“I did the foundations and the brickwork and then got a firm to do the rest. I’ll go and get coffee. There’s an ashtray on the table, Agatha. You can smoke.”
No sooner had he left than Charles extracted a plastic shopping bag from the inside pocket of his jacket. He opened the door of the conservatory that led into the garden, whirled the bag round his head and sent it sailing into the garden next door.
When he returned, Agatha asked, “Was that lunch?”
“Yes.”
“How did you do it?”
“Apart from Mrs. Wong glaring at you, Bill and his father never raised their eyes from their plates. So when they weren’t looking, I took out the bag, opened it down between my knees and quickly tipped the plateful into it. I couldn’t get rid of the pudding because I knew that wretched custard would stick to the plate. Shh! Here’s Bill.”
Bill came in with a tray of coffee things. Agatha lit a cigarette. “So what’s happening?” she asked.
“We’re checking up on all the men who paid to go into the girls’ Web site. We examined Robert Smedley’s records, just in case he was tied up with Burt in some way other than employer, and there was no sign of any payment.”
“I find it hard to believe that the girls’ parents knew nothing about what was going on.”
“The parents are all pretty lax. We checked with the school. Most of the parents allow their kids too little supervision.”
“There was one picture where Trixie and Fairy were pulling Jessica’s hair and it didn’t look like play. I think she was bullied into it.”
“Probably did it out of love for Burt and was frightened of losing him if she didn’t do what he wanted. How are you getting on with the Smedley case?”
“Nothing. Joyce would seem to be the obvious suspect. I mean, the weedkiller in, probably, the milk bottle. Although someone else could have got to that milk bottle before they packed up work on the Friday. Even though she washed it, couldn’t your forensic people still get something from the empty bottle?”
“We’re still looking for it.”
“What? Wasn’t it in the trash?”
“Joyce said she always scalded out the empties with boiling water.”
“Wait a bit,” said Charles. “This doesn’t add up. She pours his coffee, adds the milk, and takes it in to him. Don’t tell me she then calmly stood in the little office kitchen scalding out the milk bottle while her boss was noisily puking up his guts next door.”
“No. She says that because the kettle had just boiled for the coffee, she used the rest of the water to clean the bottle before taking the coffee in to him and left the bottle upended on the draining board.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about the missing milk bottle before?” asked Agatha.
“Because we didn’t know it was missing. It now turns out that the Friday before, Smedley had a conference with several of the staff and they had coffee and biscuits. A bottle of milk and most of another bottle was used up, because two of the staff refused coffee and said they would each have a glass of milk instead. Joyce put the bottle with the little bit of milk in it in the fridge, scalded out the other one, and left it in the kitchen trash. She could be lying, of course. But we haven’t any proof. We’ve searched all the outside rubbish bins. There were milk bottles in some of them We tested them all. The staff have all