The Deadly Dance - M. C. Beaton [46]
Charles looked at his watch. “We’d better get moving.”
“A police car will take you to Charles de Gaulle.”
On the road to the airport, Charles said uneasily, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Which is?”
“The revolver and the black Balaclava. Agatha, do you think someone might have taken a hit out on you?”
“In the Cotswolds?”
“Think about it. Whoever fired at Cassandra had a first-class sniper rifle. That wasn’t amateur stuff.”
“This is getting scary. Let’s hope he turns out to be a well-known burglar. But why didn’t the burglar alarm work?”
Emma unearthed the rat poison and the coffee jar, put them in a bag, and took them out to her car. She had made a statement to the police, saying that she had slept soundly and had not heard a thing. She breathed a sigh of relief when she drove off. Doris would surely tell the police about her having had the keys to Agatha’s cottage. She drove out onto the old Worcester Road and up to where she knew the council tip was. She put the bag containing therat poison and the coffee jar into a container of general rubbish and heaved a sigh of relief.
Then she thought, there was really nothing to worry about now. They would think the man had broken in. It would be assumed that the burglar alarm was faulty. She suddenly felt ill as she remembered the dead body on the kitchen floor, and stopped the car, got out and was violently sick.
EIGHT
AGATHA and Charles were taken straight to Mircester Police Headquarters and put in an interviewing room.
Then Detective Inspector Wilkes appeared with another man whom he introduced as Detective Inspector William Fother of the Special Branch. Another man followed them into the room and leaned against a wall, his arms folded.
“What have the Special Branch got to do with this?” asked Agatha.
“We’ll ask the questions,” said Fother.
He was a dark-skinned man with thinning brown hair and large ugly hands which he folded on the table in front of him. His first question surprised Agatha.
“Mrs. Raisin, when did you last visit the Republic of Ireland?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Please just answer the question,” he rapped out.
Despite his unremarkable appearance, there was something menacing about Fother.
“I haven’t,” said Agatha. “I mean, I never got around to going there. On holidays, you know, I think of sun.”
“And Northern Ireland?”
“Never been there either.”
“We can check.”
“Oh, please do,” said Agatha, her temper beginning to rise. “Have you heard of a man called Johnny Mulligan?” “No. Who is he?”
“He is the dead gentleman on your kitchen floor. He was a foot soldier with the Provisional IRA. He was in the Maze Prison for murder but released under Tony Blair’s famous amnesty.”
“Could he have got the wrong house?” asked Charles. “I mean, Agatha’s got nothing to do with anywhere in Ireland or politics.”
“We’ll get to you later, Sir Charles. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you would remain silent.”
Fother fastened his gaze on Agatha again. “Mulligan was killed by some sort of poison. There was an empty coffee-cup on the table. The contents are being analysed, as is the jar of coffee. So far, we know the jar of coffee did not have any prints on it, which looks as if someone doctored it with poison. Perhaps someone who expected a visit from him?”
“I used the coffee I left in the kitchen before I left for Paris. I had a cup of it. Are you feeling well, Charles? You’ve gone rather white.”
“What if,” said Charles, “someone not connected at all decided to try to poison Agatha and whoever this Mulligan was drank it instead?”
“Who, for instance?”
Should I tell them about Emma? wondered Charles desperately. It would be awful if she turned out to be completely innocent. He rallied, “Maybe someone from one of Agatha’s cases.”
“Police are going through her files at the moment. You look upset. Are you sure you have no idea who put the poison there?”
“No idea,” said Charles.
Fother turned back to Agatha. “Why did you go to Paris?”
“I felt like a break,” said Agatha, “and Charles wanted to look up a friend’s daughter