The Deadly Dance - M. C. Beaton [63]
“Yes, we’re friends.”
“Who else has keys to your house?”
“Just Doris Simpson.”
“I’ll need her phone number.”
Agatha gave it to him and he picked up the phone and called Doris. Agatha’s heart sank as she heard Boyd’s end of the conversation. “What repair-man? What did he look like? Did he show you any identification? Did you leave your keys lying around? Did you leave him alone at any time?”
Meanwhile Betty Howse reached up and took down the instruction manual from the control box. “What’s this?” she demanded sharply, pointing to the numbers “5936” written on top of the instruction manual.
“It’s the code,” mumbled Agatha. “I kept forgetting it, so I wrote it down.”
Meanwhile, Boyd ended his interrogation of Doris. “A man saying he was from the security company who installed the burglar alarm called round when Mrs. Simpson was here. He flashed some sort of card at her and she let him in. Then she said she had to get down to the shops to get some more cleaning stuff and she left the keys on the table. Time enough for him to get an impression of them. He makes sure the alarm is switched off He then comes back when you’re asleep, lets himself in. But what puzzles me is that he couldn’t guarantee you wouldn’t notice the alarm had been switched off. He wouldn’t know that a short burst of alarm as he let himself in wouldn’t wake you. He didn’t have the code to switch it off quickly.”
“Oh, yes, he did,” said Betty and held out the instruction book with the code written on it.
“Amateurs. You, I mean,” said Boyd bitterly. “So it was planned to look like an accident. The house fills with gas. You switch on a light, and, boom, you’re history. Now I must ask you to leave the kitchen alone until a forensic team arrives. In fact, it would be better if you could stay with someone.”
Agatha thought desperately. “I could phone Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar’s wife, but it’s the middle of the night and her husband would be furious. I would check into an hotel, but they probably wouldn’t let me bring my cats and I don’t want to leave them here. I know, I’ll get Doris to drop in and look after the cats and then I’ll book into some hotel.”
“We need to know which one.”
“There’s a big one outside Bourton-on-the-Water called The Cotswold.”
“Phone them now.”
So Agatha phoned and was assured of a room. She went upstairs and got dressed and packed a bag. Then she put her cats into the large cat box and drove round to Doris Simpson. Doris was still awake and full of apologies. “Honestly, he was such a meek-looking little man. I didn’t think for a moment there was anything wrong. Of course I’ll look after the cats.”
Agatha drove off in the direction of Bourton-on-the Water, feeling numb. Why was she considered such a danger? She didn’t know much, and what she knew was surely considerably less than what the police knew. In the hotel room, she unpacked her few belongings, undressed and climbed into bed. She lay shivering despite the central heating. She felt they, whoever they were, were not going to give up. The only solution, surely, was to leave the country for an extended holiday and let everyone know she had left so that the murderer or murderers would no longer think her a threat.
She fell into an uneasy sleep and woke up in the morning remembering her dreams and feeling she had spent the night in some sort of Shakespearian play, with first murderer and second murderer waiting in the wings.
Agatha craved the soothing presence of Mrs. Bloxby, but first she drove to her cottage. A forensic team was working outside like so many figures from science fiction in their white hooded suits, gloves and white bags tied over their boots.
One of Agatha’s favourite programmes on television was CSI—Crime Investigators. Now she wondered if that was really how American forensic teams went on, treading all over crime sites in their normal clothes and shaking their own hair and DNA all over the place.
She left her car and walked up to the vicarage.
Mrs. Bloxby let her in and said that as the day was fine, they could sit in the garden where Agatha