Dead on target, p.1
Dead on Target, page 1
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Dedicated to Steve Dow and his mum, Marie, with thanks for all their sage Cotswold advice—especially on dwile flonking!
Foreword
I bet you know Agatha Raisin quite well. If you’re reading this foreword, rather than skipping it in order to get straight to the story, then I’m pretty sure you’re interested enough in Agatha to want to find out a little more. Either that, or you’ve already read the rest of the book and have come back here to see if there’s anything worth reading in this bit. Well, there is if you want to get to know Agatha a little better. There is if you’re slightly curious. Agatha would approve of that. Smart people, in her opinion, are always inquisitive, always want to know more.
How do I know that’s what Agatha thinks? Well, I count myself as very lucky that I got to know Agatha not only through reading about her investigations, but also by sneakily talking about her behind her back. She would hate that, even if my gossiping partner was M. C. Beaton—Marion—Agatha’s creator. When I first lent Marion a helping hand with a book she was struggling, through illness, to complete, she wanted to make sure that I understood who Agatha was and how she got along with all the other characters in and around Carsely.
That’s how I came to know, for example, that Agatha has never been a great sports enthusiast—Marion told me. Having lived with Agatha in her head for so many years, she knew everything about her. She was able to describe how, when Agatha was growing up in a Birmingham tower block, she had no time for sport. She was one of the cleverest pupils in her year at school, but she was quite shy, lacking self-confidence, and shunning friendship by adopting an abrasive persona to avoid anyone getting close to her. That needn’t have ruled out playing hockey or netball, or any other sport that might have taken her fancy. You don’t, of course, have to be everyone’s best friend to be good at sport, and she definitely has the drive, aggression, and will to win. Nothing irks her more than coming off second best, but it was her lifestyle rather than her attitude that ruled out taking any serious interest in sport. She had a number of part-time jobs before leaving school to work in a biscuit factory, saving every penny she could towards the day when she had enough to leave her abusive parents and flee to London.
Just because she had no time for sport, however, doesn’t mean that Agatha isn’t a team player. In fact, she’s quite happy to work as part of a team, as long as the team does things her way. She likes to be in charge because that way she can stay in control of everything that’s happening—the best way to avoid having egg on her face and feeling the confidence, which has taken her so many years to build, slipping away.
It might seem strange, then, that Agatha should agree to take part in an archery demonstration, as she does early in Dead on Target. Archery, after all, is a major sport. People have been shooting arrows at animals, targets, and each other for more than ten thousand years and it’s been a mainstream Olympic discipline since 1972. Why would Agatha participate in archery? Because she was put in a position where she couldn’t back down, and she was presented with a challenge. Ducking out would mean loss of face and, worse, potential ridicule. Agatha had no choice but to take up the bow. It was her first contact with the Ancombe Archers, but it was not to be her last.
Sport may not be something in which Agatha takes a great deal of interest, but dancing is far closer to her heart. Agatha, Marion assured me, is a very good dancer. She has natural aptitude but also put a great deal of effort into learning how to dance well. At first, I wondered why Agatha would consider dancing important enough to take up her precious time, but Marion was adamant. Agatha learned to dance because she enjoyed it, and she allowed herself to enjoy it because she could justify the apparent frivolity of dancing with an ulterior motive—profit. When she was leading a glamorous life as one of London’s top PR consultants, she had to attend lots of posh functions where there would often be dancing. As a proficient dancer, she could make sure she was in control when guiding an inept male client around the floor. She could make him look good—only he would know that she had done so and that, in turn, was good for business.
I did wonder whether Marion had made all that up on the spot just because she’d decided that Agatha was a good dancer, but I wasn’t brave enough to challenge her on it. Arguing with Marion would have been like arguing with Agatha—with Marion backing her up. There’s no way I stood any chance against both of them.
Agatha’s passion for dance did, however, allow me to introduce her to Detective Inspector John Glass, with whom she first danced at Alice and Bill Wong’s wedding in Devil’s Delight. He made a big impression with his proficiency on the dance floor and waltzed into Agatha’s life. Whether he’s agile enough to keep up with the quick-stepping Mrs. Raisin for very long remains to be seen.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these musings on Agatha enough to get this far and that you’ll now go on to enjoy her latest adventure—if you haven’t done so already!
Rod Green, 2023
Chapter One
“I’ll kill him! I swear I will! We can’t let him get away with this!”
The woman was furious, storming past the refreshments-tent queue with a man in her wake. He reached out to grab her by the arm and she spun to face him, her long blonde hair a swirling mane.
“Just wait!” he pleaded. She was a few years younger than him and for a moment he stood over her, as though he were about to chastise a child, but he quickly relented, attempting to reason with her. “It’s not too late to get him to change his mind. I’ll have another word with him…”
“Why bother?” she snapped. “He doesn’t listen to you. He doesn’t give a damn what we think! The time for talking is past. We have to do something! Understand? We have to do something about him!”
“Listen to me…” The man looked round, suddenly aware that those waiting in the queue had abandoned their own conversations and the half-finished text messages on their phones to be entertained by the unexpected drama. One woman in particular caught his attention. She had a smooth bob of glossy brown hair and an expression of intense curiosity. He glowered at her. Agatha Raisin stared back at him, her bear-like eyes unflinching.
“Let’s talk in the car, my love,” he said as the blonde woman shook her arm free. He urged her towards the nearby car park. “Too many eavesdroppers around here.”
“Such excitement so early in the morning, Mrs. Raisin,” came a voice from behind Agatha, catching her by surprise.
“I was thinking exactly the same thing, Mrs. Bloxby,” Agatha replied, turning to greet her friend. It amused them to address each other in public with the customary formality of the Carsely Ladies Society, while in private, over a glass of wine or a schooner of sherry, they were Agatha and Margaret. “We don’t usually see such theatrics at the Carsely Village Fete until well after the beer tent has opened.”
Agatha nodded towards a marquee where staff from the local Red Lion pub were unpacking glasses, stocking shelves with bottles and exchanging friendly banter with a growing huddle of local men waiting patiently in the sunshine, all eagerly anticipating their first pint of the day.
“I hope you didn’t take what was being said literally,” said Mrs. Bloxby, smiling. “I’m sure Stephanie isn’t about to kill anyone. That’s just something people say when they’re upset.”
“I know,” Agatha said, “and something was certainly upsetting both of them. I take it you know them?”
“Yes, Stephanie and Gerald were married here.” Mrs. Bloxby looked to the edge of the field in which they were standing, where the steeple of the Church of St. Jude poked its spire above the trees. Agatha had never been a particularly religious person, but she had always found the fourteenth-century church, with its stained-glass windows set in mellow Cotswold stone, a gently comforting presence in the village. It helped, of course, that she knew Margaret Bloxby would generally be waiting with a warm welcome in the rectory next door. Her husband, Alf, was the vicar at St. Jude’s.
“Gerald’s father, Sir Godfrey Pride, owns Carseworth Manor, the big house in the woods over there.” Mrs. Bloxby pointed to the trees beyond the field in which they were standing. “His family donated this land to the church for the benefit of the local people. That’s why the fete is now held here each year.”
Agatha gazed out over the colourful collection of tents arranged in neat rows around an open arena in the middle of the field. Jolly, candy-striped canvas structures stood shoulder-to-shoulder with sun-bleached white bell tents and traditional ridge tents while tall teepees and elaborate marquees mingled with family campers and basic garden gazebos. Most had trestle tables set up outside displaying a variety of goods from homemade cakes a nd home-grown fruit and vegetables to children’s toys, second-hand tools and flowering plants.
Some tables and tents were overwhelmed with myriad articles that some liked to call bric-a-brac but Agatha called crap. Who really wanted to buy mismatched, discoloured crockery, chipped china ornaments, dull crystal decanters or plastic Buddhas? She could well imagine why people would want to rid their homes of such junk, but how on earth could anyone take delight in buying someone else’s junk?
“We seem to have rather a lot of pre-loved treasures for you to browse this year,” said Mrs. Bloxby, watching Agatha disdainfully appraising the closest of the bric-a-brac tables.
Agatha gave her friend a sideways glance, aware that she was sporting a mischievous smile. Margaret Bloxby was petite and neat with plain brown hair laced with occasional wispy strands of silver-grey and a kind face well-practised in forming expressions of sympathy and compassion. The impish smile was reserved for teasing Agatha. Although she would never normally tolerate anyone poking fun at her, the slightest spark of provocation easily igniting her infamously short fuse, Agatha could never be angry with Mrs. Bloxby. On so many occasions she had provided Agatha with a warm welcome, a patient ear, a shoulder to cry on and sage advice. She had always been a good friend.
Yet what had always impressed Agatha most about Mrs. Bloxby was not her gentle, caring nature, which she greatly respected, but her stalwart fortitude, which she hugely admired. She had a heart of gold and a backbone of steel. Was that, Agatha mused, too much metal in one person? No matter—Mrs. Bloxby’s unflinching courage had saved her more than once. She remembered the time when she had been punched by a man whom Mrs. Bloxby had immediately smacked over the head with a jar of homemade chutney. Then there was the gunman who would surely have killed them both had Mrs. Bloxby not wrestled the weapon from him and shot him in the chest. He had survived, but Agatha often wondered how Margaret Bloxby would have fared had he not. She had been distraught at the thought of having almost taken another’s life. Perhaps sometimes there was an overwhelmingly discordant clash of gold and steel.
“You know how much I hate all that stuff.” Agatha laughed, waving a hand at the bric-a-brac, dismissing the junk along with the disturbing memories. “Still, I suppose all of this goes towards helping good causes.”
“It does indeed,” Mrs. Bloxby agreed. “One of them this year is the restoration of our old graveyard.”
“I hope you’re not going to set all the old gravestones straight. They wouldn’t look right in tidy rows. They should stay as they are, all higgledy-piggledy, like a bunch of best pals growing old together, not soldiers on parade.”
“I agree. The restoration work’s all about rebuilding the graveyard wall and the paths. Besides, some of the stones are so fragile that they’d fall apart if anyone tried to move them.”
Having reached the front of the queue, Agatha insisted on paying for their coffees and was handing one of the recyclable paper cups to Mrs. Bloxby when she heard a jingle like sleigh bells. A middle-aged man walked past wearing a tall black hat, a red neckerchief and a white shirt with white trousers. His hat was decorated with a garland of flowers while red sashes fastened with rosettes crisscrossed his chest. The jingling bells were clustered on straps tied just below his knees.
“Ah, the morris men.” Mrs. Bloxby gave the man a cheery “Good morning!” and a generous smile. “I’ve always loved the morris men, haven’t you? We should really call them morris dancers now, of course—they’re no longer men-only groups.”
Agatha spotted the rest of the dancers in the distance, all similarly attired, approaching from the car park. She squinted at one of the figures. There was something familiar about the way he moved, the way he held his shoulders. It couldn’t be, could it?
“Quickly!” she breathed, holding her coffee cup out to Mrs. Bloxby. “Take this!”
In what appeared to be one swift movement, she produced a compact mirror from her handbag, smoothed her hair, checked her lipstick and straightened her dress. She felt a wave of relief that she had chosen that particular dress. The white flower pattern on a black background wasn’t too frivolously summery and the skirt reached well below the knee, but the neckline still dropped low enough to provide a certain…allure. A white rope belt cinched it neatly at the waist. An instant later, the compact was back in her handbag and she was retrieving her coffee.
“Slick.” Margaret Bloxby nodded her approval. “What was that in aid of?”
“John!” Agatha called to one of the approaching morris dancers, waving madly.
A tall, well-built man looked towards her and grinned. He removed his hat and pretended to hide behind it as he drew nearer, feigning embarrassment at having been exposed as a morris dancer.
“You never told me you were involved in this!” Agatha chided, wagging her finger in mock rebuke.
“I can explain!” He laughed, stooping to kiss her cheek. “One of the lads was injured and they asked me to stand in. I might be a bit rusty—I haven’t done this for years.”
“Mrs. Bloxby,” Agatha said, sweeping a hand towards her in introduction, “this is my friend John Glass.”
Mrs. Bloxby watched Agatha and John exchange a glance and caught a twinkle in Agatha’s dark eyes.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Glass,” she said, shaking John’s hand. “I’m so looking forward to seeing the morris…”
She was interrupted by a rapid popping noise followed by a dull boom from the PA system’s loudspeakers.
“Good morning, everyone…” came a man’s voice.
Pop! Boom!
“…is this thing working…?”
Pop-pop! Boom!
“Well…welcome to the Carsely Village…”
Pop! Boom! Pop!
“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. Bloxby. “Alf’s making the announcements. He’s quite at home delivering one of his Sunday sermons from the pulpit, but this is well outside his comfort zone.”
The Reverend Bloxby, dressed in a short-sleeved black shirt and black trousers that made him look even smaller and thinner than ever, struggled on, gripping his microphone with knuckles as white as his dog collar. Agatha could see his lips moving as he stood in front of the administration tent, reading from a sheet of paper, but now no sound was coming from the speakers at all. She was surprised at how flustered he seemed. Normally he came across as quite confident and self-assured, almost arrogant. Suddenly his voice came blasting out.
“…so we’ll have everything from archery and morris dancing to shin kicking and dwile flonking…wait…what? That can’t be right…”
The PA system let out a banshee screech.
“Oh, bloody hell!” wailed the reverend.
“I think I’d better go lend a hand,” said Mrs. Bloxby, handing Agatha her coffee and hurrying over to her husband.
“Fancy a coffee?” Agatha asked, offering John Mrs. Bloxby’s cup. “Margaret didn’t touch it and it’ll be cold by the time she gets back.”
“Thanks,” John said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here today.”
“Nor I you,” Agatha replied. “I thought you were working.”
“I managed to swap to a late shift in order to help out the lads.”
“Is that a privilege of rank in the police force, Inspector Glass?”
“Not really. You usually need a bit of luck on your side to swing it.”
“I see—so how did you become a morris dancer?”
“Quite by chance, really. Years ago, a couple of friends met a bunch of morris men in the pub and they persuaded us to give it a go. I gave it up when work started taking over.”
“So who was it that was injured? What happened to him?”
“So many questions!” He laughed. “If I didn’t know you were a private detective, I could probably have guessed. My old pal Wayne mistimed a move, slipped and got one of these in the face.”
John held up a stout, smooth stick.
“I take it you don’t normally whack each other with batons?”
“Some of the dances involve clashing sticks together. They say ash or hazel make the best sound. It’s all part of the fun.”
