Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

Trevor wanted to punch Harry because Harry called Rose a slut.’
    ‘Do you want to go to the hotel after dinner and see how they’re getting on?’
    Agatha repressed a shudder. ‘After we eat, I just want to go to bed. I’ve never felt like giving up like this before. I have a longing to go home.’
    ‘If you’ve finished, now’s the time,’ said Charles, looking out through the restaurant doors. ‘The press have arrived. Quickly.’
    He threw some money on the table. They had been sitting on the terrace and both went over the edge into the scrub below and made their way cautiously around to the car park, Agatha hoping that the report of the poisonous snakes keeping to the mountains was true.
    They gained the villa without being accosted. ‘First bath for me,’ said Agatha with a yawn.
    ‘We sharing a bed?’
    ‘No, Charles. I am too old for casual sex.’
    ‘Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.’
    Agatha awoke during the night shivering and found a quilt and put it over her. The weather was beginning to change. The long summer was over.
    A police car arrived the next morning to take them to police headquarters in Nicosia. Agatha groaned. ‘What can he possibly ask us that he hasn’t asked us already?’
    ‘I didn’t tell him about Trevor trying to punch Harry,’ said Charles. ‘I think I should. I mean, I hardly know that bunch but I don’t like them.’
    ‘I think that’s why Pamir keeps on at us,’ said Agatha wearily. ‘He gets a little more each time.’
    Olivia, George, Angus and Trevor were waiting at police headquarters to be interviewed when they arrived. George looked white and strained under his tan; Trevor, stunned; Angus had aged terribly; and Olivia for once was without any social talk or animation.
    They looked up dully when Agatha and Charles entered, but did not say anything.
    Agatha and Charles sat down and waited. After half an hour of total silence Pamir arrived, nodded to them and went into the inner room. ‘Like waiting for the doctor,’ said Charles.
    George Debenham was summoned first. The morning dragged on, the bright sunlight outside seeming to mock the grim dreariness within.
    Agatha was called last.
    ‘Now, Mrs Raisin –’ began Pamir.
    ‘I know, I know,’ said Agatha wearily. ‘I’ve to tell you all over again, starting at the beginning.’
    ‘Not yet. Do you, Mrs Raisin, not think that you might have precipitated this murder?’
    ‘How? Why?’
    ‘I gather from Sir Charles that you went to Salamis for the sole purpose of finding the others and continuing your amateur investigation.’
    ‘Yes . . . That’s true. But I didn’t see any of them until after the murder had been committed.’
    ‘But they might have seen you.’
    ‘So what made that different to all the other days they had seen me?’ said Agatha impatiently. ‘And if it hadn’t been for me and Charles, you might not have found the body until the next day and who knows, by that time the murderer might have returned and shoved the body in the sea, forged a note from Harry saying he had left on a fishing boat or something like James, and you would have been none the wiser.’
    ‘We have asked everyone who was on the beach and in the ruins yesterday to come forward. Someone might have seen something. So begin at the beginning . . .’
    So Agatha did, vivid memories of the heat and the ruins coming back into her mind.
    Then she said, ‘If one of them murdered Harry, he must have sneaked back to the beach when they split up. And when they were supposed to be searching for him why didn’t they find him on the beach?’
    ‘They say that after Mr Tembleton went off to the beach, they arranged to meet in the gymnasium in an hour. Mrs Debenham went to look at the basilica; Mr Debenham said he simply wanted to go back to the gymnasium, sit down and rest and wait for the others; Mr Wilcox said he wanted to be on his own for a bit; and Mr Angus King went to look at the tombs. All say they searched the beach, but it was still full of tourists and they did not spot Mr Tembleton.’
    ‘So it could have been any of them,’ said Agatha.
    Pamir surveyed her and then leaned back in his chair. ‘Or you, Mrs Raisin.’
    ‘Me? Why? I barely knew them. I didn’t know any of them before I came here.’
    He leaned forward. ‘How can I put this? At your age, Mrs Raisin, ladies can go a little unhinged. It seems to me that since you gave up your career, you have had a desire for