Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

prominence and attention, which is why you turned to amateur detective investigation. Perhaps not having any more murders to investigate, you decided to make some of your own.’
    ‘That’s outrageous,’ spluttered Agatha.
    ‘Perhaps. But murder is outrageous. Your own behaviour has been erratic.’
    ‘But someone tried to kill me – twice!’
    ‘There are no witnesses to either attempt. We have only your own word for that. You follow James Lacey to Cyprus because everyone seems to know you are romantically interested in him and yet, after moving in with him, you accept a dinner date with an Israeli businessman and who knows where that might have led had not his wife turned up, and then you sleep with Sir Charles. I know this is the permissive society. Such behaviour, however, in a middle-aged lady from an English village is most odd.’
    ‘How dare you!’ panted Agatha.
    ‘I dare because I am very angry. We have a very low crime rate in north Cyprus. Tourists come here because it is still the safest place in the Mediterranean and I am going to accuse all of you of everything and keep you here until these murders are solved. We have respectable British residents here, Mrs Raisin, who contribute to the cultural life of the island. They cause no trouble. Until your arrival, we have never suffered anything like this.’
    ‘You are insulting. You are looking in the wrong direction. What about Trevor Wilcox? His business is on the skids and Rose wouldn’t bail him out. He’ll be all right now. He probably inherits her money. And what of George Debenham? He’s in debt as well.’
    ‘How did you find this out, Mrs Raisin?’
    Damn him, thought Agatha. She could not betray Bill Wong.
    ‘They told me,’ she muttered.
    ‘They just told you!’
    ‘Something like that.’
    ‘I do not believe you,’ said Pamir. ‘I think somebody in England found out the information for you.’
    Sweating now, Agatha hoped the manager of the Dome had not told the police about her fax to police headquarters in Mircester. She wanted to run away from this room, from this inexorable questioning, from the humiliating accusation that she was a batty sensation-seeker driven mad by the menopause.
    Pamir then made her tell her story again. If I had anything to hide, it would certainly have come out during this remorseless questioning, thought Agatha.
    At last she was free to go. The others, apart from Charles, had disappeared.
    ‘You look awful,’ said Charles. ‘Rough time?’
    ‘It was grim. He accused me of the murders.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He thinks I am a sensation-seeker driven potty by the menopause, and not having any murders here to investigate, decided to manufacture some of my own.’
    Charles’s eyes crinkled up with laughter. ‘That’s funny.’
    ‘It’s not funny at all,’ said Agatha furiously.
    A secretary came out and told them a car was ready to take them home. They travelled in silence, Agatha thinking that she really must find out who murdered Rose and Harry or she would be damned forever as a madwoman.
    At the villa, where the press were fortunately absent, Agatha said she would like to lie down and read.
    She tried to concentrate on a novel about the complexities of broken marriages, but finally felt too restless to go on reading.
    When she emerged from her room, it was to find that Charles had gone off somewhere. Not wanting to be on her own in the villa, she took her own rented car and drove into Kyrenia and parked behind the post office. She walked down the main street looking at the shops, and then saw the turning to the left where she had first pursued James and met Bilal. She turned along the street, wondering suddenly if Bilal was working at his dry-cleaning and laundry business.
    He left his work when he saw her hovering in the doorway. ‘Mrs Raisin!’ he cried. ‘I was just trying to call you. How are you?’
    ‘Shattered,’ said Agatha.
    ‘It is the terrible business,’ said Bilal. ‘Coffee?’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    He placed two chairs and a wooden box to act as a table outside his shop and went to the café next door and came back with a tray on which were two cups of Turkish coffee and two glasses of water.
    ‘The owners have been phoning me and Jackie from Australia,’ said Bilal. ‘They would like Mr Lacey to call them.’
    ‘I meant to phone you about that. Mr Lacey has gone to Turkey. If I’m still here after the month’s rent has run out, I’ll pay you for another