As The Pig Turns

them from shaking.
    Agatha felt she did not have enough strength to get up and call the police from the phone on the kitchen counter. She reached up and pulled her handbag down from the kitchen table and fished out her mobile and dialled 999.
    James looked out of his window and saw police cars and a forensic unit arriving outside. He rushed out of doors in time to see a white-faced Agatha being led out and ushered into a police car.
    He tried to get to her but had his way blocked by a policeman. ‘Can’t go there, sir,’ he said.
    ‘Agatha!’ shouted James. ‘What’s up?’
    ‘Head!’ screamed Agatha wildly as she was thrust into the car, which then sped off, and the road in front of her cottage was taped off.
    Agatha, who had refused offers of treatment for shock and simply wanted to get any interview over with, told Inspector Wilkes about the arrival of the package. While she was making her statement in a weak, faltering voice quite unlike her own, the interview was suddenly suspended as Wilkes was summoned from the room.
    She waited, staring blankly into space, reviving only enough to refuse a policewoman’s offer of hot sweet tea.
    Wilkes eventually returned. His face was grim. ‘Do you know there was a note for you with the head?’
    ‘Too much of a shock to look further,’ said Agatha. ‘What did it say?’
    ‘It says, “You’re next, you nosy bitch, if you keep on interfering.” What have you been up to?’
    Agatha thought wildly of her visit to Gary Beech’s home. She said, ‘I was investigating his death at the request of his ex-wife . . .’
    ‘Who you found murdered?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘That’s all.’
    ‘Have you found out anything at all you are not telling us? You see, we got an anonymous call at dawn, telling us about a secret room in Gary Beech’s house. You wouldn’t know about that, would you?’
    ‘A secret room!’ exclaimed Agatha. ‘That sounds like something out of Enid Blyton. It would never cross my mind.’ She leaned forward wearily. ‘Do you know yet exactly how Beech was killed?’
    ‘We are waiting for the pathologist’s report on the head. But the initial report says there is evidence of severe blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull.’
    Shocked though she was, Agatha was aware of a heavy atmosphere of suspicion in the room. I’ve got to solve this case, she thought wildly. I’m rapidly becoming the number one suspect. But that’s ridiculous. I would hardly send a severed head to myself. And where is the rest of the body? The feet and legs are missing.
    ‘Mrs Raisin!’ said Wilkes sharply. ‘Pay attention. I want you to go back to the late Mrs Richards. We must assume that she knew something and that was the reason she was killed.’
    ‘You have my statement,’ said Agatha. ‘I gave you everything then.’
    ‘Nonetheless. Go over it again.’
    Agatha eventually had to be supported from the interview room by a policewoman. She felt her legs had turned to jelly. James was waiting for her.
    ‘I rescued your cats from the garden,’ he said, ‘and took them to my place. I suggest you move in with me until things are safer. It’s all right, Officer, I’ll take her home.’
    ‘Take me for a drink first,’ said Agatha.
    ‘It’s just a few minutes before eleven in the morning. Too early.’
    ‘James, I’m sure the sun is over the poop deck or whatever. I need a drink.’
    ‘Agatha, that is a warning sign. When people start saying they need a drink, they’re on the slippery slope to alcoholism.’
    A fit of rage brought the strength back to Agatha’s legs. ‘Goodbye,’ she said abruptly, and left police headquarters, banging the door noisily behind her.
    She headed straight for the Dragon pub across the other side of the car park, deaf to the sound of James shouting something from behind her.
    There was a light breeze. The pub had tables outside with large glass ashtrays on each one. ‘Civilization at last,’ breathed Agatha.
    She sat down, opened her handbag, took out her lighter and a packet of Bensons and lit a cigarette. A shadow fell across her.
    ‘Gin and tonic?’ asked James.
    ‘Make it a double,’ said Agatha, squinting up at him out of her bearlike eyes.
    When James went into the pub, Agatha pulled out her mobile and dialled Toni. ‘See if you can renew your friendship with Mrs Richards,’ said Agatha after she had finished describing the horrors of the morning. ‘She might know something. I mean, this