There Goes The Bride (23 page)

‘No, I swore blind that Atherton’s had called me round for an interview and had offered me a lot of money and all I said was that I would think about it. I mean, I didn’t sign anything. I don’t think she recorded anything. There was to be a further meeting next week.’

‘During which time,’ said Agatha, ‘Bertha would find out whether she could winkle the account away from Pedman’s, and if she couldn’t she’d simply have phoned you up and said she’d changed her mind.’

‘That’s it. Everyone in the office is treating me like a leper. And there’s a new PR snapping at my heels and trying to take the account away from me.’

‘Has Pedman shown any sign of doing that?’

‘No.’

‘Then he won’t. Do a good job with Duluxe.’ Agatha bit her lip. She had been accused before of having a cavalier attitude towards her old friends.

‘Unpack your bag and leave me to phone,’ she said.

As soon as Roy had trailed upstairs to the spare bedroom to unpack, Agatha found Charlotte’s card and phoned her.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Charlotte gaily. ‘Bring your friend along. There’s masses to eat.’

‘Now, I want you to be charming,’ lectured Agatha as she drove Roy to Ancombe.

‘I’m always charming,’ said Roy sulkily.

‘Right. Here’s the church. Now I’ve got to count the houses. Right, here we are. Yes, she does have a big hedge. If she wants to garden, she’ll need to cut that down a bit. It must cut off light from half the garden.’

The inside of Charlotte’s sitting room came as something of a shock. Agatha thought that someone with such impeccable dress sense as Charlotte would have had something classier in the way of furnishings. There was an oatmeal-coloured three-piece suite in front of a glass coffee table. A rather noisy flowery wallpaper covered the walls. Beside the sofa was one of those cheap nests of tables one got in DIY shops. The curtains at the windows were of the awful frilly scalloped kind looking like so many knicker-covered backsides. The fire was a two-bar electric one with fake logs.

‘Awful, isn’t it?’ said Charlotte. ‘I bought the whole place, furniture and all. I’ll be getting rid of this lot soon.’

Agatha introduced Roy. Over pre-lunch drinks, Roy poured out his tale of woe, much to Agatha’s annoyance, but Charlotte was sympathetic. Agatha revealed that she used to work in public relations herself and both women then set about cheering Roy up by suggesting outrageous ways in which he could promote Duluxe.

Lunch was delicious. Smoked salmon was followed by roast pheasant with roast parsnips and roast potatoes and broccoli. Dessert was that Cotswold favourite – icky-sticky pudding.

Agatha could feel the waistband of her skirt tightening and envied Charlotte her slim figure.

When she and Roy were leaving, Agatha suggested that she and Charlotte should meet up during the week. Charlotte said she had to go to London but would phone Agatha immediately she got back.

Before Roy left, Agatha had drafted out a whole series of proposals for the launch of Duluxe. As soon as he got to the office on Monday morning, Roy sent the proposals in to Mr Pedman, without mentioning Agatha’s name, and found himself back in favour again. He was told that Sarah Andrews, director of Duluxe, wished to take him out to dinner that evening at the Ivy restaurant.

Roy met her clutching a spare set of Agatha’s proposals, by which time he had convinced himself they had all been his own idea. But he had phoned Agatha before he left for dinner to thank her. She warned him severely to dress conservatively.

At the Ivy, Roy basked in the praise of Sarah Andrews. He was in a part of the restaurant which was cut off from the main room by a glass-and-wood screen. A couple on the other side were chattering in rapid French. When Sarah left to go to the toilet, Roy, always on the lookout for celebrities, peered round the screen and then drew back. The couple speaking in rapid French were Charlotte and some man.

He returned to his chair, his mind working furiously. Agatha and Charlotte had told him how they had met. When Sarah returned, she teased him about seeming abstracted and Roy said he couldn’t stop thinking up new ideas for Duluxe.

Roy returned to his flat after dinner feeling worried. He should have spoken to Charlotte. He wondered if Agatha was being set up by a friend of Sylvan’s. It seemed very far-fetched.

He phoned Agatha, who listened to him carefully and then said, ‘But you don’t speak French.’

‘I know a few words,’ said Roy huffily. ‘And she was rattling along like a native.’

‘Why didn’t you speak to her?’

‘I got worried. I thought Sylvan might have got someone on the outside to get to you.’

‘Rubbish! Oh, well, I’ll do some research. I’ve got a week.’

Agatha went to her computer, switched it on, and Googled Charlotte Rother, not really expecting anything to come up. To her surprise, there were three news stories featured. She opened one. Charlotte Rother had made the papers when she had obtained a divorce settlement of five million pounds from her entrepreneur husband, John Rother. There was a photograph of her leaving court. She had put a hand up to shield her face, but the blonde hair, the clothes and the mink coat worn open were all the same as her Charlotte’s.

Agatha tried the other two stories. All pretty much the same, but one had a clear photo of Charlotte. She looked strained and had obviously been crying, but it was the Charlotte Agatha knew. She phoned Roy back in triumph.

‘Now I feel silly,’ he said. ‘But be careful all the same.’

But Roy somehow couldn’t let the matter go. He phoned Toni and suggested it would do no harm if one of them could check up on this woman without letting Agatha know.

Toni decided that as her photograph and Sharon’s had been in the newspapers, she’d better see if someone else at the agency might like to find out a few things.

Early next morning, she called on Phil Marshall. He listened to her carefully and then said, ‘But Agatha seems to have checked her out very well. I mean, what if she does speak French? Lots of rich cosmopolitan people do. Oh, well. I’ll tell Agatha I want a few days off and I’ll see what I can dig up.’

Phil went first to the offices of the
Cotswolds Journal
and painstakingly began to read through the property advertisements in the back numbers. At last, after almost a whole day of searching, he found an advertisement for the bungalow in Ancombe.

He went to the estate agent’s and asked when the sale had gone through. ‘Just three weeks ago,’ said the agent. ‘With the market being so bad, we thought we would never shift it. In fact, it’s difficult to sell anything. Mrs Rother paid the asking price provided the furnishings were thrown in as well. It belonged to a middle-aged lady who died last year and her daughter lives abroad and didn’t want the job of clearing the house and asked us if we could find a buyer who would take everything.’

‘Did she pay by cheque?’ asked Phil.

‘Of course.’

That seemed to be that. He phoned Toni.

But somehow, a nagging doubt would not leave Toni. Identities could be pinched. She Googled the divorce case and took a note of Mr John Rother’s office address. She phoned, and reverting to her original Gloucestershire accent, which she had ‘poshed up’ after working for Agatha, said that she had been cleaning for Mrs Rother, who wanted her services again but she did not have an address for her.

Toni was lucky in that Mr Rother’s secretary loathed the ex-Mrs Rother and saw no need to protect her address. ‘It’s fifty-one Alexandria Mews, Kensington,’ she said.

Toni found the telephone number was ex-directory and resolved to go up to town the following Saturday. Why should Charlotte Rother still have the London address and yet want some undistinguished bungalow in Ancombe?

Agatha had invited Charlotte around to her cottage for lunch on Saturday. Charlotte made flattering comments on the beauty of the old cottage. But she ignored Agatha’s cats and they ignored her in turn. Agatha felt obscurely like a mother whose children have been insulted and then chided herself for being weird.

They had a pleasant lunch. Charlotte complimented Agatha on her cooking and Agatha hoped that the empty packets of Marks & Spencer meals were carefully hidden.

After lunch, Charlotte said, ‘It’s a lovely day. I’ve always wanted to see Warwick Castle.’

‘It’s not far,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll drive you.’

‘No, I’ll drive. After all your hard work preparing lunch, it’s the least I can do.’

Agatha’s phone rang just as they were leaving. It was Toni. ‘I wondered how you were getting on,’ said Toni.

‘Fine,’ replied Agatha. ‘Can’t speak. Just off to Warwick Castle.’

Toni found the address in Alexandria Mews and rang the bell. There was no reply. Well, that figures, thought Toni. If she is who she says she is, then she’ll be down in the Cotswolds.

But she knelt down and looked through the letter box. A sports car roared past behind her. Then there was relative silence. Toni thought she could hear something. She pressed her ear to the letter box. There were faint sounds like, ‘Mmmph. Mmmph.’

Toni thought quickly. She took out her mobile and called the police and waited anxiously until ten minutes later, and with agonizing slowness, a police car cruised into the mews.

A large beefy police sergeant got out. ‘What is all this then about someone trapped inside?’

‘I can hear sounds from inside but she doesn’t answer the door,’ said Toni. ‘Put your ear to the letter box.’

He bent down. His colleague stood behind him, grinning.

Then the sergeant straightened up. ‘Can’t hear a thing.’

‘But I heard something,’ pleaded Toni.

‘Like what?’

‘Sort of muffled, strangled noises.’

The sergeant rang the bell. A neighbour came out of the next mews cottage and stared at them curiously. ‘What’s the person’s name?’ asked the sergeant.

‘Mrs Charlotte Rother.’

‘That’s that woman who was divorced recently,’ said his colleague.

The neighbour came up to them. ‘What’s going on?’

‘This little lady,’ said the sergeant, ‘thinks she can hear sinister noises from inside. Have you seen Mrs Rother lately?’

‘Not for a couple of weeks or something like that.’

‘There’s a pane of glass on the door,’ said Toni. ‘You could smash that and maybe get in.’

‘Here now, Miss . . .’

‘Toni Gilmour.’

‘Miss Gilmour. We don’t go around breaking into property just like that. What’s your business with her?’

‘I’m a private detective and I think someone may have stolen her identity.’

‘And why would she do that?’

Fighting for patience, Toni explained about Sylvan Dubois and how he might have sent an impostor after Agatha.

The sergeant said heavily, ‘We’ll go back to the station and make some phone calls.’

‘But it may be too late!’

He gave her a cynical look, nodded to his colleague and both got back in the car and drove off. The neighbour went back indoors.

Toni looked up and down the quiet mews. No one was about. She saw a brick lying some distance away. She went and picked it up and smashed the pane of glass on the door, reached inside and turned the handle. There was nothing in the small downstairs living room. She ran upstairs. There was a kitchen on the landing area with a corridor leading off it.

Toni thrust open the door of a bedroom. Handcuffed to the bed lay a woman with a gag over her mouth. Toni ripped off the gag and felt for a pulse on the woman’s neck. The pulse was faint but she was alive.

Toni called the police and asked for an ambulance. Then she phoned Agatha. There was no reply, not even from an operator to say the phone was switched off. Charles lived in Warwickshire. Toni phoned him and got past his manservant by screaming it was a matter of life and death. Charles listened and said, ‘Warwick Castle? I’m on my way. I’ll phone the police on the way there.’

Agatha had been to Warwick Castle before. Charlotte exclaimed over the beauty of the medieval building. They visited the battlements, the towers and the torture chamber, Madame Tussaud’s waxworks inside, and then Charlotte said, ‘I’m exhausted. I could do with a cup of tea.’

‘And I could do with going to the loo,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll join you in the tea room.’

‘Want any cakes or buns?’

‘No, just tea,’ said Agatha.

In the toilet, Agatha fought down a feeling of uneasiness about Charlotte. In the castle drawing room, when she had been looking at a picture, she had seen a reflection of Charlotte’s face in the dark glass-framed portrait. Charlotte’s face seemed to be distorted by a look of malice. I’m imagining things, thought Agatha. But no one knows where I am. I’ll just make a few phone calls. Agatha had left her BlackBerry at home and was carrying her old mobile phone with her. Sometimes she felt more at ease with a simple phone and took it on local trips in case her car broke down.

In the toilet, she checked her phone for messages and found it was totally dead. She scowled down at it. She had charged it up the night before.

Agatha suddenly had a memory of walking down the garden with her cats before she left and when she had walked back up, Charlotte was bent over the kitchen table and Agatha’s open bag. Agatha could now not remember leaving her bag open.