Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

"I doubt if she can any more than I can bring myself to believe she talks to the dead. Why the living?"

"Just someone I was keen on a long time ago."

"A man?" asked Agatha, who often wondered whether Mary was in a relationship with Jennifer.

"Of course, a man. I often wonder where he is and what he is doing."

"Didn't it work out?" asked Agatha sympathetically, thinking of James Lacey.

"It all went wrong." Mary's large brown eyes filled with memories. "But for a while, we were so happy. I was on holiday with my parents here, in Wyckhadden, and it was at this very hotel that I met him."

"How old were you?"

"Twenty-two," said Mary on a sigh. "A long time ago. We got friendly, we walked on the beach, we went to dances."

"Did you have an affair?"

Mary looked shocked. "Oh, nothing like that. I mean, one didn't... then."

"And so how did it end?"

"I gave him my address. I was living in Cirencester then with my parents. He lived in London. I waited but he didn't write. He hadn't given me a phone number, but I had his address. At last I couldn't bear it any longer. I went up to London, to the address he had given me. It was a rooming-house. The people there had never heard of him."

"Maybe he gave you a false name?"

"It was his real name, the one he gave me, because he had a car. He had just passed his driving test and was very proud of his new licence. It had his name on it, Joseph Brady. I described what he looked like and I even had a photo with me, but the people in the rooming-house said he had never lived there and one lady had been there for the past ten years! He had said he was an advertising copy-writer. When I got home, I phoned all the advertising agencies that were listed. I went off sick from work to do it. Nobody had heard of him. I couldn't get over him. I went back to Wyckhadden year after year, always hoping to see him.

"Was he on his own here at the hotel?" asked Agatha.

"Yes."

"You didn't notice the address of the driving licence?"

She shook her head.

"What about the hotel register?"

"I didn't like to ask."

Agatha rose to her feet. "I'll try to find out for you."

"How?"

"I'm sure they have all the old books locked away somewhere. What year was this?"

"It was in the summer of 1955, in July, around the tenth. But don't tell Jennifer."

Agatha sat down again. "Why?"

"I met up with Jennifer ten years afterwards. My parents were poorly and I came here on my own. I told her all about Joseph. She told me I was wasting my life. We became friends. She had, has, such energy. I was working as a secretary. She told me to take a computer programming course. She said it would get me good money."

"What did Jennifer do?"

"She was a maths teacher at a London school."

"Teachers aren't well paid," Agatha pointed out. "Why didn't she take a course herself?"

"Jennifer has a vocation for teaching."

"I see," commented Agatha drily.

"So I did very well but then my parents died, one after the other, and I had a bit of a breakdown. Jennifer moved in with me in the long summer vac and looked after me. Then she suggested I should sell my parents' house and take a flat with her in London. It seemed such an adventure. I got a programming job with a City firm."

"But you must have met other people, other men," said Agatha.

"At first, Jennifer gave a lot of parties but the people that came were mostly schoolteachers. I invited people from the office but they didn't seem to enjoy the parties and they stopped coming."

"Didn't you make friends with any of the women in the office?"

"Sometimes one of them would suggest we had a drink after work, but Jennifer usually waited for me after work and so..."

Jennifer's a leech, thought Agatha.

She stood up again. "I'll see what I can do with the records."

Agatha went into Mr. Martin's office and asked him if it would be possible to look up old records. He said all the old books were down in the cellars and she was welcome to try but he could not spare any of the staff to help her. He handed Agatha a large key and led her downstairs to the basement and then indicated a low door. "Down there," he said. "You'll find them all stacked on bookshelves at the back of all the junk."

Agatha unlocked the door and made her way down stone steps. The basement was full of old bits of furniture, dusty curtains, even oil lamps. She picked her way through the clutter to the piles of bound hotel registers, which were piled up on shelves in a far corner. To her relief, the date of each year was stamped on the outside.

She had to lift down piles of books to get at the one marked "1955." She sat down on a battered old sofa and opened it, searching until she found July.