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Charles hesitated. Then he booked a seat for the following day.
“I think you should come with me,” he said, but Agatha was adamant. She had convinced herself that James would return.
Outside, great gusty clouds were blowing across the red roofs of Nicosia. They talked about the case on the journey back to the villa. Charles went off to begin packing.
Agatha realised that since James had left, the villa seemed to have accumulated a great deal of dust and the floor needed a wash.
She spent the rest of the day, cleaning energetically, stopping only for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and at one stage to look in on Charles who was found in his room, fast asleep.
Agatha tried to fight down the miserable thought that James would not arrive after all, and that she would be better to go home on the same flight as Charles.
Then Charles emerged to suggest they should go out for di
“There’s an advertisement out on the road for a restaurant called Rita On The Rocks,” said Charles. “Sounds intriguing.”
They drove west along the coast through Lapta and found the restaurant on the far side. It was open-air with a swimming pool and full of the sound of British voices. Rita herself, an attractive middle-aged Englishwoman, was moving from table to table greeting friends.
“So they found Olivia,” said Agatha bleakly. Charles gave her a nervous look. They had already talked and talked about Olivia, but Agatha kept returning to the subject as if she had not said anything about it before. He decided to humour her.
“Yes,” he said. “Maybe she thought to swim to shore after the heat was off and emulate James by bribing someone to take her to the mainland.”
“I suppose it was a miracle they found that knitting needle,” said Agatha. “She could have got rid of it where it would never have been found.”
“So you keep saying. You’re not cracking up, are you? Forget the murder, forget Olivia. I’m going to talk to you like your father, Aggie.”
“You’re too young, Charles.”
“Seriously. Give up chasing after James. Waste of time, waste of energy. You’re only going to get hurt again.”
“That’s my business.”
“This trip, you seem to have made your business my business, Aggie. Stop thinking that he really loves you. If he really loved you, he would not have gone off to Turkey for any reason and left you alone.”
“He had begun to think I wasn’t alone because of you,” said Agatha.
“You see!” He pointed a fork at her. “You’re already begi
“He said he would back in two days,” said Agatha stubbornly.
“I give up. Well, we’ve had some adventures. One day I will look back on all this and scream.”
A noisy group of British residents at the next table were practising their Turkish, having started lessons in Turkish in Kyrenia.
Conversation between Charles and Agatha became difficult because of the noise. They decided to have coffee at home, asked for the bill which Charles handed to Agatha who paid it, and then they left.
Back at the villa, they drank coffee, and watched a Brother Cadfael mystery broadcast by the local TV station which was mercifully in English and then decided to go to bed. Agatha said if Charles left his rented car outside Atlantic Cars in the morning, she would drive him to the airport.
“Last night together, sweetheart?” asked Charles as they went up the stairs.
“No,” said Agatha firmly, having visions of James arriving in the middle of the night to find them in bed together.
“Oh, well, I can’t say you don’t know what you’re missing because you do.”
“I’m too old for you, Charles.”
“Didn’t notice.”
“Thank you for that, but see you in the morning.”
Agatha slept uneasily. During the night, a car drew up on the road outside and she leapt from bed and ran down the stairs and jerked open the door. But it was only a late visitor leaving a neighbour’s house.
She drove Charles to the airport in the early light of dawn. He turned before going through security and said, “I’ll see you around, Aggie,”
“No doubt,” said Agatha.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?”
Agatha put her arms round him and kissed him. He turned away, and then turned back at the security gate.
“You’re too good for him, Aggie,” he said, and then he was gone.
With his going, hope sprang anew in Agatha’s breast. James would come, and they would talk, and during the days that followed with no murders hanging over them, they would grow closer together.
For the next two days, she dressed in her prettiest clothes and with full make-up on, she waited, rushing out of the villa door every time she heard a car coming down the road.
By Thursday, she had decided that if she wore just a comfortable T-shirt and shorts and didn’t bother about make-up, he would come. But Thursday came and went, then Friday.
She packed slowly, her heart heavy. She drove to Bilal’s laundry and told him she would leave the keys at his home on the road to the airport if he gave her the address, but that James would no doubt be back soon.
“Will you ever come back?” asked Bilal.
“Yes, I probably will,” said Agatha. “One day.”
She said goodbye to him and drove back to the villa. The day was su
Agatha tried not to think of James, tried to concentrate on neat packing. She felt she should go out for a last meal but could not bring herself to leave.
But all too soon it was the morning of her departure. She drove slowly to the airport, looking all the time eagerly at the faces of any drivers in approaching rented cars, still hoping to see James.
Even at the airport, she sca
It was only when she had cleared passport control that she at last lost all hope of seeing him and knew if he came back to Carsely that nothing was ever going to be the same. She would never forgive him for having abandoned her.
The take-off was delayed for two hours because of some hijack crisis at Stansted. They got as far as Istanbul and then had to wait four hours in a gate which did not seem to have a ta
A charter plane took them off and Agatha slept and woke and slept and woke, seeing in her dreams Trevor’s pink and angry face, seeing Olivia’s head rising above the monstrous waves.
And then the last time she awoke, the plane was descending into bleak and rainy Essex.
She collected her car at the Long Stay car-park and headed home, home to Carsely, the ache at her heart lifting when she reached Chipping Norton and turned the car towards Moreton-in-Marsh.
Down the road into Carsely, wind and rain sent spirals of coloured leaves down onto the road in front of her.
As she turned into the lane where she lived, her eyes flew immediately to James’s cottage, hoping to see smoke rising from the chimney, but it had a closed, dark, empty look.
When she walked into her cottage, her cats, Hodge and Boswell, uncoiled themselves and came to meet her. Her cleaner had said it would be better for the cats to be left in the familiar surroundings of home and she would come every day to feed them.
Agatha felt very lonely. She found she missed Charles. He had been such an undemanding and constant companion.
The doorbell rang and her first, stupid, thought was, “James!” And then she knew it could not possibly be James.
She opened the door and the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Bloxby, stood there, carrying a casserole.