As the Pig Turns - By M.C. Beaton Page 0,65

said Toni.

‘Did you give the police your mobile phone number as well?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then they’ll be able to find you. Before you leave, wouldn’t you much rather be with your mother?’

‘She did call, but she’s just got a new job. I told her I would be all right and that I might see her at the weekend.’

When they got into Mrs Bloxby’s ancient Morris Minor, the vicar’s wife looked in the rearview mirror before she drove off. If only the police would come through with the news that Tulloch had been found.

She heaved a sigh of relief when she finally turned down into the tree-lined road leading to Carsely. There were no cars behind her.

Once at the vicarage, she told Toni to go and find a seat in the garden. Toni stretched out in a deck chair and felt the warm sun on her face. The peace of the vicarage garden enclosed her.

Soon she was asleep.

That evening, Agatha sealed her letterbox shut with super-glue, knowing the postman would leave any letters for her at the village store. She tried to phone Charles, but Gustav told her he wasn’t available; but then that was what Gustav always said.

She went up to the landing and looked longingly at James’s cottage, but no light showed and his car was not parked outside.

The doorbell rang, making her jump nervously. She went down the stairs and looked through the spy hole. Bill Wong’s face stared back. Agatha opened the door.

‘Come in. Has he been caught?’

‘Who?’

‘Tulloch, of course.’

‘We’re working on that. We might get one of the gang to talk soon. One of them seems weaker than the others. We’re hoping to hear that Richards got rid of him. We’re winding up the whole business. Imagine having a successful chain of supermarkets and that not being enough. The drug lab was to be a new venture, all set up to make crystal meth, as far as forensics could gather from the burnt-out remains. Where is Toni?’

‘Staying with Mrs Bloxby.’

‘The best thing she could do.’

‘She would have been quite safe with me,’ said Agatha huffily.

‘Let’s hope you’re not in any danger,’ said Bill, looking at the bars on the kitchen window.

Agatha followed his gaze and said bitterly, ‘I’m in a sort of prison when Tulloch may be out there, roaming free. Hey, what about Fiona Richards? Did she know anything about all this?’

‘She denies it vehemently and tearfully. All she can wonder about is what is going to happen to her previously expensive lifestyle.’

‘And is Richards really the head of things?’

‘Before his ambition to join the drug market, it was pinching cars and expensive farm machinery and shipping it to Eastern Europe. Among the men we picked up, there were two Albanians, one Kurd, and I regret to say two residents of Mircester, the latter both having spent time in prison in the past for grievous bodily harm.’

Bill’s phone rang. He walked out of the kitchen to answer it. When he came back, his face was grim. ‘One of the gang has started to sing. He says that Beech would earn money by telling Richards which combine harvesters were left out on the fields and where to pick up expensive cars. Maybe the P in his ledger was for Porsche. He also tipped Richards off when it looked as if one of the gang might be under suspicion and managed to ‘lose’ the evidence. But he felt he wasn’t getting enough and started to blackmail Richards. Richards ordered a man called Boris Ahmid and one of the Englishmen, Marty Gifford, to deal with Beech in such a way as to frighten off anyone else who might want to play the same trick. The roast pig idea was Boris’s. The missing feet and arms have been found in a freezer at the back of the main supermarket store in Mircester.’

‘Wouldn’t one of the staff have found them?’

‘It was a padlocked freezer. Richards is a sick and vicious man. The rest of his gang are soon going to turn against him when they learn he’s going to plead that they threatened him into doing their dirty work.’

‘And when did Tulloch enter the picture?’

‘I think shortly after Beech’s murder. He’s a compulsive gambler and owed money to a loan shark. Richards heard about it through the loan shark. We believe Tulloch drugged himself outside Agatha’s cottage to divert suspicion from himself.

‘Tulloch killed Amy Richards. She was about to take over the blackmailing. How on earth the silly woman thought she could get