Suddenly the villa seemed very quiet and almost sinister. For once, the sea was calm and no children played in the road outside. She began to feel edgy and jumpy.

And then the phone rang. She stared at it, startled, and then, with relief, decided it must be James.

She picked up the receiver.

“Hullo, Aggie.”

Charles.

“What do you want?” she demanded, feeling a lurch of disappointment. “And how did you get this number?”

“Easy,” he said cheerfully. “You left it with the manager of the hotel. Had dinner?”

“Not yet. But I’m not going to pay for yours.”

“Nasty. I was going to pay for yours.”

“Charles, I’ve got into enough trouble over you. James found out I had slept with you.”

“That wasn’t my fault. They’d found that out from the hotel servants and had tactfully kept that information from James until someone tried to smother you.”

“How do you know James isn’t here?”

“I was coming back into Kyrenia and he passed me like the clappers, heading off in the direction of Nicosia. Come on, Aggie. Come out to play. I’m bored.”

Agatha hesitated, thinking of an evening on her own and jumping nervously at every single sound.

“Oh, all right,” she said ungraciously. “Where will I meet you?”

“Here. The Dome.”

Agatha sighed. “I should be investigating, but I don’t think I want to run into any of that lot this evening.”

“What about that restaurant called The Grapevine?”

“No, they might be there. All the British go there.”

“What about the Saray Hotel in Nicosia?”

“Well…”

“ Nicosia ’s a big place. But if you think James will be there…”

“No, come to think of it, if he is where I think he is, he’ll be nowhere near the centre. I’ll park my car up on the main street, just outside the newspaper shop, and you can drive me from there.”

“What’s the time? It’s only seven. I’ll pick you up there at eight.”

But Agatha suddenly did not want to wait in the villa longer than she had to. “It’ll take me ten minutes to change and about ten minutes to get there,” she said. “Make it seven-thirty.”

She rang off and ran up the stairs and put on the little black dress she had shunned the night before. After a hasty wash-down, she re-applied her make up, grabbed her handbag and fled the villa.

Glad to be out and free of what she felt was the sinister silence of the villa, she headed for Kyrenia along the now familiar road with the mountains towering up on one side and the sea stretched out on the other. Remembering Kyrenia’s irritating one-way system, she went along the ring road to the lights and turned left down into Kyrenia, past The Grapevine, wondering if Olivia and the others were there, past the roundabout and the town hall, and found to her delight that a car was just moving out from a parking place outside the newspaper shop, and slid neatly into the empty space. Charles appeared promptly. She climbed into his rented car.

To avoid going back all around the town, he executed a neat turn under the blaring horn and flashing lights of a Turkish truck and headed back round the roundabout and out towards Nicosia, along past the Onar Village Hotel and up over the mountains until the twinkling lights of Nicosia appeared below them on the plain.

“So how are you feeling?” he asked.

“A bit shaken. Sort of unreal. As if it had all never happened and I’ll wake up in my bed in Carsely.”

“What sort of place have you got?”

“A thatched cottage, like the kind you see on calendars or biscuit boxes. Little garden at the front and a bigger one at the back. Two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, dining-room and living-room. God, I wish I were there.”

“I don’t think Pamir can keep you here for much longer. Why don’t you go and see him tomorrow and tell him you want to go home?”

“There’s James.”

“Is he still talking to you?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing. I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t want to talk about James,” said Agatha firmly.

He drove competently into the centre of Nicosia and managed to find a parking place near The Saray.

“What I can’t understand about this hotel,” said Agatha as they ascended in the lift to the restaurant, “is how they get away with only having two loos next to the restaurant. Only two public toilets for a hotel this size. How do they cope when they have, say, a wedding reception?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they piss off the terrace,” said Charles indifferently. “Here we are. Do you want a drink at the bar or will we go straight into the restaurant?”

“The restaurant, I think. I’ve been drinking too much.”

“The trouble is booze here is so cheap.”

“And cigarettes,” said Agatha. “It’s a smoker’s dream. Everyone smokes, ashtrays everywhere, even in the butcher’s.”

They ordered their meal and looked out at the lights of Nicosia.

The hors-d’oeuvre was a light flaky pastry filled with cheese, and the main course was lamb on the bone with salad and rice. Charles had ordered a bottle of wine and Agatha forgot her resolution not to drink. It was so easy to talk to Charles. But then she wasn’t in love with Charles.

“So who do you think tried to murder you?” Charles asked over coffee and brandies.

“Trevor,” said Agatha. “I’m sure it must have been Trevor.”

“I would have thought by three in the morning our Trevor would have been deep in an alcoholic stupor. Was there a strong smell of booze?”

“I was too frightened to smell anything. Besides, I had been drinking a lot myself. It’s like smoking. If you smoke, then you don’t much notice the smell of other people’s cigarette smoke.”

“Let me think. There’s friend Harry Tembleton, old but still quite powerful from a lifetime of shifting bales of hay or whatever. Now he said Rose was a slut. He’s devoted to Olivia. Could he have thought that George was about to stray and, loyal friend that he is, decided to eliminate the temptress?”

“Far-fetched.”

“The whole thing’s far-fetched. Apart from various flare-ups at the border between the Greeks and the Turks, this place is the safest in the Mediterranean. There have certainly been a few burglaries of British residents’ homes, but the police practically always find the culprits. They’ve got a big success rate. Only the tourists bother to lock their cars. So the very idea of the murder of a British tourist in a night-club is extraordinary. And yet Trevor is the obvious suspect. He needs money, Rose has money, she won’t give him any, his business is down the tubes, and she’s a flirt and he’s a jealous man. Must be Trevor. And I don’t think you’re going to have to use your investigative powers on this one, Aggie, because if it’s, Trevor, and considering the amount of alcohol he sinks, I think he’ll crack. Pamir will keep after us all with his endless questions.”

Agatha gave a rueful smile. “‘Could you go through it all from the beginning, Mrs. Raisin?’ He has incredible patience.”

“He’s waiting for one of us to s’p up and tell him something different,” said Charles. “And he thinks James might have tried to bump you off in a fit of passion.”

“James had an alibi.”

“I didn’t. Lucky James. Pamir implied that people like me suffer from inbreeding in the family and could be potty.”

“I sometimes think you’re potty myself, Charles. Why bother with me?”

“You amuse me.”

“Not very flattering.”

“You actually look good in that black dress.”

“Thank you. You must be the only man in this hot climate to wear a tie.” Charles was wearing a striped silk tie with an impeccable white shirt and a white linen suit. “Don’t you ever sweat?”

“Only when I’m making love to you, Aggie.”

Agatha sighed. “If only you were the right man. I’m at least ten years older than you, Charles.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a toy-boy.”

“And I’ve never wanted one.”

“What about that young Chinese policeman? I thought he was rather keen on you.”