Also in the Agatha Raisin series
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
The Agatha Raisin Companion
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the USA by Minatour Books,
an imprint of St Martin’s Press, 2011
First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011
Copyright © M. C. Beaton 2011
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84529-955-2 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-84901-958-3 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the EU
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book is dedicated to Sinead Goss, with many thanks for all her support for Target Ovarian Cancer.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Chapter One
Agatha Raisin wearily turned on to the road leading down into her home village of Carsely in the Cotswolds and then came to an abrupt halt. Cars stretched out in front of her. She pulled on the handbrake.
It was the end of January and a very cold month, unusually cold. The tall trees on either side of the country road raised bare branches to a leaden sky as if pleading for the return of spring. Agatha prayed it would not snow. It seemed as if two centimetres of snow were enough to close down the roads, because the council complained they had run out of salt and all roads leading out of Carsely were very steep, making driving hazardous.
What on earth was going on? She gave an impatient blast on her horn, and the young man in the battered Ford in front gave her the finger.
Cursing, Agatha got out of her car and marched up to the Ford and rapped on the window. The sallow-faced youth opened the window and demanded, ‘Wot?’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ demanded Agatha.
The youth eyed her up and down, noting the expensively tailored coat and the beady, accusing eyes and marking the ‘posh’ accent. He scowled. ‘Pot’oles,’ he said with a shrug. ‘They’re repairing pot’oles.’
‘And how long will it take?’
‘Blessed if I know,’ he said, and rolled up the window.
Agatha returned to the warmth of her car, fuming. She herself had complained bitterly to the council about the state of the road. But there were two other roads into the village. They might at least have put up diversion notices until the road was repaired. She contemplated making a U-turn but knew, considering her lack of driving skills, it would take her an awful lot of manoeuvring on the narrow road to do so.
A drip began to appear on the end of her nose. She reached into the box of tissues on the seat beside her and blew her nose. Someone rapped at the window.
Agatha looked out. A policeman was bending down looking at her. He was squat and burly, with a squashed-looking nose in his open-pored face and piggy, accusing little eyes.
Lowering the window, Agatha asked, ‘How long is this going to take, Officer?’
‘It’ll take as long as it takes, madam,’ he said in a thick Gloucestershire accent. ‘I am ticketing you for taking your hands off the wheel.’
‘My, what? Are you mad? I was simply blowing my nose. The handbrake’s on, I’m stuck here . . .’
‘Sixty-pound fine.’
‘I’ll see you in hell first before I pay that,’ howled Agatha.
He handed in a ticket. ‘See you in court.’
Agatha sat for a moment, shaking with rage. Then she took a deep breath. She started to negotiate a U-turn, but cars piled up behind her had decided to do the same thing. At last she was clear, just in time to see in her rearview mirror that the line of cars she had just left had started to move.
By the time she reached her thatched cottage in Lilac Lane, it had begun to snow, fine little pellets of snow. Damn all pundits and their moaning about global warming, thought Agatha. As she opened the car door to get out, a gust of wind whipped the ticket the policeman had given her and sent it flying up over her cottage.
She let herself into her cottage. Her two cats, Hodge and Boswell, came running forward to give her the welcome they always gave her when they wanted something to eat.
Agatha fed them, poured herself a gin and tonic, and then phoned her friend Detective Sergeant Bill Wong. When he came on the phone, Agatha complained bitterly about the policeman who had given her a ticket for blowing her nose.
‘That would be Gary Beech,’ said Bill, ‘the target fiend. You know we have to meet certain targets or we don’t get promotion. He goes a bit mad. The other week, a nine-year-old’s mother who lives in a cul-de-sac in Mircester chalked squares on the pavement for her little boy to play hopscotch. Beech arrested the kid and charged him with the crime of graffiti. And he charged a toddler with carrying a dangerous weapon even though the kid was holding a water pistol. An old-age pensioner was arrested under the Terrorism Act for carrying a placard saying, ‘Get our boys out of Afghanistan.’
‘What should I do?’
‘It’ll probably be thrown out of court. Or you could just pay the fine.’
‘Never!’
‘How’s business?’
‘Not good. The recession is really biting. People just don’t have the money.’ Agatha looked out of her kitchen window. ‘Blast! The snow’s getting thicker. I wish I’d invested in snow tyres or a four-wheel drive. Roy Silver’s coming down for the weekend. I hope the roads clear by then.’
Roy had worked for Agatha when she had run a successful pub
lic relations business in London. She had taken early retirement and had sold up to move to the Cotswolds. But after solving several murders, she had decided to set up her own detective agency.
Bill said he would try to get down to see her at the weekend and rang off.
Agatha then phoned her agency. She had a small staff: Patrick Mulligan, a retired policeman, Phil Marshall, an elderly man from Carsely, young Toni Gilmour and a secretary, Mrs Freedman. A shrewd businesswoman, Agatha had seen the recession coming long before most people and so had decided not to employ any more staff. But there was one absence from her staff jabbing at her conscience. A bright young detective, Simon Black, employed by Agatha until a few months earlier, had shown signs of falling in love with Toni. Persuading herself that she was acting in their best interests, Agatha had told Simon that Toni was too young and to wait three years. But Toni had turned against Simon, feeling he was snubbing her at every turn, and to Agatha’s horror, Simon had gone off and enlisted in the army and was now fighting in Afghanistan.
Toni answered the phone and said that Mrs Freedman and Phil had gone home, not wanting to wait any longer in case the snow got thicker. Toni, young, blonde and beautiful, often gave Agatha pangs of envy, but she had to admit that the girl was a brilliant detective.
‘What have we got outstanding?’ asked Agatha.
‘Two adulteries, four missing pets and two missing teenagers.’
Agatha sighed. ‘It seems not so long ago that I swore I would never take on another missing pet. Now we need the money.’
‘It’s easy money,’ said Toni. ‘They hardly ever think of checking the animal shelter. I just go along there with the photos they’ve given me of Tiddles or whatever, collect the beasts and phone the happy owners and then say, “Pay up”.’
‘Roy’s coming down for the weekend,’ said Agatha, ‘and maybe Bill will come over. Why don’t you join us and maybe I’ll find something interesting for us to do?’
‘I’ve got a date.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Paul Finlay.’
‘How did you meet him?’
Toni longed to tell the ever-curious Agatha to mind her own business, but she said reluctantly, ‘I’ve been taking French classes in the evenings, now that it’s quiet at work. He’s the lecturer.’
‘How old is he?’
‘I’ve got to go. The other phone’s ringing.’
After she had rung off, Agatha sat and worried. Toni had a weakness for older men and had run into trouble before.
Agatha’s cleaner, Doris Simpson, had left a local newspaper on the kitchen table. She began to search through it to see if there were any weekend amusements, and then her eye fell on an event in Winter Parva, a village some twenty miles away. Agatha had been to Winter Parva only once. It was a touristy Cotswold village with gift shops, a mediaeval market hall and thatched cottages. The article said that as the local shops had not fared as well as usual over the Christmas period, the parish council had planned to generate interest in the village with a special January event. There was to be a pig roast on Saturday on the village green. The villagers were urged to dress in old-fashioned costumes. The Winter Parva morris dancers would perform along with the local brass band and the village choir. Two busloads of Chinese tourists were expected to arrive for the event.
That’ll do, thought Agatha, as long as I’m not blocked in the village by the snow.
Feeling hungry, she rummaged in her deep freezer to find something to microwave. Suddenly all the lights went out. A power cut.
She remembered the pub, the Red Lion, had a generator. Agatha changed into trousers, boots and a hooded parka and set out in the hunt for dinner.
The pub was crowded with locals. Agatha went to the bar and ordered lasagne and chips and a half of lager and looked around for a vacant table. Then, to her amazement, she saw her friend the vicar’s wife, Mrs Bloxby, sitting by herself in a corner, looking down dismally at a small glass of sherry.
Agatha hurried to join her, wondering what could be wrong, because Mrs Bloxby never went to the pub unless it was some special fundraising occasion. The vicar’s wife had grey hair escaping from an old-fashioned bun. Her normally kind face looked tired. She was wearing a shabby tweed coat over a washed-out sweater, cardigan and tweed skirt. It didn’t matter what she wore, thought Agatha, not for the first time. Mrs Bloxby always had ‘lady’ stamped on her. Agatha and Mrs Bloxby always called each other by their second names, a tradition in the local Ladies’ Society, of which both were members.
‘How odd to see you here,’ said Agatha. ‘Where’s your husband?’
‘I neither know nor care,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘Do sit down, Mrs Raisin.’
Agatha sat down opposite her. ‘What is the matter?’
Mrs Bloxby seemed to rally. She gave a weak smile. ‘It’s nothing, really. Do you really mean to eat that?’
The waitress had placed a dish of lasagne and chips in front of Agatha. ‘Sure. What’s up with it?’ Agatha dug her fork in and took a mouthful.
Mrs Bloxby reflected that her friend had the taste buds of a vulture.
Yet Agatha sometimes managed to make her feel diminished. Although in her early fifties, Agatha glowed with health, and her glossy brown hair, although expertly dyed, gleamed like silk.
‘It can’t be nothing,’ said Agatha, reaching for the ketchup bottle, opening it and dousing her chips.
‘Probably my imagination,’ said Mrs Bloxby wearily.
‘You always did have good instincts. Out with it,’ commanded Agatha.
Mrs Bloxby gave a heart-wrenching dry sob, the kind a child gives after crying for a long time. ‘It’s just that I think Alf is having an affair. You’re dribbling ketchup.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Agatha put a chip, overloaded with ketchup, back on her plate. ‘Your husband is having an affair? Rubbish!’
‘You’re right. I’m just being silly.’
‘No, no, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, who would want him?’ remarked Agatha with her usual lack of tact.
Her friend bristled. ‘I will have you know that as vicar of this parish, Alf has often been the target of predatory ladies.’
‘So what makes you think he’s having an affair? Lipstick on his dog collar?’
‘Nothing like that. It’s just that he’s taken to sneaking off without his dog collar on and he won’t tell me where he’s going.’
‘Been buying any new underwear recently?’
‘No, I buy his underwear.’
‘Look, I’ll find out for you and put your mind at rest. On the house.’
‘Oh, don’t do that. If he saw you tailing him, he would be furious.’
‘He won’t see me. I happen to be a very good detective.’
‘You are to do nothing about it,’ said Mrs Bloxby seriously. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise,’ agreed Agatha, and surreptitiously and childishly crossed her fingers behind her back.
A warm wind from the west during the night melted the snow to slush, and then, when the wind changed round to the north, it froze the roads into skating rinks. Agatha awoke the next day in a bad temper. How on earth was she going to get out of the village? It seemed small consolation that the power was back on.
But as she was having her usual breakfast of black coffee and cigarettes, she faintly heard a sound from the end of the lane, a sound she had not heard for some time. She put on her boots and coat and ran to the end of the lane. A gritter was making its lumbering way down through the village, spraying the road with grit and salt.
Agatha hurried back to put on her make-up and get dressed for the office.
She was just driving out of Lilac Lane when she recognized the vicar’s car on the road ahead of her. ‘Just a little look wouldn’t hurt,’ she assured herself. She let the car behind her pass her and then followed, keeping the vicar’s car in view. He drove to the nearby village of Ancombe and parked in the courtyard of St Mary’s, a large Catholic church. The village of Ancombe
had remained loyal to Charles I when, all about, the Puritans supported Cromwell.
Driven by curiosity, Agatha parked out on the road and went up the drive past the gravestones and into the church.
In the dimness of the church, she could just make out the thin figure of Mr Bloxby going into a confessional box and closing the door. She ducked down in a pew as a priest appeared and went into the confessional.
I must know what he is saying, fretted Agatha. She took off her shoes and tiptoed towards the confessional box into which the vicar had disappeared, put her ear against it and listened hard.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ roared a stentorian voice.
Agatha caught a frightened glimpse of a man who had just entered the church. She quickly closed her eyes and slumped to the floor. The confessional opened and Mr Bloxby and the priest came out.
‘What is going on?’ demanded the reedy voice of the priest.
Agatha opened her eyes. ‘What happened?’ she demanded weakly. ‘I felt dizzy and saw Mr Bloxby coming in here and wanted to ask him for help.’
‘She was listening!’ said a thin, acidulous man.
‘I know this woman,’ said Mr Bloxby. ‘Mrs Raisin, step outside the church with me.’
Agatha got to her feet. No one helped her. She put on her shoes. Mr Bloxby marched ahead, and Agatha trailed after him, miserably.
Outside the church, Mr Bloxby snapped, ‘Get in my car, Mrs Raisin. You have some explaining to do.’
Agatha got into the passenger seat of the vicar’s car. It had begun to rain: soft, weeping rain.
‘Now,’ said Mr Bloxby, ‘explain yourself, you horrible woman.’ The vicar had never liked Agatha and could not understand his wife’s affection for her.
She’ll never speak to me again, thought Agatha sadly as she realized she would have to tell the truth.
‘It’s like this, Alf . . . may I call you Alf?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, what happened, I met your wife in the pub last night and she had been crying. She thinks you’re having an affair.’
‘How ridiculous . . . although come to think of it, I have had to ward off a few amorous parishioners over the years.’
Agatha Raisin: As The Pig Turns Page 1