Agatha raised her glass of beer to her lips.
And then outside, amongst the crowds, James Lacey walked past.
Agatha dropped her glass with a crash. She would have recognized that rangy walk anywhere. Seizing her handbag and deaf to the shout of the waiter, who saw what looked like a customer escaping without paying, she darted out of the door and set off in pursuit.
She thrust her way through the crowds, sometimes losing him, and then seeing that dark head a distance in front of her. The crowd thinned and she put on a desperate spurt.
She caught up with him and seized his arm. ‘James!’ she panted.
A total stranger turned round and looked down at her, a puzzled look on his face.
Agatha backed off, her face flaming. ‘I’m s-sorry,’ she stammered. ‘M-mistake.’
She turned away from him and scurried back off towards the café, where the waiter who was standing at the door was relieved to see her return.
She asked for her bill. He indicated her half-eaten food on the table. She shook her head, tipped him and paid her bill at the cash desk.
Then she walked slowly back to the hotel.
She went up to her room and fell face-down on the bed.
‘Oh, James,’ said Agatha. ‘Where are you?’
In the morning, she sat down at a desk in the room and, taking a sheet of hotel stationery, she wrote to James at the Benedictine monastery. She should have thought of it before, she told herself. Of course he was there. It was Marie’s questioning that had put the uneasy thought in her head that he might have lied about taking holy orders and becoming a monk.
She kept her letter short and cheerful, ending by asking him if he could send her a note to her home address and let her know how he was getting on. Then she packed her cases and left them for collection and went down to reception and asked them to post the letter for her.
Feeling better now that she had taken some action to find out how he was, Agatha Raisin set out on the long journey home.
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came Page 19