Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam

NINE

THE next day, Agatha could not bear to tell Charles about the strange lights. He would just say, if it hadn't been the Jackson children it might have been some angry villager. Agatha remembered a woman chief constable saying that a murder left everyone scarred.

And sure enough, as she was packing, the phone began to ring. Angry anonymous voices with strong local accents accused her of being an interfering busybody who had probably done the murder herself. After the third, she unplugged the phone from the wall.

Charles came downstairs, carrying his suitcases. "People ringing to congratulate us?"

"Locals ringing out for our blood."

"Why?"

"Because we got their dear, sweet Mrs. Jackson banged up. Will you lead the way in your car Charles? I'm frightened of an ambush."

They loaded up their cars, Agatha tenderly placing the cats in their travelling boxes on the back seat.

As they emerged from Pucks Lane to circle the village green and take the road out of Fryfam, Agatha saw Rosie standing with a group of villagers. As Charles's car approached, Rosie's beautiful face became contorted with fury. She threw a half-brick straight at his car. The window on the passenger side smashed. Charles accelerated, and so did Agatha.

Soon they were speeding fast out of Fryfam. After several miles Charles pulled in at a garage. Agatha pulled in behind him.

"Are you all right?" she asked, getting out of the car and going up to inspect the damage of his.

"I was lucky I wasn't cut," said Charles.

"Here's my phone. Call the police."

"No, Rosie must feel used. She'll know that I got the police on to Barry. I'll phone up the glass-repair people when we stop for lunch. They're pretty nippy these days. I'll keep the brick as a souvenir."

"Then let's drive on," said Agatha. "I'm afraid they might come after us."

They stopped for lunch a few miles down the road. Charles phoned and ordered the glass to be repaired.

Over lunch, Agatha eyed him narrowly. "You didn't tell Rosie you loved her, or anything like that?"

"Not exactly. Stop glaring at me like that, Aggie. Who knows who's been sleeping with who in that accursed village."

"You should keep that half-brick as a reminder to keep your pants on next time."

"Oh, really? And who saved your life, you ungrateful cow?"

"I s'pose..." mumbled Agatha.

"Glad to be going home?"

"I am."

"James waiting for you?"

"Let's not talk about James."

"I think we should," said Charles. "Look, go and see that therapist I told you about."

"I don't need a shrink."

"When it comes to James Lacey, you need your head straightened out."

"Don't nag me. I'll think about it."

The glass repair-man came in with the papers for Charles to sign and said he'd have the window fixed in a matter of minutes.

"Time to go," said Charles at last. "I wonder if you would mind paying the bill, Aggie. I'm a bit short."

Agatha was weary by the time she turned down the winding country lane into Carsely. Somehow, she had pictured that in Carsely it would be warm and the sun would be shining, but night had already fallen and frost was glittering on the branches of the trees that spanned the road.

She turned into Lilac Lane. There were lights on in James's cottage and a suffocating feeling of excitement engulfed her. But fear of a cold reception kept her from stopping outside his cottage and rushing in to see him.

Agatha had phoned her cleaner, Doris Simpson, to warn her of her return. When she let herself in, the cottage was warm. Doris had switched on the central heating. On the kitchen table was a casserole with a note of welcome from Mrs. Bloxby.

"Why did I ever leave?" said Agatha aloud. She let the cats out of their boxes and then went out to get her suitcases.

A tall blond woman was just leaving James's cottage. This then must be Mrs. Sheppard, thought Agatha sourly. The woman came towards her. "Welcome home," she said, "You must be Agatha Raisin. I'm Melissa Sheppard."

"Pleased to meet you," said Agatha, looking anything but pleased.

"Can I give you a hand in with your luggage?"

Agatha opened her mouth to say a fierce No, but then changed her mind. She simply had to find out how close this woman was to James.

"Very kind of you," she said instead.

Melissa Sheppard was blond, forty-something, slim but not the siren Agatha had envisaged.

"Just leave that case in the hall," said Agatha. "I'll unpack later. Coffee?"

"If it's not too much trouble."

"None at all. Come into the kitchen."

"I've just been calling on your neighbours," said Melissa. "I took him some of my sponge cakes. These bachelors don't know how to look after themselves."

"I've always found James pretty self-sufficient," said Agatha, plugging in the kettle.

"He told me you had investigated several crimes together. Too exciting! And you've been involved in another murder. `Poor old thing,' I said to James, but he said, `Don't worry about Agatha, she's formidable.' " And Melissa gave a throaty laugh.

"I'm suddenly very tired," said Agatha. "Do you mind if we leave coffee to another day?"

"Not at all. I'm always at James's, so we'll be seeing a lot of each other."

Agatha saw her out and then slammed the door with unnecessary force behind her.

Then she picked up the phone and dialled Charles's number. When he came on the line, she said, "What's the name of that therapist?"

The following day, Agatha walked along to the vicarage. It was as cold as Fryfam. Perhaps people damned the weather in Norfolk in the hope of consoling themselves that winter in Britain was lousier somewhere else.

Mrs. Bloxby greeted Agatha with delight. "Come in. I am dying to hear all about your adventures."

Agatha settled happily into an armchair in the vicarage sitting-room in front of the log fire. "I'll get tea," said Mrs. Bloxby.

Agatha had made an appointment with the therapist for the following week. She now dreamt of coming back to Carsely from a visit to the therapist cured of her obsession with James Lacey.

Mrs. Bloxby came in carrying a laden tea-tray. "The fruitcake's very good. It's a present from Mrs. Sheppard."

"Oh, her," said Agatha. "I met her last night. She seems to be setting her cap at James."

Mrs. Bloxby's conscience pricked her. She should tell Agatha that James felt he was being hounded day and night by Mrs. Sheppard. But Mrs. Bloxby knew how miserable James had made Agatha in the past. She also knew that James had initially "come on" to Mrs. Sheppard, as that nasty modem phrase so well described it, and so it was his fault that she was chasing after him, but she said nothing about it, asking instead, "Now tell me all about Fryfam."

So Agatha did, and when she got to the end of her adventures, she had a sudden compulsion to tell Mrs. Bloxby about those fairy lights.

" `There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy,' " said Mrs. Bloxby.

"Who the hell's Horatio?" demanded Agatha.

"It's a quote from Hamlet. I probably didn't get it right. I mean, that odd things do happen. On the other hand, if, as you say, some of the villagers were angry with you, then it follows they might have been trying to give you a scare."

"It could be, but it wasn't just the lights, it was that odd faint laughter. Half of it seemed to be inside my head."

"Well, don't worry about it. You're home now. Tell me about Charles. He must be very fond of you to stick by you through everything."

"I don't know what Charles thinks of me," said Agatha. "This cake is actually very good. Trust that rotten bitch to make good cakes. Yes, I think Charles gets easily bored and that's why he stayed. The murders provided a diversion for him."

"That seems a bit heartless."

"I don't really know what Charles thinks any more than I ever knew what James thought of me."

"Plenty of men around, Mrs. Raisin."

"Not for women of my age."

"Rubbish. You've been so tied up in thoughts of James, you've never really noticed anyone else."

Agatha was about to tell Mrs. Bloxby about the forthcoming visit to the therapist and then decided against it. It seemed such a weak thing to do, to go to a therapist. It would seem like admitting there was something mentally wrong with her and she couldn't cope on her own.

They talked about parish matters and then Agatha rose to take her leave.

"You are over James, aren't you?" asked Mr. Bloxby on the doorstep.

"Oh, sure, sure," said Agatha, but she would not meet Mrs. Bloxby's eyes, and she hurried away with her head down.

Doris Simpson, her cleaner, was waiting for her when she got back. "How's my Wyckhadden cat?" asked Agatha. She had brought a cat back with her from one of her previous "cases" but had found three cats just too much and the new cat adored Doris and so Doris had taken it over.

"Happy as ever," said Doris. "Do you want me cleaning today?"

"It looks fine," said Agatha. "Leave it for a couple of days. I haven't unpacked most of my stuff yet."

The doorbell rang. "Want me to get it?" asked Doris.

"No, it's all right. Off you go and I'll see you tomorrow."

Agatha opened the door. Melissa Sheppard stood there. "Is James here?" she asked brightly. "I've made him a spinach pie."

Agatha stepped out into the front garden and looked along at James's cottage. A face glimmered at the window on the halflanding and then disappeared. "Did you ring his bell?" asked Agatha.

"Yes, but there's no reply."

I'm sure that was James at that window, thought Agatha, with a sudden burst of hope.

"Maybe he's gone out for a drive," she said.

"His car's there," Melissa pointed out.

"Oh, so it is. He usually walks down to the shop for the newspapers about this time."

"I'll try there," said Melissa and hurried off.

Agatha retreated inside. Her fingers itched to pick up the receiver and call James, but James should call her first. She could not bear a cold welcome.

She went upstairs and began to sort through the clothes in her suitcases, putting the dirty laundry into a basket.

The doorbell rang again. Agatha ran downstairs and opened the door. Her friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, stood on the doorstep. "I wondered whether you would come back alive," he said.

"Come in. Have coffee. Hear all about it," said Agatha. "In fact, it's nearly lunch-time. I haven't done any shopping yet. But I'm sure I've something in the freezer I can put in the microwave."

"I can't stay very long," said Bill. "That Detective Chief Inspector Hand doesn't like you at all."

"Why, we solved his case for him."

"He swears they had already arrived at the same conclusion, so there was no need to put yourself at risk."

"Well, he's got to say that, hasn't he? To cover up his incompetence."

"Could be. So tell me all about it."

Bill was amused by Agatha's flat and factual account. The old Agatha would have bragged and told a highly embroidered story. He did not know that most of Agatha's mind was on James.

"Anyway, I'd better get back on duty," he said. "It's good to have you back. We'll maybe have dinner next week?"

"Lovely. Give me a ring."

Agatha waved him goodbye and then carried her dirty laundry down to the washing machine in the kitchen. Again the doorbell went. She was half inclined not to answer it. But she went and opened the door.

James Lacey stood there, looking down at her.

Agatha blinked. She had imagined him there so many times that at first she thought if she blinked very hard he would disappear and the figure would reappear as someone ordinary, like the postman.

"Any chance of coffee, Agatha?" asked James. "Have you something in your eye?"

"No, I'm fine. Come in. Melissa's looking for you."

"Oh, that tiresome woman."

"Could you put the kettle on, James? I'm going upstairs for a minute."

Agatha dived into her bedroom and made up her face carefully and brushed her thick hair until it shone.

Then she went downstairs. James was standing with his back to her, spooning coffee into two mugs.

He turned round. Oh, that smile! "So what's all this murder and mayhem you've been involved in?"

So Agatha sat down and told her story again.

James handed her a mug of coffee and then sat down opposite her and stretched out his long legs. When she had finished, he said, "You and Charles seem to be close."

"Oh, no," protested Agatha. "Just friends."

"You weren't just friends in Cyprus."

"That was a one-off," said Agatha, blushing. "I was upset and you were being so awful to me." She felt suddenly miserable. James looked angry. Soon he would get up and walk out and that would be that.

"I wanted to go over to Norfolk, but Mrs. Bloxby told me that you and Charles were an item."

"She wouldn't say that!" Agatha looked amazed. "She couldn't have said that. Not Mrs. Bloxby!"

"Come to think of it, she just implied it."

"There's nothing there and never will be. What's it to you, anyway?"

"I planned to take you out for a romantic dinner and say this, but what the hell, here goes. Agatha Raisin, will you marry me?"

Agatha clutched at the kitchen table for support. "Have I heard you properly? Do you want to marry me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked irritated. "Because life is very dull without you and I have bores like Melissa preying on me."

The little bit of common sense that was left in Agatha's mind was shouting to her that he had not said anything about love. She ignored it.

"Yes, okay," she said. "When?"

"After Christmas. January sometime. I'll run over to the registry office in Mircester and fix things up."

"Don't you want a church wedding?" asked Agatha.

"Not really."

"Oh, all right, then."

James got to his feet. "I'll pick you up for dinner at eight."

"Yes."

He kissed the top of her head and left.

Agatha sat in a daze.

After all the waiting and longing, here it was at last. She had to tell someone. The doorbell went again.

Melissa Sheppard stood there, again. "Someone told me that James came in here," she said.

"Yes, he was here." Happiness lit up Agatha's face. "We're going to be married."

"What! That's not possible."

"Why, may I ask?"

"He's been sleeping with me."

"Just go away!" Agatha banged the door in her face. Her hands were trembling. No, she would not confront James about Melissa. He was marrying Agatha Raisin and that was that. Nothing and no one was going to stop that. She tried to settle down to housekeeping but found she could not. She phoned Charles.

"I'm going to cancel that therapist," she said. "James and I are getting married."

"Mistake, darling. He'll try to turn you into a Lizzie and he won't be able to, so the pair of you will fight like cat and dog."

"Rubbish. I've a. good mind not to invite you to the wedding

"I wouldn't miss it for worlds. I like a good funeral."

Fuming, Agatha hung up on him. Then she thought, Mrs. Bloxby, dear Mrs. Bloxby would wish her well.

She put on her coat and marched off to the vicarage. "What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Bloxby, opening the door to her. "You look upset. Come in."

"I'm the happiest woman in the world," said Agatha firmly.

"Why is that?"

"James and I are getting married."

"Oh, Agatha Raisin, you fool."

"What do you mean?"

"It'll end in disaster. Oh, he's nice enough, I grant you, but when it comes to women, he's cold and selfish. He had a fling with Mrs. Sheppard and then decided she bored him to death. I beg you, don't accept him."

"I thought you were my friend," shrieked Agatha. "Damn the lot of you. I'm marrying James Lacey and no one is going to stop me."

And no one did. Agatha Raisin and James Lacey were married on a cold January day in Mircester Registry Office. The bride wore a smart honey-coloured wool suit and a dashing hat. There was to be no reception. She and James were leaving immediately to honeymoon in Vienna.

The "funeral," as Sir Charles Fraith called it, was held at the vicarage, Mrs. Bloxby having invited several of Agatha's friends back for a buffet lunch.

"Poor Mrs. Raisin," sighed Mrs. Bloxby. "I'm surprised she even invited any of us harbingers of doom."

"She didn't look at all happy," said Roy Silver, a public relations man who had once worked for Agatha.

"I think he's a bit of a bully. Agatha's kept her cottage, you know," said Doris Simpson, "and she was doing his washing and he came in and started raging because she hadn't separated his whites from his coloureds."

"If anyone can cut him down to size, it'll be our Aggie," said Roy.

Charles helped himself to a piece of cake. "I think she'll murder him."

There was a shocked silence.

"Just joking," said Charles. "This cake is jolly good."

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM M. C. BEATON'S LATEST BOOK

THE

SKELETON

IN THE

CLOSET

AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER FROM ST. MARTIN'S MINOTAUR

IN the way that illiterate people become very cunning at covering up their disability, Mr. Fellworth Dolphin, known as Fell, approaching forty, was still a virgin and kept it a dark secret.

His long-standing virginity had come about because he had been a shy, lanky, oversensitive boy, the single child of strict and emotionally blackmailing parents. He had been born when his mother was in her early forties. His father, a railway signalman, and his mother, a housewife, had dinned it into him that his duty in life was to get an education and be the sole support of his parents. When he was older, they chose "suitable" girls for him, girls who seemed foreign to the young Fell with their vapid conversation and the way their minds seemed to be set on a white wedding and a neat bungalow, both with a total absence of romance. For Fell was a romantic, living through books.

He had been set to go to university, but his father had fallen ill and it was borne in on him that he must take some sort of job immediately or "they would all starve." They lived in the market town of Buss in Worcestershire. In Buss, there was a rather grand hotel, the Palace, and it was there that young Fell found employment as a waiter.

His father died from a heart attack several years after Fell had started work. His mother became cross and morose, always complaining. Sometimes when he had finished a late shift in the hotel dining room, he would return home to their scrupulously clean two-up two-down terraced house, and he would see the light in the living room still burning and his feet would feel as heavy as lead for he knew he would have to drink the hot milk he hated and listen to his mother's complaints. In his spare time, he lived through books: spy books, adventure books, detective stories, thrillers, relishing those other worlds of action and mayhem.

He had acquaintances, but no close friends.

Although he was not often prone to depression, as he approached his thirty-eighth birthday, and once more walked home from the hotel, he felt a terrible darkness of the soul. Life had passed him by. He did not look unpleasing, being tall with a good figure, a pleasant face with wide-spaced grey eyes and a long, sensitive mouth. But his thick hair had turned prematurely grey.

The light was on in the living room. He braced himself for another wearying end to the day, listening to his mother's droning complaints, cradling that glass of hot milk and wondering if he could tip it somewhere.

He had not been allowed his own key. "Why should you have one?" his mother had complained. "I'm always here." But he had secretly had one cut, just a little bit of rebellion. He rang the bell. Nothing. The door did not open, nor did his mother's whiskery face appear at the window.

He took out his key and let himself in. He went into the living room. His mother was lying back in her usual armchair. He knew somehow that she was dead.

He felt numb. He phoned the ambulance and the police. He travelled in the ambulance to the hospital. He was told in hushed whispers that she, like his father, had suffered a heart attack.

He walked home at dawn-he had never been allowed to take driving lessons-trying to fight down a guilty feeling of relief. He was free at last from the chains of duty.

As he plodded homeward, he looked about him at the silent streets of the market town. This town had been his cell. He had never even been to London. The clock on the town hall sent down six silvery chimes. The rising sun sent his elongated shadow stretching out in front of him. He shivered, although the day was already warm. What on earth was going to become of him?

The next day a call from Mr. Jamieson, one of the town's solicitors, came as a surprise. Mr. Jamieson said a doctor friend at the hospital had told him of Mrs. Dolphin's death, and asked Fell to call round at his office to go through his mother's will. Fell could not imagine how his mother, who never seemed to leave the house, had got round to writing a will and visiting a lawyer. Fell had already phoned the hotel to say he would be taking time off until after the funeral. He still felt strangely numb. He put on his only suit and a shirt which his mother had turned at the collar and cuffs when they became frayed, a dark blue tie and highly polished shoes. He could now let his shoes get dirty if he liked, he thought, and then was ashamed at the pettiness of the thought. As he clattered down the stairs to make his way out, he looked at his mother's usual chair by the window, almost amazed to see it empty.

Mr. Jamieson seemed too young to have had any dealings with Fell's mother. He appeared to be in his early thirties. He had thick, shiny black hair and a smooth face with pale eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. After commiserating with Fell on his mother's sudden death, he got down to business. "Your father," said Mr. Jamieson, "left everything to your mother on his death and Mrs. Dolphin left everything to you."

"It won't be much," said Fell apologetically, for the lawyer's offices seemed too grand to deal with such a small inheritance, "although I suppose I will get the house."

"It is in fact a very comfortable amount of money."

Fell blinked at him. It was a sunny day. The weekly market in the town square below the windows was in full swing. The sun glittered on the glass front of a large bookcase.

The lawyer smiled. "Did you never look at your parents' bank books?"

Fell gave a rueful smile. "I haven't had time to look through any bank books or documents."

"Well, apart from the house, there is the sum of five hundred thousand pounds, plus some shares. Of course, there will be death duties to pay. The first two hundred and fifty thousand is tax-free, and then there is a straight forty per cent off the remainder."

"But that's impossible!" Fell turned red. "Quite impossible. We never even had a television set."

"Your father saved as much as he could all his life. The savings were kept in a high-interest account."

"But I couldn't go to university! I had to go to work. They lived on my earnings!"

"Perhaps they wanted to make sure you had a comfortable future."

It burst out of Fell. "But they took my youth."

The lawyer looked uncomfortable. "To business, Mr. Dolphin. I have been made an executor. Would you like me to arrange the funeral?"

"Please," said Fell, still bewildered and shaken. "I wouldn't know where to start."

"The expenses from the funeral will be paid out of the estate. These things take some time to wind up, but in the meantime you can draw any money in advance."

"May I draw, say, two thousand pounds now?" Fell did not know how he had the temerity to ask for such a sum.

"Certainly."

When Fell left the lawyer's office, he could feel rage boiling up inside him. He was free at last-free to travel, to set up his own business, to start living. But his parents had filleted out his ambition and his guts. He felt like someone who has come out of prison after a long sentence, wondering how to cope with life and reality and the modern world.

He did not even have a bank account. He had handed his pay cheques first to his father, and then, after his father's death, to his mother, and a small sum had been handed back to him.

He went into the nearest bank, holding the lawyer's cheque, and opened an account. It was all so easy.

Then he returned home and began to go through his father's old desk. Tucked away in a drawer at the bottom was a cash box. It was locked. With a strange feeling of intrusion, he searched his mother's battered old calfskin handbag. On her ring of keys was a little silver one. He inserted it in the lock and found it worked. He opened the box up. It was full of money in neat bundles, each marked "one thousand pounds." With shaking fingers, he counted it out. There was nearly fifty thousand pounds. He was about to put it back in the box, take it round to the bank and put it in his new account when he suddenly began to wonder how his father had come by such a large amount of loose cash. He had obviously not declared it to the income tax.

Fell went to the sideboard and took out a bottle of whisky which had been produced only at Christmas and poured himself a generous measure. He sat sipping it, looking around the living room, at the dark cheap furniture, at the old horsehair-horse- hair!-sofa and the brown paint on the doors and skirting and the dull, faded wallpaper. He felt trapped in these familiar surroundings. What did his inheritance matter? He would never have the courage to do anything with it. He roused himself to find the address book which held the numbers of the few surviving relatives and phoned them, telling them he would let them know the day and time of the funeral. Then the undertaker's rang. Fell agreed on the price of a coffin, and that the body should be buried in the town cemetery in three days' time at ten in the morning. The undertaker asked if Mrs. Dolphin had been Jewish, Catholic or Protestant. Fell told him, "Church of England," and the efficient undertaker said he would contact the vicar of St. Peter's to conduct the service. Fell replaced the receiver. He suddenly wanted his mother back, so that he could ask her why they had skimped and saved all those years. He wanted to ask her what she had thought about during her long days in the house alone. But it was now too late.

He rang the relatives again and informed them of the time of the funeral and the date. Things like that he could do. He had always been dutiful.

The next day, the doorbell rang and he went to answer it. The ancient and unlovely figure of his mother's sister, Aunt Agnes, stood on the doorstep.

"Come in, Aunt," said Fell. "Have you come all the way down from Wales?"

"Yes, but I'm staying with my friend, Nancy, in Worcester until after the funeral." Her eyes ranged round the living room. "There are some nice pieces here. You'll need someone to look after you. Doris always said"-Doris was the late Mrs. Dol- phin-"`I don't know who's going to take care of my boy when I'm gone and give him his hot milk.' So I've decided to sacrifice myself. I'll move in with you."

Terror gripped Fell. His aunt looked remarkably like his late mother. Whiskery face, small weak eyes, round figure in a tightly buttoned jacket.

"How kind of you," he said. "But I am surprised my mother didn't tell you. I'm engaged. This tragic business, of course, puts off the wedding."

Aunt Agnes sat down suddenly and goggled at him. "Who is she?"

Desperation lending his fantasy wings, Fell said, "Maggie Partlett."

There was a waitress at the hotel in which he worked called Maggie Partlett. She was extremely plain with thick glasses, lank hair and a lumpy figure.

"What does she do?"

"She works as a waitress, same hotel as me."

"Well, I never. And you've got the house and all this lovely furniture."

It seemed as if something had broken loose in Fell. "Maggie doesn't like the stuff," he said. "Tell you what, after the funeral, I'll put it all in a delivery van and send it up to you in Wales."

Aunt Agnes said, "That's awfully good of you. All this lovely stuff. I 'member when they bought it. Oh, my. You are a good boy. And that's what I'll tell this Maggie of yours when I meet her at the funeral."

"She won't be there. Her mother in Bedford isn't well, so she's over there at the moment."

"Sad. But I'll come back in a few months and you can introduce me then. I must be on my way."

"Let me get you a taxi and pay for it."

"What! All the way to Worcester."

"I've got a bit saved up."

"I must say, it would be better than waiting in this heat for a bus. It's going to be a scorcher of a summer. It's the dandelions, you see."

"Dandelions?"

"Yes, dandelions. You'll have seen masses of them all along the roads on the verges. Country people always said when you saw a lot of dandelions, it was going to be a hot summer."

"Dandelion summer," said Fell and laughed.

"You must forgive me laughing," he said quickly. "Grief takes me that way." And God forgive me, he said silently to himself, because I am not grieving at all.

When his aunt had left, he wondered why he had not told her about the legacy. Most of his other relatives were dead. But there was Cousin Barbara, and Cousin Tom. He should maybe see the lawyer and share it out. No, cried a voice in his head. I earned it with every bit of my youth. It was then he began to cry because he had not loved his mother and he was glad she was dead.

After some time, he dried his eyes and began to look through his home with new eyes. There were two bedrooms up stairs, a living room and sitting room downstairs and a small kitchen. The sitting room was kept for "best," in the old country way: three-piece suite with the plastic covers still over the uncut moquette upholstery, a fringed standard lamp, the shade covered in plastic, a display cabinet with bits of china, a fitted mushroom carpet, and a glass coffee table on white wrought-iron legs. He mentally cleared it all out and stripped the heavy flock wallpaper from the walls, tore up the carpet to find what was underneath. What if, once he had cleared everything out just what if he turned the living room into a large kitchen, with modern appliances, with long counters, shiny copper pans and bunches of herbs? His eyes filled with tears of guilt again. Something dark was telling him that his days of living would never come. Better leave things as they were. Go home every night to the dark, lonely house and hear the ghost of his mother's complaining voice.

He had to get out again, into the sunlight, take action, any action. He walked to a driving school and booked in for a course of lessons, he ordered a television set to be delivered that very day, then he went to the hotel and handed in his notice.

He was just leaving the hotel when with a guilty start he saw Maggie arriving for the evening shift.

"Oh, Fell," she said, blinking at him through her thick glasses, "I am so very sorry about your mother."

"Thank you, Maggie. I've resigned."

"It won't be the same place without you," she said shyly. They were both book readers and talked a lot about their favourite authors.

"Look here, Maggie, I did a silly thing. My aunt was threatening to move in with me and I told a lie on the spur of the moment. I said I was engaged to you."

If I were pretty, you wouldn't find it so silly, thought Mag gie. Aloud she said, "What will you do when she finds out it isn't true?"

"I'll cope with that later," said Fell, suddenly weary.

"I don't mind pretending," said Maggie quickly. "I mean, we could always break it off after the funeral."

Fell looked down at her as if seeing her for the first time. Her lank hair could do with cutting and shaping, and her clothes were a ragbag of shapelessness, and the thick glasses were ugly, but her mouth was well shaped and her eyes were kind.

"That's good of you," he said.

"Do you want me to go to the funeral?"

Fell laughed and Maggie blinked up at him, thinking that she had never heard Fell laugh before. "I told Auntie that you were nursing your sick mother in Bedford."

"I think you'll need some support at the funeral," said Maggie practically. "You'll need to have some drinks and eats for them at the house."

"I didn't think of that."

"You can tell Auntie she misheard. My mother is home in bed, not Bedford. I think she'd buy that one and then you can leave the catering to me. It can be expensive."

"As far as expense is concerned, Maggie, I think maybe we'd better meet for lunch tomorrow if you're free. I've got something to tell you I don't want anyone to know."

"I'd love that. Where?"

"That French restaurant down by the river-at one o'clock?"

"All right. I'll pay my share."

"That's what I want to talk to you about. I'll pay. But don't tell anyone."

"That's not hard," said Maggie ruefully. "No one talks to me except that wretched Italian barman who's always jeering at me."

"I'll see you then."

Fell headed home, just in time to see the television van arriving. What, he wondered guiltily, would the elderly neighbours on either side make of an aerial being erected on the roof and a television set being carried indoors right after his mother's death? He felt suddenly ashamed, but he had used up his small stock of courage for the day and somehow could not tell the television men he had changed his mind.

He tipped the men, and when they had left, decided to watch something on television.

A ring at the doorbell.

He jumped guiltily and somehow his thoughts immediately flew to the money in the cash box, now diminished by a wad of notes in his wallet.

He opened the door. The vicar, Mr. Sneddon, stood on the step.

His heart sank. He did not like Mr. Sneddon, for Mr. Sneddon was unoriginal. He had read about Mr. Sneddon in many books, the trendy clap-happy vicar with a burning desire to attract the spotty youth of Buss to the church while disaffecting all his regulars. It is all very irritating when a character who has been written to death turns up on one's doorstep.

Mr. and Mrs. Dolphin had been regular attenders while the old vicar had been in office, but Mrs. Dolphin had latterly given up going to church, sitting behind the lace curtains in the living room watching the world go by.

"Come in," said Fell, thinking, no lace curtains ever again.

The vicar came in and sat down. He was wearing a scarlet shell suit and trainers. He had very big feet. People with very big feet should not wear trainers, thought Fell, because those feet dominated the small room.

"My boy," began the vicar, who was about the same age as Fell, "this is a dark day for you."

"Indeed," murmured Fell.

"I gather the undertakers, Taylor and Fenwick, have all the arrangements?"

"Yes, the lawyer is kindly attending to everything."

"I will gladly officiate. Are there any special hymns you would like?"

"I would like `To Be a Pilgrim,' the Twenty-third Psalm, and `Onward Christian Soldiers.'"

The vicar frowned. "I feel that `Onward Christian Soldiers' is a teensy bit militant."

Fell was about to back down, but suddenly found himself saying calmly, "Those are the hymns Mother would have wanted. And the burial service from the old Book of Common Prayer."

"But we must move with the times and-"

"The old Book of Common Prayer. I-I mean Motherpreferred it."

"Very well," said the vicar reluctantly.

After the vicar had left, Fell suddenly wanted to get out of the house. He decided to go for a walk. The river Buss bisected the town, flowing between the old castle gardens. Buss Castle had been a second home in medieval times of one of the Earls of Warwick. It was now owned by the National Trust. Its thick walls plunged straight down into the glassy waters of the river, where launches and barges ploughed up and down and willow trees trailed their new leaves in the water.

The castle gardens were almost deserted. Fell sat down on a bench by the river as two swans cruised past. I'm like that, thought Fell. Serene on the top and the little paddles of my brain working furiously underneath. Why all that cash?

His parents had surely been law-abiding-strictly so. His father had always been complaining about layabouts and drug takers. Why not put the money in the bank? Had it been hidden from the tax man? But why? If it had been legally come by ...

His busy thoughts turned to Maggie. It would be nice to have a confidante. Maggie was kind and trustworthy. Fell was not nervous in her presence, because he did not see her as a woman. In his many fantasies, women were always tall and beautiful and long-legged. Perhaps he might have asked a woman out in the past, but that would have meant asking his parents for the money to entertain her and then facing endless questions. And the fact was that both his dumpy little parents had possessed very powerful and domineering personalities. His father had given up beating him when he was twelve, but Fell could still remember the terror he had experienced when his mother would utter those dreaded words, "Your father will deal with you when he gets home." Then the waiting to endure the beating on the bare backside with his father's leather belt. He had never spoken to anyone about those beatings and had assumed for a long time after they had stopped that they were all part of parenting.

He rose and walked up the main street. So many shops containing so many things he could now buy if he wanted. He stood outside a men's outfitter's and then stared at his dim reflection in the shop window. His suit was shabby and the material cheap.

Again he thought of the money. He should really share it with the few relatives he had. But he would put it off until the funeral.

He bought himself fish and chips, went home and switched on the television set and lost himself in the moving coloured pictures until midnight.

He rose early next morning and with a new feeling of adventure went to the local Marks & Spencer and bought a blazer, trousers, striped shirt and silk tie. Then he went to the jeweller's. He would need to buy a ring for Maggie. At first as he looked at the engagement rings, he thought that anything simple might do. But at last he shook his head and refused them all. Maggie was doing him a great favour. Why not buy her a ring that she could keep, something more original?

He went into an antique shop where he knew they had a case of jewellery. With great care he finally selected a Victorian heavy gold ring, with a large square-cut emerald. The price made his eyelids blink rapidly. He paid cash, but with a dark little worm of doubt again plaguing his brain. Where had the money come from? He banished the thought and retired home and changed into his new clothes. He was beginning to feel like a totally different person.

Maggie was nervously waiting outside the striped awning of the restaurant, which was in an old Georgian mansion beside the river in the castle gardens. Fell would never know what pains Maggie had gone to with her appearance. She was wearing a long biscuit-coloured linen skirt, a tailored jacket and a lemon silk blouse. Fell only saw reassuringly familiar Maggie.

They went into the restaurant. The restaurant, although very grand, did not intimidate Fell. He was armoured in his new clothes. He had left shabby Fell behind.

They were given a table by the French windows which opened onto the terrace.

"You order for me," whispered Maggie. "I eat anything."

Fell ordered a simple meal of cucumber soup, followed by poached salmon and salad, and then with great daring also ordered a bottle of champagne. When the waiter had gone off with his order, he produced the jeweller's box and handed it to Maggie. "It's for you," he said. "You may as well look the part."

Maggie opened the box. The emerald blazed up at her. She caught her breath. She was suddenly intensely aware of everything, of the sunlight sparkling off the cutlery, of the peppery smell of the geraniums in pots on the terrace, of the chuckling sound of the river.

"It's beautiful," she said. "Is it real?"

"I hope so."

"I'll give it back to you."

"No, don't do that. I wanted to give you something special, something you could keep."

Maggie gave a shaky laugh. "It matches my eyes."

Fell looked at her, puzzled.

"See?" She removed her heavy glasses. Her eyes were very large and green with flecks of gold.

"You have beautiful eyes," said Fell. "You should wear contact lenses."

Those eyes filled with tears. "What's the matter?" asked Fell quickly.

Maggie took out a handkerchief and dried her eyes and put her glasses firmly back on. "I'm just tired, Fell, that's all. You know what it's like. The last customers didn't leave until one in the morning. Now, first I had to tell my mother about our engagement. She doesn't know it's a pretend engagement and wants to meet you. I told her you were too grief-stricken, and then afterwards I can tell her it's all off."

"I hate making you lie for me."

"I always lie to my mother anyway. It's a form of selfprotection. My father's dead. Mother always says I'll never get a man, so from time to time I invent a boyfriend. They never jilt me, you know, they either die or go abroad. Anyway, enough about me. What do you want to talk to me about?"

Fell had meant to tell her only about the inheritance. But somehow, under her sympathetic eyes, he found himself beginning at the beginning. He told her everything-about his childhood, about his relief at his mother's death, about his guilt, and about the mysterious money in the cash box.

M.C. Beaton, the Scottish-born author of nine previous Agatha Raisin novels as well as the Hamish Macbeth mystery series, lives in a village in the English Cotswolds.