Agatha Raisin and The Wellspring of Death

Two

Misery had its compensations. Agatha found she could get into a tailored skirt which had been too tight at the waist when she had last tried it on a few months ago. She also put on a shirt blouse and tailored jacket, packed a writing-pad and pens into a Gucci briefcase, and decided she was ready for her new job.

One of the pleasures of being independently wealthy, she thought, was she did not care very much whether she got the job or not.

She stopped on her way out of the village at the general store and bought the newspapers. Nothing much yet. Only small paragraphs in each to say the police were continuing their investigations into the death of Mr Struthers.

She drove to Mircester and then through the main town and out to an industrial estate on the fringe where the new water company was situated.

Her practised eye took in the sparse furnishings of the entrance hall. Low sofa, table, glossy magazines, green plants in pots. Good appearance but not that much money spent.

The receptionist with a smooth brown skin and large doe-like eyes had a Jamaican accent and shoulder-pads like an American football player. She took Agatha's name, rang someone and then said, "The secretary will be with you presently."

Now let's see how long they keep me waiting, thought Agatha. Successful company directors did not play at being important.

After two minutes a tall, willowy Princess Di look-alike swanned in. "Mrs Raisin? Follow me, if you please." Following a waft of Givenchy's Amarige, Agatha trailed behind the vision along a corridor of offices. There didn't seem to be much sound coming from behind those office doors. Agatha wondered if they were empty.

The secretary opened a door at the end of the corridor marked 'Boardroom' and stood aside to let Agatha enter.

Agatha cast a quick eye around the boardroom. Long oak table, six chairs, Venetian blinds at the two windows, table in the corner with coffee machine, cups, milk, sugar and biscuits.

"If you will sit here, Mrs Raisin." The secretary drew out a chair at the end of the table. "Coffee?"

"Black, please, and an ashtray."

"I don't think we have an ashtray."

"If I am going to work for you, you'd better find one," said Agatha, made tetchy with all the guilt the smoker feels these days.

The secretary had wide blue eyes fringed with black lashes. A little flicker of dislike flashed in the blue shallows of her eyes and then was immediately gone.

"What's your name?" asked Agatha.

"Portia Salmond."

"Well, Portia, are we going to get down to business this day?"

"Mr Peter and Mr Guy will be with you directly." Portia went to the coffee machine and poured a cup of coffee for Agatha. She returned and put it down in front of her, along with an extra saucer. "You can use that until I manage to find an ashtray."

The door at the far end of the room opened and a man entered, hand outstretched.

"I am Peter Freemont," he said. "Guy will be along in a minute."

Peter Freemont was about forty years old, powerful and swarthy with black hair already greying at the temples. He had a large fleshy nose and a small mouth, thick bushy eyebrows and a very large head. His broad figure was encased in a pin-striped suit and his feet, which were tiny, in black lace-up shoes, like children's shoes. He looked like the figure of a man painted on the side of a balloon. Agatha wondered madly whether, if she tied string around his ankles and held him out of the window, he would float up to the sky.

But then brother Guy walked in and Agatha promptly forgot about Peter. Guy Freemont was beautiful. He was tall and slim, with jet-black hair and very blue eyes, a tanned skin and an athlete's body. Agatha judged him to be in his middle thirties. He gave Agatha such a blinding smile that she searched in her briefcase for her notebook to cover her confusion.

They both sat down at the table. "Now, to business. You come highly recommended," said Peter.

"I would like to know first," said Agatha, "if this meeting to be held by Mary Owen in the village hall is going to pose problems. What if the villagers all decide they don't want the water company?"

"There's nothing they can do," said Peter, clasping his plump hands covered in black hairs on the table in front of him. "The spring rises in Mrs Toynbee's garden. Mrs Toynbee is a direct descendant of Miss Jakes, who first channelled the spring out to the road, and Mrs Toynbee has given us her permission."

Guy opened a folder and slid a piece of artwork in front of Agatha. "This is what the bottle will look like." Agatha was surprised to see that the label showed a photograph of the skull with the water gushing out of it. "Isn't that a bit grim," she asked, "particularly in view of the murder?"

"They're not sure it is murder yet," said Guy. "Anyway, death's heads and skulls always promote a product. There was a cigarette company that always had something like the shape of a skull in their ads and a brand of gin used to have an ad with the ice cubes in a glass in the shape of a skull."

"It could be argued," said Agatha, lighting a cigarette, "that people who drink and smoke have a death wish. But people who go around drinking gnat's piss like mineral water are usually the healthy type."

"Not any more," said Peter. "They can be reformed alcoholics who still have the death wish. They can be business people at the new fashionable 'dry' lunches, or they can be people who just can't stand the taste of the drinking water from the tap, which often smells like swimming pools. But everyone is fascinated by death. Now there needs to be some big event to launch the water. What about taking over some stately home like Blenheim Palace...?"

"They'd hardly agree to that, seeing as how they are producing their own water," Agatha pointed out.

"Perhaps hire a boat and go down the Thames, lots of celebs, lots of booze for the press?" suggested Guy.

"Old hat," said Agatha. "I have it, and it'd be a way to get the goodwill of the village. A village fete."

"Oh, come on," protested Peter. "Tacky cakes and home-made jam and women in 1970s Laura Ashley dresses."

"No, no, listen to me," said Agatha eagerly.

"Why do you think tourists come to the Cots-wolds?"

"Beauty spot?" suggested Peter.

"No, apart from that. The British are as bad as the Americans. The Americans want to believe in the good old days of June Allyson standing at the white picket fence with an apple pie. The British want the rural dream of croquet and skittles and my lord dishing out the prizes. Now usually these village affairs are tacky, I grant you that. But this one could be groomed to look like something out of a Merchant-Ivory film. And I'll get that American film star, Jane Harris, to open it."

"The Commie?"

"Doesn't matter. Her health and beauty videos sell by the ton. And I'll get some local doddering aristo as well."

"It could work," said Guy slowly. "But we can't control the weather. Crowds aren't going to come to an idyllic English fgte if it's pissing down with rain."

"July's usually a lousy month," said Agatha. "Make it for the end of August, before the kids go back to school."

They discussed the pros and cons of the village fgte. Agatha clinched it by pointing out the obvious. It was being marketed as Ancombe water, so where better to have the launch than in Ancombe itself?

"There's one last thing," said Agatha. "This meeting in the village hall makes me uneasy. I think we should be there to represent the company. It will be very bad publicity if we end up with the villagers against us. I'll let you know when the meeting is to be held."

"Guy will go along with you," said Peter.

Portia entered. "What is it?" asked Peter.

"That dead man," said Portia. "He was murdered."

"Thank you for telling us."

Both men waited until the secretary had left. "Not bad, not bad," said Peter.

"I can't see how a murder is going to help us." Agatha looked at them. Then she said slowly, "Of course, it means there will be a lot of the press at that meeting at the village hall."

"Exactly," said Peter. "And good PR woman that you are, you'd better find a way to swing everyone one hundred per cent behind us. God knows, you're being paid enough."

Agatha did not like the flick of the whip. "You get what you pay for when you hire me," she said evenly. "Now, if that is all, gentlemen...?"

"Bit tasteless that last remark of yours, bro," murmured Guy after Agatha had left.

"Rolls off that sort of woman. Hard as nails."

"Sexy with it, though," said Guy reflectively, staring at the door through which Agatha had just exited.

Agatha arrived back in Carsely to find the press waiting on her doorstep. Mindful of her new role, she invited them all in for drinks and, after describing how she had found the body, put in a good plug for the new water company.

After the press had left, Roy Silver phoned her, eagerly asking how she had got on. "Very well," said Agatha, "although there was a nasty crack from Peter about what they were paying me. I assume you are giving me my usual fee?"

"Told you so. Told them if they wanted quality PR, they had to pay for it." Agatha told him about the meeting in the village hall.

"I'd better be there, too," said Roy. A picture of the glamorous Guy rose in Agatha's mind.

"Don't want you around," she said gruffly.

"Who got you this job?"

"Want it back?"

"Just my little joke, Aggie."

Agatha hung up.

She realized that if she kept a bright picture of Guy Freemont at the front of her mind, then the image of James Lacey's face was blocked out.

With more cheerfulness and energy than she had felt for a long time, she got out her laptop and began to work busily, writing down the names of journalists she could lure to the opening.

After several hours she stretched and yawned, feeling all the satisfaction of having done a good job. She corrected what she had written, ran it off on the printer and then drove over to Mircester, where she left her papers at the reception desk addressed to the Freemont brothers.

She was driving back through Mircester when she saw Bill Wong just leaving police headquarters. She called to him and stopped the car. He came over.

"What's all the news?" she asked.

"Park and come for a drink. I'll tell you the little I know."

Agatha parked and walked with him to the George, a gloomy pub in the shade of the abbey.

"It was murder," said Bill, when they were both settled. "Someone clubbed him on the back of the head."

"And laid him backwards in the spring?"

"Yes, but forensic say there is every evidence that he was killed elsewhere, carried to the spring and dumped there."

"Must have been someone very strong, or more than one."

"Exactly."

"And do you think it had something to do with this water business?"

"It certainly looks that way. Mr Struthers was a widower. He lived alone. He has a son down in Brighton who was certainly in Brighton on the night of the murder. He hadn't all that much money to leave. Anyway, the son has a first-class job in computers and has no need of money."

"What are the other members of the parish council like? Miss Mary Owen, for example."

"She's quite a commanding personality, tall, thin and leathery. One of those ladies who does good works, not out of any feeling of charity for the less fortunate, but because that's the sort of work ladies do. She's independently wealthy. Some family trust."

"She's going to make some sort of protest speech. Has she enough personality to sway the villagers?"

"Yes, I should think so."

"Rats. What about the others?"

"The others against the water company. I'll start with them. Mr Bill Allen. He runs the Ancombe Garden Centre. Very class-conscious and got a bit of an inferiority complex. Father was a farm labourer. So Mr Allen supports all the things he considers Right. Bring back hanging, slaughter the foxes, bring back National Service, that sort of thing."

"Then I would have thought he would have been all for this water company. Capitalism rules, okay."

"I believe Miss Owen implied that the Free-mont brothers were not gentlemen. Enough said. Now the last of those against is Mr Andy Stiggs, a retired shopkeeper. He's seventy-one and hale and hearty."

"Maybe there's something in this water after all."

"Maybe. Anyway, he loves the village and thinks that lorries rumbling through it to take away the water will be a desecration of rural life. Do you remember that supermarket that was proposed for outside Broadway? Well, he got up a petition against it."

"So what about the ones in favour?"

"There's Mrs Jane Cutler. She's a wealthy widow, sixty-five but doesn't look it. Rumoured to be on her third face-lift. Blonde and shapely. Not very popular in the village but I can't see why. I found her charming. She says the village could do with more tourist trade and Ancombe Water will publicize the village and bring trade in. Then there's Angela Buckley, big strapping girl, forty-eight, but still called a girl. Not married. Rather loud and red-faced, good-natured, but apt to bully the villagers in a patronizing I-know-what's-best-for-the-peasants manner which irritates the hell out of them. Fred Shaw is the last. Electrician. Bossy, sixty, aggressive manner, powerful for his age."

"Oh, dear," said Agatha. "Those against sound more palatable than those for."

"So what did you make of the Freemonts?"

"Peter Freemont seemed like the usual City businessman. Guy Freemont is charming. Where did they come from?"

"I gather that they ran some export-import company in Hong Kong and got out like everyone else before the Chinese took over. What do you think, Agatha? That they murdered someone to get the publicity?"

"Hardly. I'm sure it's a village matter and it may have nothing to do with the water. People always think of villages as innocent places, not like the towns, but you know what it's like, Bill. An awful lot of nasty passions and jealousies can lie just beneath the surface. I've a feeling in my bones that it's got nothing to do with that spring at all."

James Lacey was driving past when he saw Agatha and Bill emerge from the George. He longed to be able to call to them, to discuss the murder, but he had to admit to himself that after the way he had been treating Agatha, he could hardly expect a warm reception.

Give Agatha an inch, he thought sourly, and she'll take over your whole life. He drove on, but feeling lonely and excluded and knowing he had only himself to blame.

Two weeks later, with the police no farther on in their murder investigations, Mary Owen's protest meeting was scheduled to take place in the village hall. Agatha arranged that she and Guy Freemont should have places on the platform to present the firm's viewpoint.

Agatha had visited the company's offices in Mircester, presenting outlines for publicizing the water, but each time it was Peter Freemont who saw her. Agatha began to wonder if she would ever see Guy again, but on her last visit Peter had assured her that Guy would call for her before the village meeting so that they could arrive there together.

"Calm down," Agatha told herself fiercely.

"He's at least twenty years younger than you." She was torn between trying to look sexy and trying to look businesslike. Common sense at last prevailed on the evening of the meeting, and businesslike won. She put on a smart tailored suit but with high-heeled black patent-leather shoes and a striped blouse, her hair brushed to a high shine, and painted her generous mouth with a Dior lipstick guaranteed not to come off when kissed.

She was ready a good half-hour before Guy was due to arrive. Perfume! She had forgotten to, put on any. She rushed upstairs and surveyed the array of bottles on her dressing-table. Rive Gauche. Everyone wore that, particularly now that cut-price shop had opened in Evesham. Champagne? A bit frivolous. Chanel Ndeg5. Yes, that would do. Safe.

She returned downstairs and checked her sitting-room. Log fire burning brightly, magazines arranged on the coffee-table, drinks on the trolley over at the wall. Ice? Damn, she'd forgotten ice. He wouldn't have time for a drink before they left but perhaps, just perhaps, he might come back with her for one. She went to the kitchen, filled the ice-trays and put them in the freezer.

Then she felt a spot sprouting on her forehead. She tried to tell herself it was all her imagination and rushed upstairs. Her forehead looked unblemished, but she put a little witch hazel on it, just in case. The witch hazel left a round white mark in her mask of foundation cream and powder. She swore and repaired the damage.

By the time the doorbell went, she was feeling hot and frazzled. Guy Freemont stood on the doorstep, black hair gleaming, impeccably tailored, dazzling smile. Agatha felt miserable, like a teenager on her first date.

The village hall was crowded. The press were there in force, not only the locals, but Midlands TV, and some of the nationals. The murder had put Ancombe on the map.

Miss Mary Owen got to her feet to address the crowd. She had a high, autocratic voice and a commanding manner. She was dressed in an old print frock with a droopy hem but wore a fine rope of pearls around her neck.

She began. "I have been against selling the water all along. It is a disgrace. It is desecration of one of the famous features of the Cotswolds, something that by right belongs to the villagers of Ancombe. You have heard complaints, have you not, about how the life is being drained out of our villages by incomers?" Agatha shifted uneasily. "I do not think the water should be sold off without the villagers' permission. I suggest we put it here and now to a vote."

Oh, no, thought Agatha, not before they've heard me. She was about to get to her feet when a woman stood up in the audience. "It's my water," she said.

"Come up and let's hear you," called Agatha, glad of the distraction.

The woman was helped up on to the platform. Miss Owen gave her a filthy look but surrendered the microphone to her. "Who are you?" asked Agatha, lowering the microphone to suit the height of the newcomer.

"I am Mrs Toynbee and the spring is in my garden."

Mrs Toynbee was a small, 'soft' woman, rather like marshmallow, though not plump. She had silver hair which formed a curly aureole about her head. She had the kind of face which romantic novelists call heart-shaped. She had large light blue eyes and fair lashes. Her soft bosom was covered by a glittery evening sweater, white with silver sequins, worn over a long floral skirt. Agatha judged her to be in her forties but when she started to speak, she had a clear, lisping, girlish voice.

"As you all know," she began, "I am Mrs Robina Toynbee and I have had a hard time of it since my Arthur passed away..." She paused and carefully dabbed each eye with a small lace-edged handkerchief. Agatha, strictly a man-sized Kleenex woman, marvelled that there were obviously still lace-edged handkerchiefs on the market. "The water rights are mine to sell," went on Robina Toynbee.

"But the actual fountain is outside your garden!" cried Mary Owen, leaping to her feet.

Robina Toynbee cast her a look of pain and shook her head gently. "If that is what troubles you, then I have the right to block the spring and they can take the water from my garden."

"Too difficult," murmured Guy in Agatha's ear, "we need that skull for the labels."

Agatha marched forward. "If I might have a word, dear." She edged Robina Toynbee away from the microphone.

"Perhaps I can explain things," said Agatha. Her eyes flew to where James was standing at the back of the hall, his arms folded. She gave her head a little shake, as if to free it from thoughts of James Lacey. She mentally marshalled her facts and figures and proceeded to bulldoze her audience.

"The company are paying Mrs Toynbee for the water, yes, but they are also paying a generous yearly sum to the parish council which, I gather, if accepted, will go towards the building of a new community hall. Yes, the publicity will bring tourists to the village but tourists will bring trade to the village shops. From nine in the morning each day until the following dawn, the spring will belong to the villagers as it always has."

Bill Wong leaned back in his seat and smiled appreciatively. It was nice to see Agatha Raisin back on form. He had been worried about her since her break-up with James.

"Wait a bit," shouted Andy Stiggs. "I know you, Mrs Raisin. You're one of those incomers, one of those people who are ruining the village character."

"If it weren't for incomers, you wouldn't have any village character," said Agatha. "Those cottages down the lower end of the village, what about them? They were derelict and abandoned for years. Then some enterprising builder did them up, lovingly restored them. Who bought them? Incomers. Who made the gardens pretty again? Incomers."

"That's because the local people couldn't afford the prices," panted Andy.

"You mean they're all broke like you, Miss Owen and Mr Bill Allen?"

Agatha winked at the audience and there was an appreciative roar of laughter.

"I must and will have my say." Bill Allen, the owner of the garden centre, got up and stood in front of the microphone. He was dressed in a hacking jacket, knee-breeches, lovat socks and brogues. A pseud, if ever there was one, thought Agatha, listening to the genteel strangulation of his vowels.

He began to read from a sheaf of papers. It soon became apparent to all in the hall that he had written a speech. A cloud of boredom settled down. Agatha despaired. She wanted the meeting to end on a high note. But how to stop him?

She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Bill Allen. He glanced at it, turned brick-red and abruptly left the platform.

Gleefully Agatha took his place. "The other thing I meant to tell you is that to launch the new bottled water, we are going to have a splendid fete right here in Ancombe, a good old-fashioned village fete. Yes, we'll have film stars and people like that present, but I want you to have all your usual stalls, home-made jam, cakes, things like that, and games for the children. It will be the village fete to end all village fetes. Television will be there, of course, and we will show the world what Ancombe is made of. Won't we?"

She beamed around the audience and was greeted with a roar of applause.

When the vote was taken, the villagers were overwhelmingly in favour of the water company. Many of the villagers belonged to the group of incomers that Andy Stiggs had so despised.

Agatha found her hand being shaken warmly by the councillors who were in favour of the water company--Mrs Jane Cutler, Mr Fred Shaw and Miss Angela Buckley. Angela Buckley, a strapping woman, gave Agatha such a congratulatory thump between the shoulder-blades that she nearly sent her flying off the platform.

"Mission accomplished," whispered Guy in Agatha's ear. "Let's get out of here."

Outside the hall, Guy put his arms around Agatha. "You were marvellous," he said. He gave her a kiss full on the mouth. Agatha drew back and stared at him. He was so incredibly handsome and she had felt a definite buzz when he kissed her. She gave a sad little sigh. She had never liked the idea of a toy boy. Better to grow old gracefully.

"What did you write on that note to get the old bore off the platform?" asked Guy.

"I told him his fly was open."

"Attagirl. Let's have a drink."

Agatha was suddenly reluctant to take him home. "Let's go to my local," she said.

The Red Lion was crowded. The first person Agatha saw was James Lacey, standing at the bar. Agatha looked at his tall, rangy figure, his black hair going grey and handsome face, and felt a lurch in the pit of her stomach. A couple were just vacating a table over at the window, well away from the bar. "Let's sit over there," said Agatha quickly.

"I'll get you something," said Guy. "What'll it be? I know. Let's see if they have any champagne."

Agatha was about to protest, to say that she would be happy with a gin and tonic but she saw James staring across at her and smiled up at Guy and said, "How lovely!"

Guy returned to the table and within a short time the landlord, John Fletcher, came over, carrying the bottle in an ice bucket. The pop of the cork was a festive sound. Several locals stopped by the table to congratulate Agatha on her speech at the village hall. James was left with the company of Mrs Darry.

Agatha could not possibly be interested in that young man, he thought sourly. She was making a fool of herself, sitting there drinking champagne and flirting. She should remember her age! He desperately wanted to talk to her about the murder but did not know how to break the ice that he himself had caused to form.

He talked as civilly as he could to Mrs Darry and then abruptly left the pub.

An hour later, he heard a car drive up and stop outside Agatha's cottage. He rushed to the little upstairs window on the landing which overlooked Agatha's cottage. Agatha opened the car door. Guy Freemont was at the wheel. He could see that clearly because the light sprang on inside the car when Agatha opened the door. Guy put his hand on Agatha's arm and said something. He saw Agatha smile and say something in reply. Then she went into her cottage and Guy drove off. At least he hadn't gone in with her.

He waited the next day expecting Agatha to call him, to suggest they investigate the murder together, but nobody called at all. He went out and bought all the newspapers. The locals had given the meeting a good show and there was even a photo of Agatha on the front page of the Cotswold Journal, but the nationals only carried small paragraphs.

James began to feel restless and bored. He decided to investigate the murder himself.

After several tries, he managed to get Bill Wong on the phone, and finding he was off duty that evening, offered to buy him dinner. Bill agreed. His beloved Sharon had said she had to wash her hair.

James had chosen a Chinese restaurant, recently opened. The restaurant was quiet and the food good.

"I'm fascinated by this murder," said James. "Any idea who did it?"

"We're ferreting into backgrounds at the moment, and checking up on movements. You would think that somebody might have seen that body dumped at the spring, heard a car or something, but so far we've drawn a blank. It's funny, you sitting there being interested in a case. It would be quite like old times, except that you haven't got Agatha with you."

"I assume she's too busy with her new job," said James flatly.

"Is that what she said?"

"I don't know. I haven't spoken to her."

"Why?"

"I really don't want to discuss Agatha. Do you think one of the members of the parish council might have done it?"

"They're all too respectable," mourned Bill. "Still, you never know. It's amazing what you find out about people once you start digging into their past. I can't really tell you what we've got so far because it's all confidential. If you want to know anything, you'll need to ferret around yourself, provided you don't get under the feet of the police."

"I don't trust that water company," said James. "I don't like that younger one, Guy Freemont."

Bill's eyes crinkled up in a smile. "No, you wouldn't, would you?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not jealous."

"If you say so."

"So who are they? Where did these Freemont brothers come from?"

"They had an import-export business in Hong Kong."

"Oh, yeah? Drugs?"

"No, clothes. Cheap clothes going out and more expensive clothes for the rich coming in."

"I bet they ran sweatshops."

"Sure you're not jealous? So far we can find out nothing against them. They made their pile in Hong Kong, all legit, and came back to Britain recently, just before the Chinese take-over. But we're still investigating."

"Why water? Why Ancombe?"

"Mr Peter Freemont said he happened to notice the spring during a weekend in the Cotswolds and thought a mineral-water company might be a good idea."

"So they bump someone off who might have stopped their plans?"

"It's hardly a good advertisement."

"It got the name Ancombe Water in all the papers."

"So it did. But, like I said, hardly a good advertisement. Anyone buying the water will remember the body was found lying with the head in the basin, and our Agatha's vivid description in the newspapers of the blood swirling around in the moonlight. I think you can forget them. Why don't you ask Agatha? She must have got to know them pretty well."

"I told you. For once in her life, Agatha seems too busy to concentrate on murder."

While Bill and James were dining, Agatha was having a pleasant dinner with Guy Freemont. He encouraged her to talk about herself, flattered her ability in public relations and then asked her what a 'city girl' like herself was doing buried in the Cotswolds.

"I sometimes wonder," said Agatha ruefully. "But you get used to the safe life, the sleepy life, and it's so beautiful, particularly at this time of year. It's beautiful everywhere you look. Have you seen that purple wisteria in Broadway? The blooms are so magnificent. It's a wonder it doesn't cause accidents, with so many drivers putting on their brakes to have a better look."

"But don't you miss the excitement of London?"

"London has changed so rapidly. Last time I was up, I had a meal in a restaurant in Goodge Street and decided afterwards to walk down Tottenham Court Road to get the tube for the Central Line. There were beggars and drug addicts all the way along and shapeless bundles of clothes huddled in doorways. When I got off the tube at Notting Hill to change on to the Circle Line for Paddington, a man, drunk as a skunk, tried to throw himself under the next train. This big burly man snatched him back in the nick of time and marched him up the escalators to the ticket collector. At the top, the would-be suicide wrenched free, vaulted the turnstile and vanished into the night. His rescuer said to the ticket collector, "That man just tried to throw himself in front of the train!" The ticket collector shrugged and looked bored. Didn't do anything about it. I was glad to get back down here. I don't belong in London any more. It can be a lonely place."

He took her hand and gave it a warm squeeze. "Any romance in your life?"

"Nothing that I want to talk about," said Agatha as his thumb began to stroke the palm of her hand. Her mind raced. I can't be doing this, she thought frantically. I'm too old. I don't have stretch marks, but I have love handles and my boobs don't perk up the way they used to.

When he drove her home, he stopped outside her cottage and, leaning across, planted a warm kiss on her mouth. Agatha blinked at him, dazed and shaken. "I'm going up to London for a few days," he said softly. "I'll call you when I get back. You've been working like a beaver. Why don't you take a few days off and relax?"

"I'll do that," said Agatha huskily.

She let herself into the cottage and stood in her hallway, her knees shaking.

You are ridiculous, she told herself fiercely. She peered in the hall mirror at the lines around her mouth, at the lines on her neck.

The phone rang, making her jump. It was Bill Wong. "Been out?" he asked.

"Yes, Bill. I had dinner with Guy Freemont. Got anyone for the murder yet?"

"Not yet. I had dinner with James Lacey."

Agatha went very still. "And?"

"And he seems hell-bent on playing the amateur sleuth again."

"He won't get very far without me."

"He supposes you're too busy to be interested."

"Too right. In the murder and in him."

"If, on the other hand, you do hear any gossip, let me know, Agatha. We seem to be at a dead end."

Agatha then asked about his girlfriend and his parents, and after a few more moments' conversation, rang off.

She had a few days off. She could not bear the idea of James's finding out anything and taking all the glory. It would do no harm to drop in on some of the parish councillors in the morning, just to see if she could find out anything.