Agatha Raisin and The Wellspring of Death

Four

The following Monday, Agatha packed her bags and headed for London. She had a heavy week's work ahead of her talking to journalists. James's words still burnt and hurt.

The Charles he had referred to was Sir Charles Fraith, a baronet in his forties with whom Agatha had enjoyed a fling in Cyprus. Although she had only gone to bed with Charles out of pique over James's own unfaithfulness, she knew he had no more forgiven her for that brief affair than for trying to marry him when she was already married.

Charles had phoned Agatha several times since their return from abroad, but she had always told him she was too busy to see him and so he had stopped calling.

She was glad she was leaving. There was a police force to cope with murder investigations. She would concentrate on her work and forget James and forget murder and forget Carsely for a little.

She passed a busy week in London, cajoling journalists into promising to come to the fete. Instead of bringing the new brochures over to Carsely as he had promised, Guy had sent them to her hotel in London.

At the end of her week's work, Agatha finally accepted an invitation to lunch from Roy Silver.

Roy took her to an old City restaurant where the public relations company they both worked for had an account. It was quiet and stately, mahogany and brass and solid old-fashioned City food. It was hardly Roy's scene. He would have preferred a trendy wine bar full of bright young things, but he had no intention of paying for the meal when he could charge it to the firm.

Roy was wearing an Armani suit which looked a size too large for his thin figure. His tie was a noisy psychedelic glare in the gloom of the conservative restaurant.

They both ordered roast beef, Agatha eating hers with every appearance of enjoyment and Roy poking at his and occasionally eating little nibbles.

They discussed various aspects of the fete, who was definitely going to attend, who was iffy. Then Roy leaned back in the chair and ran his fingers through his hair. He had a thin face, a weedy body and sharp clever eyes. After working for Agatha and taking up his present job, he had adopted a more sober style of dress--if you discounted the tie--and the hole in his left ear where he used to wear an ear-ring was the only mute sign of his discarded image.

"You haven't mentioned James Lacey or murder all week, Aggie," he said.

"Been too busy," said Agatha. "I wonder if I should have a pudding?"

"It's your waistline, sweetie."

Agatha signalled the waiter. "I'll have the spotted dick."

Roy giggled. "What a name for a pudding! Sounds like a case of syphilis. So, like I said, how's murder?"

"I told you, I've been too busy."

"Not like you. What's happened to that famous curiosity of yours?"

"I've decided to do my job and leave the police to do theirs."

"So what happened with you and James in Cyprus?"

"He went off with a tart. He claims it was all part of his investigations into drugs."

"And you don't think so? Come on, Aggie. Our James isn't the kind to go with tarts for any reason other than investigation. Too much of a puritan."

"Well, I had a bit of a fling with someone and he got miffed."

"Naughty old Aggie. You really ought to do something about this murder."

"Why?"

"Be a good bit of publicity if you found out who did it. I mean, haven't you got one teensy-weensy suspect?"

"There's one I would like it to be."

"Give."

"Some old bat called Jane Cutler. She's a walking monument to the plastic surgeon and the beautician. In her sixties, but all face-lifted. She's poison. The things that go on in villages. She seems to specialize in marrying men on their last legs with cancer and then benefiting in their wills. She's a parish councillor. One of the others, Angela Buckley, fortyish, strapping, was keen on the late Percy Cutler, but the older Jane Cutler snatched him out of her grasp. Actually, Angela warned me off."

"So you think it might have nothing to do with the water?"

"I don't know."

"Anyone else warn you off? Any trouble?"

"Andy Stiggs, another councillor, one of the ones who are against the water company. He warned me off when there was that ruckus from Save Our Foxes."

"Who the hell are they?"

"Some environment group who have transferred their attention from the plight of foxes to the sacrilege of taking water out of the spring. Usual lot. Nice people really interested in a batty way in protecting village life followed by the usual trouble-making skinheads. There was a bit of a dust-up. James nearly got hurt protecting me."

"So is he doing anything about finding out about anything?"

"I don't think he's interested in anything other than insulting me."

"Shows he's still interested, Aggie. Wouldn't insult you otherwise. Why don't you ask me down for the weekend? We could ferret around together."

Agatha opened her mouth to refuse and then closed it again. She did not know if Guy meant to have an affair with her, or whether it was to be regarded as a one-night stand. Suddenly the idea of going back on her own made her feel vulnerable. Roy could be tiresome and malicious, but they had known each other since he had started work for her as an office boy.

"Yes, all right," she said. "I suppose it might be interesting to trot around and ask a few questions."

"You'd better eat that stodgy pudding. It's getting cold."

Agatha regretted her invitation when she met Roy at Paddington Station on Saturday morning. He was dressed in skin-tight jeans and a black leather jacket and talking into a mobile phone, looking around all the while to see if people noticed he was talking on a mobile phone, just as if millions of people hadn't got the damn things, which Agatha thought had been expressly designed to irritate the travelling public.

"If you use that on the train," snarled Agatha when he had rung off, "I'll throw it out of the window. And you're only in your twenties. I thought men only went in for jeans and black leather when they hit the male menopause."

"And I thought middle-aged women only took to eating roast beef and fattening pudding when they thought they were past attracting anyone."

"Oh, stop bitching," snapped Agatha.

She passed the journey to Moreton-in-Marsh by ignoring Roy and reading a novel set in the Cotswolds about middle-class, middle-aged infidelity, marvelling as she did so at her own attitude that the well-off middle classes should not have any passions and remembering the days of her youth when it was the lower classes who were supposed to be immune to the sensitivities of soul suffered by their betters. At one point in the journey, Roy's phone rang but he retreated with it down the carriage before Agatha's basilisk glare.

Bright yellow fields of oil seed rape slid past the carriage windows, and lilac trees heavy with blossom leaned down over railway embankments. With that now familiar feeling of coming home, Agatha gathered up her belongings as the train finally slid into Moreton-in-Marsh Station.

With Roy carrying his own weekend bag and Agatha's suitcase, they made their way to Agatha's car. The sky was blue and birds sang in the trees bordering the station car park. Flower baskets moved in the light breeze.

"When I'm as old as you," said Roy, "I'll move down here."

Feeling ancient, Agatha drove off, negotiating the heavy traffic in Moreton and then swinging out along the A44 and up the long steep slope through Bourton-on-the-Hill and so down the winding road under tunnels of arched trees to Carsely.

James's cottage had an empty look, she noticed, and Roy suddenly said, "Going to call on Lacey?"

"No. If you get the cases, I'll open the door."

While Roy carried the bags in, Agatha petted her cats, who had been looked after in her absence by her cleaner, fed them and then let them out into the garden.

After they had unpacked, they settled down over coffee in the kitchen and Roy said, "Well, let's begin. Who have we on this council?"

"For the water company, we've got Mrs Jane Cutler, Angela Buckley and Fred Shaw. Against, we've got Mr Bill Allen, Andy Stiggs, and the most vehement protester, Mary Owen. The woman whose garden the spring rises in is Robina Toynbee. We might try her first. She might have had threats. She might even know which way the late Mr Struthers was going to vote."

"Aren't we going to eat first?"

"I'll take you to the pub."

"None of your microwave specials?"

"I can cook now," said Agatha defensively. "I didn't know you were coming, so I didn't get anything in."

When they entered the Red Lion, her eyes flew around the pub looking for James, but he was not there. "Our Mr Lacey's taken off again," said the landlord as he served their drinks and took their order for lunch.

"Oh," said Agatha bleakly and then asked as casually as she could, "Any idea where he's gone?"

"No, Mrs Darry saw him driving off."

"How long will he be gone?"

"Nobody knows. He stopped at the shop to buy the newspapers and then he went to the police station and left his key with Fred Griggs and said he planned to be away for a bit."

Agatha felt very low. Life had suddenly lost colour and meaning. Her fling with Guy Free-mont began to seem to her distinctly sordid.

She had again lost interest in any investigation. When they had finished their--typically English--pub meal of lasagne and chips, Agatha said, "I'd like to go to Gerry's in Evesham first. It's that new supermarket."

"Why?" asked Roy. "One of the councillors work mere? I thought they were all pretty well-heeled."

"No, it's just I have no food in the house and need you to carry the bags."

"If you must. Do you know there is a circle in hell where I will probably end up which is one huge supermarket? The shopping trolleys always go sideways, the children always scream, I always have at least one item of shopping which doesn't have the bar code on it and so I wait and wait until someone goes and finds one with the bar code and the people in the lengthening crowd behind me hate me. Or when I get to the check-out at the Express Lane, Nine Items Only, three people in front of me have at least twenty items and I haven't the courage to protest. Or the woman at the till who knows everyone in the line except me indulges in long and happy chit-chat and when it gets to me she decides to change the roll of paper in the till. Or the woman in front of me watches all her groceries sliding along and stares at them without packing them, and then she slowly takes out her cheque-book and slowly proceeds to write a cheque and then insists on carefully packing her plastic shopping bags according to type of grocery. And then, when it's all over and I get to the revolving doors and see daylight outside, I suddenly find myself back at the beginning of the whole process."

"Let's go anyway," said Agatha, who had not been listening to him.

Gerry's was jammed with shoppers. Roy suddenly decided that he would do the cooking and so proceeded to look for esoteric herbs and spices. "Keep away from the frozen food, Aggie," he warned. "I can see from the gleam in your eye that you're just dying to microwave something."

"You, for a start," said Agatha. "Are we ever going to get out of here?"

When they eventually got to the check-out, the trolley which, yes, slewed to one side, was piled high. The line moved forward and soon the end was in sight, only one thin woman in front of them.

"Hazel!" cried this woman to the check-out assistant. "I didn't know you did Saturdays."

"Need the money, Gladys," said Hazel, one fat red hand hovering over the first item.

"Isn't that a fact," said Gladys. "I put in for my hip operation."

"You'll need to wait awhile."

"It'll be worth it. My Bert said, he said, no creature should have to endure the pain I've had. But you know what the National Health Service is like. My turn'll come round when I'm in me grave."

"Maybe this new government..." began Hazel, that hand still hovering.

"Oh, get on with it!" shouted Agatha loudly.

There was a sudden silence. Agatha turned to Roy for back-up but he had disappeared. The people in the line behind her avoided eye contact.

"Well, really," said Gladys. But Hazel began to slide her groceries over the scanner at great speed while Gladys began to pack, darting angry little looks at Agatha.

Gladys was at last packed and served. She threw a fulminating look at Agatha and said in a high shrill voice, "I'm sorry for you, Hazel. If I had to deal with some people I would go mad."

"Bye, Glad. Love to Bert."

And then Hazel proceeded to open the till and change the roll of paper.

Agatha was incandescent with rage by the time she had packed up the trolley and wheeled it out to the car park as it veered crazily to the left.

Roy was waiting at the car.

"Where the hell were you?" shouted Agatha.

"I went to get cigarettes," said Roy shiftily.

"You chickened out. Oh, help me get this stuff in the boot."

They drove round Evesham's new one-way system, so hated by the traders in Bridge Street, who felt they had been left high and dry ever since it had been turned into a shopping precinct.

At last Roy said meekly, "Are we going to Ancombe?"

"We'll take this stuff home first," said Agatha grimly. Oh, where was James?

As they unpacked, Roy felt he could not bear the angry silence any longer and said, "It's not my fault James has left."

"What?"

"Well, that's why you got so shirty with that woman in the supermarket."

"Let me tell you this. I would have got shirty with that woman in the supermarket at any time."

"Then why take it out on me?"

"Because you're a wimp!"

"I think I may as well go back to London," said Roy in a small voice.

"Do that!"

"I'll go and pack."

Agatha sat down at the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. Why on earth should she still get so upset over a man who showed signs of actual dislike? Perhaps, she thought, brushing the tears away, it was because of her age, because after James there might be no one left out there to love.

She got to her feet and called up the stairs. "I'm sorry I got ratty. Want a drink?"

Roy came down the stairs, all smiles. He was an ambitious young man and did not want to offend this prickly woman whose PR skills were so admired by his boss.

"Like a drink?" repeated Agatha.

"I've given up alcohol," said Roy, who had only drunk mineral water in the pub.

"Why?"

Roy hesitated a moment. The real reason was that it seemed to be becoming awfully fashionable not to drink, and Roy did not want to be out of fashion.

"Rots the brain cells, sweetie."

"I'm going to have a stiff brandy before I go out."

"I'd hate to see you drink alone..."

"I don't mind."

"Just a teensy one, then."

One brandy led to three and it was an amiable couple who set out for Ancombe. Agatha parked on the main road a little way along from the spring, where a group of tourists were standing staring at it and pointing. The barrier of blue-and-white police tape which had guarded the spring had been taken away.

The entrance to Robina Toynbee's cottage was by a gate in a lane which ran up the side of the cottage from the main road. "We should have phoned first," said Roy.

"It's all right, she's at home. She's watching us from the window."

As Agatha raised her hand to knock at the door, Robina opened it. "I'm delighted to see you, Mrs Raisin," she said. "I was thinking of phoning you to thank you. Please come in."

The cottage was old, might even be seventeenth century, thought Agatha. The living-room was pleasant: large fireplace, low beams on the ceiling, vases of flowers, pictures and books and a cat asleep on top of the television set.

Outside the small leaded windows, a long narrow garden led down to the road, an artistic jumble of pansies, begonias, wisteria, clematis, and lobelia. There was a green lawn with a sundial next to where the spring bubbled up and then was channelled between rocks and flowers to where it disappeared through the old garden wall.

Above the fireplace was a dark oil painting of a grim old lady in an enormous cap.

"Your ancestor?" asked Agatha.

"Yes, that is Miss Jakes," said Robina. She was wearing a soft-green velvet trouser suit. Agatha herself possessed several velvet trouser suits. She realized, looking at Robina, that velvet trouser suits were something favoured particularly by middle-aged women and decided to pack hers up and give them away to some charity shop. Although it was only late afternoon, Robina's dress was more suitable for evening. With the trouser suit, she wore sparkling ear-rings and a paste diamond necklace, and on her feet, high-heeled black satin shoes.

In the same way that some lonely women will keep a Christmas tree still lit up long after Christmas, so will they favour evening clothes during the day, as if the very sparkle and glitter could keep youth alive a little longer.

"So," said Robina with a gentle smile, "what will we all drink?"

"I don't know..." began Roy.

"Come now. That is a brandy smell, is it not? I would like to join you in a brandy."

Agatha blinked away a picture of herself, Roy and Robina standing chatting inside a large goblet of brandy and said, yes, that would be nice.

"Here's to success," said Robina when the drinks were served. "I hope that is an end of the matter. So silly of them to complain about a little bit of water. I think it was all fuelled by jealousy because I am being paid by the water company. Not much, you know, but it all helps. I mean, as you must be well aware, Mrs Raisin..."

"Agatha."

"Agatha. You must be aware that we have to think of our old age. These nursing homes cost a fortune."

"I haven't begun to worry about my old age yet," said Agatha.

"Oh, but you should. We can all live so dreadfully long these days."

"I believe if you think young, you stay young."

"So right," said Robina, casting a flirtatious glance at Roy. "And I am not one of those women who think having a toy boy shocking."

"Roy is not my toy boy," said Agatha, wondering if this gentle woman could actually be bitching her. "So have there been any repercussions about the water deal?"

"Some very nasty threatening letters. 'I'll kill you, bitch' was the last message. Anonymous, of course."

"Did you give them to the police?"

"No, I think it is some of those environmental cranks. Do you remember when words were so simple and people talked about the countryside? There is something so threatening in the word 'environment'."

"I do think you ought to tell the police about the letters," said Agatha.

"I gather you have gained the reputation of being a bit of a sleuth," said Robina. "But there is really nothing to worry about. So much better to leave things to the experts."

Agatha was beginning to dislike Robina.

The living-room, so pleasant when they arrived, seemed to have become claustrophobic. The day outside had suddenly darkened. Robina was wearing a very sweet, very powerful scent which mingled with the scent of some air freshener and the smell of brandy. Miss Jakes glared down at them as if to say she would not have given such people house-room in her day.

"If a murdered man had been found at the bottom of my garden and I was receiving threatening letters," said Agatha, "I would be very worried indeed."

"Ah, that's because you are an incomer. Incomers never really belong. Us country people are so close to the soil and the violence of nature that we become tougher."

"Us city people are so close to the violence of the streets that we have a healthy wariness," said Agatha.

Robina waved her brandy glass and looked at Roy and raised her eyebrows. "She doesn't understand."

"What about the man who was murdered?" said Roy. "Who do you think killed him?"

"That would be the Buckleys."

"Because of the paddock?" asked Agatha.

"Oh, you've heard about that. Angela and her father are really quite coarse and brutal people."

"So you don't think it had anything to do with the water?" asked Roy.

She gave a tinkling laugh. "No, nothing at all. More brandy?"

"No, we must be on our way," said Agatha, standing up. "But please, let the police know about those letters."

"Where to now?" asked Roy as they scampered to the car through a heavy shower of rain.

"We may as well call at the electrician's shop. We might catch Fred Shaw before he leaves."

"Is he for or against?"

"For," said Agatha. "Although, after Robina, Jane Cutler and Angela, I'm beginning to think the ones against couldn't turn out to be any nastier."

Fred Shaw was just closing up when they arrived. He hailed Agatha like an old friend and invited them into his back shop, where he opened a bottle of whisky and started to pour a strong measure in each glass.

"Here's to success," said Fred, raising his glass. "You sorted them out, Mrs Raisin."

Agatha murmured, "Success." She covertly studied Fred Shaw. Although sixty years old, he was a powerful man with a thick neck and broad shoulders and hands.

"I only wish old Struthers was still alive," Fred was saying.

"Why?"

"Because he was pissing about like a shy virgin over the decision. "I will give you my considered opinion all in good time." Old fart!"

"You didn't like him?"

"I should be chairman," said Fred. "I'd have put a bomb under this lot. Couldn't make a decision about anything to save themselves."

"But at least Angela Buckley and Jane Cutler were on your side over the business of the water company."

"Them! Let me tell you, Mrs Raisin, just between us, that precious pair didn't give a damn about the water company one way or t'other. They were just tired of being bossed around by Mary Owen."

"You don't seem to like each other much in this village," volunteered Roy.

"I've got good mates here," said Fred, "but none of 'em are on the council."

"Why is that?" Roy took a good swig of whisky and mentally said goodbye to a few more brain cells. He wished he'd never been told that about dying brain cells. He could almost see the little buggers choking and gasping and expiring on a sea of whisky.

"Because this is a snobby village and we've all been councillors for yonks. Nobody stands against us. You know why? Because no one wants to take responsibility for anything these days. Why do you think we've got a Labour government in this country?"

"Because the majority of the British people voted for them," said Agatha.

"Naw. It was because the majority of Conservative voters sat at home on their bums and didn't vote."

"Have you any idea who might have killed Mr Struthers?" asked Roy.

Fred tapped the side of his nose. "Let's have another."

"I don't think..." Agatha began, but he was already refilling their glasses.

"Now," said Agatha. "Yes, cheers, Mr Shaw. You were saying?"

"There's things go on here that I know. I keep my ear to the ground. Get me?"

"Yes, yes," said Roy, wriggling with excitement.

Fred gave him a suspicious look. "It's a good thing I've got a dishwasher. Sterilizes things," he said obscurely. "Yes. Let me tell you, Peyton Place has nothing on Ancombe. Now, Mary Owen had an eye on Mr Struthers--"

"But Mr Struthers was eighty-two!"

"But Mary Owen is sixty-five, and when you get as old as that," said Fred, just as if he weren't nearly that age himself, "you look for security."

"Everyone says that Mary Owen is independently wealthy!"

"Ah, but she prides herself on being a wheeler and dealer on the stock market. Believed to have lost a packet, and recently, too. So she sets her sights on old Robert Struthers. That's when our Jane Cutler moves in. Our Jane specializes in rich men who haven't long to live. It's a wonder Robert Struthers didn't die of overeating. If one of them wasn't making him meals or taking him out to dinner, the other was."

"And who looked like winning?"

"I had my money on our Jane and Mary was fit to be tied. Council meeting two months ago, she called Jane a harlot."

"Are you suggesting that Mary Owen murdered Mr Struthers?" asked Roy. "Why not murder Jane Cutler?"

"Ah, that was because at that council meeting where Mary called Jane a harlot, our Robert upped and made Mary apologize. Mary said to me afterwards that Robert Struthers was a decent man who had been corrupted by Jane."

"But murder!" protested Agatha.

"Our Mary's a powerful woman and she doesn't like anyone to get in her way."

"All this is fascinating," said Agatha. She could feel her head beginning to swim with all she had drunk. "Have you told the police any of this?"

"Naw! Got no time for the police. Do you know they arrested me for drunk driving last year after I'd only had a couple of pints? Bastards. The countryside's crawling with murderers and rapists and all they can do is persecute innocent citizens. Another?"

"No, really thank you." Agatha got to her feet.

Roy was holding out his glass and she plucked it from his fingers and set it firmly on the table.

"About that fete," said Fred. "I'm a fine speaker."

"I'm sure we'll find something for you," said Agatha, now desperate to get out in the fresh air.

"That's very kind of you," said Fred. "I'll call on you nearer the time and we can go over my speech."

"We can't drive, either of us," said Agatha when they got outside. The rain had stopped and a pale washed-out evening sky stretched overhead. It had turned cold.

"Oh, come on. I'll drive," said Roy. "It's not far."

"No," said Agatha firmly. "I've got a clean licence and it's going to stay that way and my insurance doesn't cover you driving."

"We didn't have much to drink."

"We did. Those glasses of whisky were enormous."

"What about having a bash at Mary Owen?"

"Not till my head clears up. We need food. Come along, a walk will do us both good."

They were half-way to Carsely when, against the sky pricked by the first stars, black clouds started streaming overhead.

They quickened their steps but soon the first drops began to fall and then the deluge came. By the time they finally reached Agatha's cottage, they were soaked to the skin but stone-cold sober.

After they had dried themselves and changed their clothes, Roy said he would set about making dinner, but Agatha, fearing that Roy would fuss about the kitchen, using every pot, and that they would probably end up eating at midnight, insisted on going to the pub.

When they arrived back again, she realized she had not checked her British Telecom Call Minder to see if there were any messages. The lady whose voice is on the Call Minder always seemed to Agatha an irritating relic of the days when women took elocution lessons. It was a governessy sort of eat-your-porridge-or-you-won't-go-to-the-circus sort of voice. "Two messages," said this voice. "Would you like to hear them?" Did anyone not want to hear messages? thought Agatha crossly.

The first was from Guy Freemont. "Been trying to get hold of you. Call me."

The second was from Mary Owen. "I think it is time we had a talk, Mrs Raisin. Please call me."

Agatha looked at the clock. It was midnight. Too late to call. They had to walk back to Ancombe in the morning to pick up the car. She would see Mary Owen then.

As she fell asleep that night, her last thoughts as usual were about James. Where was he?

James, a very different-looking James, had earlier that week joined a meeting of Save Our Foxes in the back room of an Irish pub in Rugby. His black hair had been dyed blond, he had three ear-rings in one ear, and he was wearing a camouflage jacket, dirty jeans and large ex-army boots. Frightened that his accent might prove him to be an impostor, he had mostly communicated with his new companions in grunts.

He felt that if he could find out who had been paying the protesters for that demonstration at the spring, he might have a clue to the identity of the murderer.

The chairperson--stupid, stupid word, thought James with true Agatha savagery: there was either a chairman or a chairwoman, and what was wrong with that?--the chairthing, then, was a thin, neurotic woman with tangled locks, a sallow, hungry face, and large, rather beautiful eyes. She was called Sybil. No one used second names. James himself had become Jim.

The purpose of this meeting was because one of the members had noticed in the local newspaper that a car salesman in Coventry was to hold a barbecue in his garden on his fortieth birthday. To celebrate his 'gypsy' heritage, he planned to serve his guests barbecued hedgehogs. A man called Trevor pointed out that hedgehogs were not a protected species, to which Sybil shouted, "He'll find out they are now!" and got a round of applause. James covertly studied the group. They all looked militant. There was no sign of the mild-looking ones who had fronted the procession to the spring. Probably got frightened off. Nor, fortunately, was there any sign of the man who had tried to attack Agatha.

His own presence had been accepted after only one question from Sybil. How had he learned of them? Someone up in Birmingham, James had grunted.

The whole meeting was rather like a political rant. Sybil became very emotional over the plight of the hedgehogs. Why was it, James wondered, that nursery-book animals were always singled out for protection while things like spiders could be slaughtered with a free conscience?

Or if they had learned of a barn where the farmer was about to exterminate rats, would they have mustered with the same passion? And the one burning question was: Who was paying for all this? For the meeting room, for the transport to various hunts and to the spring itself?

There must be an office somewhere.

The only member who made James uneasy was a large, burly young man with a shaven head and a skull and crossbones tattooed on it. He was called Zak, and James was uncomfortably aware of Zak's eyes on him from time to time.

At last the meeting was wound up. Sybil said a bus would pick them all up in the centre of Coventry on the Saturday at 2 a.m. and take them to the wicked car salesman's barbecue.

As they were shuffling out of the door, Zak took James by the elbow in a powerful grip. "I think we should find a place for a drink, mate," he said.

"Got someone to see," muttered James.

"They can wait," said Zak, not releasing his grip on James's arm.

Not wanting to attract attention by making a scene, James allowed himself to be led out and marched along the street to another pub.

The new pub was quite respectable and fairly full. James began to relax. He could always get someone to call the police if Zak started to get nasty They ordered half-pints of bitter and took them to a corner table.

"Now, mate," said Zak, "what's your game?"

"What d'yer mean?" said James.

"You ain't one of them. Spotted it the minute you walked in."

James studied Zak's unlovely face and then said in his own voice, "Them? You said 'them'. Not, 'one of us'. What's your game?"

They scrutinized each other like two strange cats. James glanced under the table at Zak's feet. The torn jeans Zak was wearing ended in a pair of black lace-up shoes.

James gave a slow smile. "Are you a detective?"

"Copper. The CID don't waste their time with a piffling thing like this. So what's your business?"

"How did you guess I wasn't one of them?"

"You're too clean and your nails are manicured. Did you notice the smell of unwashed bodies in there? They consider it bourgeois to wash. Sybil says that a capitalist society has removed all the exciting body odours from the British population,"

"I'm from near Ancombe," said James. "The village where that murder took place at the spring."

"So what's that got to do with mis lot?"

"They demonstrated at the spring. I wondered what had brought them. No animals involved."

"You think they had something to do with the murder?"

"No, but the water company taking away the water aroused strong feelings among the members of the parish council who didn't want the water taken away. I thought one of them might have paid this lot, and if someone paid this lot, then that person might be the murderer. Who pays mem, by the way? I heard somewhere that hunt saboteurs get as much as forty pounds a day."

"Believe me, mate, thafs something I've never been able to find out. You'll get paid on Saturday. Plain envelope, notes inside. We've been able to trace legitimate contributions, sad, lonely people who can only relate to animals."

"The ones who demand unconditional love?"

"You've lost me there."

"There's a lot of hypersensitive people around who keep getting hurt by humans and so they pour out all their love on dogs and cats, and the dogs, in particular, return the love, and they can't speak, can't nag and are not likely to run away to another owner,"

"I get it. Well, some old codger dies and either because of the reasons you gave, or because they think their relatives didn't appreciate them, they leave their money to organizations like this."

"So do you go undercover to tip the police off when there's going to be a demonstration?"

"If it's going to be really nasty, yes, but I have to be careful. I won't bother about this thing on Saturday. If it gets rough, I'll hide behind a bush and call them in on my mobile."

"How long have you been doing it?"

"Six months, here and there, different groups."

"Seems a bit rough. That tattoo, for instance."

"Washes off. Not the real thing, and my hair'll grow back in again. They've promised to take me off it soon, send someone else."

"So is Sybil the head of this lot?"

"No. Look, they go on about the liberation of women, but these groups are as male-chauvinist-pig as you could find anywhere. So they put up some noisy female as chairperson while the fellows actually do all the organizing. You sometimes get a few upper-class ones joining in. They like a rumble for a bit of excitement and don't care what the cause is. So tell me about yourself."

So James did: retired colonel, trying to write military history.

"I don't mind you being around and that's a fact," said Zak when James had finished. "But dirty up your nails a bit."

"And you should change your shoes," said James with a grin. "They scream 'copper'."

Car salesman Mike Pratt surveyed his appearance complacently in the mirror that Saturday. He didn't look forty. Bit of grey hair at the temples, but that gave him a distinguished look. His designer jeans had knife-edge creases and his new white leather shoes, he thought, gave him an international look. He glanced at his gold Rolex, not a real one, mind, but bought in Nathan Street in Kowloon, and who could tell the difference?

His wife came into the bedroom and stood with her thin arms folded, looking at him. Kylie was his second wife. She had been a pretty little blonde when he married her ten years ago, but now, he thought, glaring at her reflection in the mirror, she looked a fright, with dark roots showing in her blonde hair, and a skimpy T-shirt, skin-tight leggings and high-heeled shoes all accentuating her painful thinness. He tied a red scarf at the neck of his open-necked blue shirt.

"Everything's ready for you to play the big shot," said Kylie. "But I ain't roasting them hedgehogs, no way."

"You wouldn't know how to," sneered Mike. "I know, just like that, cos of my gypsy background."

"What gypsy background?" said Kylie. "Your father's a burglar and he's still doing time."

"I'm talking about my grandparents. My grandmother was a gypsy." Mike took a swig of vodka from a glass on the dressing-table. His consumption of alcohol was awe-inspiring.

It is a sad trait among American alcoholics to claim a Cherokee grandmother; among their British counterparts, it is a gypsy.

Mike and Kylie Pratt lived in a neat bungalow among other neat bungalows, all almost identical with their niched curtains at the windows and their manicured lawns.

Mike went out carrying his glass, brushing past his wife. He heard the first car arrive. He had invited all the neighbours. He was not sure how hedgehogs should be roasted, but they were meat like any other animal, and should surely simply be salted and peppered and put on the barbecue.

The day was fine, not a cloud in the sky. Feeling the lord of the manor, he advanced to meet the first of his guests.

He had paid the butcher to skin the hedgehogs, and the little carcasses lay in a pathetic bunch on a table beside the barbecue. On other tables were bowls of salads, paper plates, cups, bottles and glasses.

He felt at his best when dispensing drinks. The garden began to fill up. Voices were raised in the usual neighbourly salutations, "You a'right? I'm a'right." The women surrounded their men, listening eagerly as if they had not heard every word over the preceding years, prompting their spouses with little cries of "Ye-yes. Oh, yes."

Mike put the hedgehogs on the barbecue and poked at them with a long fork. Maybe he should have tried to cook one before. The smell was not very appetizing.

And then the protesters erupted into the garden. "Murderer!" screamed Sybil.

Flushed with booze and outrage, Mike strode forward. "Get out of here, you hooligans." He punched Trevor on the arm. Trevor punched him on the nose and Mike fell back, with blood streaming down his face, while guests scattered and the television cameras whirred, for no protesters protested without informing the press of what they were about to do.

Zak crouched down behind a bush and phoned for reinforcements, which he knew were waiting in a van around the corner.

James had joined him. "Get out there and get yourself arrested," hissed Zak. "I'll get you off."

So James added to the fun by sending the barbecue flying. Burning coals rolled across the lawn.

Kylie leaned against the doorway of her house, sipping a drink, a little smile on her face. Mike's birthday was turning out to be quite fun after all.