Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

phoned the police to get your name.’
    ‘There’s PC Framp, but I wouldn’t bother –’
    ‘I will bother. Where is he? I didn’t see a police station.’
    ‘It’s out a bit on the road to the manor house.’
    ‘Which is where?’
    ‘North of the village green. The road that goes out of the village the opposite way to the one you arrived on.’
    ‘Right. When will you be arriving with the heaters?’
    ‘I’ve got a spare key. I’ll leave them in the hall if you aren’t in.’
    ‘Don’t upset my cats.’
    ‘I didn’t know you had pets, Mrs Raisin. You didn’t say anything about cats.’
    Agatha rose to her feet and looked at him truculently. ‘And you didn’t say anything about not having them. No cats, no rental.’
    She turned and marched out. She ignored Amy. She was fed up with the whole bunch of them. And she had only just arrived!
    She decided to drive. She returned home to get in her car and saw a square envelope lying inside the door. She opened it up. There was a note on stiff parchment. ‘We would like to welcome you to the village. Please come for tea this afternoon at four o’clock. Lucy Trumpington-James.’
    Summoned to the manor house, thought Agatha. Well, God knows, I’ve got nothing better to do.
    She phoned Mrs Bloxby in Carsely. ‘Haven’t heard from James,’ said the vicar’s wife promptly.
    ‘I wasn’t phoning about that,’ lied Agatha. ‘Just wondered how everyone was getting on.’
    ‘Same as ever,’ said Mrs Bloxby cheerfully. ‘What’s that place in Norfolk like?’
    ‘Weird,’ said Agatha. ‘It’s a small village and I gather a large proportion of the population only use their houses in summer, which is enough to turn anyone Communist when you think of the housing shortage.’
    ‘Well, your house is going to be empty for the winter. Would you like me to find a homeless family?’
    ‘No, don’t,’ said Agatha, repressing a shudder.
    ‘I thought not.’ Was the saintly Mrs Bloxby being catty ? Perish the thought.
    ‘It’s about these strange lights.’ Agatha told her all about them and about the locals’ reluctance to even discuss them.
    ‘You’ve a mystery to solve,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘I’m supposed to be meeting my destiny here, according to that fortune-teller.’
    ‘It’s early days. You’ve only just arrived. I’m sure you’ll stir something up. Oh, Charles phoned. Wanted to know where you were.’
    Agatha thought briefly of Sir Charles Fraith, lightweight, tightwad, fickle. ‘No, if my destiny is to meet some fellow, I don’t want him hanging around.’
    ‘So, any eligible men around?’
    ‘Apart from some gnarled old codger who put his hand on my knee and a sweaty estate agent, I haven’t met any. And this cottage has no central heating, nothing but log fires.’
    ‘The weather can get grim over there. Are you sure you don’t want to come back? You could use the lack of central heating as an excuse.’
    ‘Not yet, but you’re right. I can leave this place any time I want. I meant to tell that estate agent I was leaving, but I’ll hang on a bit longer.’
    After she had rung off, Agatha felt much cheered. Of course, she could simply pack up and go. But first, see what the local copper had to say.
    She drove out of the village a little way and soon saw the police station. She parked outside and went and rang the bell. There was a police car on the short drive at the side, so she was sure PC Framp was at home.
    After some minutes, the door was opened. PC Framp was a tall, thin man with receding hair above a lugubrious face. He had an apron on and was holding a frying pan.
    ‘It’s my day off,’ he said defensively.
    Agatha ignored that. ‘My name is Agatha Raisin and I have just rented Lavender Cottage. There have been peculiar lights at the bottom of my garden and a vase is missing.’
    ‘Come in,’ he said wearily. ‘But don’t mind if I cook my lunch.’
    Agatha followed him through the police office, and then along a corridor to a stone-flagged kitchen. It was amazingly dirty and smelt of sour milk. It was also very hot. The policeman put the frying pan on top of an Aga cooker, poured in oil, cracked in two eggs, then added two rashers of bacon and two slices of bread. A fine mist of fat rose from the pan and covered the already greasy black top of the cooker.
    She sat down at a crumby plastic-topped kitchen table. She leaned her elbows on it and then realized she had put one elbow in a smear of marmalade.