Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

shops.’
    This was an eminently sensible idea, but Agatha felt cross. She wanted Mrs Bloxby to say that everyone in Carsely missed her and beg her to come home.
    ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said sourly. ‘Any news your end?’
    ‘Miss Simms has a new boyfriend.’ Miss Simms was Carsely’s unmarried mother and secretary of the ladies’ society.
    ‘Really?’ Agatha was momentarily diverted. ‘Who?’
    ‘He’s something in carpets. She gave me one of those fake Chinese rugs. So kind.’
    ‘I can’t imagine you putting a fake Chinese rug in your sitting-room.’
    ‘It’s in Alf’s study. It’s got a stone floor and his feet get cold when he’s writing his sermons, so it’s ideal.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘The Red Lion is being threatened with redecoration.’
    ‘Why? I like it the way it is,’ said Agatha thinking fondly of the low-beamed pub and its comfortable shabby chairs.
    ‘It’s not John Fletcher’s idea. It’s the brewery. I think they want it art deco.’
    ‘But that’s dreadful, and so old-hat,’ screeched Agatha. ‘You’ve got to get up a protest.’
    ‘We have.’
    ‘Maybe I’d better come back and really get things going.’
    ‘You aren’t listening. The ladies’ society has already collected signatures from everyone in the village. I don’t think the brewery will go ahead in the face of such protest.’
    ‘No, I don’t suppose they will,’ said Agatha in a small voice.
    ‘Lovely weather, isn’t it?’
    ‘It’s pissing down with rain here.’
    Agatha coloured as a short, reproving silence greeted the profanity. Then Mrs Bloxby said, ‘Perhaps you should consider coming back. I know the winters can be bad here, but they’re truly dreadful in Norfolk.’
    Agatha seized on the invitation like a lifeline. ‘I’ll probably be back next week.’
    After she had said goodbye, she felt better. Now for some coffee and that book.
    Unfortunately, she decided to start off by printing out what she had written and reading it. ‘What a load of waffle,’ she groaned. ‘It’s not literary enough.’ How the hell could you get a book on friends’ coffee tables or win the Booker Prize if you didn’t write literature?
    She frowned. Of course, she could always start again and write one of those stream-of-consciousness novels with an eff as every second word. But she wasn’t from Glasgow and all the successful effers seemed to come from Glasgow. Or there was the literary trick of observing the minutiae of surroundings. Literary writers always ended up lying in the grass describing each blade and insect.
    Agatha looked gloomily out of the window at the driving rain. Fat chance of lying in grass in this weather.
    She switched off the computer and stood up. What to do? No use investigating the infidelity of Tolly. Agatha was sure Rosie Wilden had been telling the truth.
    The doorbell rang. Agatha opened it. Harriet stood on the step, sheltering under an enormous golfing umbrella.
    Agatha invited her in. Harriet left her umbrella and waxed coat in the hall. ‘I came to thank you,’ she said.
    ‘What for?’
    ‘Believe it or not, Rosie came up to our table last night and went on about how nice it was to see ladies in the pub. Our husbands were so disappointed.’
    ‘Your husband came here and threatened me.’
    ‘He’s got a lousy temper and he really did have a bad crush on Rosie. But now that’s gone.’
    ‘Good. So he and the others will stay home in the evenings?’
    ‘No, they’re going to find a pub in another village.’
    ‘So we didn’t achieve anything.’
    ‘Oh, yes, we did. At least we know none of our husbands is going to have an affair with Rosie.’
    Agatha thought about the husbands – Harriet’s, tall, thin and pompous; Polly’s, small round and pompous; Amy’s, small and ferrety – and opened her mouth to say it was her considered opinion that none of their husbands had the slightest chance of bedding Rosie, but uncharacteristically held her tongue. She clung on to the fact that she would soon be leaving Fryfam and its fairies.
    Instead she asked, ‘What on earth do you do in Fryfam on a day like this?’
    ‘There’s always household chores to catch up on. Then there’s church-cleaning duty. It’s my day for the brasses.’
    ‘Talking about cleaning, I’d better get someone for here,’ said Agatha, thinking she’d better leave it as clean as she had found it.
    ‘There’s Mrs Jackson. I’ll write down her phone number for you