Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

Carrie. ‘Have the police been to see you?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Agatha. ‘They have, as a matter of fact. Did you expect them to?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Carrie. ‘It’s all round the village that you were probably the last person to see him alive.’
    ‘Then it’s just as well his throat was cut in the middle of the night,’ said Agatha. ‘I say, it was the middle of the night?’
    ‘Nobody knows,’ barked Polly. ‘But the police didn’t leave until late last night, leaving only Framp on duty. The press have arrived. Such excitement!’
    ‘Where are they?’
    ‘In the pub. Rosie opened up especially early the minute she heard about the murder. She says the press always drink a lot. Where are you off to?’
    ‘To see Mrs Jackson. I need someone to clean. I don’t suppose she’ll be resuming her duties up at the manor for a few days yet.’
    ‘I don’t think she’ll be resuming them at all,’ said Carrie. ‘Lucy hated her.’
    ‘She didn’t give me that impression,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Well, she did. She once told Harriet that Mrs Jackson was always poking her nose into things and reading letters. Are you sure you want Mrs Jackson?’
    ‘I’ll see. Is there anyone else?’ asked Agatha, but more as a matter of form because she didn’t want anyone else. Mrs Jackson would surely be the best source of gossip.
    ‘No one who’s free. Mrs Crite does for the vicar and she always says that’s enough for her. The summer people usually fend for themselves,’ said Polly. ‘Now I do all my own housework. I don’t hold with women paying someone to do what they ought to be doing themselves.’
    ‘Good for you,’ commented Agatha sweetly. ‘But it’s so important not to inflict one’s prejudices on anyone else, don’t you think? I must be going. Charles, let’s . . . Charles?’
    She swung round. Charles had moved a little away and was whispering to Carrie, who was blushing and giggling.
    ‘What were you up to?’ asked Agatha angrily as she and Charles walked on.
    ‘Just chatting. Jealous, Aggie?’
    ‘Of course not. Don’t be silly.’
    Carrie had been wearing tight jeans and high-heeled boots. She had good legs. And so have I, thought Agatha, when I’m not wearing these clumpy flat shoes. They turned into the other lane and so to the garage. A man in overalls was peering at the engine of a car.
    ‘Mrs Jackson live near here?’ asked Charles.
    The man straightened up. ‘Take that little path at the side there. You can see the chimbleys behind the trees.’
    They followed his directions and arrived at a seedy-looking cottage thatched in Norfolk reed. It needed rethatching, the thatch being dusty and broken. The front garden was a mess of weeds with various discarded children’s toys scattered around.
    Agatha rang the bell. ‘I didn’t hear it ring,’ said Charles. ‘Probably broken.’ He knocked at the door. The door was opened by Barry Jones, the gardener.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘Came home to Mum’s for a bite to eat.’
    ‘Mum? But you’re a Jones.’
    ‘Mum’s first husband was a Jones.’
    ‘Can we talk to her?’ asked Charles.
    ‘Okay, but she’s a bit tired. Police here all morning.’
    They walked into a stone-flagged kitchen, which outmessed Framp’s. Dishes were piled in the sink, the old fuel-burning stove was thick with grease and piled with dirty pots.
    Betty Jackson was sitting at the kitchen table, mopping up egg with a slice of bread. It seems to be all-day breakfast around here, thought Agatha, remembering Framp.
    ‘What is it?’ she asked dully.
    ‘I’m looking for a cleaner,’ said Agatha brightly. ‘What a picturesque cottage you have. I do love these old cottages.’
    ‘All right for folks like you,’ said Mrs Jackson sourly. ‘I would like one of them new council ones they’ve got over at Purlett End village. But would they give me one? Naw!’
    Charles slid into the chair next to her. ‘Police been giving you a bad time?’
    ‘Yerse. Them and their tomfool questions. I told them, I left at five and that’s that.’
    ‘Who would do such a thing?’ Charles took one of Mrs Jackson’s red and swollen hands and gave it a squeeze.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said the cleaner, but in a much softer voice. Agatha, seeing that no one was going to ask her to sit down, jerked out a chair.
    ‘Weren’t relations between Tolly and Lucy a bit strained?’ Charles’s voice was soft and coaxing.
    ‘Oh, no.’ She shook her