Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

this one, thought Agatha. Better go back to the café and wait to see if someone more amenable comes home to one of the other flats.
    ‘Sorry to trouble you,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Wait! Did you say twenty pounds?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, come in. I haven’t got all day.’
    Agatha followed her into a neat living-room. A canary chirped in a cage at the window and two cats lay in front of a two-bar electric fire. Agatha repressed a shudder. In this old woman, she felt for a moment, she was looking at her future. ‘I’m Mrs Tite. T-I-T-E.’
    Agatha dutifully wrote it down. ‘I don’t drink coffee,’ said Mrs Tite, ‘but my son does. Sit down.’ She lowered herself slowly and painfully into an armchair in front of the fire and Agatha took the one opposite.
    ‘How many cups a day?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘About four or five.’
    Agatha dutifully wrote it down and then proceeded to ask a lot of questions about Mrs Tite’s son’s coffee-drinking. ‘Now,’ said Agatha, ‘is there anyone else in these flats who would be prepared to answer questions?’
    ‘There’s George Harris and old Mr Black –’
    ‘I would prefer a woman. They’re better at answering questions.’
    ‘Well, there’s Mrs Findlay, but I haven’t seen much of her lately, or her husband, for that matter.’
    Agatha felt a pang of disappointment. This was just a flat the Findlays had bought or rented in town. She fished out a twenty-pound note and handed it over.
    She rose to her feet. Mrs Tite stroked and folded the note and then tucked it in the pocket of her old woollen cardigan. ‘I’ll see myself out,’ said Agatha. ‘Don’t bother to get up.’
    ‘It’s nice to see that,’ said Mrs Tite, almost as if speaking to herself. ‘Love like that in middle age, and them married so long.’
    Agatha swung round, her hand on the doorhandle. ‘You mean Captain and Mrs Findlay?’
    ‘Is he a captain? I didn’t know that. Never used the title.’
    ‘I knew some Findlays,’ said Agatha slowly. ‘I must be confusing this Mr Findlay with Captain Findlay. What does he look like?’
    ‘Small, tubby man. High colour. Wore sporty clothes – hacking jacket, cravat with a horse-head pin in it.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Agatha. She scampered down the stairs and across the road to the café, where she told Charles what she had found out, ending with ‘It couldn’t have been Tolly, could it?’
    ‘Sounds like it.’
    ‘But that’s impossible! Why would a rich man like Tolly want to philander with someone like Lizzie Findlay?’
    ‘Think about it. He’s married to a hard blonde who made it clear she only married him for his money. He chats up Lizzie, at first with the simple view in mind of ingratiating himself with her husband. What if it dawns on him that Lizzie finds him attractive? He’s in love with the whole image of country life and here’s a real-live country lady who bakes cakes and makes jam – anyway, I’ll bet she does. Maybe they meet by chance in Norwich one day and it takes off from there.’
    ‘And maybe she got a bottle of rose perfume from Rosie,’ said Agatha, ‘and that’s what Lucy smelt in the bedroom.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s too far-fetched.’
    ‘We can ask her.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘We can just ask her. We’ll try to get her on her own. Let’s try this evening. I bet the captain goes out somewhere with his hunting cronies. Worth a try.’
    ‘I can’t bear the idea of hiding out in those pines again.’
    ‘We’ll go home and wait until after seven and then phone.’
    ‘But,’ said Agatha, as they walked to the car park, ‘why on earth would she keep on the flat, continue to dress up, buy sexy underwear, if Tolly was the man. Tolly’s dead.’
    ‘Maybe she found someone else.’
    ‘Highly unlikely.’
    ‘All will be revealed if we can get her alone.’
    When they got home, Agatha ate a hurried meal of sandwiches and phoned Rosie Wilden and asked her if she could buy some of her rose perfume.
    ‘You’re welcome to a bottle,’ said Rosie. ‘Next time you’re in the pub, just ask.’
    ‘Thank you very much. I smelt some of your perfume just recently. Let me see, who was it? Ah, I believe it was Mrs Findlay, Captain Findlay’s wife.’
    ‘That’d be right,’ said Rosie. ‘Very partial to my perfume is Mrs Findlay. I can’t tell you how to make it because it’s a family secret, but you just drop by and I’ll let you have it.’
    Agatha thanked her and rang off. She went into the