Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

James then switched off the television set and stared at the wall opposite. He felt angry and lonely.
    Questions, questions and more questions. Then back to police headquarters to make their statements. Agatha and Charles were hungry and tired and very much shaken up by the time they were allowed back to their motel. They had picked up a pizza on the road to the motel and they ate that in silence.
    At last Agatha said, ‘Why him?’
    ‘Because he knew something,’ said Charles, ‘and now we may never know what that something was. I thought that maintenance man – Joe Simons – might have done it, but he’d been up at the houses, so the police say, just before we saw him, fixing taps. Let’s go to bed and leave it all to the morning. You can use the bathroom first.’
    Agatha soaked in a hot bath and then put on a long brushed-nylon night-gown. She climbed into bed and picked up a book and tried to read to blot out the terrible sight of the dead gamekeeper.
    Charles, having washed, joined her in the bed. He picked up a paperback from his side of the bed and began to read as well. Then he heard a muffled sob and looked at Agatha. Tears were streaming down her face. ‘I want to go home,’ she sobbed.
    ‘Shhh, come here.’ He put his arms around her and held her close.
    Agatha began to kiss him in a frenzied way. A gentleman would not take advantage of a situation, said some dim voice of conscience in the back of Charles’s head, but he too was frightened and rattled, and so he did.
    Agatha awoke in the morning and immediately the events of the night came flooding into her mind. She fished down at the bottom of the bed and retrieved her crumpled night-gown, pulled it over her head, and went off to the bathroom, feeling stiff and sore. Their love-making had been very energetic, almost as if they had been trying to thrash the horrors out of each other’s minds.
    But when she returned to the bedroom, feeling embarrassed, Charles said calmly, ‘At last. I thought you were going to spend all day in there.’
    He went into the bathroom. Agatha dressed in warm clothes. She fed the cats and checked their water bowls.
    When Charles joined her, Agatha was at first grateful that he made no reference to their activities of the night before but then began to feel rather cross, thinking that he might at least say something.
    But Charles, after making them coffee, said, ‘I think we should keep clear of Fryfam for a little. I think we should go and see if we can talk to Lizzie.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘God knows. But she did have an affair with Tolly. She must know a lot about him. There must be something she can tell us.’
    ‘All right,’ Agatha muttered, not looking at him.
    ‘I’m not going to be lovey-dovey with you, Agatha Raisin,’ said Charles. ‘But in your moments of passion, you might have the decency to remember my name.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘“Oh, James, James,”’ mocked Charles. ‘I’ll see you in the car.’
    Agatha felt herself blushing all over. If only she could just run away and forget about the whole thing.
    Lizzie Findlay was at home.
    She let them into a small neat flat. ‘How’s Tommy?’ she asked.
    ‘Tommy?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘My husband.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Agatha. ‘Why?’
    ‘I can’t help wondering how he’s getting on without me,’ said Lizzie. ‘He can’t cook, you know.’ She flashed a timid smile at Charles. ‘You men are so hopeless.’
    ‘Charles cooks,’ said Agatha. ‘We keep wondering and wondering who killed Tolly – and now Paul Redfern.’
    ‘It’s a nightmare,’ said Lizzie. ‘Who would want to kill Paul?’
    ‘He might have known something. He might have been blackmailing someone,’ said Charles. ‘He witnessed that will.’
    ‘It all comes back to Lucy,’ mourned Agatha. ‘Such a suitable subject.’
    ‘But she’s got an alibi. Tolly always said it suited Lucy very well being married to him.’ Lizzie began to walk up down the room. ‘He said when they’d had a row she would punish him by going out and buying something expensive. I said, why didn’t he just stop her credit cards, take control of the money. Tommy never allowed me a credit card. Tolly sort of waffled on and said he would do something about it. I don’t think near the end that Tolly cared for me at all. He just liked the excitement of cheating on his wife. And I’ll tell you something else. At the last hunt dinner before he died, he entered with Lucy on his arm.