Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

She was wearing a Liz Hurley sort of gown, slit up both sides and with a plunging neckline. All the men were goggling, and do you know, I think Tolly was proud of her.’
    ‘How are you managing for money?’ asked Charles.
    ‘I have a little left from an inheritance and I’ve applied for a job in a supermarket. They take older people.’
    ‘Did Tolly talk about enemies?’
    ‘No, he was too much of a people-pleaser in the country to annoy anyone.’
    ‘What about his past life? Anything there?’
    She shook her head. ‘Not that he told me. I do hope Tommy’s all right.’
    ‘Why should you care about your husband?’ asked Agatha curiously. ‘He seemed to have led you a dog’s life.’
    ‘It was a busy life,’ sighed Lizzie. ‘I seemed to have such a lot to do during the day. There was the cleaning and cooking and baking things for the church sales and so on. I’m not used to being idle. Perhaps if I get a job, things won’t be so bad.’
    ‘Are you sure your husband didn’t kill Tolly?’
    ‘He might have done it, but he wouldn’t have killed Paul. He admired Paul. Said he was a first-class gamekeeper.’
    Agatha studied Lizzie covertly. Could Lizzie have murdered Tolly? But it would take strength to creep up behind a man and slit his throat. Tolly must have heard some sound and come out of his bedroom to investigate. Still, one arm around his neck, pull his head back, and zip! She felt that underneath Lizzie’s calm exterior were layers and layers of undiscovered territory.
    Lizzie saw Agatha watching her and said, ‘If you don’t mind, I would like you to leave. I’m rather busy.’
    ‘Doing what?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘Come on, Aggie,’ said Charles.
    ‘So what did you make of that?’ asked Agatha when they were outside. ‘I suppose you fell for that meek-housewife routine.’
    ‘On the contrary, I kept thinking she might make a good murderess.’
    ‘I wondered about that. But it would have taken strength to bump off Tolly.’
    ‘Did you see her arms and hands? She was wearing that short-sleeved blouse and she’s got strong arms and hands. And if she killed Paul – well, I bet she knows how to use a shotgun.’
    ‘I’ve not really had time to sit down and think it through,’ said Agatha.
    ‘What, like Poirot? Going to exercise the little grey cells, Aggie?’
    ‘Don’t sneer,’ said Agatha. ‘Let’s go back to the motel and try to work things out again.’
    After a welcome from the cats, they sat down with sheets of paper. ‘Let’s not talk,’ begged Agatha. ‘I think each of us should try on our own and then we’ll compare notes.’
    She wrote down everything they had found out, little though it was, and then re-read what she had written. She then glanced across at Charles. He was chewing the end of a pencil and scowling down at his notes. Agatha felt a sudden spasm of lust and then shuddered. Never again. There was something so demeaning about casual sex. Perhaps it was because she belonged to the wrong generation. Somewhere she had read that young women didn’t suffer from the same pangs of guilt and remorse. Affairs. Lizzie’s affair with Tolly. Lucy had suspected something. If Lucy had found out, then she could have had grounds for divorce and get a good settlement, too. What was Lucy really like? Agatha had put her down as a bimbo. But people were never that simple. That was the bad habit of stereotyping people. It stopped one from looking underneath. Someone had feared her and Charles, someone had been worried that they might have found out something. But who could that have been? Nothing had been taken. There had been no attempt to make it look like a robbery. Which argued that someone had been very confident. No, that was wrong. A confident person wouldn’t have been frightened enough to break in. And why leave the Stubbs with them?
    Agatha wrote LUCY in block capitals and stared at it. But Lucy had been away. All right. Indulge in a flight of fantasy. Lucy had learned about the will and had taken the Stubbs. Something tips her over the edge. Tolly wants a divorce. Okay, what would upset her about that, provided he offered a settlement? But what if she wanted it all?
    So she kills Tolly. But why Paul Redfern?
    ‘Got anything?’ asked Charles.
    ‘Let’s swap notes,’ said Agatha.
    She started to read Charles’s neat script. He had written, ‘Why is Mrs Jackson so loyal? Is Lucy paying her to keep her mouth shut? Blackmail? But Lucy couldn’t have