Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

shoulders. She was wearing a well-tailored tweed suit, the skirt of which had a slit up one side, revealing a well-shaped leg clothed in a ten-denier stocking – stockings, not tights, for the slit was long enough to show a flash of stocking top. Her eyes were pale blue and well set apart. She had high cheek-bones, but her nose was set too close to her mouth and her long mouth too close to her square chin. He was older, small, plump and choleric, with thinning hair and a high colour.
    ‘Come on, Agatha,’ ordered Harriet.
    ‘Who are they? That couple?’
    ‘Oh, that’s our squire, self-appointed, made his money out of bathroom showers, and his wife, Lucy. The Trumpington-Jameses. Funny, isn’t it,’ said Harriet, her voice carrying across the churchyard. ‘Not so long ago a double-barrelled name denoted a lady or gentleman. Now it means it’s some lower-middle-class parvenu.’
    ‘Aren’t you being a bit snobby?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘No,’ said Harriet. ‘They’re quite awful, as you’ll find out.’
    ‘How will I find out?’
    ‘They’ll think it their squire-archical duty to welcome the newcomer. You’ll see.’
    ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘My place.’
    Harriet’s place was on the far side of the green, a square, early Victorian house.
    Leading the way into a large, if gloomy, sitting-room, Harriet switched on the lamps and said, ‘Anyone for a drink first?’ And before a grateful Agatha could ask for a gin and tonic, Harriet said, ‘I know, we’ll have some of Carrie’s elderberry wine.’
    Agatha looked about her. The room had long windows and a high ceiling but was crowded with heavy pieces of furniture. The walls were painted a dull green and hung with dingy paintings of horses and dead game.
    Amy was getting blankets and boxes of cloth and sewing implements out of a large chest in the corner.
    ‘I think you should share a quilt with Carrie,’ said Amy. ‘You work on the one end and she’ll work on the other. If you sit side by side, you can spread the blanket out between you.’
    Harriet returned with a tray of glasses full of elderberry wine. Agatha sipped hers cautiously. It was very sweet and tasted slightly medicinal.
    ‘Are we all widows here?’ asked Agatha, looking around. ‘No husbands?’
    ‘My husband’s in the pub with Amy’s and Polly’s,’ said Harriet. ‘Carrie’s divorced.’
    ‘I thought the pub was closed on Sundays. I went round at lunch-time and it was closed.’
    ‘Opens Sunday evenings.’ Harriet drained her glass and put it back on the tray. ‘We’d best get started.’
    It should be simple, thought Agatha, as Carrie handed her a little pile of squares of cloth. Just stitch them on.
    ‘Not like that,’ said Carrie, as Agatha stabbed a needle into the edge of one. ‘You hem it first and then stitch it on and unpick the hem.’ Agatha scowled horribly and proceeded to try to hem a slippery little square of silk. Just as soon as it got a stitch in it, the silk frayed at the edges. She surreptitiously dropped it on the floor and picked out a piece of coloured wool. She glanced sideways at Carrie, who was placing neat little, almost invisible, stitches, rapidly in squares of material.
    She decided to start up a conversation to try to distract the others from her amateur sewing. ‘Mrs Wilden at the pub treated me to an excellent meal last night. She’s quite stunningly beautiful.’
    ‘Pity she’s got the morals of a tom-cat,’ snapped Polly, biting a thread with strong yellow teeth.
    ‘Oh, really?’ said Agatha, looking around curiously at the set faces. ‘I found her rather sweet.’
    ‘Good thing you’re not married.’ Amy, sounding almost tearful.
    ‘When did your husband die, Agatha?’ asked Carrie.
    ‘A while back,’ said Agatha. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She did not want to tell them her husband had been murdered right after he had surfaced from the past to stop her marrying James Lacey. ‘I’m still wondering about those lights,’ she went on. She noticed with surprise that because of the distraction of talking she had actually managed to hem a square of cloth.
    ‘Have you seen them again?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, there you are. You were probably tired after the long drive and thought you saw them.’
    Agatha gave up on the subject of the lights. She was sure these women probably gossiped easily among themselves. She was the outsider, not yet accepted, and that was putting the brakes on any