Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

hedges and the air was sweet and fresh.
    Agatha unlocked the door of James’s cottage. Mrs Bloxby stood back and looked at the roof. ‘The thatch needs doing,’ she called. ‘I can put you in touch with a thatcher. You might want to wait and see if he comes back. It’s an expensive job.’
    She followed Agatha in. ‘I’ll draw the curtains back and open the windows.’
    Soon sunlight was flooding the cottage. Mrs Bloxby looked round. There was a thin layer of dust on the furniture and the carpet was still marked with blood-stains. ‘Perhaps if you start with his papers,’ she said, ‘I’ll begin with the cleaning.’
    Agatha went to the old roll-top desk in the corner where James kept his accounts and letters. The police had taken everything away to examine and the plastic bag holding all the papers they had returned lay on top of the desk. The fact that Agatha had taken some sort of action was beginning to send a little surge of energy through her.
    Behind her, she heard the reassuring clatter of cleaning implements as Mrs Bloxby fetched what she needed from the kitchen and got to work.
    Agatha began going through piles of bills to make sure they had all been paid. Then she began on the little pile of mail which had been lying on the doormat when she walked in. New bills. Electricity, gas, water. Junk mail. One letter addressed in large looped handwriting addressed to James. She took up James’s silver letter opener and slit open the envelope.
    It was dated the Friday of the previous week. ‘Dear James,’ she read. ‘We really must sit down and talk. I hope you’re back by now. I’m sorry I told Agatha about your illness, but how could I possibly guess you had not told her yourself? You must come and see me. We have been intimate together, you’ve made love to me, you can’t just walk away and not see me again. Do please ring me, darling, or come round. Your Melissa.’
    Agatha’s hands shook as she read the letter. A great wave of fury swept through her. She had almost been sanctifying James since his disappearance, crediting him with affections and little tendernesses that he had never demonstrated, blaming herself bitterly for everything. Despite what she had previously said, she had come to the conclusion that James had never been unfaithful to her. Such a straight, upright man would not. But now here it was. Proof. She forgot about his cancer. She only thought that he had cheated her. By God, she had to find him and tell James Lacey exactly what she thought of him. He could even be lying about having cancer! The police had checked every hospital in Britain without finding a sign of him.
    ‘Everything all right?’ called Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘Yes, sure,’ muttered Agatha. ‘Just some bills to pay.’
    ‘You do those and I’ll get on with this.’ Mrs Bloxby thought it would be better if she scrubbed out the blood-stains herself.
    Agatha took out James’s cheque-book. No reason to pay the damn bills herself. But of course she could not sign one of his cheques. They didn’t have a joint account. Bastard. She should let his gas, water and electricity get cut off.
    She went to her cottage and collected her own cheque-book and returned. ‘Don’t you think James would need money?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I mean, the police must have been watching to see if he cashed any cheques or used one of his credit cards.’
    ‘Mmm,’ was the only reply she got. Mrs Bloxby scrubbed busily, thinking sadly that if James did not need money, then James was dead.
    Agatha finished signing cheques and joined Mrs Bloxby in cleaning and dusting.
    Then they went back to Agatha’s cottage for a coffee. ‘Have you seen anything of Melissa lately?’ asked Mrs Bloxby.
    Agatha flushed, well aware of that crumpled letter in her handbag. ‘No, and I don’t want to.’
    ‘Perhaps she is feeling very guilty. She did not attend the ladies’ society meeting last night. And she’s usually always there. No one has seen her for over a week. Her car is still outside.’
    ‘Why don’t you phone her?’
    ‘I tried, but there was no reply.’
    I’ll go and see her the minute I’ve got rid of you, thought Agatha, engulfed by a wave of anger.
    The phone rang. Agatha looked startled and then remembered she had plugged it back in before they had left to clean James’s cottage as a sort of gesture to belonging to the world again.
    ‘You answer it. I’ll be off,’ said the vicar’s wife.
    As Mrs Bloxby waved