Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

better doing something at the fête, dearie? I mean, we need someone for the tombola. Take your mind off things.’
    ‘The way I feel at the moment,’ said Agatha, ‘a village fête would be incapable of taking my mind off things.’
    Miss Simms tugged ineffectively at her short skirt, which was riding up over her lace-topped stockings. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
    ‘I keep trying to find out what sort of person Melissa Sheppard really was.’
    ‘Bit of a tart, if you ask me.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘Went up to London with her a couple of months ago. I don’t have a gentleman friend at the moment, and she says there’s this singles’ bar with good talent and why don’t I come along. So I did. Well, it was really rough stuff if you get me. I like my gents in suits and with their own car. We get tied up with three bikers, all leather and medallions, and Melissa, she says, “We’re all going back to Jake’s place,” Jake being one of the blokes. I take her aside and say, “What you on about, Liss? They’re a bit common and there’s three of them.” She’d drunk a bucketful, pretty quick, and she says, says she, “The more the merrier.” So I got the hell out of there and had to find me way to Paddington and pay for me fare home, ’cos we’d come up in her car. I asked her later how she’d got on, and she says, “Okay, and I didn’t take you to be a Miss Prim,” so I never spoke to her again.’
    At last I’m getting somewhere, thought Agatha. ‘I’d like to speak to those bikers,’ she said. ‘Would you like to go to London with me and spot them for me? Did they seem like regulars?’
    Miss Simms looked at her doubtfully from under a pair of improbably false eyelashes. ‘They did seem to be regulars, but . . .’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll pay for everything, even for your baby-sitter, and I’m not looking for a fellow.’
    ‘Right. You’re on.’
    ‘What time did you turn up there before?’
    ‘’Bout nine in the evening.’
    ‘Right. We leave about seven. Should make it in good time. The rush-hour traffic should be thinning out by then.’
    Shortly after Agatha got home, the phone rang. It was Charles. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.
    Agatha, glad that he had not abandoned her after all, felt relieved and told him about the singles’ bar.
    ‘I’ll come with you.’
    ‘Okay,’ said Agatha after a little hesitation. ‘It’s a bit rough, so don’t look too posh.’
    He laughed. ‘As if I could.’
    And he really believes that, thought Agatha. How odd.

Chapter Five
    Had London always been so dirty and shabby? wondered Agatha. Surely not. The singles’ bar was off Piccadilly Circus, and not, as Agatha had guessed, in some dreary suburb. Certainly it was a hot summer which always gave the city a tired, exhausted air. Charles managed to find a space in an underground car park a short walk from the bar.
    Agatha was wearing a silk trouser-suit which had looked very sophisticated and smart in her bedroom mirror at home. But as they walked through the crowds, she noticed women wearing floaty summer dresses, or very short skirts and brief tops, and began to feel like a frump. She was wearing flat gold leather shoes and wished now she had worn heels. Miss Simms teetered along in very high heels and a skirt that verged on the indecent as she was showing her usual glimpses of stocking tops. Charles was dressed in a soft blue cotton shirt, chinos, and moccasins. Agatha felt she was the only one who didn’t fit in with the cosmopolitan atmosphere.
    Miss Simms’ singles’ bar turned out to be a disco called Stompers. ‘Are you sure this is the place?’ asked Agatha. The young people trooping in ahead of them all looked trendily dressed.
    ‘Yeah, this is it,’ said Miss Simms, clutching Charles’s arm. ‘Not my sort of place.’
    Agatha paid the entrance fee and they went downstairs to a large room where couples gyrated under darting strobe lights. The music was loud, horrendously so. It beat upon their ear-drums and made conversation impossible.
    They made their way to the bar and in a brief moment when the music ceased, Agatha said, ‘Do you see them?’
    ‘Not yet,’ said Miss Simms. She hitched herself up on the bar-stool and the resultant display of lace stocking tops and frilly knickers meant that she was immediately asked to dance.
    Agatha put her mouth to Charles’s ear and shouted, ‘Waste of time.’
    As dance number followed dance number