Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

by cheque or credit card?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘No, cash. It was on the records.’
    ‘Damn. Now what?’
    ‘Back to Carsely for the night. Then we’ll try Sir Desmond Derrington tomorrow.’
    Agatha could not sleep that night. She was determined to find out what James had written down in his notebook while he had been talking to the aerobics woman.
    She waited until she was sure that James was asleep and then crept along to his room. It was brightly lit by moonlight and she could see his trousers hanging over the back of a chair, with the edge of the notebook sticking out of the back pocket.
    Keeping a cautious eye on the sleeping figure on the bed, Agatha gently eased the notebook out and carried it back through to her room. She flicked it open and turned to the last entry. In James’s cramped handwriting, which the eyes of love had taught her to decipher, ‘Co-Dependency Anonymous’, Agatha read with amazement. There followed a London address and a ‘contact’ number.
    The bitch, thought Agatha, forgetting for the moment that she was supposed to be a fickle and domineering woman whose husband was dependent on her cash.
    ‘So now you’ve satisfied your curiosity, madam, do you think I could have my notebook back?’ James’s voice rang from the doorway.
    Agatha flushed guiltily. ‘I was only looking at those names you found in the office.’
    ‘Wrong page,’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to be a bullying rich woman and I’m supposed to be a wimp of a leech, remember? Hence the therapy suggestion.’
    ‘I thought you were asleep,’ was all Agatha could think of saying.
    ‘I wake easily, as you should know.’
    ‘Sorry, James,’ mumbled Agatha. ‘Go back to bed.’

Chapter Four

    Sir Desmond Derrington lived in a pleasant Cotswold mansion a few miles outside Mircester on the Oxford road. As they approached it, Agatha saw a poster stuck on a tree-trunk beside the road which advertised the fact that Sir Desmond’s gardens were open that day to the public.
    ‘I hope he’s there,’ said James when it was pointed out to him. ‘I hope he hasn’t gone off and left the local village ladies to show people around.’
    Agatha, desperate for anyone who looked like a murderer, felt disappointed when she first saw Sir Desmond. He was bending over an ornamental shrub and explaining its history and planting to a fat woman who was shifting her bulk uneasily and looking as if she wished she had never asked about it. Sir Desmond looked like a pillar of the community, middle-aged, greying, long-nosed, and married to a rangy loud-voiced wife who was holding forth in another part of the garden. Lady Derrington was wearing a short-sleeved cotton print dress despite the chill of the day and had a hard flat bottom and a hard flat chest. Her brown hair was rigidly permed and her patrician nose looked down at each flower and plant with a faintly patronizing air, as if all had sprung from the earth without her permission.
    The fat woman waddled away from Sir Desmond and James approached him. ‘I was admiring that fine wisteria you’ve got on the wall over there,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, that.’ Sir Desmond blinked myopically in the direction of the house wall. ‘Very fine in the spring. Masses of blossom.’
    ‘I’m experiencing a bit of difficulty with mine,’ said James. ‘I planted it two years ago but it hasn’t grown very much and has very few blossoms.’
    ‘Where did you get it from?’
    ‘Brakeham’s Nurseries.’
    ‘Them!’ Sir Desmond gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Wouldn’t get anything from there. Hetty, my wife, got given a present of a hydrangea from there. Died after a week. And do you know why?’ Sir Desmond poked James in the chest with a long finger. ‘No roots.’
    ‘How awful. I’ll give them a clear berth in future.’
    Agatha was approaching to join them. Then she heard Sir Desmond say, ‘Lot of charlatans about. Where are you from?’
    ‘Carsely.’
    ‘Do you know I went to see the gardens there when they were open to the public and some woman had bought everything fully grown from a nursery and tried to pretend she had planted the lot from seed. Didn’t even know the names of anything.’
    Recognizing a description of herself, Agatha veered off, leaving the conversation to James.
    She approached Lady Derrington instead. ‘Nice garden,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Thank you,’ said Lady Derrington. ‘We have some plants for sale on tables over by the house. Very reasonable prices. And