Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

settle at the lawyers’?’
    ‘Today, if possible,’ said Mrs Hardy.
    ‘Let me see, we’re just about to go into Mircester to make our statements. We could go on from there to Cheltenham. What about four o’clock?’
    ‘I’ll fix it.’
    ‘Tell me,’ said Agatha curiously, ‘what is it about Carsely that you don’t like, apart from murder and mayhem?’
    She gave a little sigh. ‘I’ve been very lonely since my husband died. I thought a small village would be a friendly place.’
    ‘But it is!’ protested Agatha. ‘Everyone’s prepared to be friendly if you just give them a chance.’
    ‘But it means going to church and talking to the yokels in the pub and joining some dreadful ladies’ society.’
    ‘I find them delightful.’
    ‘Well, I don’t. I like cities. I’ll rent in London. I’ll put my stuff in storage and take a service flat for a few weeks and look around.’
    But that remark of Mrs Hardy’s about not being able to make friends had gone straight to Agatha’s heart as she remembered her own lonely days before coming to Carsely.
    She said, ‘Why don’t you stay? We could be friends.’
    ‘That’s very kind of you.’ Mrs Hardy gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t you want your cottage back?’
    ‘Well, I do, but . . .’
    ‘Then you shall have it. I’ll see you at the lawyers’ this afternoon.’
    ‘And that was that,’ said Agatha to James a few minutes later. ‘So I’ll soon be home again. She said as I was leaving that provided all the papers were signed, I can move in in a fortnight.’
    James felt slightly irritated. A moment before it had seemed that all he wanted out of life was to have his cottage to himself, without Agatha Raisin dribbling cigarette ash over everything. He decided that she ought to look less delighted at the prospect of leaving his home.
    ‘Well, if you’re ready,’ he said, ‘let’s get to police headquarters.’
    Leaves fluttered down in front of them as they drove off, autumn leaves, dancing and whirling, blown down by a great gusty wind from a sky full of tumbling black, ragged clouds.
    The whole countryside was in motion. Showers of nuts pattered on the roof of the car. A woman getting out of a car at the Quarry Garage clutched at her skirts to hold them down. An old newspaper spiralled up and then performed a hectic dance through the furrows of a brown ploughed field. And somewhere, thought Agatha, crawling around out there is a murderer.
    ‘It must be something to do with that Helen Warwick,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped James. ‘Do you mean she travelled down from London to pour petrol through our letterbox? Why?’
    ‘Because I swear she knows something.’
    ‘Oh, really. Then I had better go back and see her.’
    ‘Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘Very much. I found her a charming woman.’
    ‘Men are so blind. She was sly and devious. And mercenary.’
    ‘In your jealous opinion, Agatha.’
    ‘I’m not jealous of that plump frump. We could have been killed last night.’
    ‘Not with a back door to the garden.’
    ‘What if we had both been asleep?’
    There was no answer to that.
    They completed the drive to Mircester in silence.
    There were many questions to answer at police headquarters. Detective Inspector Wilkes was in charge of the questioning this time, flanked by Bill Wong. Agatha found herself beginning to sweat. She was terrified either she or James would let something slip and Wilkes would know about their burglaring.
    When it was at last all over and they had signed their statements, Wilkes said severely, ‘I should charge both of you with obstructing police business. But I’m warning you for the last time. We may seem to you very slow, but we are thorough.’
    They left feeling chastened. From an upstairs window, Maddie Hurd watched them go. She bit her thumbnail and stared down at them. She had not been invited to join in the interrogation. She had not been asked to do anything further on the case at all. She had been given a series of burglaries to investigate instead. She blamed Bill Wong for turning her superiors against her.
    Although Bill had not opened his mouth, her jilting of him had a lot to do with it. Bill Wong was very popular, Maddie was not. Women, even in the police force, were expected to be womanly. Women in the police force were not expected to jilt fellow officers. So, although Chief Inspector Wilkes did not sit down and say, ‘We don’t want Maddie Hurd