Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

already told to James and Agatha, perhaps because she did not seem nearly as charming as she had when he had first met her, James was able to realize that this visit had been prompted more by a desire not to let Agatha dominate his life than by any real interest in Helen. She was very clever at extracting information, and the information she seemed most interested in was the size of his bank balance. No question was direct or vulgar. Talk of stocks and shares, whether he had suffered over the Lloyd’s or Barings disasters, things like that. And the friends they were supposed to have in common began to seem to James like people she had met at parties and in the course of her work but did not really know very well.
    ‘Do you mind if I make a telephone call?’ he said at last. ‘And then I really must go.’
    ‘Help yourself.’
    He dialled home and let it ring for a long time.
    ‘No reply,’ he said with a rueful smile.
    ‘Were you trying to get Mrs Raisin?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Oh, she’s in town.’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘I saw her driving past when we walked out for lunch.’
    ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
    ‘I was just about to, but you were talking about something and then the whole matter slipped my mind.’
    Now James felt like a guilty husband who had been caught out in an adulterous act. He then became angry because he was sure Agatha had come to town for no other purpose but to spy on him.
    ‘I’d better go. Thanks for the coffee.’
    ‘Oh, do stay,’ said Helen. ‘I’ve nothing planned for this evening.’
    ‘I’m afraid I have.’
    She stood up and moved close to him. He moved back and found his legs pressed against the sofa. She raised her arms to put them around his neck, a slow seductive smile on her face. James ducked, stepped up on the sofa and walked over the back, his long legs taking him straight to the door.
    ‘Goodbye,’ he said, opened the door, and ran down the stairs.
    ‘Silly old fool,’ he said aloud, but he meant himself and not Agatha Raisin.
    Agatha had had the foresight to buy two bottles of cheap sweet wine called Irish Blossom. They were the kind of wine bottles with screw-tops rather than corks. She and Roy found a group of down-and-outs near where Jimmy Raisin used to hang out. They were a mixed bunch, but more solid alcoholics than drug addicts, the drug addicts being younger and favouring better sites. The Celtic races predominated, Scottish and Irish, making Agatha wonder if there was any truth in the statement that alcoholism got worse the farther north in the world one went.
    No one seemed to want to know them, until Agatha fished in one of her plastic bags and produced a bottle of wine.
    The others gathered around. Roy passed the bottle round. The contents were soon gone. An old man came up. He had two bottles of cider, which he proceeded to share. He had an educated voice and told everyone he used to be a professor. Soon they all began to talk, and Agatha and Roy found they were surrounded by jet pilots, famous footballers, brain surgeons and tycoons. ‘It’s a bit like those people who believe they had a previous life,’ muttered Agatha. ‘They were always Napoleon or Cleopatra or someone like that.’
    ‘They believe what they’re saying,’ whispered Roy. ‘They’ve told the same lies so many times, they actually believe them now.’
    Agatha raised her voice. ‘We had a mate used to hang around about here,’ she said. ‘Jimmy Raisin.’
    The man with the educated voice, who was called Charles, said, ‘Someone said he got killed. Good riddance, sleazy little toe-rag.’
    They must have heard about the murder by word of mouth, thought Agatha. Few of them would ever look at a newspaper.
    ‘What happened to his stuff?’ asked Roy.
    ‘Perlice took it away,’ said a thin woman with the avid face and glittering eyes of a Hogarth drawing. ‘Took ’is box and all. But Lizzie got ’is bag o’stuff.’
    ‘What stuff?’ Roy’s voice was sharp.
    ‘Just who the hell are you?’ asked Charles.
    Agatha glared at Roy. ‘I’ll tell you who I am,’ he said, his voice slightly slurred. ‘I’m a big executive in the City. I only come down here evenings because I like the company.’
    There was a general easing of tension as the brain surgeons, jet pilots and tycoons in general regarded what they thought was one of their own kind. ‘And I’ll tell you something more.’ Roy fished in the capacious inside pocket of his Oxfam