Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

film on to it and watched them burn merrily. Then she heard a car drawing up.
    She looked out of the window. Barbara James!
    Agatha dived behind the sofa and lay there, trembling. The knocking at the door, at first mild, became a fusillade of knocks and kicks. Agatha let out a whimper. Then there was silence. She was just about to get up when something struck her living-room window and she crouched down again. She heard what she hoped was Barbara’s car driving off. Still she waited.
    After ten minutes, she got up slowly. She looked at the window. Brown excrement was stuck to it, along with wisps of kitchen paper. Barbara must have thrown a wrapper full of the stuff.
    She went through to the kitchen and got a bucket of water and took it outside and threw it at the window, returning to get more water until the window was clean. She was going back inside when she saw Mrs Barr standing at her garden gate, watching her, her pale eyes alight with malice.
    Her rumbling stomach reminded Agatha that she had not eaten. But she did not have the courage to go out again. At least she had bread and butter. She made herself some toast.
    The phone rang shrilly. She approached it and gingerly picked up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ came Roy’s mincing voice. ‘That you, Aggie?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Agatha, weak with relief. ‘How are you?’
    ‘Bit fed up.’
    ‘How’s Steve?’
    ‘Haven’t seen him. Gone all moody on me.’
    ‘Buy him a book on village customs. That’ll make his eyes light up.’
    ‘The only way to make that one’s eyes light up,’ said Steve waspishly, ‘is to shine a torch in his ear. I’ve been given the Tolly Baby Food account.’
    ‘Congratulations.’
    ‘On what?’ Roy’s voice was shrill. ‘Baby food’s not my scene , ducky. They’re doing it deliberately. Hoping I’ll fail. More your line.’
    ‘Wait a bit. Isn’t Tolly Baby Food the stuff that some maniac’s been putting glass in and then blackmailing the company?’
    ‘They’ve arrested someone, but now Tolly wants to restore their image.’
    ‘Try going green,’ suggested Agatha. ‘Suggest to the advertising people a line of healthy baby food, no additives, and with a special safety cap. Get a cartoon figure to promote it. Throw a press party to show off the new vandal-proof top. “Only Tolly Baby Food keeps baby safe,” that sort of thing. And don’t drink yourself. Take any journalist who has a baby out for lunch separately.’
    ‘They don’t have babies,’ complained Roy. ‘They give birth to bile.’
    ‘There are a few fertile ones.’ Agatha searched her memory. ‘There’s Jean Hammond, she’s got a baby, and Jeffrey Constable’s wife has just had one. You’ll find out more if you try. Anyway, women journalists feel obliged to write about babies to show they’re normal. They have to keep trying to identify with the housewives they secretly despise. You know Jill Stamp who’s always rambling on about her godson? Hasn’t got one. All part of the image.’
    ‘I wish you were doing it,’ said Roy. ‘It was fun working for you, Aggie. How’s things in Rural Land?’
    Agatha hesitated and then said, ‘Fine.’
    This was greeted by a long silence. It suddenly struck Agatha with some amazement that Roy might possibly want an invitation.
    ‘You know all that tat in my living-room?’
    ‘What, the fake horse brasses and things?’
    ‘Yes, I’m auctioning them all off in the name of charity. On the tenth of June, a Saturday. Like to come down and see me in action?’
    ‘Love to.’
    ‘All right. I’ll meet the train on Friday evening, on the ninth. Wonder you can bear to leave London.’
    ‘London is a sink ,’ said Roy bitterly.
    ‘Oh, God, there’s a car outside,’ yelped Agatha. She looked out of the window. ‘It’s all right, it’s only the police.’
    ‘What have you been up to?’
    ‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Bye.’
    Agatha answered the door to Bill Wong. ‘Now what?’ she asked. ‘Or is this just a friendly call?’
    ‘Not quite.’ He followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
    ‘You were at the Ancombe Fair, I gather,’ said Bill.
    ‘So?’
    ‘You were seen in the beer tent waving a knife at Miss Barbara James.’
    ‘Self-defence. The woman tried to strangle me.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I believe she had been having an affair with Cummings-Browne and she learned my name and saw red.’
    He flipped open a small notebook and consulted it. ‘Photographer Ben