Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

jacket which he had been carrying over his arm when he arrived and which was now on the back of the chair. He produced a jar of home-made jam. ‘It’s my mother’s,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Thought you might like some. Strawberry.’
    ‘Oh, how lovely,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll take it up to London with me.’
    ‘You’re surely not leaving right away!’
    ‘No, but I thought while you were talking that it would do me good to take a short holiday from Carsely – book into some hotel in London.’
    ‘How long for?’
    ‘I don’t know. Probably a week.’
    ‘So this means your life as an amateur detective is over.’
    ‘It never really got started,’ said Agatha. ‘I thought the fuss I was causing was because there was a murderer in the village. But all I was doing was riling people up.’
    Bill studied her for a few moments and then said, ‘Perhaps you might find you have changed. Perhaps you will find London doesn’t suit you any more.’
    ‘Now, that I very much doubt,’ laughed Agatha. ‘I tell you what I’ll do when I get back. I’ll invite you for dinner.’ She looked at him, suddenly shy. ‘That is, if you want to come.’
    ‘I’d like that . . . provided it isn’t quiche.’
    After he had gone, Agatha paid Doris Simpson and told her she would be away the following week but gave her a spare key and got the head workman to instruct both of them in the mysterious working of the burglar alarms. Then she phoned up a small but expensive London hotel and booked herself in for a week. She was lucky they had just received a cancellation, and as it was, she had to reserve a double room.
    Then she began to pack. The evening brought little respite from the heat and a good deal of nuisance. The news that all the lights outside Agatha’s cottage went on when anyone passed on the road quickly spread amongst the village children, who ran up and down with happy swooping screams like giant swallows until the local policeman turned up to drive them away.
    Agatha went along to the Red Lion. ‘We all need air-conditioning,’ she said to the landlord.
    ‘Happen you’re right,’ he said, ‘but what’s the point of the expense? Won’t see another summer like this in England for years. Fact is, maybe we’ll get a bad winter. Old Sam Sturret was just in here and he was saying how the winter’s going to be mortal bad. We’ll be snowed up for weeks, he says.’
    ‘Don’t the snow-ploughs come around?’
    ‘Not from the council, they don’t, Mrs Raisin m’dear. Us relies on the farmers with their tractors to try to keep the roads clear.’
    Agatha was about to protest that considering what they paid in council tax, they ought to have proper gritting and salting lorries, not to mention council snow-ploughs, and was about to say she would get up a petition to hand in to the council when she remembered she would probably be living in London by the winter.
    One by one, the locals began to drift into the pub. The landlord told them all he had put out tables in the garden and so they moved out there and Agatha was asked to join them. One man had brought along an accordion and he began to play and soon more villagers came in, drawn by the sound of the music, and then all began to sing along. Agatha was surprised, when the last orders were called, to realize she had been out in the pub garden all evening.
    As she walked home, she felt muddled. That very afternoon, the burning ambition she had lived with so long had returned in full force and she had felt her old self again. Now she began to wonder whether she wanted to be her old self again. Her old self didn’t sit singing in pubs or, she thought as she saw Mrs Bloxby outside her cottage door under the glare of the new security lights, get visits from the vicar’s wife.
    ‘I heard you were leaving for London tomorrow,’ said Mrs Bloxby, ‘and came to say goodbye.’
    ‘Who told you?’ asked Agatha, unlocking her front door.
    ‘That nice young detective constable, Bill Wong.’
    ‘He always seems to be about. Doesn’t he have any work to do in Mircester?’
    ‘Oh, he often calls round the villages,’ said Mrs Bloxby vaguely. ‘He also said something very distressing – about you leaving us for good.’
    ‘Yes, I plan to go back into business. I should never have retired so early.’
    ‘Well, that’s a great pity for Carsely. We planned to make more use of your organizing skills. You will be back by next Saturday afternoon?’
    ‘I doubt