Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

behind her. The noise in her ears was deafening. The thunder was crashing outside, the fire was roaring inside.
    Agatha’s weak hands scrabbled upwards until she grasped the edge of the kitchen sink. Sinks had water and behind the sink was the kitchen window, which that hellcat might have forgotten to lock.
    But despite the fact she had been sick, Agatha had swallowed quite a large amount of sleeping pills, or draught, or whatever it was that Vera had put in her tea. Blackness overcame her and she made one last effort heaving herself up, gazing out of the window, her mouth silently opening to form the word ‘Help,’ before she fell back on to the kitchen floor, unconscious.
    ‘I don’t see why we’re working overtime on this Raisin woman, Bill,’ grumbled the detective chief inspector. ‘The fact that Mrs Cummings-Browne had cowbane in her flower arrangement could be coincidence.’
    ‘I’ve always been sure she had done it,’ said Bill. ‘I told Mrs Raisin to mind her own business because I didn’t want her getting hurt. We’ve got to ask Vera Cummings-Browne about this photograph. What a storm!’
    They were cruising in the police car slowly along Carsely’s main street. Bill peered through the windscreen. A flash of lightning lit up the street, lit up the approaching Range Rover, and lit up the startled face of Vera behind the wheel. Almost without thought, Bill swung the wheel and blocked the street.
    ‘What the hell!’ shouted Wilkes.
    Vera jumped out of her car and began to run off down one of the lanes leading off the main street. ‘It’s Mrs Cummings-Browne. After her,’ shouted Bill. Wilkes and Detective Sergeant Friend scrambled out of the car, but Bill ran instead through the pounding rain towards Vera’s cottage, cursing under his breath as he saw the fierce red glow of a fire behind the drawn curtains of the living-room.
    The kitchen window was to the left of the door. He ran to it to try to force a way in and was just in time to see the white staring face of Agatha Raisin rising above the kitchen sink and disappearing again.
    There was a narrow strip of flower-bed outside the cottage, edged with round pieces of marble rock. He seized one of these and threw it straight at the kitchen window, thinking wildly that it was only in films that the whole window shattered, for the rock went straight through, leaving a jagged hole.
    He seized another one and hammered furiously at the glass until he had broken a hole big enough to crawl through.
    Agatha was lying on the kitchen floor. He tried to pick her up. At first she seemed too heavy. The roar of the fire from the other room was tremendous. He got Agatha up on her feet and shoved her head in the kitchen sink. Then he got hold of her ankles and heaved, so that her heels went over her head and out through the window. He seized her by the hair and, panting and shoving, thrust the whole lot of her through the broken glass and out on to the cobbles outside and then dived through the window himself just as the kitchen door fell in and raging tongues of flames scorched through the room.
    He lay for a moment on top of Agatha while the rain drummed down on both of them. Doors were opening, people were coming running. He heard a woman shout, ‘I phoned the fire brigade.’ His hands were bleeding and Agatha’s face was cut from where he had shoved her through the broken glass. But she was breathing deeply. She was alive.
    Agatha recovered consciousness in hospital and looked groggily around. There seemed to be flowers everywhere. Her eyes focused on the Asian features of Bill Wong, who was sitting patiently beside the bed.
    Then Agatha remembered the horror of the fire. ‘What happened?’ she asked feebly.
    From the other side of the bed came the stern voice of Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes. ‘You nearly got burnt to a crisp, that’s what,’ he said, ‘and would have been if Bill here hadn’t saved your life.’
    ‘You’ve got to lose weight, Mrs Raisin,’ said Bill with a grin. ‘You’re a heavy woman. But you’ll be pleased to know that Vera Cummings-Browne is under arrest, although whether she’ll stand trial is another matter. She went barking mad. But you did a silly and dangerous thing, Mrs Raisin. I gather you went to accuse her of murder and then you calmly drink a cup of tea which she had made.’
    Agatha struggled up against the pillows. ‘It’s thanks to me you got her. I suppose you found her taped confession on my