Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

she needed some eye ointment.
    She had really only half believed Bill, however, and was surprised to find the waiting-room empty. Miss Mabbs looked up listlessly from a torn magazine and said Mr Bladen was up at Lord Pendlebury’s racing stable but would be back soon. Agatha waited and waited.
    After an hour, Paul Bladen walked into the waiting-room, nodded curtly to Agatha and disappeared into the surgery. Agatha had half a mind to leave.
    But after only a few moments, Miss Mabbs told her to go through.
    He listened to Agatha’s tale of the cat’s eye infection and then scribbled out a prescription, saying they were out of the ointment, but that she could get it at the chemist’s in Moreton-in-Marsh. He then obviously waited for Agatha to leave.
    ‘Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?’ demanded Agatha. ‘I tried to go to that restaurant in Evesham but the snow was so bad, I crashed. I tried to phone you but some woman answered the phone, saying she was your wife. I thought you might have had the decency to phone me .’
    He was suddenly all charm. ‘Mrs Raisin, I am very sorry. The weather was so dreadful, I was sure you would not even try to make it. The woman on the phone was my sister, being silly. Do forgive me. Look, what about tonight? There’s a new Greek restaurant in Mircester, just near the abbey. We could meet there at eight.’ But when he smiled into her eyes, Agatha was reminded bitterly of Jack Pomfret.
    She hesitated, looking out of the surgery window. It was then that she saw James Lacey, looking the same as ever. He was a very tall, well-built man with a handsome, tanned face and bright blue eyes. His thick black hair had only a trace of grey at the sides. He was strolling past with that easy, rangy stride of his, James Lacey without a care in the world.
    ‘I’d love to go,’ she said. ‘See you then.’
    When Agatha got home, the phone was ringing and she picked up the receiver. Jack Pomfret’s voice sounded down the line. ‘Agatha, Agatha, I can explain . . .’
    Agatha slammed the receiver back on its stand. The phone immediately began to ring again.
    She snatched it up. ‘Look, bugger off, you useless con,’ she snarled. ‘If you think –’
    ‘Mrs Raisin, it’s me, Bill.’
    ‘Oh! I told you to call me Agatha.’
    ‘Sorry. Agatha. So business wasn’t business?’
    ‘No,’ said Agatha curtly.
    ‘Pity. What about dinner tonight?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You, me, dinner.’
    Bill Wong was in his twenties, so any invitation to dinner was prompted by pure friendship. Nonetheless she was flattered and almost tempted to dump the vet. But the vet was nearer her age.
    ‘I’ve got a date, Bill. What about next week?’
    ‘Right. I’ll probably see you before then. Who’s your date with? Lacey?’
    ‘No, the vet.’
    ‘Out of the frying pan into the fire.’
    ‘What the hell does that mean? You mean he’s after my money ? Well, let me tell you, Bill Wong, that a lot of men find me attractive.’
    ‘Sure, sure. Talking off the top of my head. See you soon. Only joking. He’s probably loaded.’
    Agatha tried on one dress after the other, gave up and changed into an old skirt and blouse, was about to leave and hurried back indoors to put on the body stocking, the Armani dress, the pearls, and gummed on a pair of false eyelashes she had bought in London.
    James Lacey saw her drive off. He noticed that she no longer went slowly past his house, looking eagerly out of the car window.
    Agatha drove along the Fosse to Mircester, an old cobbled town dominated by a great medieval abbey. She found the restaurant without difficulty. It was more like a dingy shop with closed curtains rather than a restaurant, but she was sure all would be warmth and elegance inside.
    The Stavros Restaurant came as a bit of a shock to her when she walked inside. There was cracked linoleum on the floor and checked plastic table-cloths covered the tables. A few rather dingy enlarged photographs of views of Greece, the Acropolis, Delphi, and so on stared down from the walls.
    Paul Bladen rose to meet Agatha. He was wearing his old tweeds and an open-necked shirt.
    ‘You look very grand,’ he said by way of greeting.
    ‘I didn’t know it would be such a . . . quaint . . . restaurant,’ said Agatha, sitting down.
    ‘The food makes up for the decor.’ He poured her a glass of retsina from a carafe, and Agatha took a swig, mentally damning it as lighter fuel but hoping the alcohol content was