Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

Did you hear about the murder?’
    ‘I was there.’
    ‘Jeez, that must have been awful. Tell me about it.’
    So Agatha did, hoping James was noticing her in the company of this good-looking man. She glanced across at James but his back was to her and he was talking to Olivia.
    At last Bert said, ‘Why not join me for dinner tonight? Or is there a Mr Raisin with you?’
    ‘No, and I would like dinner. Where?’
    ‘I’ll meet you in the hotel dining-room at eight.’
    Agatha got up and said goodbye to her new friend and strolled back to the table. She felt all her old confidence restored.
    ‘Olivia’s given me some sun-block,’ said James. ‘Sit down, Agatha, and I’ll put some on your shoulders. They’re turning bright red.’
    As he stroked on the cream with an impersonal hand, Agatha said to Olivia, ‘I’m sorry I flared up like that. But I’m still tired. We had a grilling from the police this morning.’
    ‘Yes, so did we,’ said Olivia. ‘We’re to go to Nicosia tomorrow for the official grilling.’
    ‘So are we,’ said Agatha. ‘But they must know none of us can have had anything to do with it.’
    ‘It’s those damned foreigners and their knives,’ growled Harry Tembleton.
    ‘They don’t think it was a knife,’ said Trevor. ‘They say it was something much thinner, like a kebab skewer.’
    Agatha had a sudden memory of Rose salaciously eating kebab off a skewer at the Grapevine. She wondered if a skewer had gone missing from the Grapevine.
    James said they should leave. By the time Agatha had put her beach dress on, she could feel her shoulders beginning to burn painfully. She told James about her idea of checking at the Grapevine to see if a skewer was missing.
    ‘I don’t think that’s much use,’ said James. ‘They sell them all over town. And any restaurant here is bound to have bundles of them in the kitchen. But we could go there for dinner tonight if you like.’
    ‘I’ve got a date.’
    They had reached the car. James turned and looked down at her.
    ‘A date? Who with?’
    ‘Some fellow I met at the pool.’
    He got into the car and slammed the door shut. Agatha went round to the passenger side and got in. They drove back to the villa in silence.
    Agatha went straight to her room when they arrived. She lay down on the bed, suddenly tired and, lulled by the roar of the Mediterranean, fell fast asleep.
    When she awoke, it was dark. She screwed her head around and looked at the luminous dial of her travelling alarm clock. Seven thirty! She would need to rush.
    There was no water in the bathroom and she felt sticky and grubby. She found a box of something called Fastwipes in her luggage for cleaning off make-up and used the whole box to wipe herself down. Her shoulders burnt like fire, but her face was getting a nice tan.
    She eased a short silk dress over her shoulders. Her legs were red, not brown, and almost as sore as her shoulders, but the thought of putting on tights made her shudder.
    She finally went down, calling to James. There was no reply and when she went outside, his car was gone.
    She drove along the now familiar road through Karaoğlanoğlu, noticing the police were out looking for anyone speeding. Two cars had been stopped. Agatha cruised past them virtuously at a low speed. Down past the army barracks, then the Jasmine Court Hotel and on into Kyrenia and round the new one-way system and down to the Dome. Following the example of the locals, she parked on the pavement in a side street and walked to the hotel.
    James was there, sitting with what she thought of coldly as ‘the murder suspects’. She nodded to them curtly and sailed past them to a table overlooking the sea, where Bert was rising to greet her.
    ‘I think I’ll sit here,’ said Agatha brightly. ‘I like to watch the sea.’ She turned her chair around so that her face was to the sea and her back was to James.
    ‘Have you been a widow long?’ asked Bert after he had ordered wine.
    ‘Not very long,’ said Agatha.
    ‘And do you miss him?’
    ‘No, it was a strange business. I had left him years ago and I thought he would have died of drink, but he only died quite recently.’ Agatha did not want to say her husband had been murdered in case this new beau thought she might be responsible for the murder of Rose.
    ‘What about you?’ she asked.
    ‘My wife died two years ago. I’ve been pretty lonely since then.’ He laughed. ‘And frustrated. I’m not one for casual