Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

village. She could not regret the driving, hard-bitten years building up a successful public relations firm, for she was now comfortably off.
    The very fact that she had admitted to herself that she was frightened made the fear begin to ebb. She turned back to her rented car. They would all know the number plate now and be able to recognize it. It might be an idea to swap it for another.
    She drove back over the mountains and east to Kyrenia, again without stopping at the villa. Mehmet at Atlantic Cars was just closing up his small office when she arrived.
    ‘I would like to change the car,’ said Agatha.
    ‘What’s up with the one you’ve got?’
    Agatha looked at him thoughtfully. She did not want to go into a long explanation about how someone was trying to murder her and so she wanted another car that would not be immediately recognizable as the one she drove.
    ‘Ashtray full?’ she suggested.
    He grinned and shrugged, as if inured to the vagaries and whims of tourists. He selected a car key, changed the paperwork and led her to a car across the road.
    Feeling more positive than she had all day, Agatha drove back to the villa at last.
    To her surprise, there was no sign of Charles, nor did he seem to have left a note.
    She made herself coffee and a sandwich, not feeling very hungry. She then went upstairs, undressed and went to bed. She began to read but could not really concentrate.
    She found herself missing Charles and reluctantly remembering his love-making, what she could remember. It had been warm and pleasant. It was a pity she was so much older than he.
    At last, she switched out the light after looking at the clock. Midnight. Where was Charles? She turned on her side and fell asleep.
    Agatha awoke with a start as she heard the door opening downstairs. She was about to call out, ‘Charles!’ when she heard the sound of a female giggle and Charles’s voice, saying, ‘Shhh! You’ll wake up Aggie.’
    ‘Who’s Aggie?’ whispered the other voice.
    ‘My aunt,’ said Charles.
    Agatha lay as stiff as a board. She heard them both come up the stairs, giggling and whispering. Then they went into Charles’s room. More whispering, more giggling and then the unmistakable sounds of love-making.
    Agatha put the pillow over her head to try to block out the sounds.
    In the morning, Agatha awoke and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and went reluctantly downstairs. She had no right to complain about Charles’s making love to anyone else, and yet it was the very fact he had described her as his aunt which had hurt so dreadfully, had made her feel old.
    Charles was sitting at a table in the garden, as smooth and tailored as ever.
    He hailed her with a cheery greeting of ‘Where did you get to yesterday?’
    ‘Here and there,’ said Agatha, sitting down. ‘Where is she?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The woman you bedded last night.’
    ‘Oh, her. Long gone.’
    ‘Who was she?’
    ‘I went out round the clubs and pubs to look for you and picked her up. English tourist. Emily. Very nice.’
    ‘Will you be seeing her again?’
    ‘Shouldn’t think so. She gets her plane home today.’
    ‘Easy come, easy go, as far as you’re concerned, Charles.’
    ‘Want some coffee, Aggie?’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    Agatha sat under the orange tree and stared out to sea. It was a clear day and the Turkish mainland was a thin line on the horizon. She felt diminished. She had begun to think she had meant more than an easy lay to Charles, but obviously not.
    He came back with the coffee and put it down in front of her. ‘Why so grim, Aggie?’
    ‘I heard myself being described last night as your aunt.’
    ‘Had to. If she was going to actually meet you, I would have had to say you were my sister. You’re too glam to be an aunt.’
    ‘You’re soft-soaping me.’
    ‘A little bit. Cheer up. Where did you go?’
    Agatha told him about her conversation with Trevor.
    ‘Still think he did it?’ asked Charles.
    ‘I wouldn’t like to think so now, funnily enough. It was an awful story. Poor Maggie. It was those gloves he mentioned. I kept thinking about his first wife and her whole nice, orderly life being shattered.’
    ‘People think high tragedy belongs to the Greeks and Shakespeare, but mark my words, Aggie, it’s alive and well in the suburbs of England.’
    ‘I still think he did it,’ said Agatha, ‘and I think he’s on the point of cracking up and confessing.’
    ‘And you want to be the one to whom he