Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

overhead.
    They quickened their steps but soon the first drops began to fall and then the deluge came. By the time they finally reached Agatha’s cottage, they were soaked to the skin but stone-cold sober.
    After they had dried themselves and changed their clothes, Roy said he would set about making dinner, but Agatha, fearing that Roy would fuss about the kitchen, using every pot, and that they would probably end up eating at midnight, insisted on going to the pub.
    When they arrived back again, she realized she had not checked her British Telecom Call Minder to see if there were any messages. The lady whose voice is on the Call Minder always seemed to Agatha an irritating relic of the days when women took elocution lessons. It was a governessy sort of eat-your-porridge-or-you-won’t-go-to-the-circus sort of voice. ‘Two messages,’ said this voice. ‘Would you like to hear them?’ Did anyone not want to hear messages? thought Agatha crossly.
    The first was from Guy Freemont. ‘Been trying to get hold of you. Call me.’
    The second was from Mary Owen. ‘I think it is time we had a talk, Mrs Raisin. Please call me.’
    Agatha looked at the clock. It was midnight. Too late to call. They had to walk back to Ancombe in the morning to pick up the car. She would see Mary Owen then.
    As she fell asleep that night, her last thoughts as usual were about James. Where was he?
    James, a very different-looking James, had earlier that week joined a meeting of Save Our Foxes in the back room of an Irish pub in Rugby. His black hair had been dyed blond, he had three ear-rings in one ear, and he was wearing a camouflage jacket, dirty jeans and large ex-army boots. Frightened that his accent might prove him to be an impostor, he had mostly communicated with his new companions in grunts.
    He felt that if he could find out who had been paying the protesters for that demonstration at the spring, he might have a clue to the identity of the murderer.
    The chairperson – stupid, stupid word, thought James with true Agatha savagery: there was either a chairman or a chairwoman, and what was wrong with that? – the chair thing , then, was a thin, neurotic woman with tangled locks, a sallow, hungry face, and large, rather beautiful eyes. She was called Sybil. No one used second names. James himself had become Jim.
    The purpose of this meeting was because one of the members had noticed in the local newspaper that a car salesman in Coventry was to hold a barbecue in his garden on his fortieth birthday. To celebrate his ‘gypsy’ heritage, he planned to serve his guests barbecued hedgehogs. A man called Trevor pointed out that hedgehogs were not a protected species, to which Sybil shouted, ‘He’ll find out they are now!’ and got a round of applause. James covertly studied the group. They all looked militant. There was no sign of the mild-looking ones who had fronted the procession to the spring. Probably got frightened off. Nor, fortunately, was there any sign of the man who had tried to attack Agatha.
    His own presence had been accepted after only one question from Sybil. How had he learned of them? Someone up in Birmingham, James had grunted.
    The whole meeting was rather like a political rant. Sybil became very emotional over the plight of the hedgehogs. Why was it, James wondered, that nursery-book animals were always singled out for protection while things like spiders could be slaughtered with a free conscience?
    Or if they had learned of a barn where the farmer was about to exterminate rats, would they have mustered with the same passion? And the one burning question was: Who was paying for all this? For the meeting room, for the transport to various hunts and to the spring itself?
    There must be an office somewhere.
    The only member who made James uneasy was a large, burly young man with a shaven head and a skull and crossbones tattooed on it. He was called Zak, and James was uncomfortably aware of Zak’s eyes on him from time to time.
    At last the meeting was wound up. Sybil said a bus would pick them all up in the centre of Coventry on the Saturday at 2 p.m. and take them to the wicked car salesman’s barbecue.
    As they were shuffling out of the door, Zak took James by the elbow in a powerful grip. ‘I think we should find a place for a drink, mate,’ he said.
    ‘Got someone to see,’ muttered James.
    ‘They can wait,’ said Zak, not releasing his grip on James’s arm.
    Not wanting to attract attention by