Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

and stood with her thin arms folded, looking at him. Kylie was his second wife. She had been a pretty little blonde when he married her ten years ago, but now, he thought, glaring at her reflection in the mirror, she looked a fright, with dark roots showing in her blonde hair, and a skimpy T-shirt, skin-tight leggings and high-heeled shoes all accentuating her painful thinness. He tied a red scarf at the neck of his open-necked blue shirt.
    ‘Everything’s ready for you to play the big shot,’ said Kylie. ‘But I ain’t roasting them hedgehogs, no way.’
    ‘You wouldn’t know how to,’ sneered Mike. ‘I know, just like that, cos of my gypsy background.’
    ‘What gypsy background?’ said Kylie. ‘Your father’s a burglar and he’s still doing time.’
    ‘I’m talking about my grandparents. My grandmother was a gypsy.’ Mike took a swig of vodka from a glass on the dressing-table. His consumption of alcohol was awe-inspiring.
    It is a sad trait among American alcoholics to claim a Cherokee grandmother; among their British counterparts, it is a gypsy.
    Mike and Kylie Pratt lived in a neat bungalow among other neat bungalows, all almost identical with their ruched curtains at the windows and their manicured lawns.
    Mike went out carrying his glass, brushing past his wife. He heard the first car arrive. He had invited all the neighbours. He was not sure how hedgehogs should be roasted, but they were meat like any other animal, and should surely simply be salted and peppered and put on the barbecue.
    The day was fine, not a cloud in the sky. Feeling the lord of the manor, he advanced to meet the first of his guests.
    He had paid the butcher to skin the hedgehogs, and the little carcasses lay in a pathetic bunch on a table beside the barbecue. On other tables were bowls of salads, paper plates, cups, bottles and glasses.
    He felt at his best when dispensing drinks. The garden began to fill up. Voices were raised in the usual neighbourly salutations, ‘You a’right? I’m a’right.’ The women surrounded their men, listening eagerly as if they had not heard every word over the preceding years, prompting their spouses with little cries of ‘Ye-yes. Oh, yes.’
    Mike put the hedgehogs on the barbecue and poked at them with a long fork. Maybe he should have tried to cook one before. The smell was not very appetizing.
    And then the protesters erupted into the garden. ‘Murderer!’ screamed Sybil.
    Flushed with booze and outrage, Mike strode forward. ‘Get out of here, you hooligans.’ He punched Trevor on the arm. Trevor punched him on the nose and Mike fell back, with blood streaming down his face, while guests scattered and the television cameras whirred, for no protesters protested without informing the press of what they were about to do.
    Zak crouched down behind a bush and phoned for reinforcements, which he knew were waiting in a van around the corner.
    James had joined him. ‘Get out there and get yourself arrested,’ hissed Zak. ‘I’ll get you off.’
    So James added to the fun by sending the barbecue flying. Burning coals rolled across the lawn.
    Kylie leaned against the doorway of her house, sipping a drink, a little smile on her face. Mike’s birthday was turning out to be quite fun after all.

Chapter Five

    Agatha and Roy sloped around the house the next morning, both reluctant to walk even the few miles to Ancombe to tackle Mary Owen and to pick up the car.
    ‘Let’s see if there’s anything on the news,’ said Agatha, switching to Sky Television.
    ‘It’s not on the hour,’ complained Roy. ‘It’s eleven-twenty and it’s all that dreary sports.’
    ‘Only last for ten minutes,’ said Agatha, sitting down in front of the set clutching a cup of coffee.
    ‘There won’t be anything about the murder,’ said Roy.
    ‘Let’s see.’
    The sports finished, then the ads. Then both sat up straight as the news came on again and a voice said, ‘The barbecue of a Mr Mike Pratt of Coventry was the subject of attack yesterday by members of Save Our Foxes.’
    ‘It’s them,’ said Agatha eagerly.
    The voice went on to explain about the barbecuing of the hedgehogs. ‘Look at that blazing sunshine,’ complained Roy. ‘You’d think Coventry was at the other end of the earth instead of being in the Midlands like us. Why did we have to get soaked?’
    ‘Shh!’ hissed Agatha.
    A blond man with an ugly sneer on his face was pushing the barbecue over. Agatha stiffened.