Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

over all the arrangements. The weather forecast was doubtful. Showers were expected but not due to arrive until the following evening, when the fête would be all over.
    Agatha and Roy sat out in the garden of her cottage with tall, cold drinks. ‘Anyone been trying to get hold of you?’ asked Roy lazily.
    ‘I’d better go in and check the Call Minder,’ said Agatha. ‘In a minute.’
    ‘So you and James are definitely finished?’
    ‘It was all over a long time ago. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll go and check for messages.’
    Agatha went in and dialled her code. How many times had she dialled those digits, hoping to hear a message from James. ‘You have three messages,’ said the prissy voice. ‘Do you want to hear them?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Agatha. It was no use shouting, ‘Of course I want to hear them, you stupid bitch,’ because the computer rejected insults.
    The first message was from Robina Toynbee. She sounded strained. ‘Please phone me, Mrs Raisin. It is very important.’
    The second message was from Portia, the Freemonts’s elegant secretary. She did not like Agatha and her voice was thin and cold. ‘Please liaise with Mr Peter at the management tent at nine a.m.’
    The third message was from The Pretty Girls’ agent. ‘Disaster, isn’t it? Of course they won’t be there. Can you believe it? How could they destroy success just like that?’
    Agatha looked up the agent’s office number, but got the ‘engaged’ signal. She called to Roy. ‘I can’t make head or tail of a message from Carol, The Pretty Girls’ agent, and her line’s engaged. She says they won’t be there and they’ve destroyed their success.’
    ‘Put on the television. It’s near the hour.’
    Agatha put on Sky, and they sat down in front of it, both of them with their backs rigid and their eyes staring at the screen.
    It was the very first news item. Police had raided a house in Fulham where The Pretty Girls had been giving a party and had seized large quantities of Ecstasy, heroin, uppers and pot. Pretty Girl Sue, the leader of the group, had been found stuffed in a cupboard, unconscious from an overdose. Then followed a brief history of the pop group, whose fame had been built up on their clean family image.
    ‘What’ll we do?’ said Agatha, her face white. ‘We can’t get anyone else at this late date.’
    ‘We’re stuck with Lord Pendlebury,’ said Roy.
    ‘But don’t you see what this means?’ howled Agatha. ‘The press will not turn up, not the nationals, only the locals. I didn’t bother a last-minute chase-up of the press because of The Pretty Girls. We’d better start now. What do I say?’
    ‘Christ knows,’ said Roy. ‘Hint at another murder. Hint at a demonstration.’
    Agatha began to phone up every newspaper and television station. She said things like, ‘I hope those animal-rights people don’t wreck the place. Hundreds are threatening to demonstrate. We’ve had one murder at Ancombe. I hope we don’t have another.’ When she got tired, Roy took over.
    Then Agatha phoned Guy. ‘I saw it on the news,’ he said. ‘Let’s just hope we get something out of it. It isn’t your fault, Agatha.’
    As if to complete the disaster, when Agatha and Roy awoke the next morning, a steady drenching rain was falling from lowering skies.
    Roy tried to console her. ‘You made arrangements for rain, Aggie. Remember? All the events can take place in the marquees.’
    ‘But we were to march to the spring behind the village band,’ mourned Agatha, ‘and I pictured it all sunny. Now all we’ll get’s a straggling row of umbrella-covered people.’
    ‘We can only do our best,’ sighed Roy.
    Agatha expected the Freemont brothers to blame her for the weather, but they both seemed quite calm and cheerful. ‘Everything looks quite jolly,’ said Guy, ‘and loads of people are beginning to arrive.’
    ‘What about the press?’
    ‘They’re already getting liquored up in the press tent.’
    ‘I’d better go and join them. Come along, Roy.’
    Entering the press tent, Agatha’s expert eye ranged over the assembled journalists and her heart sank. There was the Birmingham Mercury – good paper, that – the Cotswold Journal , the Gloucester Echo , Midlands Television and so on, all local. Where were the nationals?
    She moved among them, chatting brightly away. Lord Pendlebury would open the fête at eleven in the main tent, then everyone would have a chance to buy things at