Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

be here any minute and then the heavy mob should make it, traffic willing, in about an hour and a half. We’re going to be busy. Hold on a minute, Aggie. Let’s have a drink and sit quietly. I don’t know about you, but right now I hate this effing job and I want to go and join the Peace Corps.’
    ‘You know, you’re quite a decent fellow, Roy. I was thinking pretty much the same thing.’
    ‘Marry me?’
    Agatha laughed. ‘You don’t really mean that. I’ve already had brandy. I’d better stick to that. It’s going to be a long day.’
    Roy poured two brandies. ‘Listen to that rain. Getting worse. Oh, my gawd, we told the nationals that there would be dark doings. The police are going to think we, or the Freemonts, bumped off that poor woman for publicity.’
    ‘Bit far-fetched. But I tell you one thing for sure, Roy. I’ve gone off Guy Freemont. Oh, I know he’s got a business to save, but he could at least have got the police and an ambulance instead of handing me his mobile and telling me to get the nationals.’
    ‘Were you sweet on him?’
    ‘A bit. Maybe – no. I was flattered, him being so much younger and so good-looking and what with James snubbing me at every turn and then going off and investigating on his own. None of it seems important now. I didn’t like Robina, but who would do this to her, and why? She had been getting those threatening letters and yet she wouldn’t show them to the police.’
    ‘Talking about the police, you’d better run off your deathless prose. They’ll be with us soon. Did you see any of your suspects around? I mean, it must have happened just before the procession set off.’
    ‘No. I wasn’t really looking for them. Just glad that none of them had come up to insult me.’
    Roy plugged his printer into Agatha’s computer.
    As the speech began to churn out, the press tent began to fill up. Voices were soon heard on mobiles, laptops placed among the bottles and glasses.
    ‘Water of Life,’ Agatha heard one reporter shout down the phone. ‘Water of Death would be a good headline.’
    Portia appeared beside Agatha. Her tweed suit, thought Agatha sourly, looked as if it had been painted on. How she managed to get it so tight and yet so smooth must be some miracle of tailoring. ‘Have you got Mr Peter’s speech?’ she asked.
    Agatha gathered up the pages from the printer tray and handed them to her. ‘I suggest that Guy makes this speech.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He’s better-looking. Look good on television.’
    Portia leaned forward and whispered, ‘Don’t you find your infatuation with Guy a little sad at your age?’
    ‘Piss off,’ said Agatha furiously.
    ‘What was that about?’ asked Roy.
    ‘Never mind. Have we phoned everyone?’
    ‘Yes, and with this lot telling their news desks, and their news desks telling London, I should think everyone knows. It’ll be out on the radio news anyway.’
    The rest of the day passed in a blur of hectic activity for Agatha. Peter Freemont made the speech she had written. There were cameras everywhere, flashing and clicking. Television reporters did their job, which had everyone they could think of making a statement, preceded by the eternal TV film cliche´ of having the interviewee walking. Why, Agatha wondered, did people have to be seen walking before they faced the cameras?
    Boom microphones, oblong and furry, were held above heads. The rain drummed relentlessly down. Children, thwarted of their performance in the talent competition, screamed and cried if they were very young and moodily sulked and dug up chunks of grass with their Doc Martens if they were older.
    To Agatha’s horror, she came across Lord Pendlebury making a statement to the press. ‘It’s all the fault of incomers,’ he said. ‘Nasty people. Never had this trouble when people who belonged in the cities stayed in the cities.’
    She quickly moved in front of him and said loudly, ‘We owe much to Lord Pendlebury for lending his support to the launch of Ancombe Water. He will agree with me that anything that brings business and jobs to a rural area is welcome. Do you know that the Ancombe Water Company gave first priority in jobs to the villagers of Ancombe?’
    And so on, until the disgruntled lord shuffled off and the press yawned.
    Finally she and Roy had to sit down in a police trailer facing Bill Wong.
    ‘Now, you two,’ he said severely, ‘what on earth were you about, hinting to the press that something awful was going