Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

She’s the spitting image of Mary.’
    I’ll kill you, Roy, thought Agatha, who had been hoping to keep back that bit of information.
    ‘But Bill said something about the neighbours having seen them having dinner together.’
    ‘But Aggie didn’t find Struthers’s body until near midnight. Mary could have driven over from Mircester, bumped him off somewhere and dumped the body at the spring. Or she could have been helped by her sister.’
    ‘I don’t like that idea,’ said James. ‘I would like to know more about the Freemonts.’
    ‘You can’t think it’s them,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Why not? They may have known Struthers was going to vote against the water.’
    ‘But what about Robina?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘Well, she could have changed her mind.’
    ‘Too late to do that,’ Roy pointed out. ‘She must have signed something and that speech of hers – or rather the notes for it – if there had been anything about stopping the water company, it would have been in those notes and the police would have said something.’
    ‘True.’ James negotiated a bend too quickly and Agatha was thrown against him. She struggled upright. That touch of her shoulder against James’s had sent an electrical charge through her body. ‘What is the background of the Freemonts, Agatha?’
    ‘Business in Hong Kong. Rag trade. Moved over here.’
    ‘I know all that. Anything else? Either of them married or been married?’
    ‘Guy isn’t married,’ said Agatha quickly. ‘I don’t know about Peter.’
    ‘How do you know Guy isn’t married?’
    ‘I just know,’ said Agatha crossly. ‘Oh, look out!’
    James braked suddenly. A small deer darted in front of the car and vanished into the dappled shade of a wood at the side of the road.
    James drove on more slowly. ‘I mean,’ Agatha continued, ‘he hasn’t tried to hide me off in obscure restaurants.’
    ‘His wife need not be living in the area,’ said James.
    ‘I still think the murderer is one of the parish council,’ said Roy ‘They all seem pretty nasty.’
    ‘If there is one thing I hate,’ said Agatha, ‘it’s environmental groups, them with their open-toed sandals and open-toed minds.’
    ‘They can be a pain.’ James accelerated along the Fosse. ‘But someone’s got to put the brakes on some of the time. Do you know what they did with some of those lovely old Georgian houses in Mayfair? They’re supposed to preserve the façade, so they take down the building behind in such a way that the whole thing collapses. Oops! Sorry, they say, and build some horrible modern box instead. Then take Greenpeace.’
    ‘Please,’ muttered Roy sotto-voce from the back seat.
    ‘They often come across as a bunch of publicity seekers who never actually do anything constructive, and yet it was their complaints about the filth of British beaches that started the clean-up.’
    ‘Interesting discussion.’ Agatha sighed. ‘It’s not getting us any nearer finding out who murdered Robina or Struthers.’
    ‘Could you not,’ said James, ‘get them all together in one room? I mean, Agatha, as a rep of the water company, you could send out invitations to a get-together. A sort of bury-the-hatchet meeting? Offer them champagne and a buffet. Something that’ll draw them.’
    ‘It might work.’ Agatha thought quickly. ‘They’ll all feel under suspicion and that might draw them together. I’ll think about it. I know, my garden’s looking pretty nice. I could hold a garden party.’
    ‘I’ll pay half,’ said James. ‘I shouldn’t think the water company would stump up.’
    ‘They might.’ Agatha sounded cautious. ‘I mean, they still want me to work for them, so I might put it to them that it would be a goodwill gesture. In fact, after we’re finished at the police station, we could drive over to the company and I’ll suggest it.’
    So much for competing with James, thought Roy. But he knew if Agatha worked a little longer for the company, then his firm would get a substantial cut and he would be the golden boy.
    To Agatha it seemed strange that she and James, who had only recently been at loggerheads, should be conversing so amiably. But then James had always been like that.
    As she made her statement at the police station, she could not help remembering the other times she had made statements to the police along with James. Did he think of that? Did he think ever of the times they had made love?
    It was always hard to tell with James.
    After they