Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

don’t think I want to be seen out with him, I feel so battered. I think I’ll run over to Marks and Spencer in Cheltenham and get something and have a meal here.’
    ‘Hasn’t he booked a table at some restaurant?’
    ‘If he has, he can cancel it. I want peace and privacy to tell him that the affair is over.’
    ‘So you were having an affair!’
    ‘Does that shock you?’
    ‘No. No I suppose not. I suppose it’s because we’re friends, I never think of you in that way.’ Bill laughed. ‘Rather like finding out one’s mother is having an affair.’
    A picture of Bill’s sour mother rose before Agatha’s eyes. She wondered whether it would not be better to forget about love and romance, to forget about dieting and the beautician and get fat and frumpy and wear large tentlike dresses and eat everything smothered in double cream.
    She suddenly wished that Roy would change his mind and come down. She would cancel her date and they would both go out on an eating binge.
    ‘Ever find that cat?’
    ‘No, no white Persians anywhere.’
    Agatha rested her chin on her hands. ‘I’ve been thinking about all of them, the parish councillors. At first it seemed incredible that any one of such a bunch of worthy citizens should commit murder, but once you start scraping below the surface, there’s all these resentments and jealousies and passions. Find out anything about where Robina got her notes typed?’
    ‘No, we’ve hit a dead end on that one as well.’
    ‘I’m really beginning to think it was Andy Stiggs.’
    ‘The vice-chairman. Why him?’
    ‘He seems a violent man. He had a life-long resentment against Robert Struthers because Struthers married the love of his life and Andy married a shrew on the rebound and blamed Robert for that. Then he really hated the idea of the water company, and furthermore he thought he ought to have been chairman.’
    ‘We’ve got nothing on him. That’s the trouble with this lot. There’s nothing in any of their backgrounds that points to the character of a murderer.’
    ‘There is Mary Owen, however, paying that group to make trouble.’
    ‘She’s certainly a nasty piece of work.’
    ‘They’re all nasty,’ said Agatha. ‘In fact, I have endured so many threats and insults that you’ll be glad to learn that I am not going to do any more investigating.’
    ‘Now, that’s sensible, Agatha. The police may seem to be moving very slowly, but we’re thorough and we’ll get there in the end. Although I must admit I’m tired and I’m taking the rest of the day off.’
    Agatha drove into Cheltenham and bought food for dinner: salmon mousse for a starter, duckling in orange sauce – check the packet to make sure it could go in the microwave – and sticky toffee pudding. She also bought some microwavable vegetables and a packet of potatoes in a cheese sauce. She wasn’t quite sure whether potatoes au gratin went with duckling in orange sauce, but she did not feel like buying real ones.
    She then loaded the groceries in her car and walked back along the Promenade, looking in the expensive boutiques, hoping to spy some dress which would miraculously take years off her, but without success.
    When she returned home, she put the packets of food in the fridge and went upstairs to lie down for an hour and read. But she fell fast asleep, not waking until six in the evening.
    She awoke with a start and let out a faint scream when she saw the time on her bedside clock. She went downstairs to lay the table in the dining-room and to vacuum the sitting-room and set the fire ready to be lit.
    Then she went upstairs again and had a bath and began to search through her stock of clothes for something elegant but comfortable to wear. She finally found a long purple caftan with gold embroidery which she hadn’t worn in years. It would do. It was loose and comfortable and yet looked like a dinner gown.
    She then made up her face carefully and brushed her hair till it shone.
    Agatha was about to rise from the dressing-table when she gave an exclamation of irritation. The clothes she had been wearing the day before were thrown in a heap in the corner of the room. It was not as if she expected Guy to see the inside of her bedroom again, but still, they ought to be in the laundry basket.
    She picked up her underwear and a navy blouse. She tossed the lot into the laundry basket. Then in the bright light of the bathroom – one-hundred-watt bulb, all the better to see you with –