Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

don’t tell the police that. They don’t know.’
    Maggie’s face softened. ‘So you were a victim as well. Come in.’
    ‘Not really . . .’ began Agatha, but Charles pressed her arm warningly as they followed Maggie into the house, as if to say, let her think you’re a fellow sufferer.
    The living-room was untidy and dusty. ‘I had a call from a policewoman,’ said Maggie. ‘Sit down. She was only checking her way through the list of customers and when I read that his house had burned down, I prayed my letters had gone up with it. I thought, you see, with all the rain that day that they might not, but the policewoman told me that he had used Calor gas and kept spare cylinders in the basement. The gas exploded. She said even the stuff in the filing cabinet had been destroyed.’
    I didn’t even see the filing cabinet, thought Agatha.
    ‘So what happened between you and Mr John?’ she asked. ‘I am Agatha Raisin and this is Sir Charles Fraith.’
    ‘Well, Mrs Raisin . . .’
    ‘Call me Agatha.’
    ‘That’s a name you don’t hear much these days,’ said Maggie. ‘I had a friend called Agatha but she changed her name to Helen. Said she couldn’t bear people calling her Aggie.’
    ‘I know how she feels,’ said Agatha, casting a fulminating glance at Charles.
    ‘I was so glad when I heard he was dead,’ said Maggie. ‘I could’ve murdered him. But I’m such a rabbit. Things weren’t going too well in my marriage. Pete was a good husband, I suppose, but always a dab hand at nasty little putting-down remarks. Any time we went out to the pub with friends, I knew there would be a postmortem on the road home. “Why did you say that, you made a fool of yourself, you looked like a tart,” that sort of thing. But that’s marriage for you. Then Mr John started to ask me out, meetings on the sly. Pete was out at work and I was enjoying the school holidays. He made me feel like a princess. I began to complain about Pete to him. He was very sympathetic. He said a lot of women were stuck in lousy marriages because they hadn’t the funds to leave. I said I had always had my own money. My parents died in a car crash and left me comfortably off. He exhilarated me. I saw for the first time that it might be possible to find the courage to leave Pete. This is my house.’
    She fell silent.
    ‘Then what happened?’ prompted Agatha.
    ‘He made love to me and I felt beautiful.’ Agatha felt a slight pang of regret that she hadn’t given the hairdresser a fling. ‘Then, after that, he was suddenly too busy to see me or even to do my hair. I was obsessed, frantic. The school holidays were coming to an end and I knew I wouldn’t have much freedom. So I wrote to him, reminding him of our love, of our afternoon of love.
    ‘When he said he wanted to see me again, I was overjoyed. We met at those tea gardens on the river. He told me he wanted money, five thousand pounds. If I didn’t give it to him, he would send my letter to my husband. I hated him in that moment. I didn’t believe for a minute he would do it. So I told him to do his worst.
    ‘I felt guilty about the way I had cheated on Pete over this useless, evil man. The next day, the very next day, Pete was off work with a cold. The post hadn’t arrived when I went out to work. So Pete got the letter. John must have posted it right after I left him the day before.
    ‘When I got home, Pete had packed up and left. My letter was on the table and Pete left me his own letter, calling me all sorts of names . . . slut, whore.’ Her voice broke.
    ‘I’m so lonely without him. I never thought I would be. I used to dream day and night of getting my freedom and now I’ve got it, and it sucks.’
    She began to cry.
    Agatha handed her a pile of tissues from a box on the dusty table. Maggie blew her nose and wiped her eyes.
    ‘Where is your husband now?’ asked Charles.
    ‘Over at his mother’s in Honeybourne.’
    ‘Did either you or your husband go to the police?’
    ‘Oh, no! I burnt my letter and Pete’s. And when I read about the murder I was frantic. I thought Pete had done it. But it was poisoning and Pete would have been more likely to club him to death. My Pete has a violent temper.’
    ‘Perhaps we should have a word with your husband,’ suggested Charles, thinking of Agatha’s description of the bruised face.
    Agatha expected Maggie to exclaim in horror, but she pressed her trembling hands together and said, ‘If you could. He won’t