Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

speak to me and his mother takes all the calls and refuses to let me speak to him. Tell him I miss him. I mean, he wasn’t much company, but he was good at fixing things.’
    ‘Give us the address,’ said Charles, ‘and we’ll see what we can do.’
    ‘It’s ten, Parton Lane, Honeybourne. But you mustn’t tell the police about me! I’m falling apart as it is. All I want is Pete back. You never know what you’ve got until you haven’t got it any more.’
    If only James Lacey thought like that, mourned Agatha.
    As Charles and Agatha got in the car again, Charles looked at his watch and said, ‘Can’t be too long on this next call. I’ve got to take Josie out for dinner.’
    ‘We’ve got time,’ said Agatha. ‘Honeybourne’s not far.’
    They found the address quite easily. ‘Here goes,’ said Charles.
    The door was answered by a small, bent woman who peered up at them from under a thatch of grey hair.
    ‘Mrs Henderson?’ said Agatha.
    ‘Yes, and I’m not interested in buying anything.’
    ‘We’re not selling anything.’
    ‘We’ve come to see your son,’ said Charles.
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘Mrs Agatha Raisin and Sir Charles Fraith.’
    She scowled at them suspiciously and then retreated into the house. There was the sound of some altercation from the nether regions and then a large burly man filled the doorway. ‘Yes?’ he demanded truculently.
    How easy it would be to be a police detective, thought Agatha. Flash the identification and demand that they go indoors.
    ‘It’s about that hairdresser, John Shawpart,’ said Agatha.
    ‘What the hell’s it got to do with you?’
    ‘We wondered why you had beaten him up,’ said Charles, edging in front of Agatha.
    ‘You the police?’
    ‘No, we became involved in the case.’
    Pete Henderson roundly told Charles to go and perform an impossible anatomical act upon himself. The door began to close.
    ‘Maggie misses you,’ said Agatha desperately. ‘She really does.’
    The door stopped closing.
    ‘It’s her own fault,’ said Pete. ‘Slut.’
    ‘It was only one mistake,’ cajoled Agatha.
    ‘Serves her right,’ he growled. ‘Did she think any man would be interested in her? She should have known he was a blackmailer.’
    ‘But she was tricked,’ said Agatha. ‘Now she misses you and she’s frantic with worry.’
    A gleam of satisfaction replaced the anger in his eyes.
    ‘I hope she’s suffering,’ he said and slammed the door in their faces.
    ‘Well, what did we get from that?’ asked Agatha as they drove off.
    ‘I think we can be pretty sure he’s the one that beat John Shawpart up. Better run you home, Aggie. Got to meet Josie.’
    ‘I’ll wait up for you to hear your news.’
    ‘Well . . .’
    ‘You wouldn’t, Charles! A young girl like that!’
    ‘Don’t worry. She probably lives with her parents.’
    After Charles had left, Agatha planned to have a peaceful evening but Worcester CID called and took her through her statement, demanding this time to know why she had lied about driving past Shawpart’s house. Wearily Agatha said it was because murder made everyone feel guilty and she had not wanted to sound like one of those ghouls who haunt the scenes of disasters. By the time they left, she felt almost as if she had committed the murder herself.
    She had a hot bath and put on a night-dress and dressing-gown and sat in front of the television set, waiting for Charles to come home. She sometimes wondered if Charles regarded her as anything more than a sort of amusement to enliven his days. He was as neat and self-contained as a cat. Although he had temporarily moved in with her, he did not seem to take up any space at all.
    It was around midnight, when she was just falling asleep in the armchair, that she heard him driving up.
    She struggled to her feet and opened the door.
    ‘Not trying to seduce me, are you, Aggie?’ was Charles’s greeting as he surveyed her plain and serviceable dressing-gown worn over a high-necked cotton night-dress.
    ‘Come in and tell me about it.’
    Agatha led the way into the living-room and quickly switched off the television, where a rerun of Star Trek was showing, in case Charles decided to watch it.
    Charles poured himself a drink and sat down.
    ‘I’ve found out the identity of the slim, rabbity blonde.’
    ‘Who is she?’
    He brought out his small notebook. ‘Jessie Lang. Evesham girl. Josie said bitterly that she came in one day and made a hell of a