Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

was answered by his aunt.
    ‘Oh, Mrs Raisin,’ she fluted when Agatha had identified herself. ‘Charles is busy with our guests. Is it terribly important?’
    ‘I have found out something that might interest him.’
    ‘Wait a moment and I’ll see if he can come to the phone.’
    The phone was in the draughty, cavernous wood-panelled hall of Charles’s home. Agatha could hear the aunt’s heels clopping across the parquet, then the door of the drawing-room opened, a burst of noise and laughter, door closed, silence again.
    Charles took so long to answer the phone that Agatha almost hung up. But then she heard the door of the drawing-room open again, that burst of noise and laughter, and then Charles’s voice: ‘Hello, Aggie.’
    ‘I thought you might have phoned,’ said Agatha crossly.
    ‘Oh, you mean our case?’
    No, I don’t mean our case, Agatha wanted to howl. Don’t you remember making love to me?
    ‘Yes, I’ll tell you what I’ve found out.’
    Charles listened and then said, ‘Seems you do better on your own.’
    ‘Why I phoned,’ Agatha pressed on, ‘is I wondered when we’re going to take that trip to Portsmouth?’
    ‘Can’t.’
    ‘Why? Do you think it’s a waste of time?’
    ‘No, not that. The most wonderful thing has happened. There’s this girl here. Fantastic. I’m in love.’
    ‘In that case,’ said Agatha evenly, ‘I won’t keep you.’
    She hung up and sat down on a chair beside the phone and stared miserably into space.
    The silence of the cottage suddenly seemed oppressive. And she was alone. And out there was the maniac who had killed Mrs Darry so brutally. No one wanted Agatha Raisin, except perhaps some murderer who wanted to silence her. There had been a murder committed in Carsely, home of that famous detective, Agatha Raisin, and yet not a reporter had called. But then the police had claimed the credit before. Still, Agatha Raisin had found the body. They probably hadn’t told the press that.
    She slowly dialled Roy’s number. ‘I’m sorry I was so rude,’ she said when he answered. ‘You are most welcome if you want to come.’
    ‘I’ll be on the train that gets in around eleven-thirty in the morning.’
    ‘Is that Great Western or Thames Turbo?’
    ‘Don’t ask me, sweetie. I was born in the days of British Rail. Why?’
    ‘It’s just the trains sometimes get cancelled. If you get stuck, take the train to Oxford and I’ll pick you up there.’
    ‘Righto. See you.’
    Agatha put down the phone, suddenly grateful for Roy and his thick skin. And if he had a few days free, then perhaps he might like to go to Portsmouth with her. She marvelled at the insensitivity of Charles. How on earth could you bed one woman and then tell her soon afterwards that you were in love with another?
    She remembered when she was a little girl going out to play with a gang of boys who had turned nasty and thrown stones at her. She had run home to her mother, blood streaming down her face. ‘I told you not to play with the wrong children,’ her mother had raged. ‘Now, see what happens?’
    And I’ve never learned my lesson, thought Agatha sadly. I’ve been playing with the wrong children all my life.
    It was a blustery day with red leaves swirling down into the station car park when Roy’s train cruised in, miraculously on time. Great fluffy clouds sailed across a pale blue sky.
    Roy kissed the air on either side of Agatha’s face, making mwaa , mwaa sounds.
    ‘Lovely to see you, Aggie.’ Agatha experienced a pang. Charles also called her Aggie.
    ‘You’re looking well,’ lied Agatha, privately thinking that Roy looked as seedy and unhealthy as ever with his lank hair, white, pinched face, too-tight jeans and bomber jacket.
    ‘I’ll be healthier after a bit of country air. Tell me how you’re getting on with the hairdresser murder.’
    As she drove him back to Carsely, Agatha outlined everything she had discovered, but left Charles’s name out of it. She ended up by saying, ‘Don’t feel like a trip to Portsmouth, do you? I feel if I dug into his past I might find something.’
    ‘Give me a day to relax and then maybe we’ll go for it.’
    ‘How’s business?’
    ‘Business is very good. In fact, I’ve got another rise. There’s a new restaurant in Stratford called the Gold Duck. I took the liberty of booking us a table for dinner.’
    At Agatha’s cottage, Roy took his bag up to the spare room and then joined Agatha in the kitchen.
    ‘So