Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

Smith will look shifty and Mr Smith will say, ‘Actually, mine’s broken as well.’
    At last, nagged by his wife, Mr Jones goes and knocks on Mr Smith’s door.
    When Mr Smith answers the door, Mr Jones shouts, ‘Fuck you and your lawn-mower,’ and walks away.
    So when Agatha barked at Mr John that she wanted her hair cut, she blushed and felt ridiculous when he said mildly, ‘There’s no need to shout, Agatha.’
    He set about snipping busily. Agatha glanced about the busy salon. It was done in American in Paris Brothel. Gilt mirrors, curtains with bobbles separating the rooms, Toulouse-Lautrec posters. Mr John wore a white coat like an American dentist. His assistants wore pink smocks.
    ‘I heard a funny thing when I was in the toilet,’ Agatha began.
    ‘That sounds like the beginning of a dirty joke.’
    ‘No, really. I heard a woman say something like, “I can’t go on. You’ve got to let me off the hook.” She was answered by some man. Then she said, “I’ll kill you.”’
    ‘It’s probably the couple who run the shop next door,’ he said. ‘They’re always quarrelling. Their back shop is on the other side of our backyard and voices carry.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Agatha, a little disappointed that what had sounded liked an intriguing mystery was only a marital quarrel. ‘Are you married yourself?’
    ‘I was once,’ said Mr John. Those incredibly blue eyes of his glittered with humour. ‘Didn’t last long. Now I am free to enjoy the company of beautiful women. Speaking of which, when are you going to have dinner with me?’
    ‘Tonight,’ said Agatha, confident that he would not be free to make it.
    ‘Tonight’s fine,’ he said. ‘Give me your address and I’ll pick you up at eight.’
    He put down his scissors and reached for a notepad. Agatha told him where she lived and he wrote it down. Agatha began to feel as nervous as a teenager. Would he expect her to have sex with him? She surreptitiously glanced at her wristwatch. She would be home before the salon closed. She could always phone and say something had come up.
    But when her hair was blow-dried into a simple shorter style she felt a wave of gratitude for this magician.
    And when she got home and felt the silence, the loneliness of the cottage settling round her, as suffocating as the humid heat, she decided that she would be mad to throw away the chance of dinner with a handsome man.
    If the climate had changed, thought Agatha, and hot summers were going to become the norm, she would need to think about getting air-conditioning. She had read that to install air-conditioning cost twenty thousand pounds. It was two thousand for a portable unit. The last time she had visited America, she had noticed air-conditioners sticking out of windows of ordinary houses. Surely the average American family could not afford, say, thirty thousand dollars for air-conditioning or even three thousand for a portable unit.
    Her cats lay stretched out on the kitchen floor, lethargic in the heat. She sat down on the floor next to them and stroked their warm fur. Where was James Lacey, and would he ever come back again?
    She was flooded with such yearning that she let out a small moan. Depression settled down on her once more.
    She sat there miserably until a glance at the clock showed her that she would need to hurry if she was to be ready on time.
    Mr John took her to a French restaurant in the village of Blockley, which was only a few miles from Carsely.
    ‘I still can’t understand why an expert like you should settle for Evesham of all places,’ said Agatha. ‘You are good enough to compete with the best in London.’
    ‘What’s wrong with Evesham?’ he teased. ‘Evesham is the cradle of democracy.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘Well, Simon de Montfort.’
    Agatha looked blank.
    ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester!’
    ‘No,’ said Agatha with all the irritation one feels on being made to feel ignorant of historical facts, or any facts, for that matter.
    ‘You’ve heard of King John and the Magna Carta?’
    ‘Yes, got that at school.’
    ‘It was to curb the power of the king. It didn’t really work. Both John and his son, Henry the Third, broke the charter whenever they could and only adhered to it when the barons threatened and complained. So they had to find a better way of making the king keep his word. In 1258, King Henry agreed to the Provisions of Oxford, which set up a permanent council