M Beaton - Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

Agatha ferreted in the freezer and took out a frost-encrusted package and deposited it in the microwave. She took it out when the bell pinged and noticed it was a Marks & Spencer’s lasagne. Could be worse, she thought, and turned the microwave on to full heat. After she had eaten, she cooked a couple of herring for her cats, not seeing the irony in a woman who would cook fresh food for her cats but not for herself.

AGATHA did not hear from Paul the next morning, and found herself reluctant to call on him or phone him. She was suffering from delayed shock over the death of Robin Barley and felt angry, guilty and obscurely responsible. Who would be the next to go because of her interference? The stage-door man, Freddy?

On impulse, she locked up her cottage and drove to London. She went to a beauticians in Bond Street that she had patronized in the old days when she was living in London, and when they told her they were fully booked became so cross and irritable that when the receptionist happened-“By a miracle, sweeties,” as she told her flatmates that evening, “I thought she was going to assault me!”-to receive a phone call cancelling an appointment in the middle of Agatha’s tirade, she gladly booked her in.

Agatha submitted herself to a full treatment of non-surgical face-lift, body wrap and leg wax before emerging some hours later feeling rejuvenated. She wandered around Fenwick’s and fell in love with a pink chiffon dress and bought it, despite the warning voices in her head telling her that at her age she would look like the late Barbara Cartland. For once, she enjoyed being back in London, enjoyed the buzz of being in a big city. She secured a table at one of London ’s most fashionable restaurants by dint of booking the table under the name of the Duchess of Cromarty. She finished a lavish meal with a portion of the restaurant’s famous chocolate cream pie and then made her way back to where she had parked her car, feeling that the meal had negated all the good of the body wrap. Her skirt felt tight at the waistband.

On the road home, a horrendous accident resulting in a tailback along the M40 caused her an hour’s delay. All the well-being she had experienced at escaping from Carsely left her. She fretted about her cats. She should never have left them locked up inside all day.

As she turned down the Carsely road, she warred with herself. One part of her mind was telling her to leave well alone. The other part was telling her that if she could find out anything about the murders, then it might cancel out some of the guilt she felt over the blunder of finding the secret passage and cleaning it up and over Robin’s death. As she got out of the car, she noticed that the thick curtains which covered her living-room windows were tightly closed. She must have forgotten to pull them back before she left.

She let herself into her cottage and paused in the darkness of the hall. No cats came to greet her. She put out her hand towards the light switch and then stared in horror at the closed door of her sitting-room. A light was shining from under the door. Terror made her behave stupidly. Instead of retreating to her car, driving off and calling the police, or running next door to get help from Paul, she seized a stout walking-stick from a stand by the door and flung open the door of the sitting-room.

Sir Charles Fraith was curled up asleep on the sofa, the cats on his lap. “How the hell did you get in here?” howled Agatha.

He opened his eyes and smiled and stretched with the same lazy insolence as her cats, who both slinked down from the sofa to wind themselves around her legs. “Don’t you remember, Aggie? I have a set of keys. You gave them to me ages ago. You do look ferocious.”

“Where’s your car? I didn’t see it.”

“Down the lane at the end.”

Agatha sank down in a chair and surveyed him. “You nearly frightened me to death. You look…different.”

The pompous married Charles she had last seen, fat with thinning hair, had disappeared. In his place was the old Charles, neat, slim and impeccably tailored and with a full head of hair.

“Have you had a hair weave?”

“No, I got over the cancer. The chemotherapy was making it fall out.”

“Cancer!” squeaked Agatha in horror. She remembered when James had had cancer and had not told her and her heart gave a lurch. “You didn’t tell me!”

“Didn’t tell most people. They all begin to act funny.”

“Cancer of what?”

“The lung.”

“Blimey!”

“Yes, blimey. But I’m cured and as fit as a fiddle.”

“How’s the wife and children?”

“Can I have a drink?”

Agatha stood up and went over to the drinks cupboard, saying over her shoulder, “Not like you not to help yourself.”

“I meant to. But after I had read the local papers I fell asleep. Scotch, Aggie, a malt if you’ve got it.”

Agatha poured him a generous measure and then one for herself.

“Cheers,” she said, sitting down. “You haven’t answered my question. How’s the family?”

“Gone. All gone.”

“What happened?”

While I was in hospital, she nipped back to Paris and fell in love with someone twenty years younger. He’s French, rich, well-connected. Her family forked out a fortune for the divorce.”

“How dreadful! Your children! How you must miss them!”

He took a sip of his drink. “I have visiting rights and they can come and stay with Papa any time they want. I doubt if they will. Like a couple of little aliens. Very dark and French. Wouldn’t speak English.”

“You must have felt shattered.”

He looked amused. “On the contrary, I thought I was blessed. No more cancer, no more nagging French wife. Goodbye to both.”

Agatha surveyed him curiously. “People who recover from cancer are usually very spiritual. I mean, they feel they have been given a second chance at life, sort of born again.”

Charles looked amused. “Do they? How odd.”

Selfish and self-centred and self-contained as ever, thought Agatha.

“So what brings you?”

“A mixture of curiosity and boredom. My aunt has turned the whole house over to some fund-raising gala for the Red Cross. I’ve got to get out of this, I thought. There’s murder and mayhem been going on over in Aggie’s direction, and I bet myself you were in the thick of it.”

“I wish I weren’t,” said Agatha. “I’ll tell you about it. But first, do you mind if I go upstairs and put on something more comfortable?”

“Not at all.” His eyes gleamed with mischief. “I thought you would never ask.”

Agatha went upstairs and put on a black-and-gold caftan she had bought years ago in Turkey and changed out of her high heels and put on slippers. It was nice to see Charles, she reflected. She wouldn’t have to bother about her appearance.

She went back downstairs and called to her cats, filled up their food bowls with some fish she had poached before she left and then opened the garden door so that they could get out after they had finished eating.

Outside, at the end of Lilac Lane, Mrs. Davenport walked away. Agatha had re-entered the living room and drawn back the curtains. Earlier, Mrs. Davenport had seen a man let himself in. In her handbag, she had Juanita’s address. She had got it by being in the general stores at just the right time. It had transpired that Juanita was extremely fond of the local fudge and had written to order a box of it. “I’ll send her one as well,” Mrs. Davenport had said. “I had her address but I’ve lost it.” Having secured the address, she had written a letter to Juanita to inform her that her husband was having an affair with Agatha Raisin. She did not sign it. No reason to let the formidable Mrs. Raisin know that she was the one who had informed on her.