She stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. A red mist seemed to rise before her eyes. She did not even see Harry Symes, one of the farm workers, coming up the hill on his tractor.
When Jimmy reached her, she slapped him hard across the face, so hard that her diamond engagement ring cut his lip, and then, with all her force, she shoved him into the ditch.
She stood over him, her hands on her hips. "Why don't you die!" she panted. And then she ran off down the hill.
One hour later, the police were on her doorstep and she was charged with the murder of Jimmy Raisin.
TWO
THEY followed Agatha into her living-room: Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, Detective Constable Maddie Hurd.
Agatha was glad of Bill's presence. Wilkes she already knew, but Maddie Hurd, a rather hard-faced young woman with cold grey eyes, was new to her.
"We must ask you to accompany us to the police station," said Wilkes after the charge had been read out.
Agatha found her voice. "Jimmy can't be dead. I belted him one across the face and pushed him into the ditch. Oh, my God, did he hit something and break his neck?"
A flicker of surprise crossed Wilkes's dark eyes, but he said, "Down to the station and we'll go through it there."
She suddenly, passionately wanted James Lacey to appear, not because she still loved him, but because he would have taken over with his usual brusque common sense. She had never felt so alone. "Come along, Agatha," said Bill.
"I do not think Detective Sergeant Wong should be on this case as he is obviously a friend of the accused," said Maddie Hurd. Agatha looked at her with hate.
"Later," snapped Wilkes.
A small group of villagers had gathered outside Agatha's cottage. She wondered bleakly if there could possibly be one more thing she could do which would shame her so utterly in the eyes of the village - first attempted bigamy, now murder.
At police headquarters in Mircester, she was led into an interviewing room, the tape was switched on, and Wilkes began the questioning, flanked by another detective sergeant, Bill Wong having disappeared.
Gathering all her resources, Agatha said she had gone out walking early because she could not sleep. She had seen Jimmy approaching her. He was drunk. He had run after her. She had lost her temper and slapped him. She had pushed him into the ditch and she had shouted something at him. Yes, she was afraid she had shouted that she hoped he would die. If he had struck his head on something, she was sorry, she had not meant to kill him.
And that seemed straightforward to Agatha, but they took her backwards and forwards through her story, over and over again. Getting some courage back, she demanded a solicitor and then was put in a cell to await his arrival.
The solicitor was an elderly gentleman whom Agatha had picked out a few months before to help her make her will in which she had left everything to James Lacey. He had been avuncular and kind then, the family solicitor from Central Casting with his thick grey hair, gold-rimmed glasses and charcoal-grey suit. Now he looked as if he wished himself anywhere else in the whole wide world but sitting in an interview room with Agatha Raisin.
The questioning began again. "What more can I tell you?" Agatha suddenly howled in a fury. "You can't trip me up and get me to say anything else because I am telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
"Calmly, dear lady," admonished the solicitor, Mr. Times.
"You," said Agatha, "have done bugger-all since you got here but looked sideways at me as if I am some sort of Lady Macbeth."
There was a knock at the door. Wilkes snapped, "Come in." Bill Wong put his head around the door. "A word, sir. Most urgent."
Wilkes switched off the tape and went outside.
Inside, Agatha's burst of anger had gone, leaving her weak and shaky. Everything was against her. She had attacked Jimmy in front of everyone at the registry office and she had been seen by Harry Symes to attack him that very morning. She was not free to find out who had actually done it should it prove not to have been an accident. Whom else could anyone possibly suspect? Who else would want to kill a drunk who normally lived in a packing-case in Waterloo? Only Agatha Raisin.
Wilkes came back into the room, his face grim. He sat down again, but did not switch on the tape.
"Where is James Lacey?" he asked.
"I do not know," said Agatha. "Why?"
"He did not tell you where he was going?"
"No. Why?"
"I am withdrawing the charge against you, Mrs. Raisin, due to insufficient evidence, but must ask you not to leave the country."
"What's happened?" demanded Agatha, getting to her feet. "And why do you want James?"
He shuffled the papers in front of him. "That will be all, Mrs. Raisin."
"Sod the lot of you," said Agatha, furious again. Her solicitor followed her out.
"Should you need my services again..." began Mr. Times.
"Then I'll find myself a decent lawyer," growled Agatha. She strode out of the police station. They had not even given her a car home. What was she supposed to do? Walk?
"You need a drink," said a voice in her ear. She turned and saw Bill Wong. "Come on, Agatha," he urged. "I haven't got long."
They walked across the main square under the shadow of the abbey and into The George. Bill bought a gin and tonic for Agatha and a half-pint of bitter for himself. They sat down at a corner table.
"What has happened is this," said Bill quickly. "The preliminary forensic evidence has discovered that Jimmy Raisin was strangled with a man's silk tie. It had been chucked into the field a little down the road. Footprints other than yours were found near the body, the footprints of a man. So the hunt's up for James Lacey."
"What!" Agatha glared at him. "They knew all along that Jimmy had been strangled and yet they let me think I might have caused him to strike his head on a rock or something. I've a damn good mind to sue them. And as for James? James murder my husband? James? Believe me, the whole experience will have been so vulgar, so distasteful to my ex-lover that all he would want to do would be to put as many miles between us as possible. So he can't have been hanging around the village to murder Jimmy. That takes rage and passion, and in order to experience that amount of rage and passion, he would need to have been in love with me!"
"Come on, Agatha. The man had a bad shock."
"If he had loved me, he would have stood by me," said Agatha. "And do you know what I feel for him now? Nothing. Sweet eff all."
"Either you're still in shock or you couldn't have loved him all that much yourself," said Bill.
"What do you know about it? You're too young." Bill was in his twenties.
"More than you think," said Bill ruefully. "I think I've fallen myself."
"Go on," said Agatha, momentarily diverted from her troubles. "Who?"
"Maddie Hurd."
"That hatchet-faced creature."
"Now, you are not to talk about her like that, Agatha. Maddie's bright and clever and...and...I think she cares for me."
"Oh, well, chacun a son gout, as we say back at the buildings. Or everyone to their own bag. But if they think James did it, they're wasting time. Look, Harry Symes saw me. Didn't he see anyone else on the road?"
Bill shook his head. "I've got to be getting back. I'll call on you as soon as I hear anything more."
Agatha thought of asking him for a lift back to Carsely but then decided she had endured enough of the police for one day and went off to get a cab at the rank in the square. Bill went back to police headquarters. Maddie was waiting for him.
"Get anything out of her about Lacey?" asked Maddie eagerly.
Bill told her what Agatha had said, feeling treacherous because Maddie had sent him to find out what he could from Agatha.