"It said on the menu it was old-fashioned Irish stew. How's your steak?"
"Like army boots." He signalled to Terry. "Take this away. We can't eat any more of it."
"Why?" he asked plaintively.
"For a start," said Agatha, "this Irish stew is disgusting. The gravy's lukewarm and there doesn't seem to be much meat and there's too much salt."
"We are fussy, aren't we, sweetie. That's Jeffrey's favourite dish." Terry's eyes glinted maliciously. "But then, he likes all things Irish."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked James.
Terry leaned one slim hip on the edge of the table. "Haven't you heard our Jeffrey on the subject of Free Ireland? Quite fiery, he is."
Peter Hatfield sailed up. "What are you lot gossiping about?"
"They don't like the food," said Terry.
"Fussy, fussy," chided Peter. "You going on this walk on Saturday?"
"Yes," said James. "How can the pair of you get the time off on Saturday? I mean, that must be your busy day."
"We don't work Saturdays. I know it's odd, but they were so keen to have a couple of waiters who would do Sundays that they let us off."
"So how come you were both here on the day of the murder?" asked James and then cursed himself as Terry's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"How did you know that?" he asked.
"Someone said something about it at your meeting," said Agatha quickly. "That fair girl, Deborah what's-her-name."
"Considering she's prime suspect number one, she should watch her mouth," said Terry waspishly.
"Why is she prime suspect?"
"Because," said Terry patiently, as if speaking to an idiot, "she was the last one to see Jessica alive."
"What?" Agatha stared at him. "But she said she was window-shopping."
"Well, one of our customers, a Mrs Hardy, she said as how she saw Deborah's car heading out of Dembley to the Barfield estate on that Saturday, and if she wasn't going to see Jessica, where was she going?"
Six
The following morning, James finally agreed to Agatha's suggestion that she should talk directly to Alice and Gemma and see what she could find out and he should talk to Jeffrey, and after that, they would tell Bill Wong what they knew. As none of the people they wanted to interview was likely to be free before early evening, they decided to spend the day in Carsely, attending to household chores.
Neither had realized what an amount of gossip their taking off together for parts unknown would cause in the village, Mrs Mason having kept discreetly quiet.
Agatha's first caller after she had fed her cats was the vicar's wife, Mrs Bloxby.
"And where have you been?" asked Mrs Bloxby.
"We just went off on a little trip," said Agatha, rather proud of the fact that the vicar's wife obviously thought she and James were now 'a number'.
Mrs Bloxby's kind eyes surveyed Agatha's flushed and happy face. "You like Mr Lacey, do you not?"
"Oh, yes, we're great friends."
They were sitting in Agatha's garden. The cats rolled on the lawn in the sunlight. Great fleecy clouds ambled across the sky overhead. It was an idyllic day.
"I sometimes think," said the vicar's wife, leaning back in her chair and addressing a cloud, "that we are very quick to counsel young people while neglecting our contemporaries."
"Meaning?" asked Agatha.
Mrs Bloxby's mild eyes descended again to rest on Agatha's face. "Meaning that a lot of the old advice is still relevant in this wicked age, even for women such as ourselves. I have observed that men who get what they want outside marriage, particularly confirmed bachelors like James Lacey, are therefore content to stay unmarried."
"I am not having an affair with James," snapped Agatha.
"Oh, my dear, I thought...You must forgive me for jumping to the wrong conclusion." Mrs Bloxby gave a little laugh. "I should have realized - you are probably both investigating something. Do forgive me."
"That's all right," mumbled Agatha, "but don't tell anyone in the village we're on a case. It's supposed to be a secret."
"I should have known better. Do not think me impertinent. Mr Lacey is a very charming man. But he did have an affair with poor Mary, that woman who was murdered, and in that case I always thought it was a matter of casual sex."
No, thought Agatha, he was briefly in love with her, and remembered sharply all the pain she had felt.
As Mrs Bloxby began to talk of village matters, Agatha suddenly wished she herself had not been so honest. She wanted every woman in the village to think that she was having an affair with James. But now Mrs Bloxby, without revealing anything about the investigation, would contrive to let everyone know the friendship was innocent.
After the vicar's wife had left, Agatha decided to take herself down to Moreton-in-Marsh for a quiet lunch. She wanted to be alone and think about James and turn over everything he had said in her mind, always searching for some hint that his feelings might be warming towards her.
Moreton-in-Marsh is a busy Cotswold market town with a wide tree-lined main street on the Fosse Way, an old Roman military road. Ever since the Abbot of Westminster, who owned the land, decided to make use of the transport on the Fosse Way and a new Moreton was built in 1222, it has always been a favourite stopping place for travellers, the wool merchants of medieval times being replaced with tourists.
Agatha found a parking place after some difficulty. Even in the depths of winter, it is hard to find a parking place in Moreton, where the number of cars and the absence of people often puzzled Agatha. Where did so many car owners go? There wasn't enough work or enough shops to draw them all. Agatha went into the tourist information centre to see if she could pick up some pamphlets about rambling walks to take along on Saturday in order to show the Dembley Walkers she was a dedicated member. She read a tourist pamphlet on Moreton-in-Marsh to see if there was something about the old town she did not know. And there was. One pamphlet explained that the charter for the market had been granted by King Charles I in 1638. "Some years later," she read, "he stayed at the White Hart Royal, which was a well-known Coaching Inn, and was part of the Trust House Forte Hotel Group." Agatha had a brief and vivid picture of King Charles and his Cavaliers with their booted feet up on the hotel tables listening to the piped Muzak which was a feature of Trust House Forte Hotels.
After a look in a thrift shop, she went to the White Hart and ate a massive plate of lamb stew. She emerged later blinking into the sunlight, drugged with food, feeling the waistline of her skirt uncomfortably tight.
Was there something about women of a certain age, she wondered, that, when they wanted to attract a man, instead of getting on the exercise bicycle, they stuffed themselves with food?
For his part, James had had a bar lunch at the Red Lion and had endured a lot of sly teasing of the what-have-you-been-doing-with-our-Agatha variety. As he walked home, he wondered whether Agatha's reputation was being damaged and then decided it was not. Provided there was no truth in the rumours, they would soon die out.
He found he was anxious to get on with the investigation, and as he walked down Lilac Lane, he saw Agatha getting out of her car and hailed her.
"I think we'd better get going," he said. "I want to bump into Jeffrey as he comes out of the school as if by accident and take him for a drink. What about you?"
"I'll just knock on Alice's front door and say I've come to ask her advice about boots," said Agatha, feeling lethargic and heavy and wishing she had not eaten so much.
She fell asleep in the car - they had used her car for the journey back to Carsely and James was driving it - and awoke to hear James saying in an amused voice, "I didn't know you snored, Agatha."