"I'll come. I'll help you with the catering."
"That is good of you." Mrs. Bloxby then prattled on about village affairs and the latest fund raising project. At last Agatha rose and took her leave.
"Has that awful woman gone?" asked the vicar, popping his head round the study door.
"You're very hard on her, Alf," said Mrs. Bloxby. "She's got a good heart."
The vicar kissed his wife on the top of her head and smiled down at her fondly. "You love everyone."
"And you forget that's supposed to be part of your job."
"What does she think of James's blonde moving in?"
Mrs. Bloxby looked uncomfortable. "I hadn't the heart to tell her."
"Coward!"
Agatha walked back to Lilac Lane where her cottage was. It was then she saw a long, low, red sports car parked outside James's cottage and smoke rising from the chimney.
He was home! All her misery fled. They would sit and talk and she would tell him all about the murders. She knocked on his door.
It was opened by a tall slim blonde, about thirty-something, wearing cut off jeans and one of James's shirts knotted at the waist.
"Is James at home?" asked Agatha.
"No, he's in Greece. I met him there. He said I could use the cottage until he got back."
"When will that be?"
"Don't know. Isn't he a sweetie?"
"Yes. See you."
Agatha clumped off to her own cottage. She fed the cats and let them out into the garden.
There was an aching pain where her heart should be.
CONTINUE READING FOR AN EXCERPT FROM
M. C. BEATON'S NEXT BOOK
AGATHA RAISIN AND THE
FAIRIES OF FRYFAM
NOW AVAILABLE FROM
ST. MARTIN'S PAPERBACKS
AGATHA Raisin was selling up and leaving Carsely for good.
Or rather, that had been the plan.
She had already rented a cottage in the village of Fryfam in Norfolk. She had rented blind. She neither knew the village or anywhere else in Norfolk. A fortune-teller had told her that her destiny lay in Norfolk. Her next-door neighbour, the love of her life, James Lacey, had departed without saying goodbye and so she had decided to move to Norfolk and had chosen the village of Fryfam by sticking a pin in the map. A call to the Fryfam police station had put her in touch with a local estate agent, the cottage was rented, and all Agatha had to do was sell her own cottage and leave.
But the problem lay in the people who came to view the house. Either the women were too attractive and Agatha was not going to have an attractive woman living next door to James, or they were sour and grumpy, and she did not want to inflict such people on the village.
She was due to move into her rented Norfolk cottage at the beginning of October and it was now heading to the end of September. Bright-coloured autumn leaves swirled about the Cotswold Lanes. It was an Indian summer of lazy mellow sunny days and misty nights. Never had Carsely seemed more beautiful. But Agatha was determined to get rid of her obsession for James Lacey. Fryfam was probably beautiful as well.
Agatha was just stiffening up her weakening sinews when the doorbell rang. She opened the door. Two small round people stood there. "Good morning," said the woman brightly. "We are Mr. and Mrs. Baxter-Semper. We've come to view the house."
"You should have made an appointment with the estate agent," grumped Agatha.
"Oh, but we saw the board 'For Sale' outside."
"Come in," sighed Agatha. "Take a look around. You'll find me in the kitchen if you have any questions."
She hunched over a cup of black coffee at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. Through the window, she could see her cats, Hodge and Boswell, playing in the garden. How nice to be a cat, thought Agatha bitterly. No hopeless love, no responsibility, no bills to pay, nothing else to do but wait to be fed and roll around in the sun.
She could hear the couple moving about. Then she heard the sound of drawers being opened and closed.
She went to the foot of the stairs and shouted up, "You're supposed to be looking at the house, not poking among my knickers." There was a shocked silence. Then they both came downstairs. "We thought you might be leaving your furniture behind," said the woman defensively.
"No, I'm putting it into storage," said Agatha wearily. "I'm renting in Norfolk until I find somewhere to buy."
Mrs. Baxter-Semper looked past her.
"Oh, is that the garden?"
"Obviously," said Agatha, blowing smoke in her direction.
"Look, Bob. We could knock down that kitchen wall and have a nice conservatory."
Oh, God, thought Agatha, one of those nasty white wood-and-glass excrescences sticking out of the back of my cottage.
They stood before her as if expecting her to offer them tea or coffee.
"I'll show you out," said Agatha gruffly.
As she shut the door behind them with a bang, she could hear Mrs. Baxter-Semper saying, "What a rude woman!"
"House is perfect for us, though," remarked the husband.
Agatha picked up the phone and dialled the estate agents. "I've decided not to sell at the moment. Yes, this is Mrs. Raisin. No, I don't want to sell. Just take your board down."
When she replaced the receiver, she felt happier than she had done for some time. Nothing could be achieved by quitting Carsely.
On the morning of her departure, she left her house keys with her cleaner, Doris Simpson, and then returned home to coax Hodge and Boswell into their cat boxes. She drove off down Lilac Lane, cast one longing look at James's cottage, turned the corner and then sped up the leafy hill out of Carsely, the cats in their boxes on the back seat and a road map spread beside her on the passenger seat.
The sun shone all the way until she reached the boundaries of the county of Norfolk and then the sky clouded over the brooding flat, flat countryside.
At last, with a sigh of relief, she saw a signpost with the legend "Fryfam" on it and followed its white pointing finger. There were now pine woods on either side and the countryside was becoming hilly. Round another bend, and there was a board with "Fryfam" on it, heralding that she had arrived. She stopped again and took out the estate agent's instructions. Lavender Cottage, her new temporary home, lay in Pucks Lane on the far side of the village green.
A very large village green, thought Agatha, circling round it. There were a huddle of houses with flint walls, a pub, a church, and then, running along by the graveyard, lay Pucks Lane. It was very narrow and she drove slowly along, hoping she did not meet a car coming the other way. Agatha was hopeless at reversing. She switched on her headlights. Then she saw a faded sign, "Pucks Lane," and turned left and bumped along a side lane. The cottage lay at the end of it. It was a two-storey brick-and-flint building which seemed very old. It sagged slightly towards a large garden, a very large garden. Agatha got stiffly out and peered over the hedge at it.
The estate agent had said the key would be under the doormat. She bent down and located it. It was a large key, like the key to an old church door. It was stiff in the lock, but with a wrench, she managed to unlock the door. She found a switch on the inside of the door, put on the light and looked around. There was a little entrance hall. On the left was a dining-room and on the right, a sitting-room. There were low black beams on the ceiling. A door at the back of the hall led into a modern kitchen.
It was when she was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other that she realized two things. The kitchen did not have a microwave. Recently Agatha had abandoned her forays into "real" cooking and had returned to the use of the microwave. Also, the cottage was very cold. She got up and began to search for a thermostat to jack up the central heating. It was only after a futile search that she realized there were no radiators. She went into the sitting-room. There was a fireplace big enough to roast an ox in. Beside the fireplace there was a basket of logs. There was also a packet of fire-lighters and a pile of old newspapers. She lit the fire. At least the logs were dry and were soon crackling away merrily. Agatha searched through the house again. There were fireplaces in every room except the kitchen. In the kitchen, in a cupboard, she found a Calor gas heater.