she was wearing a man’s pullover with a pair of torn and faded jeans. When she heard the reason for their call, she invited them in. They stood helplessly in her low-beamed living-room, wondering where to sit. A large dog of mixed breed was stretched out on a sofa and somnolent cats occupied the two easy chairs. The stuffy air was redolent of cat and dog, and various bowls of half-eaten cat and dog food were spread about the floor on the hair-covered carpet. A large television set dominated the room. Agatha noticed a digital box on top of the video machine.
“So you got satellite after all?” she said.
“Yes, that silly old woman. What a fuss. The engineers just took the dish off the wall and put it on a stand in the shrubbery.”
“So what about this ghost business?” asked Paul.
“Load of rubbish, if you ask me. She’s run out of people to make trouble for, so she made the whole thing up. I’m amazed the police ever listened to her. I went round there and told her, I said, ‘You ever interfere again and I’ll stick the bread knife in you.’ So she calls the police. ‘Never said anything like that,’ I told them. I mean, you say things in the heat of the moment that you don’t mean, but if I’d told them I’d actually threatened her, they might have arrested me. But she didn’t bother me again.”
Outside, Agatha and Paul took grateful breaths of fresh air. “May as well try the other one, the writer,” said Paul.
When they rang the bell at Dove Cottage, there was no reply. “Perhaps we should go round the back,” suggested Agatha. “He may be in his shed.”
They walked along a narrow path at the side of the low thatched cottage. The front garden had been a riot of flowers, but the back garden consisted only of a square of lawn and the shed. It was a square wooden structure with a double-glazed window. “Sheds like these cost a lot,” said Agatha. “I wonder what he writes.”
“Maybe he writes under another name, one we’d recognize.” Paul rapped on the door of the shed.
A tall, stooped man opened the door. He had thick silver hair worn long, a black velvet jacket open over a white shirt and silk cravat, and black velvet trousers. “Go away,” he said in a reedy voice. “I am not buying anything.”
“We’re not selling anything,” said Paul. “I am Paul Chatterton and this is Mrs. Agatha Raisin. We spent last night in Mrs. Witherspoon’s house, trying to lay the ghost for her but without success. General opinion around here so far seems to be that she is making the whole thing up.”
“Come in,” said Percy. They walked up the shallow wooden steps and into an office-shed which looked a miracle of order. Neat files in different colours filled the shelves and a computer and printer stood on a metal desk. Percy sat beside the desk and waved Agatha and Paul into two hard chairs facing him. “I am glad you have come to me,” he said, making a steeple of his fingers and looking wise-or trying to look wise, Agatha thought. “I am a writer and I have a writer’s eye for detail.”
Probably can’t write very well and must have a private income, reflected Agatha. She knew from long experience that successful writers rarely glorified their trade.
“Do you write under your own name?” she asked.
“No,” he said proudly. “I am Lancelot Grail.” He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a paperback which he handed to her. The cover showed a muscular man stripped to the waist, wielding an axe and being threatened by a dragon.
“Oh, now I know who you are,” lied Agatha, anxious to keep him helpful. “So what can you tell us about Mrs. Witherspoon?”
“To put it bluntly, she is a bitch from hell,” he said. “Ah, I shock you by my plain speaking, Mrs. Raisin, but that is what she is. She reported this shed to the planning officer and I had to employ a lawyer at Great Expense to clear things up. I told her to mind her own business in future and she told me to go and…” His face turned a delicate pink. “Well, I will not sully your ears with such language. Of course she’s making it all up. She’s lonely and bored and her hobby is creating fuss and chaos.”
Agatha felt disappointed. Three people in this small village all said roughly the same thing. It looked as if there was no case and no case meant no more outings with Paul.
Paul got to his feet. “Thank you for your time. So you really believe there’s nothing in it? We thought someone might be trying to frighten her to death.”
“Her! My dear fellow, all the dragons of Gorth could not frighten that old hag.”
“What’s Gorth?” asked Agatha.
“It is a planet in my latest book. I would offer you a copy, but on the other hand, I feel people should buy my books and not expect free copies.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Agatha in all sincerity.
As they approached his MG, Paul said ruefully, “Nothing to investigate after all.”
Agatha looked at the parked car. “I’m afraid there is.”
“What?”
She pointed to the soft top of the car, which Paul had left up. Someone had sliced through it with a sharp knife. Paul gave an exclamation and opened the car door. “My CD player has gone.”
He looked wildly around. “Who could have done this?”
Agatha took out her mobile phone. “I’ll call the police.”
Bill Wong made a detour into the ops room on his way out of police headquarters in Mircester. He rather fancied the new blonde recruit called Haley. She was just taking a call. He heard her say, “Any units in the area of Hebberdon. Car-radio theft. Owner a Mr. Paul Chatterton.”
Bill stood deep in thought while she gave further instructions. Not so long ago, a policeman from the nearest village would have been sent, but with the government closing so many rural stations, calls went out to patrol cars. Chatterton. Now that was Agatha’s new neighbour and Hebberdon was that village where the old woman had been frightened by a ghost. So Agatha was investigating that business after all.
A patient policeman took down the details of the theft of Paul’s radio-cum-CD player. “We’ll do our best, sir,” he said, finally closing his notebook. “But in future, you should keep your car locked.”
“And what difference would that make?” demanded Paul angrily. “They assumed it was locked anyway and just sliced through the roof. Someone must have seen something. It’s such a small village.”
They turned and looked up the winding road and then down but nothing moved in the patchy sunlight. “Let’s try the pub,” suggested Agatha.
“Just leave the investigating to us,” said the policeman. “I have your phone number, Mr. Chatterton. We’ll let you know if we find anything.”
He stood there until they drove off.
“I feel sick,” said Paul. “I love this car.”
“Then you should take better care of it,” snapped Agatha.
“Are you always so insensitive and rude?”
They arrived back in Carsely in an angry silence. Before she got out of the car, Agatha tried to heal the breach. “Look, Paul, I’m sorry I made that crack about you taking better care of your car.”
But he sat at the wheel, staring straight ahead.
Agatha climbed out and stomped off into her cottage. Rats, she thought. I’ve blown it. She walked through to the kitchen and opened the back door and let her cats out into the garden. She made herself a cup of coffee and followed them out and sank down into the deck-chair. Now what should she do? To tell the truth, she admitted to herself, she had rather enjoyed stealing a march on the other women of the village by cruising around with Paul Chatterton. She probably wouldn’t have a chance to talk to him again. Now that there appeared to be no mystery to solve, he would probably take on another work contract.
The doorbell shrilled from the front of the house. She tried to struggle to her feet and ended up rolling the whole deck-chair to the side so that she fell out onto the grass. She hurried through the house. Please let it be Paul, please let it be Paul, went her mind. I’m sure it’s Paul. She threw open the door.
Bill Wong stood on the step.
Agatha’s face fell.
