study.
'Yes. I don't think she's really so bad and she is genuinely suffering about the quiche business. I've invited her to the women's get-together tonight.'
Then thank goodness I won't be here,' said the vicar and bent over his sermon.
Agatha felt cleansed of sin as she drove back to her cottage. She would go to church on Sunday and she would try to be a good person. She put a Healthy Fun Shepherd's Pie in the microwave for Mrs. Simpson's lunch.
Mrs. Simpson picked at the hot mess tentatively with her fork and all Agatha's saintliness evaporated. 'It's not poisoned!' she snapped.
'It's just I don't much care for frozen stuff,' said Mrs. Simpson.
'Well, I'll get you something better next time. Was Mrs. Cummings-Browne very upset about the death of her husband?'
'Oh, dreadful it was,' said Doris Simpson. 'Real shook, her were. Numb with shock at first and then crying and crying. Had to fetch the vicar's wife to help.'
Guilt once more settled on Agatha's soul. She felt she had to get out.
She walked to the Red Lion and ordered a glass of red wine and sausage and chips.
Then she remembered her intention of calling on Mrs. Cartwright. It all seemed a bit pointless now but it was something to do.
Judd's cottage where the Cartwrights lived was a broken-down sort of place. The garden gate was hanging on its hinges and in the weedy front garden was parked a rusting car. Agatha looked this way and that, wondering how the car had got in, but could see no way it could have been achieved short of lifting it bodily over the fence.
The glass pane on the front door was cracked and stuck in place with brown paper tape. She rang the bell and nothing happened. She rapped at the side of the door. Mrs. Cartwright's blurred figure loomed up on the other side of the glass.
'Oh, it's you,' she said when she opened the door. 'Come in.'
Agatha followed her into a sour-smelling cluttered living-room. The furniture was soiled and shiny with wear. There was a two-bar electric fire in the grate with imitation plastic coals on the top. A bunch of plastic daffodils hung over a chipped vase on the window. There was a cocktail cabinet in one corner ornamented with pink glass and strips of pink fluorescent lighting.
'Drink?' asked Mrs. Cartwright. Her coarse hair was wound up in pink foam rollers and she was wearing a pink wrap-over dress which gaped when she moved to reveal a dirty petticoat.
Thank you,' said Agatha, wishing she had not come.
Mrs. Cartwright poured two large glasses of gin and then tinged them pink with Angostura. Agatha looked nervously at her own glass, which was smeared with lipstick at the rim.
Mrs. Cartwright sat down and crossed her legs. Her feet were encased in dirty pink slippers. All this pink, thought Agatha nervously. She looks like some sort of debauched Barbara Cartland.
'Did you know Mr. Cummings-Browne well?' asked Agatha.
Mrs. Cartwright lit a cigarette and studied Agatha through the smoke.
'A bit,' she said.
'Did you like him?'
'Some. Can't think straight at the moment.'
'Because of the death?'
'Because of the bingo over at Evesham. John, that's my husband, he's cut off my money on account he doesn't want me to go there. Men are right bastards. I brought up four kids and now they've left home and I want a bit o' fun, all he does is grumble. Yes, give me a bit o' money for the bingo and I can ' most things.'
Agatha fished in her handbag. 'Would twenty pounds help?'
'Would it ever!'
Agatha passed the money over. Then there came the sound of the front door being opened. Mrs. Cartwright thrust the note down into her bosom, grabbed Agatha's glass and ran with that and her own to the kitchen.
'Ella?' called a man's voice.
The door opened and a strongly built apelike man walked in just as his wife came back from the kitchen. 'Who's she?' he demanded, jerking a thumb at Agatha. 'I told you not to let them Jehovahs in.'
This is Mrs. Raisin from down Lilac Lane, called social-like.'
'What do you want?' he snarled.
Agatha stood up. Mrs. Cartwright's large dark eyes flashed a warning.
'I am collecting for charity,' said Agatha.
Then you can bugger off. Haven't got a penny to spare. She's seen to that.'
'Sit down, John, and shut up. I'll see Mrs. Raisin out.'
Agatha nervously edged past John Cartwright. Mrs. Cartwright opened the front door. 'Come tomorrow,' she whispered. Three in the afternoon.'
Was there some sinister mystery or had she just been conned out of twenty pounds? Agatha walked thoughtfully down the road.
When she got back to her cottage, Mrs. Simpson was hard at work in the bedrooms. Agatha washed a load of clothes and carried them out to the back garden where there was one of those whirligig devices for hanging clothes. Feeling more relaxed than she had for some time and quite domesticated, Agatha pegged out the clothes. As she moved around to the other side of the whirligig, she saw Mrs. Barr. She was leaning on her garden fence, staring straight at Agatha with a look of cold dislike on her face. Agatha finished pegging the clothes, raised two fingers at Mrs. Barr and went indoors.
Tost came shouted Mrs. Simpson from upstairs. 'I put it on the kitchen table.'
Agatha noticed a flat brown envelope for the first time. She tore it open. There was a large print of the woman on the tower at Warwick Castle. Agatha shuddered. Those staring eyes, that hatred reminded her of Mrs. Barr. Pinned to the enlargement was a note: Thank you for a splendid weekend, Steve.'
She put the photograph away in the kitchen drawer, feeling even after she had closed the drawer that those eyes were still staring at her.
Overcome by the need for some escapist literature, she drove down to Moreton-in-Marsh, swearing under her breath as she remembered it was market day. By driving round and round the car-park, she was able to secure a place when some shopper drove off.
Walking through the Old Market Place, as the new mini shopping arcade was called, she crossed the road and walked between the crowded stalls to the row of shops on the far side where she knew there was a second-hand bookshop. In the back room were rows and rows of paperbacks. She bought three detective stories one Ruth Rendell, one Colin Dexter, and one Colin Watson and then returned to her car. She flipped open the Colin Watson one and was caught by the first page. Oh, the joys of detective fiction. Time rolled past as Agatha sat in the car- park and read steadily. Finally it dawned on her that it was ridiculous to sit reading in a car-park when she had the comfort of her own home and so she drove back to Carsely just in time to meet Bill Wong, who was standing on her doorstep.
'Now what?' demanded Agatha uneasily.
Bill smiled. 'Just called to see how you were.'
At first Agatha felt gratified as she unlocked the door and let herself in, picking up the other key from the hall floor where it had fallen when Mrs. Simpson had popped it 74
through the letter-box. Then she felt a twinge of unease. Could Bill Wong be checking up on her for any reason?
'Coffee?' she asked.
'Tea will do.' In the sitting-room, Bill looked slowly around. 'Where did all the bits and pieces go?' 'I didn't think they were me,' said Agatha, ' I gave them to the church to sell for charity.'
'What is you if toby jugs and farm machinery are not?'
'Don't know,' mumbled Agatha. 'Something a bit more horny.'
The lighting's wrong,' said Bill, looking at the spotlights on the beams. 'Spots are out.'
'You sound like someone talking about acne,' snapped Agatha. 'And why is everyone suddenly so arty-farty
