Agatha Raisin & the Vicious Vet

'Well, that's pubs for you' said Agatha with seeming indifference. 'You never end up talking to the person you go in with. Milk or lemon?'

'Lemon, please. I've been thinking, this business about the vet. Did you go to the funeral?'

'Yes. Lot of women there. Seems to have been popular with quite a lot of women, so he can't have gone around putting down their cats unasked.'

'Who was there from this village?'

'Apart from me, his four remaining fans: your friend, Freda Huntingdon; Mrs Mason; Mrs Harriet Parr; and Miss Josephine Webster. Oh, and his ex-wife. Hey, that's odd.'

'What is?'

'When I was supposed to be having dinner in Evesham that night I crashed and I phoned Paul's house and this woman answered the phone saying she was his wife .. ' Agatha broke off.

'Well?'

'Well, Paul Bladen told me afterwards that the woman who answered the phone was his sister, being silly or something. But no one else has mentioned his sister. I forgot to ask for her at the funeral.'

'We could drive into Mircester and find out' he volunteered.

Agatha turned away quickly and fiddled with the kettle to hide the sudden look of rapture in her eyes. 'Do you think it's murder then?' she asked.

He sighed. 'No, I don't. But it might be fun to go through the motions. I mean, ask people, just as if it were.'

Til get my coat.' Agatha nipped smartly upstairs, gazing in the glass at her outfit of sweater and skirt. But there was no time to change, for if she did not hurry up, he might decide to call the whole thing off.

'Just going to get some money' he called up the stairs.

Agatha cursed under her breath. What if he were waylaid in the short distance between her house and his? She went down the stairs and out of the door.

Freda Huntingdon was talking to him, laughing and holding that wretched yapping dog under her arm. Agatha clenched her hands into fists as they both disappeared into James's cot-tage. She stood there in her own front garden, . irresolute. What if he forgot about her? But he emerged with Freda after only a few moments. Freda was tucking a paperback into her pocket.

She waved goodbye to him and he walked towards Agatha. 'Shall we take my car?' he asked. 'No need to take two.'

'Mine will be fine,' said Agatha. He climbed into the passenger seat. As Agatha drove past Freda, she turned and stared at them in surprise.

Agatha gave a cheerful fanfare on the horn and drove fast round the corner out of the lane.

'What did the merry widow want?' she asked.

'Freda? She had lent me a paperback and had come to collect it'

Agatha would have chatted on merrily all the way to Mircester and probably would have driven James away again, but just at that moment she sensed there was a pimple growing on the end of her nose. She squinted down and the car veered wildly to the side of the road before she corrected the steering.

'Are you all right?' asked James. 'Do you want me to drive?'

'I'm fine' But Agatha sank into a worried silence. She could feel that pimple growing and growing, an itchy soreness on the end of her nose. Why should such a thing happen to her on this day of all days? This was what came of eating 'healthy' food, as recommended by Mrs Bloxby. Years of fast food had not produced one blemish. The only solution, Agatha decided, was when they reached Mircester, she would say she needed to buy something from the chemist's - no gentleman would ask what - and then say she was dying for a drink.

She parked in the last space in the town's main square. A woman who had been in the act of carefully reversing into it before Agatha beat her to it by driving straight in nose first, stared in hurt anger. When they got out of the car, Agatha, keeping her face averted, said, 'Got to go to the chemist's over there. Meet you in that pub, the George, in a few moments' And then, like jesting Pilate, did not stay for an answer, but scuttled across the square.

In the chemist's, she bought a stick of Blemish Remover, astringent lotion, and, for good measure, a new lipstick, Hot Pink.

James looked up and waved as Agatha came into the pub, but she scuttled past him to the Ladies', her face still averted.

Agatha cleaned her face, applied the astringent lotion and then wiped it off with a tissue. She peered at her nose. There was a bright little red spot at the end of it. She carefully applied the stick of Blemish Remover, which resulted in a beige blotch on the end of her nose. She covered it with powder. The light in the Ladies' was not working, so she could only guess at the effect. She stared upwards. There was a light socket u on the ceiling, but she noticed the light bulb was missing and what light there was in the room filtered through the grimy panes of a window high up over the hand basin. Then she remembered she had bought a packet of 100-watt light bulbs the day before and had left them in her car. She scuttled out again. Again James waved and again she ran past him, her face averted, and out the door. He drank his beer thoughtfully. He had once thought Agatha Raisin deranged. Perhaps he had been right. There she came again, running sideways, and back into the Ladies'.

Agatha looked up at the ceiling. In order to reach the light socket, she would need to stand on the hand basin. She hitched up her skirt and climbed into the large Victorian hand basin and gingerly stood up. She reached up to the light socket.

With a great rending sound, the hand basin came away from the wall. Agatha swayed wildly and then grabbed hold of a dusty windowsill as the hand basin slowly continued to detach itself and fell with an almighty crash on the floor, taking the brass taps with it. A ferocious jet of cold water from a now broken and exposed pipe shot straight up Agatha's skirt.

With a whimper she let go of the windowsill, jumped to the flooding floor and skirting the debris shot back into the pub after firmly closing the door behind her.

'Let's go' she said to James.

He stared at her in surprise. I've just bought you a gin and tonic'

'Oh, thanks' said Agatha desperately. 'Cheers!' She threw the drink down her throat in one gulp. 'Come on!' Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a flood of water appearing from under the door of the Ladies'.

James followed her out. He noticed to his dismay that the back of her skirt had a dark stain on it and he wondered whether to tell her. She was not that old, but perhaps she had bladder trouble.

'Now, this pub looks much nicer' said Agatha, pushing open the door of the Potters Arms and diving in. Once more, she went to the Ladies'. To her relief it was a modern place with a hot-air hand dryer. She took off her skirt and held it under the dryer until the water stain began to fade. Then she lay down on the floor and held her wet feet up under it. Time passed. When she emerged, a worried James was on his second pint of beer. 1 was just about to send someone to look for you' he said. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes' said Agatha, radiant again, for she had discovered that the new make-up had done the job effectively and she was once more warm and dry.

'I bought you another gin' he said, indicating the glass on the table.

Agatha smiled at him. 'Here's to detection' she said, raising her glass. And then she slowly lowered it, a look of ludicrous dismay on her face. For into the pub had just marched Bill Wong and a tall policewoman. 'Dropped my handbag' said Agatha and dived under the table.

It was to no avail. 'Come out, Agatha' said Bill.

Agatha miserably crawled out from under the table, her face red with shame.

'Now, Agatha' said Bill, 'what have you been up to? PC Wood here called me into the George. A woman answering your description went in and vandalized the ladies' room, tearing a hand basin out of the wall and flooding the place. People in the square saw you running in here. What have you to say for yourself?'

1 had a spot on my nose' mumbled Agatha.

'Speak up. I can't hear you.'

7 had a spot on my nose,' roared Agatha. Everyone looked at her and James Lacey desperately wished himself elsewhere.

'And how did that make you tear the hand basin out of the wall?' asked Bill.