'I find them delightful.'
'Well, I don't. I like cities. I'll rent in London. I'll put my stuff in storage and take a service flat for a few weeks and look around.'
But that remark of Mrs. Hardy's about not being able to make friends had gone straight to Agatha's heart as she remembered her own lonely days before coming to Carsely.
She said, 'Why don't you stay? We could be friends.'
'That's very kind of you.' Mrs. Hardy gave a wry smile. 'Don't you want your cottage back?'
'Well, I do, but...'
'Then you shall have it. I'll see you at the lawyers' this afternoon.'
'And that was that,' said Agatha to James a few minutes later. 'So I'll soon be home again. She said as I was leaving that provided all the papers were signed, I can move in in a fortnight.'
James felt slightly irritated. A moment before it had seemed that all he wanted out of life was to have his cottage to himself, without Agatha Raisin dribbling cigarette ash over everything. He decided that she ought to look less delighted at the prospect of leaving his home.
'Well, if you're ready,' he said, 'let's get to police headquarters.'
Leaves fluttered down in front of them as they drove off, autumn leaves, dancing and whirling, blown down by a great gusty wind from a sky full of tumbling black, ragged clouds.
The whole countryside was in motion. Showers of nuts pattered on the roof of the car. A woman getting out of a car at the Quarry Garage clutched at her skirts to hold them down. An old newspaper spiralled up and then performed a tumbling hectic dance through the furrows of a brown ploughed field. And somewhere, thought Agatha, crawling around out there is a murderer.
'It must be something to do with that Helen Warwick,' she said.
'Don't be ridiculous,' snapped James. 'Do you mean! she travelled down from London to pour petrol through our 1 letter-box? Why?'
'Because I swear she knows something.'
'Oh, really. Then I had better go back and see her.'
'Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you?'
'Very much. I found her a charming woman.'
'Men are so blind. She was sly and devious. And mercenary.'
'In your jealous opinion, Agatha.'
'I'm not jealous of that plump frump. We could have been killed last night.'
'Not with a back door to the garden.'
'What if we had both been asleep?'
There was no answer to that.
They completed the drive to Mircester in silence.
There were many questions to answer at police headquarters. Detective Inspector Wilkes was in charge of the question- I ing this time, flanked by Bill Wong. Agatha found herself beginning to sweat. She was terrified either she or James would let something slip and Wilkes would know about their bur-glaring.
When it was at last all over and they had signed their statements, Wilkes said severely, 'I should charge both of you with obstructing police business. But I'm warning you for the last time. We may seem to you very slow, but we are thor- j ough.'
They left feeling chastened. From an upstairs window, Maddie Hurd watched them go. She bit her thumb nail and stared down at them. She had not been invited to join in the interrogation. She had not been asked to do anything further on the case at all. She had been given a series of burglaries to investigate instead. She blamed Bill Wong for turning her superiors against her.
Although Bill had not opened his mouth, her jilting of him had a lot to do with it. Bill Wong was very popular, Maddie was not. Women, even in the police force, were expected to be womanly. Women in the police force were not expected to jilt fellow officers. So, although Chief Inspector Wilkes did not sit down and say, 'We don't want Maddie Hurd on the case because of the way she has treated Bill Wong,' he had, without even thinking about it, decided she was not the right officer for the job.
Agatha completed the business of buying her cottage back, although conscience prompted her finally to offer PS120,000. She felt she had misjudged Mrs. Hardy, that here was a fellow spirit.
When they were leaving the lawyers', Agatha said impulsively, 'Look, there's a dance at the village hall on Saturday evening. Why don't you come with me and James? No, don't refuse right away. I thought I would hate things like that, but they're really rather fun. And it's in a good cause. We're raising money for Cancer Relief.'
Mrs. Hardy gave a weak smile. All her aggression seemed k to have left her. 'Well, maybe...' she said hesitantly. 'That's the thing. Think about it.' Agatha waved goodbye and headed off to the car, where James was waiting for her.
'Well, that's that,' she said cheerfully. 'Do you know, she's not that bad? I've asked her to come to the dance with us on Saturday.'
James groaned. 'I didn't know we were going'. 'Of course we are. What would a village dance be without us?'
Agatha put on a chiffon evening blouse and black velvet skirt for the dance on Saturday, wishing the days of proper evening gowns even for a village hop were not gone forever. Full evening dress was glamorous. She was regretting her decision to 'mother' Mrs. Hardy at the dance. And yet surely the: was no one in the village to catch James's wandering eye. An he
He must have meant something hopeful by that 'Give me time'. Perhaps they could go away together to northern Cyprus just for a holiday. It wouldn't need to be a honeymoon. She sat at her dressing-table, a lipstick half-way to her mouth, her eyes unfocused by dreams as she imagined them walking along the beach together, talking.
Then she gave a shrug and, leaning forward, applied the lipstick with a careful hand. The dream James always talked so well, always said all those delightful things she longed to hear. The real James would probably talk about books or the political situation. She stood up. Her skirt was loose at the waist. No thanks to that brief stay at the health farm. It was a result of living with James and eating James's carefully prepared meals - no fries, no puddings. There was no incentive either to snack before meals because she still felt obliged to ask him for everything, and it was easier not to eat anything between meals than to request something and maybe be damned as a glutton. Her face was thinner and her skin clear. I could pass for forty - maybe, thought Agatha.
When they collected Mrs. Hardy and they began to walk towards the village hall, Agatha glanced sideways at her and thought she might at least have made some effort with her dress. Mrs. Hardy was wearing a rather baggy green tweed skirt and a black shirt blouse under a raincoat.
'I don't think this is a very good idea,' said Mrs. Hardy. 'I don't like dancing.'
'Stay for a bit and have a drink,' urged Agatha, 'and then, if you still don't like it, you can go home.'
Light was streaming out of the village hall and they could hear the jolly umpty-tumpty sound of the village band. 'It'll be old-fashioned dancing tonight, not a disco,' said Agatha. 'No heavy metal.'
'You mean 'Pride of Erin' and the military two-step, things like that?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, I can do those,' said Mrs. Hardy. 'I didn't know anyone did those sort of dances these days. I thought they just took ecstasy pills and threw themselves about like dervishes.'
They left their coats in the temporary cloakroom manned, or 'womanned', by old Mrs. Boggle. 'That'll be fifty pee each,' said Mrs. Boggle, 'and hang your own coats up.'
'It's the first time I've ever been charged for a cloakroom ticket at the village hall,' said Agatha suspiciously.
'You don't think I'm going to do this for nothing,' grumbled Mrs. Boggle.
James paid the money and then led them both into the village hall. 'The next dance is a Canadian barn dance,' announced the MC, vicar Alf Bloxby.
