Agatha Raisin and The Murderous Marriage

village hall. I know what. I'll see if Mrs. Hardy wants to come.'

'Do what you want,' muttered James.

Agatha stared at him. 'What's got into you?'

'I haven't been writing,' he said. He went and sat down in front of the word processor and switched it on.

Agatha shrugged and went upstairs. Love sometimes came in waves, like flu, but she was temporarily free of the plague and hoped to make it permanent.

She came back downstairs whistling the same tune she had heard Bill whistling when he left. James was glowering at the screen of the word processor.

'I'm off,' said Agatha brightly.

No reply.

'It was nice of Bill to call.' She gave a little laugh. 'I sometimes wonder why he bothers with me.'

'He comes,' said James acidly, 'to get a tan from the light that shines from the hole in your arse.'

Agatha stared at James, her mouth dropping. James turned bright red.

'You're jealous,' said Agatha slowly.

'Don't be ridiculous. The thought of you and a man as young as Bill Wong is disgusting.'

'But definitely intriguing,' said Agatha. 'See you later.'

She went out feeling an unaccustomed little surge of power.

Mrs. Hardy was at home, and after a certain show of reluctance said she would accompany Agatha to the village hall.

'What's in store?' asked Mrs. Hardy.

'I don't really know,' said Agatha. 'I'm usually very much part of the arrangements, but with all the frights and running around, I've had nothing to do with this one. But whatever it is, you'll enjoy it.'

Agatha's heart sank when they entered the hall and she learned from Mrs. Bloxby that the Carsely Ladies' Society were giving a concert.

'How can we do that?' hissed Agatha. 'I didn't think we had anyone who could perform anything.'

'I think you'll be surprised,' said Mrs. Bloxby blandly and moved away to help the grumbling Mrs. Boggle out of her wraps.

Mrs. Hardy and Agatha were handed printed programmes.

The first performer was to be Miss Simms, the society's secretary, who was billed to sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.

But the opening number was a line-up of the village ladies performing a Charleston, dressed in twenties outfits. Agatha blinked. Where on earth had the portly Mrs. Mason come by that beaded dress? Mrs. Mason, she remembered, had threatened to leave the village after her niece had been found guilty of murder, but she had finally elected to stay and no one ever mentioned the murder. The ladies did quite well, apart from occasionally bumping into one another on the small stage.

Then Miss Simms walked forward and adjusted the microphone. She was still wearing the skimpy flapper dress she had worn for the opening number. She opened her mouth. Her voice was thin and reedy, screeching on the high notes and disappearing altogether in the low notes. Agatha had never realized before what a very long song it was. At last it was mercifully over. Fred Griggs then took up a position on the stage in front of a table full of rings and scarves. Fred fancied himself as a conjurer. He got so many things wrong that the kindly village audience decided he was doing it deliberately and laughed their appreciation. The only person not joining in the laughter was Fred, who grew more and more anguished. At last a large box like a wardrobe was wheeled on the stage, and Fred nervously asked for a volunteer for the vanishing-lady trick.

Mrs. Hardy walked straight up the aisle and climbed on the stage.

Fred whispered to her and she went into the box and he shut the door.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Fred. 'I will now make this lady vanish.'

He waved his stick and two schoolchildren turned the box round and round.

Then Fred, with a flourish, opened the door. Mrs. Hardy had vanished.

Warm applause.

Fred beamed with relief and signalled to the schoolchildren, who revolved the box again.

'Viola!' cried Fred. He meant 'voila', thinking French some magical language. He opened the door. His face fell and he slammed it shut again and muttered something to the schoolchildren. The box was revolved again.

Again Fred cried, 'Viola!' and opened the door.

No Mrs. Hardy.

It must be part of the act, thought the audience, as Fred, with his face red and sweating, began to search inside the box.

'You couldn't even find my cat,' shouted Mrs. Boggle. 'No wonder you can't find that woman. Can't even find your brains on a good day, Fred.'

Fred glared down at her. Then he bowed. Schoolchildren ran forward to clear his props from the stage and a villager called Albert Grange came on and began to play the spoons.

Agatha slipped out of her seat and went quickly out of the village hall. She hurried towards Lilac Lane. She was beginning to wonder if something awful had happened to Mrs. Hardy.

And then, as she turned the corner into Lilac Lane, she saw the stocky figure of Mrs. Hardy in front of her.

'Mrs. Hardy!' called Agatha.

She swung round. 'Whatever happened?' asked Agatha, coming up to her. 'It was such a boring, awful affair,' said Mrs. Hardy with a grin, 'that I just walked out of the back of the box and out of the back of the hall.'

'But poor Fred,' protested Agatha.

'Why bother? He'd got everything else so mucked up that I reckoned another failure wouldn't matter.'

Agatha looked at her doubtfully. 'It seems a bit cruel to me.'

'I can't make you out,' said Mrs. Hardy. 'I know you used to run a successful business and yet here you rot, wasting your time and energy going to a dreadful affair like that. How can you bear it? I've never met such a dreary bunch of yokels in my life before.'

'They're not dreary! They are very kind and warmhearted.'

'What? People like that smelly old Boggle woman? Those pathetic village women cavorting around in the Charleston? Get a life!'

Agatha's eyes narrowed. 'I was beginning to think you were all right. But you're not. I'm glad you're leaving Carsely. You don't belong here.'

'No one whose brains haven't turned into mush belongs here.'

'There are brilliant people living in the Cotswolds! Writers.'

'Middle-aged menopausal women churning out Aga sagas about naughty doings in the vicarage? Ancient, creaking geriatrics making arrangements out of dried flowers and painting bad water-colours and all pretending to be upper-class?'

'Mrs. Bloxby is a good example of all that is fine about village life.'

'The vicar's wife? A sad creature who lives through other people because she has no life of her own. Oh, don't let's quarrel. You like it. I don't. I'll see you later.'

Agatha went slowly back to the village hall. A woman she only knew slightly was at the microphone singing 'Feelings'. Mr. and Mrs. Boggle had fallen asleep.

Agatha sat down and looked about her. Mrs. Hardy's words seeped like poison into her brain. How pathetic and shabby the village hall looked. Rain had begun to fall, blurring the high windows. Surely there was more to life than this. Perhaps her loneliness had caused her to look at the whole thing through a pair of distorting, rose-tinted glasses. And what of her non-relationship with James? A woman of any maturity, of any guts and courage would have given him up as a bad job. And what would married life with him have been like anyway? He was handsome and clever, but so self-contained, so cold, that even if they were married, life would be pretty much the same. And what about sex? Didn't he miss it? Didn't he ever think of the nights they had spent together?

It seemed to Agatha that he preferred to return to a life of celibacy, a celibacy broken by a few affairs.

She had never really given London a chance. Yes, she had been friendless there, but that was because of the