When she rose in the morning, it was to find her hair was a disaster, damp with heat, and dishevelled with all the tossing about.
As soon as she knew the salon would be open, she phoned Mr. John’s receptionist to see if she could have an appointment for that day. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Raisin,” said the receptionist on a rather smug note. “Mr. John is fully booked.”
“Put him on.”
“I beg your parding?”
“I said let me talk to him… now!”
“Oh, very well.”
“Agatha!” Mr. John welcomed her like an old friend.
“I’ve got a dinner date and my hair is a wreck. Could you possibly fit me in?”
“I would like to help you out. Let me see. Give me the book, Josie.”
There was a rustling of pages and then he came back on the phone. “You had your hair washed yesterday, so what I could do is just put it in rollers and then pin it up, but it would need to be five o’clock.”
Agatha thought quickly. She would have plenty of time to get her hair done, get back home and washed and changed in time for Charles. “Lovely,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
She then went up to the bedroom and swung open the doors of the wardrobe. What to wear? There was that little black dress she hadn’t worn since Cyprus. He had liked it. She tried it on. It hung loose on her body. How odd, thought Agatha, that depression could do so effectively what all those diets and exercise had not. She had lost weight.
She decided to drive into Mircester and look for something new.
The steering-wheel of her car scorched her hands and she was up out of the village and speeding along the Fosse before the air-conditioning worked.
Mircester shimmered under ferocious heat. She was able to find a parking place without difficulty. A lot of people seemed, to have decided to stay at home. Agatha put on her sunglasses and squinted up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight. She made her way to Harris Street off the main square, which boasted a line of expensive boutiques.
She went in and out of one hot shop after another until she felt she could not bear to try on one more dress. Perhaps it would be better to settle for one of her old dresses. It might be a bit loose but that would be all to the good, for any restaurant they went to would not have air-conditioning.
Agatha had just decided to forget about the whole thing when, looking along an alley which led off Harris Street and down to the abbey, she noticed the weekly market was in full swing. She would buy some fresh vegetables for salad. Once she was in the market and heading for the vegetable stalls, she noticed several stalls full of brightly coloured clothes. In one of them, a dress caught her eye. It was of fine scarlet cotton with a design of white lotus flowers. It had a cool, flowing line. Agatha fingered it. An Indian trader appeared at her elbow. “Nice dress,” he said.
Agatha hesitated and then asked, “How much?”
“Fourteen pounds.”
Again Agatha hesitated. It was very cheap. It might wrinkle or even fall apart. She had been prepared to spend a couple of hundred pounds. “Tell you what,” said the trader wearily, “you can have it for twelve.”
“Okay, I’ll take it.”
He stuffed the dress in an old plastic bag.
“Hot, isn’t it?” Agatha handed over the money.
“And don’t tell me I ought to be used to it,” he said gloomily. “I was born in Birmingham.”
Agatha was about to say, “So was I,” but then left the words unsaid. She was ashamed of her background.
She tried on the dress as soon as she got home. It was very attractive and, once she had added a thick gold necklace, looked quite expensive.
Now for Mr. John.
Evesham seemed even hotter than Mircester. Agatha suddenly wished she had her old, simple hair-style which she could wash and arrange herself.
But there was Mr. John, cool and handsome as ever. “Got a date?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Anyone special?”
Agatha could not resist bragging.
“Actually, he’s a baronet.”
“Very grand. Which baronet?”
“Sir Charles Fraith.”
“And how did you come to meet him?”
Agatha was about to say, “On a case,” but she did not like the implication that such as Agatha Raisin could not know anyone with a title, so she said airily, “He’s in my set.”
And hope that shuts you up, she thought.
“Pity,” he said.
“What’s a pity?”
“You’ll think this very forward of me, but I was thinking of asking you out myself.”
“Why?” asked Agatha in surprise.
“You’re a very attractive woman.”
And a rich one, thought Agatha cynically. But then Mr. John was so very handsome with his intense blue eyes and blond hair. If James came back and if James saw them going out together, perhaps he would be jealous; perhaps he would be prompted into saying huskily, “I always loved you, Agatha.”
“Sorry.” Mr. John dug a pin into the back of Agatha’s hair and her rosy dream burst like a brightly coloured soap bubble.
“Perhaps some evening,” said Agatha cautiously. “Let me think about it.”
But his invitation gave her a warm little glow, and he was a wizard at fashioning her hair into that elegant style.
Agatha made her way out to her car which she had parked on a double yellow line. “Look where that car’s parked!” hissed a woman at her ear.
Agatha swung round. A dumpy, frumpy woman with thick glasses was glaring at her. Agatha shrugged, walked to her car and opened the door.
“It’s yours!” gasped the woman. “Don’t you know it’s illegal to park there?”
Agatha turned and faced her. “I am not obstructing the traffic or getting in anyone’s way,” she said evenly. “Nor am I responsible for the mad parking arrangements of Evesham or for the stupid one-way system. But I wonder where someone like you gets off on this hot day abusing motorists. Go home, have a cup of tea, put your feet up. Get a life!”
And deaf to the insults that began to pour about her ears, Agatha got in and drove off.
Charles arrived promptly at eight o’clock. He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Like the hair, Aggie. And the dress. In fact, I bought a dress like that in the market in Mircester this afternoon for my aunt. She’s was grumbling about not having anything cool to wear.”
“I bought this one in Harrods,” lied Agatha. “The one in the market must have been a cheap copy.” But her pleasure in her appearance had diminished. “Where are we eating?”
“I thought we would go to the Little Chef.” The Little Chef is a chain of eateries, rather like Howard Johnson’s in the States, reliable, but hardly glamorous.
“I am not being taken out to a Little Chef. You are cheap, Charles.”
“I like the food,” he said defensively. “I suppose you want foreign muck. Well, give me a whisky while I think of something.”
Agatha poured him a whisky and he settled in a chair cradling his glass between small, well-manicured hands. He was a slight, fair-haired man. Agatha had never known his age. He had mild, sensitive features and she had originally thought he might be only in his late thirties. But she had later decided he was probably in his mid-forties.
