realized she was ferociously hungry and that she had promised to meet the women at the pub.
She put a frozen curry in the microwave, and when it was ready, ate it quickly and went up to change her clothes.
The pub was relatively empty. Harriet, Amy, and Polly were there with their husbands. When Agatha showed signs of joining them, Henry Freemantle gave her a venomous glare. No one offered to buy her a drink.
Agatha was suddenly fed up with the lot of them. 'What can I get you, Mrs. Raisin?' asked Rosie Wilden. Her blond hair was piled up on her head, apart from one errant curl straying down to a creamy bosom, almost down to the nipple exposed by another plunging blouse, black this time.
'A bottle of arsenic,' said Agatha sourly.
Rosie let out a peal of laughter. 'You are a one.'
'Aren't I?' said Agatha. 'Are you having an affair with Tolly Trumpington-James?'
Rosie's good humour was undented. 'Mrs. Raisin, dear, according to the local gossip, I'm having a affair with every man in this village. Tolly don't even come in here. Too common for him.'
'I think I'll change my mind about ordering a drink,' said Agatha. 'I don't want to go and sit with that lot.'
'Suit yourself. Sit somewhere else?'
'No, tell them I've left something in the oven.'
Agatha made her escape, walking straight past the table where her new friends and their husbands were sitting.
This time, she remembered to pick up her car. She drove home. Her cats were in the garden. They came in on stiff legs, backs arched, fur standing out. Agatha looked down at them. Then she looked down the garden. Those lights were dancing around again.
With a roar of rage, she ran down the garden. The lights flickered and disappeared.
She ran back into the house and through it and out to her car, where she got a torch.
Then she hurried back to the garden again and began to search every inch of ground where she had seen those lights. The grass was springy and uncut, being a wild area beyond the drying green which Barry had mowed.
Baffled, she returned to the house. She took out the inventory and began to check everything carefully. Nothing seemed to be missing.
But she felt frightened and uneasy.
THREE
THE bad weather Agatha had seen approaching had arrived by the following morning. Agatha awoke to the sounds of howling wind and rain pattering against the windows. She dressed and went downstairs. The house was cold.
She went into the sitting-room. With sunlight streaming in the windows, it had seemed tastefully furnished, the sofa and chairs upholstered in checked tweed, the carpet a warm burnt orange. But now it appeared what it was, a room in a rented cottage with ornaments on the mantelpiece that she would never have bought and pictures that she would never have hung.
She lit the fire. Must get more fire-lighters, she thought. Agatha used half a packet to light a fire. When the logs were crackling merrily, she went into the kitchen and made herself a coffee and carried it back to the sitting- room.
Agatha felt lost and alien. She rose after a while and went to the phone in the hall. Must get an extension and put it in the sitting-room, she vowed. Silly to have to stand in a cold hall. She phoned Mrs. Bloxby. 'Oh, it's you,' said the vicar's wife. 'No, he isn't back yet.'
'I'm not phoning about that,' said Agatha crossly. 'I might come back earlier than I intended.'
'It'll be nice to see you. But, why? Has anything suddenly gone wrong?'
'It's a bit boring and it's started to rain.' Not for a moment would Agatha admit that the fairy lights had frightened her. Such as Agatha Raisin was frightened of so many things-love, confrontations, aging, living alone-that she went at life with both fists metaphorically swinging.
'You're near Norwich, aren't you?' asked Mrs. Bloxby in her gentle voice.
'Not far, no.'
'Might be an idea to go and see a silly movie and look at the shops.'
This was an eminently sensible idea, but Agatha felt cross. She wanted Mrs. Bloxby to say that everyone in Carsely missed her and beg her to come home.
'I'll think about it,' she said sourly. 'Any news your end?'
'Miss Simms has a new boyfriend.' Miss Simms was Carsely's unmarried mother and secretary of the ladies' society.
'Really?' Agatha was momentarily diverted. 'Who?'
'He's something in carpets. She gave me one of those fake Chinese rugs. So kind.'
'I can't imagine you putting a fake Chinese rug in your sitting-room.'
'It's in Alf's study. It's got a stone floor and his feet get cold when he's writing his sermons, so it's ideal.'
'Anything else?'
'The Red Lion is being threatened with redecoration.'
'Why? I like it the way it is,' said Agatha, thinking fondly of the low-beamed pub and its comfortable shabby chairs.
'It's not John Fletcher's idea. It's the brewery. I think they want it art deco.'
'But that's dreadful, and so old-hat,' screeched Agatha. 'You've got to get up a protest.'
'We have.'
'Maybe I'd better come back and really get things going.'
'You aren't listening. The ladies' society has already collected signatures from everyone in the village. I don't think the brewery will go ahead in the face of such protest.'
'No, I don't suppose they will,' said Agatha in a small voice.
'Lovely weather, isn't it?'
'It's pissing down with rain here.'
Agatha coloured as a short, reproving silence greeted the profanity. Then Mrs. Bloxby said, 'Perhaps you should consider coming back. I know the winters can be bad here, but they're truly dreadful in Norfolk.'
Agatha seized on the invitation like a lifeline. 'I'll probably be back next week.'
After she had said goodbye, she felt better. Now for some coffee and that book.
Unfortunately, she decided to start off by printing out what she had written and reading it. 'What a load of waffle,' she groaned. 'It's not literary enough.' How the hell could you get a book on friends' coffee tables or get the Booker Prize if you didn't write literature?
She frowned. Of course, she could always start again and write one of those stream-of-consciousness novels with an eff as every second word. But she wasn't from Glasgow and all the successful effers seemed to come from Glasgow. Or there was the literary trick of observing the minutiae of surroundings. Literary writers always ended up lying in the grass describing each blade and insect.
Agatha looked gloomily out of the window at the driving rain. Fat chance of lying in grass in this weather.
She switched off the computer and stood up. What to do? No use investigating the infidelity of Tolly. Agatha was sure Rose Wilden had been telling the truth.
The doorbell rang. Agatha opened it. Harriet stood on the step, sheltering under an enormous golfing umbrella.
Agatha invited her in. Harriet left her umbrella and waxed coat in the hall. 'I came to thank you,' she said.
'What for?'
