“Makes a change.”
“Still taking on free-lance work?”
“From time to time. What have you got?”
“You know Dunster and Braggs?”
“The chain store, yes. Everyone knows them.”
“They’re launching a new line, Youth Fashion. Boss wants your ideas.”
“I know what Youth Fashion means,” said Agatha gloomily. “Same as Mr. Harry clothes. Cheap clothes made out of T-shirt material and all of it made in the sweat-shops of Taiwan.”
“We’d pay well. He wants you to start as soon as you can.”
“If you wait until I pack a suitcase, you can drive me up to London.”
Roy looked at her in surprise. “I never thought it would be this easy. What gives?”
“Just bored, that’s all.”
“No murders?”
“Not one. Oh, there was this house that was supposed to be haunted, but it turned out to be just some old lady trying to get attention. I’ll go and pack.”
Agatha was gone for a month, taking her cats with her this time. Paul Chatterton landed a short contract with a firm in Milton Keynes, which meant he had to leave early in the morning and did not return until late in the evening. Mrs. Bloxby called on Juanita as part of her parish duties and found the lady highly discontented.
“It’s so boring here,” was Juanita’s complaint. “I want to go back to Madrid. Paul could get work there. I should have married someone nearer my own age and a Spaniard. That’s what my mother said. If only I’d listened to her.”
“Mr. Chatterton will soon have finished his contract,” said Mrs. Bloxby, “and then he’ll be able to take you about. Maybe you could go to London for a visit.”
“I don’t want to go to London,” said Juanita. “I want to go to Madrid.”
Outside, the rain was drumming down, making puddles in the grass. “It’s sunny in Madrid.”
In vain did Mrs. Bloxby try to rope her in to take over the catering duties that Agatha Raisin had so cavalierly forgotten about. All Juanita would say was that it was boring.
After three weeks, she arrived at the vicarage carrying her suitcase and asked for a lift to the station. Mrs. Bloxby pleaded with her to at least stay until Paul came home that evening. Juanita said stubbornly that she had made up her mind. If Paul wanted her, he knew where to find her.
So Mrs. Bloxby drove her to the station and waved goodbye to her as she boarded the London train.
Now Mrs. Raisin’s dreams will start up again, thought Mrs. Bloxby crossly. I only hope Mr. Chatterton decides to follow his wife.
But when she spoke to Paul that evening, he heard her in silence, looking angry and resigned.
“Why don’t you go after her?” suggested Mrs. Bloxby.
“My wife insists on living with her mother and three brothers. We had a flat of our own in Madrid for four weeks after we were married and then we moved to London. She would not settle and kept making excuses to go home. At first I kept going over there, but I could not get her to move out of the family home again. She’s thirty-two and yet they all treat her like a child and so that’s the way she behaves. The last time she said she had heard the English countryside was pretty and why didn’t we live there? So I bought this cottage, but this is the result. Damn women. Where’s Agatha, by the way?”
“Working in London.”
“I might be going up there for a day. Know where’s she’s staying?”
“No,” lied the vicar’s wife and silently asked God to forgive her. Agatha had phoned her with the address of the service flat she would be staying in.
Agatha was happy to be back. Her conscience, never usually very active, had nonetheless continued to jab her over promoting clothes which were shoddy and badly designed. Summer had arrived at last and the taxi bearing her home from Moreton-in-Marsh station cruised down under the arches of green trees which leaned over the Carsely road.
After she had released the cats from their travelling boxes into the sunshine of the garden, she took a deep breath of sweet air and then went indoors to unpack.
At least the time in London had got Paul Chatterton firmly out of her head. Juanita might be fun to know, a change anyway from nasty trouts like Mrs. Davenport.
The expensive block of service flats she had been staying in-expensive mainly because they allowed pets-had boasted a gym and Agatha had made good use of it. Her waist was trim and her stomach flat-well, nearly. She changed into a pair of sky-blue shorts and a blue-and-white gingham blouse and walked along to the post office- cum-general stores to buy groceries.
She was paying for the groceries when she noticed a bundle of local papers on the counter. The headline on the top one said: OWNER OF HAUNTED HOUSE FOUND DEAD. Agatha bought a copy and hurried home with it. She stacked away her purchases and settled down at the kitchen table to read the story.
Mrs. Witherspoon had been found by her daughter lying at the bottom of the stairs with her neck broken. Daughter Carol Witherspoon, aged sixty-seven, of Holm Cottage, Ancombe, said that she had not heard from her mother and became worried because her mother usually phoned her every Friday. She had let herself into her mother’s house with her key and had found her dead. Mrs. Witherspoon had reported to the police on several occasions that her home was haunted. Agatha pushed the paper away and sat deep in thought. The staircase, she remembered, had been carpeted, and the stairs themselves, shallow.
Of course something or someone might have frightened Mrs. Witherspoon so much that she had lost her footing. Even so, how did she manage to break her neck? She had shown no signs of suffering from brittle-bone disease. Her back had been ramrod-straight.
The doorbell rang. Agatha went and opened the door and looked up into Paul Chatterton’s black eyes. “Oh, it’s you,” she said weakly. “Come in.” She peered round him. “Where’s your wife?”
“Gone back to Spain.”
“Oh.” Agatha walked ahead of him into the kitchen. He noticed idly that she had long smooth legs, not a varicose vein in sight.
“You’ve lost weight,” he said.
“There was a gym at the flats I was staying at. I used it as much as possible. Coffee?”
“You’ve forgotten. Tea, please.”
Agatha plugged in the kettle. “Would you do me a favour, Paul? Just before I left I bought four decent garden chairs. They’re stacked at the shed in the bottom of the garden. Here’s the key. Could you bring out two of them?”
“Sure.” He took the key and headed off out into the garden to a rapturous welcome from the cats.
Agatha made tea for him and coffee for herself and carried both into the garden to where Paul had set up two garden chairs with comfortable cushioned seats and backs.
“Did you have time to read about Mrs. Witherspoon?” he asked. “I find it all very odd.”
“So do I,” said Agatha, suddenly happy. “What are we going to do about it?”
Four
AGATHA Raisin listened to her conscience, which was currently telling her not to have anything further to do with Paul. The rest of her mind was just glad to see him. Not for a moment would she admit to herself that she dreaded loneliness. She prided herself on being a self-sufficient woman. She only knew that she was glad that he was back, glad his wife was in Spain, and glad that the investigation had started up again.
“The problem,” said Paul, “is where to begin.”
“There’s the daughter,” said Agatha. “She lives over at Ancombe. But it’s too soon after her mother’s death to go calling.”
