With Agatha out of the road, thought Emma, she could deliver the pesky cat to its grateful owner and have the whole day free.
SEVEN
WHAT had happened to London? Agatha wondered, and not for the first time. Had the streets always been so dirty? Perhaps if she were living in London again, she would not notice.
She took Roy to the Caviar Restaurant in Piccadilly. Agatha did not like caviar and thought it a waste of money, but she was anxious not to lose Roy’s friendship and knew that the very prices on the menu would delight him.
Roy listened carefully while she told him that Peterson had been murdered.
“There’s been nothing in the papers,” said Roy. He was wearing a very conventional business suit, shirt and tie.
“Probably the police are keeping it quiet. Honestly, I’ve been going over everything in my head.”
“The murderer must have been someone Peterson knew,” said Roy, spooning up caviar, and hoping the people walking along Piccadilly on the other side of the large plate-glass window were envying him. “I mean, you didn’t say anything about the door of his room being forced. He must have phoned someone else besides you. How else could anyone have found out? Unless your phone is bugged.”
“You’ve been reading too many spy stories.”
“Believe me, I have recently been talking to a real-life spy, and truth is stranger than fiction.”
“What real-life spy?”
“Oh, just someone I met. I’m not supposed to talk about it. Have they buried the body?”
“I don’t think so. There’ll be another autopsy if the police think anything could have been missed in the first one.”
“Might be worth your while to look into that boyfriend of Joyce Peterson’s. He sounds a violent sort of chap.”
“I might call on her tomorrow when I know he’s out at work. But I don’t think so. I mean, someone had a very sophisticated sniper rifle. You’d almost think someone was being paid to do it.”
“You mean, like a professional assassin?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“Can I have lobster?”
“Have anything you like.”
“Emma’s quite a dear, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she turned out to be a very good worker.”
“Hidden depths, there.”
“I don’t think so,” said Agatha Raisin, who prided herself on being a good judge of character. “I think what you see is what you get.”
Emma parked her car in a field near Barfield House that had been turned into a temporary car-park for the day. She was wearing a wide floppy hat and sunglasses, which she considered sufficient disguise.
Stands were briskly selling home-made jams and jellies, cakes, home-made wine, wooden salad bowls, country clothes and second-hand books. There was no entrance fee, but programmes of events cost two pounds each. Emma studied the programme. There were to be choir singing a hundred-yard sprint, wellie throwing, ferret racing, dog and horse judging competitions and various other events. The wellie throwing was new to Emma, but she guessed it would be to see who could throw a Wellington boot the farthest.
Emma felt thirsty and headed towards a large refreshment tent. Her heart beat quickly when she saw Charles. He was sitting at a table near the entrance, selling raffle tickets. She longed to go over to him but was frightened that if he recognized her she would need to think up another lie, and besides, he might tell Agatha she had been at the fete instead of working. She bought a cup of tea and then sat in a corner of the tent and watched him hungrily. It would be marvellous if she were there by his side, greeting people, hanging on to his arm.
A pretty girl came up to Charles. He stood up and kissed her enthusiastically on both cheeks, and then she took his place at the table while Charles went outside.
Emma finished her tea and followed. Charles went up to a platform overlooking a meadow and announced the start of the hundred-yard sprint. Emma stayed and watched while he judged event after event. The sun beat down and her legs began to ache. She turned around to see if there was somewhere she could sit down and keep Charles in view.
And then she saw a fortune-teller’s tent.
Emma was a great believer in astrology, clairvoyants and fortune-tellers. Perhaps Madame Zora could tell her whether there was any hope with Charles.
Madame Zora was Gustav, and Gustav was in a bad temper. Normally fond of his employer, he decided that day that he hated him. The woman from the village who had volunteered to play Madame Zora had fallen ill and Charles had insisted Gustav get dressed up and play the part.
Emma had to wait in a queue. Gustav was a big success. As the day grew hotter and his temper higher, his predictions became more and more bizarre. Word spread around the fete and people became anxious to consult this outrageous fortune-teller.
At last it was Emma’s turn. She pushed aside the flap and walked in. The tent was dark and so she removed her sunglasses. It was delightfully eerie, she thought. The tent was almost completely dark except for a scented candle burning on a small table in front of Madame Zora, whose face was shadowed by a colourful shawl over “her” head.
“Sit down,” said Gustav. He recognized her as that batty female who had called on Charles unannounced. Now, what had Charles said about her? He had said, “Don’t be too hard on her, Gustav. She thinks she’s had a miserable life. Bullied by her husband and bullied at her work.”
“Give me your right hand,” said Gustav.
He affected to study it and then said, “You have had a very unhappy life. You had a bullying husband, but he is now dead.
Your colleagues at work did not appreciate you. But your life is about to change.”
“How?” demanded Emma.
“There is a man much younger than you who interests you.” “Oh, yes!”
Now what? thought Gustav. Then he thought, why not make trouble for that Raisin female as well? He knew from Charles that Emma worked for Agatha Raisin.
“There is a woman who stands between you and your love. Let me see.” He bent down and fished a crystal ball out of its box at his feet. He hadn’t bothered using it before. He peered into it. “Yes, I see her. She is middle- aged with brown hair and small eyes. While she is around, you do not have any hope. No hope at all.”
“No hope,” echoed Emma in a quavering voice.
“No hope,” said Gustav lugubriously.
“What shall I do?”
“The solution is in your hands. Now Madame Zora is tired and cannot see anything else. That will be ten pounds, please.”
Emma was so shaken that she opened her wallet and paid up without a murmur.
After she had gone, Gustav put one pound in the collection box out of his pocket, the actual price he should have charged, and kept the tenner for himself.
Emma left the tent feeling shaken. A little voice of common sense was telling her it was all rubbish, but yet, Madame Zora had known about her past life and had described Agatha Raisin.
She decided to leave the fete. The day was unseasonably hot, and her feet and legs hurt.
The fantasy of “removing” Agatha slowly began to become a reality in her obsessed brain.
But she very nearly decided to forget about the whole thing when Agatha, returned from London, called on her that evening.
“I took the opportunity to visit my solicitor in London, Emma,” said Agatha. “In case anything happens to me in the near future, I have decided to leave the detective agency to you.”
