Agatha Raisin Kissing Christmas Goodbye

'The difficulty is that I need someone to start right away.'

'That's all right,' said Toni. 'I can get the sack.'

'Don't you want to go to university?'

'I can't bear the idea of having a bank loan for my studies around my neck for years. Mrs Raisin, it would do no harm to give me a trial.'

'I don't like the idea of you trying to get the sack. You'll be letting your employers down.'

'There are plenty of girls to take my place. I think I am showing initiative. You cannot want a detective who plays by the rules the whole time.'

Agatha realized how tired she was. Toni had a clear, precise manner of speaking, hardly ever heard in the local youth these days, where the glottal stop was considered de rigueur.

'All right. Report here on Monday morning at nine o'clock. You'd better wear flat shoes and clothes you don't mind getting messed up.'

'How much will I be paid?' asked Toni.

'Six pounds an hour and no overtime while you are a trainee. But do well and I'll give you a bonus. You may claim reasonable expenses.'

Toni thanked her and left.

'Odd girl,' commented Agatha.

'I thought she was nice,' said Mrs Freedman. 'Quite old-fashioned.'

Toni cycled to her home in one of Mircester's worst housing estates. She pushed her bike up the weedy garden path and propped it against the wall of the house. Then she took a deep breath and let herself in. Her brother, Terry, was sitting slumped in front of the television with a bottle of beer in one hand and a fish supper in the other. 'Where's Mum?' asked Toni.

'Passed out,' said Terry. Unlike his slim sister, Terry was a mass of bulging muscles. A scar from a knife fight in a pub marred his right cheek.

Toni went upstairs and looked in her mother's bedroom. Mrs Gilmour was lying fully clothed on top of the bed. An empty vodka bottle lay on the bed beside her. The air stank of sweat and booze.

Toni went to her own room and took off the suit she had borrowed from a friend. She hung the suit away carefully and then put on jeans and a clean T-shirt.

Downstairs, she took down a denim jacket from a peg on the wall and put it on. She opened the door and began to wheel her bike back down the garden.

Her brother appeared in the doorway behind her. 'Where you goin'?' he shouted.

'Work. Late shift,' yelled Toni. 'Remember that stuff called work? Why don't you get yourself a job, you wanker?'

Agatha was about to put a packaged curry into the microwave for her dinner when the doorbell rang. When she opened her front door she saw her friend Mrs Bloxby carrying a box of books.

'These books were left after the sale at the church,' said Mrs Bloxby. 'They're the old greenand-white Penguin detective stories. I thought you might like to have them.'

'Suits me fine. Come in and put them on the kitchen table. I plan a lazy weekend and you've saved me a trip to the bookshop.'

Mrs Bloxby sat down at the kitchen table. Agatha looked at her friend with sudden concern. The vicar's wife seemed tired. The lines under her gentle eyes were more pronounced, and strands of wispy grey hair were escaping from the bun at the base of her neck.

'Let me get you a sherry,' said Agatha. 'You look worn out.'

'Alf has a cold,' said Mrs Bloxby. Alf was the vicar. Agatha always thought Alf was a stupid name for a vicar. He ought to have been called Peregrine or Clarence or Digby or something like that. 'I've been doing the parish visits for him. Honestly, half of them don't even bother coming to church.'

Agatha placed a glass of sherry in front of her.

'I don't suppose anyone's frightened of God any more,' commented Agatha. 'People like a good fright.'

'Cynical, but true,' said Mrs Bloxby. 'Ecology is the new religion. The planet is dying, the poles are melting, and it's all your fault, you sinners. Did you get a girl for your dogs and cats?'

'I'm trying someone out. She's neat and clean and somewhat old-fashioned in her speech and manner. Odd, these days.'

'You're always trying to brush against my boobs, you old perv,' Toni was saying to the pharmacist, Basil Jones.

'There's not much space here,' said Basil, outraged. 'I was merely trying to get past you.' Basil's anger was fuelled by the fact that he had deliberately brushed against her.

'You're nothin' but a sad old sack,' said Toni.

Basil's face was now mottled with anger. 'You're fired!'

'Okey-dokey,' said Toni cheerfully.

'Have you heard from Mr Lacey?' Mrs Bloxby asked.

'No, he's gone off somewhere. Don't care. Though if he comes back in time, I might invite him to my Christmas dinner.'

'Oh, no, Mrs Raisin! Not again!'

Agatha had previously had a disaster of a Christmas dinner when she had used the oven in the church hall to cook an enormous turkey, turned the gas up too high and filled the hall with acrid black smoke.

'It'll be perfect this time!' Both Agatha and Mrs Bloxby called each other by their second names, an old- fashioned custom in the Carsely Ladies' Society, to which they both belonged.

'It's only October,' said the vicar's wife plaintively. 'No one should be allowed to mention Christmas before the first of December.'

Agatha grinned. 'You'll see. I'll have it one week before, so it won't interfere with anyone's family arrangements.'

Mrs Bloxby finished her sherry and rose wearily to her feet. 'I'll drive you to the vicarage,' said Agatha.

'Nonsense. I can walk.'

'I insist,' said Agatha.

The vicar was sitting reading a book with a box of tissues on a table beside him. 'Hello, dear,' he said faintly.

'How are you?' asked Agatha briskly. 'Still very weak.'

'Your wife is exhausted,' said Agatha, 'so I'm going to look after you and give her a break.'

He looked at Agatha in horror. 'There's no need. In fact, I'm feeling better by the minute.'

'We can't have your wife falling ill with overwork, now can we?' Agatha gave him a wide smile but her small bearlike eyes were threatening. The vicar turned to his wife.

'Please go and lie down, dearest. I assure you I am now well enough to fix us a light supper. Mrs Raisin, your services will not be needed!'

'Alf, you're shouting,' protested Mrs Bloxby. 'Mrs Raisin was only trying to help.'

Agatha drove back to her cottage with a grin on her face. Men, she thought. Typical. Women get colds and men get flu.

After dinner, she took the box of books through to her sitting room. She selected a detective story by Marjorie Allingham and began to read. The next day, she chose one by Edmund Crispin and followed that up with one by Freeman Willis Croft. She was fishing in her handbag for her cigarettes when her fingers touched an envelope. She drew it out. It was that odd letter from Mrs Tamworthy. Agatha, her mind full of detective stories, reread the letter with new eyes.

What if the threat to this woman were real? Perhaps she would be invited to stay. Mrs Tamworthy would be an elegant silver-haired aristocratic lady. She would have a plump, pompous son with a bitchy wife. Her daughter