Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body

'Aren't you frightened of getting AIDS?'

Agatha nearly swerved into a ditch. She stopped the car and said in a thin voice, 'I am not having an affair with Roy. I do not know whether he is homosexual or not. I never asked, it being none of my business, but it wouldn't matter if he were.'

'But the close contact,' said Tom.

Agatha glared at him. 'Are you one of those freaks who think you can get it from lavatory seats?'

'Sorry,' mumbled Tom. 'I didn't take you for a liberal.'

'You see before you,' said Agatha, 'an apolitical woman with a lot of common sense who doesn't listen to folk stories or ill-informed scares. Now, can we get on?'

They drove on in silence, Agatha's interest in Tom extinguished. As they were driving into Odley Cruesis, Tom said, 'Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I lost a good friend to AIDS.'

'What happened?' asked Agatha acidly. 'Did her boyfriend breathe on her?'

'Him. He died. It was awful. I've been frightened of that horrible disease ever since.'

'Ah, that explains it,' said Agatha, suddenly cheerful again. 'Here we are. I think the Beagles are in the first cottage.'

The cottage had probably once been a farm labourer's cottage. It was made of red brick with a slate roof. The path up to the front door was of red brick as well. A glorious magnolia tree was just coming into flower in the little front garden.

Agatha rang the bell. An elderly man answered the door. He was small and round-shouldered and wearing two pullovers over a frayed shirt and baggy stained trousers. His face was wrinkled. Spare lines of greased hair covered a freckled scalp. His faded blue eyes looked at Agatha 'So it's you. Nosy parker.'

'This is Thomas Courtney, Miriam's son,' said Agatha.

'Oh, I do be right sorry. Come along in. The missus is poorly today.'

'What is up with her?' asked Tom sharply.

'Her do have a bit of a cold.'

'I might wait in the car,' said Tom nervously.

'It's just a cold!' exclaimed Agatha. 'Not the black plague.'

'Very well,' he said reluctantly.

Mrs. Beagle was crouched in an armchair beside the fire. The room smelled strongly of urine, coal smoke and wintergreen.

'Here's Miriam's boy,' said her husband.

Mrs. Beagle was as wrapped up as her husband and every bit as stooped and wrinkled. Agatha mentally removed them from her list of suspects. She estimated they would both have difficulty getting across the street, let alone murdering John Sunday.

Agatha looked around her, but there was nowhere in the small parlour to sit down. Charlie Beagle had sunk down into an armchair facing his wife. There was a battered sofa but two large somnolent dogs were stretched on it.

'Did you see anyone near the manor before it went alight?' asked Agatha.

'In the middle of the night!' said Charlie. 'Us were asleep. Didn't hear about it till morning.'

'About John Sunday,' pursued Agatha, 'you were at that protest meeting.'

'And a fat lot of good that did,' said Mrs. Beagle. 'Jabber, jabber, talk, talk. Nothing could be done about that horrible man.'

'Apart from Miriam and Miss Simms, did anyone else leave the room?'

'Not that I noticed,' said Charlie. 'But me and the missus, our sight isn't as good as it used to be. But good riddance to Sunday, I say. He was after stopping us putting up the Christmas lights. Such a display we had every year. We was in the Cotswold Journal. I'll show you. They sent me a photo and Fred Summer got one as well.'

He shuffled over to a table by the window, piled high with magazines, newspapers and photos.

'Here we are. Just you look at that!'

Agatha studied a colour photograph showing the two cottages. The outsides were covered with Christmas lights. The Summers had a plastic Santa and plastic reindeer riding on the roof and the Beagles had a lit-up plastic creche in their front garden. Perhaps the only thing John Sunday did in his life that became it, thought Agatha, who had seen a performance of Macbeth once, was blacking out this monstrosity.

Then her bearlike eyes narrowed. Surely Charlie couldn't be that infirm if he had got the plastic Santa up on the roof, not to mention wiring up all those lights.

'What a lot of work,' she said. 'It must have taken you ages.'

'I starts around the end of October, yes. Bit by bit.'

'And did you get that Santa up on the roof all by yourself?'

'Easy. There's a skylight. I just push it up through there.'

'Do you want to ask anything?' Agatha turned to Tom, who was standing with a handkerchief covering his mouth and nose.

He gave a muffled 'No.'

They took their leave. 'You really are terrified of infection,' said Agatha when they were outside.

'I hate colds.'

'I don't think there's much point in interviewing the Summers,' said Agatha. 'On the other hand, they might have seen something.'

'Do you mind if I wait outside?'

'Not at all,' said Agatha, her interest in him dying by the minute.

The Summers seemed mirror images of the Beagles, expect that Fred Summer looked fitter. His wife also had a cold and was coughing miserably. Agatha felt the air was full of germs and began to sympathise with Tom.

Fred's story was almost the same as that of Charles Beagle. They had visited the vicarage, more in the hope of some cakes and tea than out of any hope that something about Sunday might be resolved. There was one piece of additional information. Fred and Charlie used to compete to see which one of them could have the most dazzling display at Christmas, but as they both got older, they had begun to help each other.

Agatha thanked them and left. Tom was standing outside, a light breeze ruffling his hair. He looked so handsome that Agatha felt a lurch in her stomach. It suddenly seemed a long time since she had enjoyed any sex whatsoever, and she felt her hormones raging.

Toni and Roy came rushing up to join them. Toni looked excited. 'Tilly Glossop was out,' she said, 'but her neighbour, a Mrs. Crinch, came out to talk to us. She does not like Tilly. She said that Sunday was a frequent visitor but that the day before the murder, she heard Sunday and Tilly having a terrible row. When he left Tilly's cottage, Sunday shouted, 'Get it through your head, we're finished.' To which Tilly said, 'You'll be sorry.' '

'I think what we should do,' said Agatha, 'is accept Mrs. Bloxby's offer of tea and go through what we've got. We'll need to dig up all we can about Tilly.'

Mrs. Bloxby suggested they should take their tea in the garden as the day was fine and it would give Mrs. Raisin a chance to smoke.

'You smoke!' exclaimed Tom. 'Don't you know what you are doing to your lungs? And what about other people? Have you never heard of passive smoking?'

'We are out in the open air,' said Agatha huffily as they helped Mrs. Bloxby to arrange chairs round the table in the garden.

Mrs. Bloxby watched the emotions chasing each other across Agatha's face as she looked at Tom: an odd mixture of exasperation, disappointment and lust. Odd, thought Mrs. Bloxby. I never thought of Mrs. Raisin as a lustful person. More of a romantic. Does she not realise that inside that handsome exterior is probably a very prissy man? Just look at the way he is polishing that already clean seat with his handkerchief.

Toni and Roy arrived to join them, saying they had not been able to find Tilly Glossop, and all the other villagers had shunned them as if they had the plague.