AGATHA RAISIN & THE VICIOUS VET
by M C Beaton
Chapter One
Agatha Raisin arrived at Heathrow Airport with a tan outside and a blush of shame inside. She felt an utter fool as she pushed her load of luggage towards the exit.
She had just spent two weeks in the Bahamas in pursuit of her handsome neighbour, James Lacey, who had let fall that he was going to holiday there at the Nassau Beach Hotel. Agatha in pursuit of a man was as ruthless as she had been in business. She had spent a great deal of money on a fascinating wardrobe, had slimmed furiously so as to be able to sport her rejuvenated middle-aged figure in a bikini, but there had been no sign of James Lacey. She had hired a car and toured the other hotels on the island to no avail. She had even called at the British High Commission in the hope they had heard of him. A few days before she was due to return, she had put a long- distance call through to Carsely, the village in the Cotswolds in which she lived, to the vicar's wife, Mrs Bloxby, and had finally got around to asking for the whereabouts of James Lacey.
She still remembered Mrs Bloxby's voice, strengthening and fading on a bad line, as if borne towards Agatha on the tide. 'Mr Lacey changed his plans at the very last minute. He decided to spend his holiday with a friend in Cairo. He did say he was going to the Bahamas, I remember, and Mrs Mason said, 'What a surprise! That's where our Mrs Raisin is going'' And the next thing we knew this friend in Egypt had invited him over'
How Agatha had squirmed and was still squirming. It was plain to her that he had changed his plans simply so as not to meet her. In retrospect, her pursuit of him had been rather blatant.
And there was another reason she had not enjoyed her holiday. She had put her cat, Hodge, a present from Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, into a cattery and somehow Agatha found she was worrying that the cat might have died.
At the Long-Stay Car-Park, she loaded in her luggage and then set out to drive to Carsely, wondering again why she had ever retired so young - well, these days early fifties
The cattery was outside Cirencester. She went up to the house and was greeted ungraciously by the thin rangy woman who owned the place.
'Really, Mrs Raisin' she said, 1 am just going out. It would have been more considerate of you to phone'
'Get my animal . . .
The woman stalked off, affront in every line of her body. Soon she came back with Hodge mewling in his carrying basket. Totally deaf to further recriminations, Agatha paid the fee.
Being reunited with her cat, she decided, was a very comforting thing, and then wondered if she was reduced to the status of village lady, drooling over an animal.
Her cottage, crouched under its heavy weight of thatch, was like an old dog, waiting to welcome her. When the fire had been lit, the cat fed, and with a stiff whisky inside her, Agatha felt she would survive. Bugger James Lacey and all men!
She went to the local store, Harvey's, in the morning to get some groceries and to show off her tan. She ran into Mrs Bloxby. Agatha felt uncomfortable about that phone call but Mrs Bloxby, ever tactful, did not remind her of it, merely saying that there was a meeting of the Carsely Ladies' Society at the vicarage that evening. Agatha said she would attend, although thinking there must be more to social life than tea at the vicarage.
She had half a mind not to go. Instead she could go to the Red Lion, the local pub, for dinner. But on the other hand, she had promised Mrs Bloxby that she would go, and somehow one did not break promises to Mrs Bloxby.
When she made her way out that evening, a thick fog had settled down on the village, thick, freezing fog, turning bushes into crouching assailants and muffling sound.
The ladies were all there among the pleasant clutter of the vicarage sitting-room. Nothing had changed. Mrs Mason was still the chairwoman -chairpersons did not exist in Carsely because, as Mrs Bloxby pointed out, once you started that sort of thing you didn't know where to stop, and things like manholes would become personholes - and Miss Simms, in Minnie Mouse white shoes and skimpy skirt, still the secretary. Agatha was pressed for details about her holiday and so she bragged about the sun and the sand until she began to feel she had actually had a good time.
The minutes were read, raising money for Save the Children was discussed, an outing for the old folks, and then more tea and cake.
That was when Agatha heard about the new vet. The village of Carsely had a veterinary surgery at last. An extension had been built on to the library building. A vet, Paul Bladen, from Mircester, held a surgery there twice a week on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.
'We weren't going to bother at first' said Miss Simms, 'because we usually go to the vet at Moreton, but Mr Bladen's ever so good'
'And ever so good-looking' put in Mrs Bloxby.
'Young?' asked Agatha with a flicker of interest.
'Oh, about forty, I think' said Miss Simms. 'Not married. Divorced. He's got these searching eyes, and such beautiful hands'
Agatha was not particularly interested in the vet, for her thoughts were still on James Lacey. She wished he would return so that she could show him she did not care for him at all. So, as the ladies gushed their praise for the new vet, she sat writing scripts in her head about what he would say and what she would say, and imagining how surprised he would be to find out that ordinary neighbourly friendliness on her part had been mistaken on his for pursuit.
But as the fates would have it, Agatha was destined to meet Paul Bladen the very next day.
She decided to go to the butcher's and get herself a steak and buy some chicken livers for Hodge. 'Marnin', Mr Bladen' said the butcher, and Agatha turned round.
Paul Bladen was a good-looking man in his early forties with thick wavy fair hair dusted with grey, light-brown eyes which crinkled up as though against the desert sun, a firm, rather sweet mouth, and a square chin. He was slim, of medium height, and wore a tweed jacket with patches and flannels and, for it was a freezing day, an old London University scarf about his neck. He reminded Agatha of the old days when university students dressed like university students, before the days of T-shirts and frayed jeans.
For his part, Paul Bladen saw a stocky middle-aged woman with shiny brown hair and small, bearlike eyes in a tanned face. Her clothes, he noticed, were very expensive.
Agatha thrust out her hand and introduced herself, welcoming him to the village in her best lady-of-the- manor voice. He smiled into her eyes, holding on to her hand, and murmuring something about the dreadful weather. Agatha forgot all about James Lacey. Or nearly. Let him rot in Egypt. She hoped he'd got gippy tummy, she hoped a camel bit him.
'As a matter of fact' cooed Agatha, 'I was coming to see you. With my cat'
Did a frost settle momentarily on those crinkled eyes? But he said, 'There is a surgery this afternoon. Why don't you bring the animal along? Say, two o'clock?'
'How lovely to have our own vet at last' enthused Agatha.
He gave her that intimate smile of his again and Agatha went out treading on air. Fog was still holding the countryside in its grip although, far, far above, a little red disc of a sun struggled to get through, casting a faint pink light on the frost-covered landscape, which reminded Agatha of the Christmas calendars of her youth where the winter scenes were decorated with glitter.
She hurried past James Lacey's cottage without a glance, thinking what to wear. What a pity all those new clothes had been meant for hot weather.
While the tabby, Hodge, watched curiously, she studied her face in the dressing-table mirror. A tan was all very well, but there was a lot to be said for thick make-up on a middle-aged face. There was a pouchy softness under her chin which she did not like and the lines down the side of her mouth appeared more pronounced since before she had gone away, reminding her of all the dire warnings about what sun-bathing did to the skin.
She slapped on skin-food and then rummaged through her wardrobe, settling at last on a cherry-red dress and black tailored coat with a velvet collar. Her hair was shiny and healthy, so she decided not to wear a hat. It was
