Agatha Raisin and The Wellspring of Death

He took her hand and gave it a warm squeeze. 'Any romance in your life?'

'Nothing that I want to talk about,' said Agatha as his thumb began to stroke the palm of her hand. Her mind raced. I can't be doing this, she thought frantically. I'm too old. I don't have stretch marks, but I have love handles and my boobs don't perk up the way they used to.

When he drove her home, he stopped outside her cottage and, leaning across, planted a warm kiss on her mouth. Agatha blinked at him, dazed and shaken. 'I'm going up to London for a few days,' he said softly. 'I'll call you when I get back. You've been working like a beaver. Why don't you take a few days off and relax?'

'I'll do that,' said Agatha huskily.

She let herself into the cottage and stood in her hallway, her knees shaking.

You are ridiculous, she told herself fiercely. She peered in the hall mirror at the lines around her mouth, at the lines on her neck.

The phone rang, making her jump. It was Bill Wong. 'Been out?' he asked.

'Yes, Bill. I had dinner with Guy Freemont. Got anyone for the murder yet?'

'Not yet. I had dinner with James Lacey.'

Agatha went very still. 'And?'

'And he seems hell-bent on playing the amateur sleuth again.'

'He won't get very far without me.'

'He supposes you're too busy to be interested.'

'Too right. In the murder and in him.'

'If, on the other hand, you do hear any gossip, let me know, Agatha. We seem to be at a dead end.'

Agatha then asked about his girlfriend and his parents, and after a few more moments' conversation, rang off.

She had a few days off. She could not bear the idea of James's finding out anything and taking all the glory. It would do no harm to drop in on some of the parish councillors in the morning, just to see if she could find out anything.

Three

Agatha decided to start off with one of the councillors friendly to the water company. That way, it might be easier to get gossip. She looked up Mrs Jane Cutler in the phone book and noted down her address. She hesitated, wondering whether to phone first, but then decided it would be a better ploy just to land on the doorstep.

Mrs Cutler Jived in Wisteria Cottage in Ancombe, near the church. Wisteria Cottage turned out not to have any wisteria in evidence, nor was it a cottage. It was a modern bungalow with double glazing and niched curtains. The lawn was a severe square of green grass surrounded by regimented flowers which looked as if they had been measured to stand exactly four inches apart from each other, no more, no less.

Agatha knew that Mrs Cutler was aged sixty-five and did not look it, but she was startled again at the appearance of the woman who opened the door to her and confirmed that she was, indeed, Mrs Cutler.

Mrs Jane Cutler had expensively blonded hair, her skin was smooth and her figure excellent. Only the eyes were old and watchful and the wrists and ankles had that fragile, brittle appearance of old age. No plastic surgeon had yet found the way to make eyes look youthful. She must be very rich indeed, thought Agatha, as she followed her indoors. It took a mint to look like that.

She was wearing a clinging wool jersey dress of goldy-brown with a colourful Hermes scarf at her neck.

'I am so glad to see you, Mrs Raisin,' she said. 'Such a silly fuss about some water! I'll just go and get us some coffee. Shan't be a tick.'

Agatha looked round the sitting-room, which was furnished in Bastard Country House. Hunting prints on the wall, chintz on the sofa, expensive fake fire where gas flames flickered among fake logs, Country Life and The Lady on the coffee-table, very new oriental rugs spread over the hair-cord fitted carpet.

In a short time Jane Cutler reappeared with coffee and biscuits on a tray. Agatha reflected bitchily that wim the money that had gone into maintaining her appearance, Jane Cutler could have bought a real country mansion. After the coffee had been served, Agatha said, 'I do not understand why any of the councillors should be against the water company. Such a fuss about nothing.'

'Oh, you know what village people can be like,' said Mrs Cutler. 'So narrow-minded. Now I have always had broad vision. And my vision tells me that this water-company business is a good idea. I can understand why you work for them. I suppose people like you have to go on earning money, no matter what their age.'

'I--' began Agatha furiously.

'Have a biscuit. You obviously are a sensible woman and can't be bothered with all this silly dieting.'

Now I know why people don't like you, thought Agatha, feeling her skirt-band tightening against her waist and wondering again if people could suffer from instant psychosomatic fat.

'I can't help thinking,' ventured Agatha, deciding not to rise to insults, 'that this awful murder might have something to do with the row about the water. I mean, why would anyone want to bump off a nice man like Mr Struthers?'

A merry laugh. 'Dear Mrs Raisin, who gave you the odd idea that Mr Struthers was a nice man?'

'I mean,' floundered Agatha, 'there was surely nothing about him that bad to make anyone want to murder him.'

'We-ell, I probably shouldn't be saying this...'

Agatha waited patiently, convinced that nothing in this world could make Mrs Cutler refrain from saying anything nasty about anyone else.

'You see, Mr Struthers owned the paddock which borders on Angela Buckley's father's land. Do you know our Angela? Great strapping monster. Big powerful hands. Well, the Buckleys wanted to buy that paddock. Take it from me, dear, land greed is a worse addiction than drink or drugs or'--her glance flicked up and down Agatha's figure--'chocolate. There was quite a stormy scene at the last council meeting and it wasn't about the water. Angela said that Mr Struthers never used that paddock, that it was a waste of land and that the only reason he wasn't selling it was out of spite. Mr Struthers said it was no wonder she had never married, she was such a frump, and it was no wonder Percy Cutler had jilted her almost at the altar, and Angela slapped his face! My dear, we had to pull her off! '

'Cutler,' said Agatha slowly. 'Percy Cutler? Your son?'

'No, my late husband.'

'But--'

'Oh, there was an age difference, I admit, but what does that matter when there is real love? When poor Percy died of cancer, that bitch Angela said I had known that he had cancer and had only married him to get my hands on his money.'

'How dreadful,' said Agatha faintly.

'I pointed out to her that the husband before Percy, my Charles, had been very rich and I had no need to marry again for money.'

'How many husbands have you had?' blurted out Agatha.

'Just the three.'

'And what did the first two die of?'

'Cancer. So sad. I nursed them all devotedly.'

It might be considered a brand-new way of gold digging, thought Agatha. Marry a man who knows he's got cancer and not long to live.

'So you think,' she said aloud, 'that perhaps Angela or her father might have murdered Mr Struthers. But why? How would that give them the land?'

'Because the son and the father never got on. The son, Jeffrey, was always nagging his father to sell them the land. They'll get it now.'