Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death (16 page)

‘I heard someone say she had a son. Anyway, here goes. I’ll start with the worst. Mary Owen.’

‘Good luck. But I don’t think you’ll get very far. Do you know her?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I called on her before I went off to join Save Our Foxes. We got on all right.’

‘You might have told me!’

‘We’re having a truce – remember?’

‘Oh, all right, but I want a cigarette. I’ll take it out into the garden. Are we just going to have the people from the parish council? It might be viewed as a bit of a snub by our
friends in the village if they’re not invited.’

‘Don’t let them know you’ve resigned from the water company, then. Let them think it’s business.’

Agatha went out into James’s small front garden, sat down on the doorstep and lit a cigarette.

She listened to him talking on the phone. That easy laugh of his! There was a lot of the actor in James. When he had finished phoning, should she confront him, say something like ‘Where do
we stand now, James?’

But he might answer something to the effect that they stood nowhere, nowhere at all.

‘Mary,’ she heard him say in a cajoling voice, ‘it’s just a get-together, champagne and eats, all paid for by the water company. Look at it this way: you’ve all got
to put this behind you and work together for the better good of the parish. Yes, a good opportunity to mend fences. What time? Oh, twelve or twelve-thirty. Good, see you then.’

So Mary was coming.

Agatha finished her cigarette and threw the stub over the hedge and out into the road, where it landed at the feet of Mrs Darry, who picked up the stub and threw it back. ‘Don’t you
have an ashtray?’ she demanded angrily. ‘We’re not in London now.’

‘If you’re so concerned about a clean environment, then stop that nasty little dog of yours pissing and defecating outside my home,’ yelled Agatha.

‘And show a bit of decorum,’ shouted Mrs Darry, her face puce. ‘You’re showing your knickers.’

Agatha angrily pulled her skirt down, which had ridden up about her knees.

If only it could turn out to be Mrs Darry. If only something could happen to remove her from Carsely.

She moodily lit another cigarette. Some doctors in Britain were refusing to treat smokers for illness. Why? With all the taxes on tobacco that the smoker paid, they should be getting first-class
free treatment. Why smokers? Why not drunks? Why not fat people? Bloody nanny state. Mrs Darry had put Agatha into a foul temper. People flapped their hands in your face and said, ‘I
don’t want to die from passive smoking,’ and then they got in their cars and drove off, blasting carcinogens into the night air. The cigarette tasted foul. Come to think of it, all
cigarettes tasted foul after the first three of the day. But come to think of it, too, just when one thought of giving up, some puritan would pop up to lecture sanctimoniously on the evils of
nicotine and drive the will to stop farther away. The only time the cigarettes tasted just fine all day long was during the annual No Smoking Day. Funny that, mused Agatha. If they changed it to
Smoke-Till-You-Drop Day, probably a lot more addicts would give up.

‘You can come in now,’ called James. ‘That’s the lot. They’re all coming.’

Agatha rose and went back in.

‘What about food?’ he asked.

‘Normally I’d get people like Mrs Bloxby to help me,’ said Agatha, ‘but as we are supposed to be running this on behalf of the water company, we’d better hire a
catering firm. We’ll have something like cold salmon and salad and strawberries and cream.’

‘The strawberries are past their best.’

‘People eat strawberries, no matter what. They like the idea. It’s like fish and chips. What a good idea, particularly on a cold night, you think, all warm and hot and golden and
smelling divine. In fact, all you get is a sodden packet of greasy food which lies like lead in your stomach.’

‘What about tables and things?’

‘There’s only six of them and two of us – that’s eight. My kitchen table’s quite large and I’ll borrow a table from the school hall for the champagne. They
can’t all be hard drinkers. A bottle a head is generous enough.’

‘Right. What I suggest is that you pay for the lot and let me know how much it comes to and I’ll pay half.’

‘I feel I might be able to get the water company to actually foot the bill. I didn’t press hard enough.’

‘Ah, but that would mean the Freemonts might attend as well, and the purpose of this party is to see how they act once they’re all together.’

‘I thought you suspected the Freemonts.’

‘I’ll get around to them.’

Agatha looked at him thoughtfully. ‘So we’re back in business again, James.’

‘Mmm?’ He looked up from some notes he had been making. ‘Oh, yes, back in business.’

‘Don’t you feel any awkwardness?’

‘Don’t let’s get into that, Agatha.’

No, thought Agatha, don’t let’s ever talk about feelings, about the times we made love, about the rows, about pain. Let’s just go on like a couple of bachelors interested in
crime.

‘I’d better go and talk to Roy.’

‘You do that,’ he said cheerfully.

Why did I say anything? mourned Agatha as she let herself into her cottage. I promised myself I wouldn’t. What else did I expect? A human response? From
James
? Rats!

Roy came clattering down the stairs. ‘How did you get on with lover boy?’

‘If you mean James, cut it out. They’re all coming.’

‘What about little me?’

Agatha suddenly didn’t want Roy around. She was already planning what to wear.

‘Skip it this time, Roy,’ she said. ‘I’ll be too busy to cope with a house guest.’

Roy looked hurt. ‘Be like that. But remember, I won’t always be at your beck and call when you need me.’

‘I thought your only interest in me was to further your career.’

‘I think I’ll get an earlier train if there is one.’ Roy looked offended.

‘We’ll have lunch. You can get the afternoon one.’

It was a silent lunch.

‘Look,’ said Agatha, relenting over the coffee. ‘I haven’t been straight with you. I really do want James all to myself.’

‘Waste of space, sweetie.’

‘Perhaps.’ Agatha sighed. ‘Let’s not quarrel. I’ll drive you to Oxford. We’ll have a better choice of trains.’

‘You can do something to make up.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve always wanted to punt.’

‘What? At Oxford? On the river?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Finish your coffee and we’ll go now.’

Agatha managed to find a parking place in the High and they walked down to Magdalen Bridge and down the steps at the side to the landing-stage.

‘I haven’t been here before,’ said Agatha. ‘I didn’t know the river would be so narrow here. And there are so many punts out. Are you sure you want to try
this?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Roy gave an excited little skip. ‘I read about it in a Sunday supplement.’

When they asked for a punt, the boatman told them the charge was eight pounds for an hour, twenty-five pounds deposit and to leave identification.

‘I’m a bit short,’ said Roy. ‘Could you . . .?’

‘Oh, all right.’ Agatha paid the money and left her driving licence.

‘I feel this is a mistake.’ Agatha scrambled on to the seat of the punt. Roy seized the long pole. ‘There are paddles,’ said Agatha. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good
idea to paddle to a quiet bit?’ There were not only punts but rowing boats.

The boatman pushed them out. Roy dug the pole in and pushed. The punt swung in a wide circle and bumped into a puntload of students.

‘Steady on,’ called one.

Roy was pink with embarrassment. ‘I’ll use the paddle.’ He shipped the pole and crouched down in the bow and paddled. After a few false starts and a few more bumps, they headed
up the river.

Then he stood up and took up the pole again. Agatha lay back in the punt and decided to ignore Roy’s amateurish efforts. The sun was filtering down through the trees. Conservatories were
glittering on one side, a cricket pavilion on the other, willow trees trailing in the water, dappled light and peace. But not a typically English scene, thought Agatha, looking at the students. I
always imagined everyone in white and ladies with parasols. The students all looked terribly young and undernourished and seemed to favour black shirts, tatty jeans and pony-tails – the men,
that is. They came from a mixture of nationalities. She was roused from her reverie as a branch banged against her head.

‘Look where you’re going!’

‘Sorry, just getting the hang of this.’

James. Would she and James ever get together again? Would she ever stop thinking about him? Why was it Guy meant so little? Perhaps because sex did not mean intimacy. Talk was intimacy.
Friendship was intimacy. Perhaps if she had practised friendship a bit more in earlier life, she would know better how to handle him. Or just leave him alone, said a cynical voice in her brain.
It’s sick. You need an exorcist.

‘I’m really getting good at this.’

‘Can’t you steer a straight course?’ asked Agatha. ‘You nearly banged into that rowing-boat.’

‘We’re doing fine,’ said Roy ‘You just dig the pole in, Aggie, and thrust –’

To Agatha’s horror, he
pole-vaulted
and landed face-down on the grassy bank while Agatha and the punt went shooting off in the other direction. The punt hit the opposite bank with
force as she instinctively rose to her feet, and Agatha was catapulted into the river.

Roy jumped in to save her, swam towards her and made ineffectual grabs at her hair.

‘Leave me alone!’ shouted Agatha. ‘My handbag’s in the punt. Get it. I mean, get the punt.’

Under the delighted gaze of a boatload of Japanese, Roy seized the rope at the front of the punt and towed it to the bank on which he had first landed. Agatha swam after him.

He helped her out.

‘All right?’ called a Japanese student. ‘Very funny. You in a film?’

‘No,’ said Agatha curtly. She rounded on Roy. ‘Let’s just get back in that damned instrument of torture and get back.’

As the amused Japanese looked on, they got back on board. ‘We’ll pull you back,’ shouted one.

‘No, we’ll manage,’ said Roy.

‘No, we won’t. That would be great,’ said Agatha.

They sat in the punt dripping wet, faces red with mortification as the Japanese towed them back to the landing-stage. A group of English students were waiting to greet these Japanese friends and
they laughed and clapped as Roy and Agatha, bedraggled and miserable, were helped from the punt.

They walked together up the High, a yard apart, and people turned to stare at them.

‘I am taking you straight to the station,’ said Agatha when they got in the car. ‘You’ve got your luggage. You can change in the station loo.’

‘I’m really, really sorry,’ said Roy meekly. ‘It was something I’d always wanted to do.’

Agatha drove in grim silence.

‘Look, Aggie. I left school at fifteen, never went to university. We all have dreams. Punting at Oxford was one of mine.’

Agatha slowed down.

‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ she said. ‘Dry yourself and change at the station. Then take a cab up to Marks and Spencer and buy me some dry clothes and then I’ll
change. I’ll take you for tea at the Randolph.’

Three hours later, Agatha made her way back to Carsely wearing a new outfit of blouse and skirt, along with the new underwear underneath and a pair of new flat shoes which were
extremely comfortable. Roy had enjoyed his tea and they had begun to laugh helplessly over their exploits on the river. Agatha smiled reminiscently. She could not remember laughing so hard in such
a long time.

As she drove down the winding country lane which led to the village of Carsely under the arching tunnel of green, green trees, she felt like some sort of animal heading homeward to a comfortable
burrow.

And since her fall in the river, she hadn’t thought of James, not once.

That evening she went to a meeting of the Carsely Ladies’ Society at the vicarage. Mrs Bloxby served tea and sandwiches in the vicarage garden. Mrs Darry was not present
and Agatha entertained the rest of them with a highly embroidered tale of her punting adventure.

The meeting then got down to business. The society had decided to put on a concert. Agatha groaned. The concerts were a nightmare of boredom. Not one of them had a bit of talent and yet so many
were delighted to get up on the stage and sing in cracked voices.

And yet they attended other concerts in other villages and the performances were just as awful. Mrs Bloxby had explained to her gently that everyone secretly wanted to perform on the stage and
this was a chance for them all to get their moment in the sun. Agatha noticed, however, that the vicar’s wife, like herself, never performed.

Conversation after the official meeting turned to the murders in Ancombe. ‘I’ve got all the members of the parish council coming to a garden party at my place,’ said Agatha.
‘I haven’t invited any of you because the water company is paying for it and it’s public relations business.’

‘They’re a funny lot,’ said Miss Simms, the secretary. She was wearing white stiletto-heeled sandals, the heels digging into the smooth vicarage lawn like tent pegs. ‘I
never complain,’ Mrs Bloxby had said. ‘It aerates the lawn.’

‘I mean,’ went on Miss Simms, ‘they’ve been at each other’s throats for years. I think the reason none of them resign is that they don’t want to give the
others the satisfaction. I’m sorry for you, Mrs Raisin. Sounds like the garden party from hell.’

But James was back in Agatha’s mind along with worries about what to wear to dazzle him.

The day of the garden party was perfect. Clear blue skies and hot sun.

Agatha, in a fine gown of delicately flowered silk and with a wide shady straw hat bedecked with large silk roses, supervised the caterers and took a last look around the garden. Then she went
upstairs to check her make-up.

The sound of cars in the lane below her window made her look down. They all seemed to have arrived at once. Mary Owen was wearing a shirtwaister of striped cotton and flat-heeled shoes, and
Angela Buckley white cotton trousers and a blue cotton top. Jane Cutler had on a simple Liberty print dress.