Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Read Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham Online
Authors: M.C. Beaton
and the
Wizard of Evesham
The Agatha Raisin series
(listed in order)
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
and the
Wizard of Evesham
M. C. Beaton
ROBINSON
London
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the US 1999 by St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2006
Copyright © 1999, 2006 M. C. Beaton
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library
ISBN 13: 978-1-84529-320-8
ISBN 10: 1-84529-320-7
Printed and bound in the EU
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
The author wishes to thank
Marie Steele of Thomas Oliver,
the real wizard of Evesham,
for her help in this book.
The weather was tropical. And this was England and this was Evesham in the Cotswolds. Agatha Raisin drove into the car park at Merstow Green, turned off the air-conditioning,
switched off the engine and braced herself to meet the wall of soupy heat which she knew would greet her the minute she stepped out of the car.
Like many, she had decided that all the scares about the greenhouse effect were simply lies made up by eco-terrorists. But this August had seen clammy, sweaty days followed by monsoon
thunderstorms at night. Most odd.
Agatha groaned as she left her car and walked across to the parking-ticket machine. What a hell of a day to decide to get one’s hair tinted!
She returned to her car and pasted the ticket on the window and then bent down and squinted at herself in the driving-mirror. Her hair was still dark brown but now streaked with purple.
Agatha had gone into a mild depression following her ‘last case’. Mrs Agatha Raisin fancied herself to be a detective to rival the fictional ones like Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey.
She was a stocky middle-aged woman with good legs, a round face and small bearlike eyes which looked suspiciously out at the world. Her hair had always been her pride, thick and brown and
glossy.
But only that week she had discovered grey hairs, nasty grey hairs appearing all over. She had bought one of those colour rinses but it had turned the grey purple. ‘Go to Mr John,’
advised Mrs Bloxby, the vicar’s wife. ‘His place is in the High Street in Evesham. He’s supposed to be very good. They say he’s a wizard at tinting hair.’
So Agatha had made the appointment and here she was in Evesham, a town situated some ten miles from her home village of Carsely.
The cynics say Evesham is famous for dole and asparagus. Situated beside the river Avon in the Vale of Evesham, the Garden of England, well-known for its nurseries, orchards and, of course,
asparagus, Evesham nonetheless can present itself to the visitor who comes to see its historical buildings as a down-at-heel town. Despite the increasing population, shops keep closing up and the
boards over the windows are decorated with old Evesham scenes by local artists, so that sometimes it seems a town of pictures and thrift shops. Enormous fecund women trundle push-chairs with small
children. The fashion they favour is leggings topped by a baggy blouse. As columnist and TV celebrity Anne Robinson said, she thought leggings came along with push-chairs and babies.
Agatha sometimes thought that a lot of the clothes shops closed down because the buyers would not look out of the window at the size of the female population and stocked only up to size sixteen
instead of up to size twenty-two.
She walked over to the High Street, not even stopping to look at the magnificent bulk of the old churches. Agatha was not interested in history as James Lacey, the love of her life, her
neighbour, was off once more on his travels, leaving his cottage deserted and Agatha depressed and with grey hairs on her head.
The hairdresser’s was simply called Mr John. Mrs Bloxby had urged Agatha to make sure she got Mr John in person.
And there it was, glittering in the heat of the High Street, a discreet shop frontage with
MR JOHN
emblazoned in curly brass letters over the door.
Agatha pushed open the door and went in. No air-conditioning, of course. This was Britain and there were too many recent memories of cold summers for shopkeepers to decide to put in
air-conditioning.
A receptionist marked off Agatha’s name in the book and called to a thin, pimply girl to escort Agatha to the salon. Agatha began to wish she had not come. She trudged through to a room at
the back and the girl said she would fetch Mr John.
Agatha gazed sullenly at her reflection in the mirror. She felt old and frumpy.
Then suddenly behind her in the mirror, a vision appeared and a pleasant voice said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Raisin. I’m Mr John.’
Agatha blinked. Mr John was tall and very, very handsome. He had thick blond hair and very bright blue eyes, startlingly blue, as blue as a kingfisher’s wing. His face was lightly
tanned.
‘Now what have we here?’ he said.
‘We have purple hair,’ snapped Agatha, feeling diminished in front of this handsome vision.
‘It’s easily remedied. Would you also like me to style your hair?’
Agatha, who usually kept her hair short, had let it grow quite long. She shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘Why not?’
‘You’re not local, are you?’ Mr John stirred the hair tint with strong, well-manicured hands.
‘No, I’m from London.’ Agatha had no intention of telling Mr John or anyone about her childhood background in a Birmingham slum. ‘I had my own public relations business
and sold up and took early retirement and moved to Carsely.’
‘Pretty village.’
‘Yes, very pleasant.’
‘And does your husband like it?’
‘My husband is dead.’
His hands hovered above her head. ‘Raisin. Raisin? That name rings a bell.’
‘It should do. He was murdered.’
‘Ah, yes, I remember. How terrible for you.’
‘I’m over it now. I hadn’t seen him in years anyway.’
‘Well, an attractive lady like yourself won’t remain single for long.’
‘I am sure you mean well and that’s what you say to all your dreary customers,’ said Agatha tetchily, ‘but I am well aware of what I look like.’
‘Ah, but I haven’t done your hair before. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be fighting them off with clubs.’
Agatha suddenly laughed. ‘You’re very sure of your skill.’
‘I have every reason to be.’
‘So if you’re that good, why Evesham?’
‘Why not? I like Evesham. The people are nice. I am king here. I might be lost among the competition in London. There you are. Now, I’ll set the timer. Sharon, a coffee and some
magazines for Mrs Raisin.’
A woman had entered and was sitting in the chair alongside Agatha. ‘Ready to have your colour done again, Maggie?’ Mr John greeted her.
‘If you think so,’ said Maggie, gazing up at him with adoring eyes.
‘Did your husband like the new style?’
‘He doesn’t like anything about me.’ Maggie’s voice had taken on a querulous moan. ‘Insults from morning to night. I tell you, John, if it weren’t for you
bucking me up, I’d kill myself.’
‘There, now. You’ll feel better when I’ve finished with you.’
As Agatha waited for the tint to take effect and more customers were dealt with, some by a couple of assistants, Agatha was amazed at the personal revelations that were poured into the
hairdressers’ ears.
She covertly watched Mr John as he moved about, admiring his athletic body and his blond hair, and oh, those blue, blue eyes.
Agatha began to feel alive for the first time in weeks.
The timer rang and she was escorted through to a hand-basin and the tint was washed out. Then back to Mr John, who began to put her hair up in rollers.
‘I thought it would be a blow-dry.’
‘I’m going to put your hair up . . . Agatha. It is Agatha, isn’t it?’
A less glorious-looking hairdresser would have been told sharply that it was Mrs Raisin. Agatha nodded.
‘You’ll love it.’
‘I’ve never had my hair up before. I’ve always had it short.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘Ladies who don’t think as much of themselves as they should, always get their hair cut short. Show me a woman with her hair cut to the bone and I’ll
show you an example of really low self-worth. Tell you what, if you don’t like it, I’ll take it down again and cut it.’
Agatha reluctantly gave her approval although she could feel sweat trickling down her body. How did Mr John keep so cool?
She was just beginning to feel she had been under the hot drier for hours when she was rescued and taken back to Mr John.
As he worked busily away, Agatha looked in delight as her new appearance emerged. Her hair was glossy and brown once more, but swept up in a French pleat and then arranged around her square face
in a way that made it looked thinner. She forgot about the heat. She smiled up at Mr John in sheer gratitude.
It was only when she was walking back down the High Street, squinting in shop windows to admire her reflection, that she realized she had not made another appointment. But Agatha had mostly done
her own hair, getting it cut in London on her occasional visits.
Once home, she opened all the doors and windows to try to let in some fresh air. Her two cats darted out into the garden and then promptly lay down on the grass, lethargic in the sun.
She looked at her silent phone. To add to her depression, it never seemed to ring. Her friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong was on holiday; Sir Charles Fraith, with whom she had been involved on
a couple of cases, was abroad somewhere; James Lacey was God only knew where; and even Roy Silver, her former employee, had not troubled to ring.
Then she remembered there was to be a meeting of the Carsely Ladies’ Society that evening. A good opportunity to show off her new hairstyle.
Mrs Bloxby was hosting the society at the vicarage and because of the heat had set out chairs and tables in the vicarage garden.
Agatha’s hair-style was much admired. ‘Where did you go?’ asked Mrs Friendly, a plump, cheerful woman who usually lived up to her name. She was a relative newcomer to the
village and hailed as an antidote to that other relative newcomer, Mrs Darry, who was nibbling a piece of cake with rabbitlike concentration.
‘Mr John in Evesham,’ said Agatha.
To her surprise, Mrs Friendly’s face creased up like that of a hurt baby. ‘I wouldn’t go there,’ she said, lowering her voice to a whisper.
‘Why?’ Agatha stared rudely at Mrs Friendly’s hair, which was a mousy brown and hanging in damp wisps round her hot face.
‘Nothing,’ muttered Mrs Friendly. ‘One hears stories.’
‘About Mr John?’
‘Yes.’
‘What stories?’
‘Must talk to Mrs Bloxby.’ Mrs Friendly moved away.
Agatha stared after her and then shrugged. She was joined by Miss Simms, Carsely’s unmarried mother and secretary of the society. ‘You look drop-dead gorgeous, Mrs Raisin.’
Agatha had long ago given up asking other members to call her by her first name. They all seemed to enjoy the old-fashioned formality of second names. Miss Simms was wearing a brief pair of shorts
with a halter-top and her usual spiked heels. ‘Where did you go?’