Agatha Raisin Companion (6 page)

Carsely is a beautiful village which ‘nestles in a fold of the Cotswold hills’ just off the A44. The route into the village passes through a tunnel of trees which
always signal homecoming to Agatha when she returns from her travels.

Built around a Cotswold-stone high street, it consists of two long lines of houses, interspersed with shops, ‘some low and thatched, some warm gold brick with slate roofs’. The
village post-office-cum-general store, where Agatha buys most of her microwave meals and cat food, is called Harveys. The other shops include an old-fashioned haberdasher’s, a butcher’s
and ‘a shop that seemed to sell nothing other than dried flowers and to be hardly ever open.’ The pretty cottages ‘leaned together as if for support in their old age. The gardens
were bright with cherry blossom, forsythia and daffodils.’

The warm, traditional pub, the Red Lion, stands at one end of the high street and the church and vicarage, home to Mr and Mrs Bloxby, at the other end. A few tiny streets
ramble off the main drag, providing space for the odd cottage or two.

Outside the village, and barely visible from the high street, is a council estate. A police station, a primary school and a library are placed in between the two.

Agatha’s Cottage

Agatha’s home is a thatched, detached cottage of golden Cotswold stone at the end of Lilac Lane, just off the high street. ‘It looked like a cottage in one of
those calendars she used to treasure as a girl.’ Low, recently rethatched with Norfolk reed, with a small garden at the front and a long, narrow one at the back, it is separated from the only
other cottage in the lane by a narrow path. Although it had no official name, it was originally known to the locals as Budgen’s Cottage, after a villager who had lived there some fifteen
years before. Agatha soon makes it her own and has a sign made declaring its new name, Raisin’s Cottage.

The house consists of a small hall, a dining room, a living room and a large, square kitchen, where Agatha spends most of her time. Upstairs are two beam-ceilinged bedrooms and a bathroom.
Agatha had the entire house decorated by an interior designer but quickly scrapped the fake horse brasses and other twee country clichés after moving in. From the kitchen she enjoys a view
of the Cotswold hills.

James Lacey’s Cottage

The cottage next door, the only other dwelling in Lilac Lane, is separated from Agatha’s cottage by a hedge and a narrow path. There is a small front garden and a
back garden similar in size to Agatha’s. The cottages are almost the same, except that Agatha’s is thatched and the neighbouring home is tiled.

The Church of St Jude, at one end of the high street, is a small, fourteenth-century building with stained-glass windows and long, wooden pews. Vicar Alf Bloxby presides over traditional
Anglican services here and in two other local churches, meaning the Sunday communion in Carsely is unusually early, at 8.30 a.m.

Vicarage

An old house next to the church which has sloping floors, laid with floorboards ‘polished like black glass’. The living room, where Mrs Bloxby entertains Agatha
when it is too cold to sit in the garden, has an open wood fire, a large Persian rug and worn
feather-cushioned chairs. The scent of lavender and woodsmoke hangs in the
air and there is ‘an air of comfort and goodness about the place’. To the oft-troubled Agatha, the building is a welcome port in a storm.

Pub

The Red Lion is at the opposite end of the high street from the church. ‘A jolly, low-raftered, chintzy sort of place’, it is run by John (originally Joe)
Fletcher who is an amiable landlord, although he is loath to come to Agatha’s aid when she is abandoned by James and left homeless in
Murderous Marriage,
claiming there is no room at
the inn.

On arrival in the village, Agatha finds the regulars chat to her with the ‘sort of open friendliness that never went any further’, which made her feel like an outsider.

Plumtrees Cottage

The home of Major Cummings-Browne and his wife and the scene of the first crime. On the main street of Carsely opposite the church in a row of four, the ancient stone
cottage fronts on to a cobbled, diamond-shaped area.

Rose Cottage

Phil Witherspoon’s home is next to the primary school and, despite its old-fashioned name, is a modern building devoid of
roses. It is built
from red brick, with a tarmac-covered front garden, so that he can park his car off the main street. Phil keeps it impeccably tidy and, despite the appearance of the front, spends a lot of time on
his back garden, which he enjoys.

Other Houses

Murder victim Mrs Josephs lived in an ‘undistinguished terrace of Victorian cottages at the top of the village’ and Mary Fortune, also destined to become a victim, bought the same
house.

Like all good amateur sleuths, trouble seems to follow Agatha around. Even if she escapes the murder-ridden hills of the Cotswolds, a mystery is sure to be lurking at her new
destination.

Here, for the seasoned reader, is a recap of Mrs Raisin’s adventures to date but, be warned, there may be one or two spoilers if you haven’t yet read them all.

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

Retiring from a successful career in PR, Agatha has achieved a childhood dream and bought a cottage in the Cotswolds. But moving into the pretty village of Carsely is not the
easy transition she assumes. She misses London, feels a
real sense of loneliness and finds it hard to fit in with the locals.

In order to impress, she enters the annual Great Quiche Competition. Never having cooked a quiche in her life, she cheats by buying one from a swanky store in London. But when the competition
judge drops dead, Agatha’s lie is exposed and her status in the village sinks even lower. She decides she must turn amateur sleuth to save her name.

VICTIMS

Major Cummings-Browne: retired army type and a boorish freeloader. After he and his wife rip Agatha off by accepting an expensive meal, he is found dead, poisoned by a
deadly plant called cowbane which is hidden in Agatha’s quiche.

Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

Agatha’s flirtation with the good-looking new vet in the village is cut short by his untimely demise, prompting her to take up her second case as an amateur detective.
Paul Bladen was murdered with his own syringe of horse tranquillizer as he prepared to perform an operation on Lord Pendlebury’s prize racehorse. The police are keen to write it off as a
tragic accident, but Agatha and neighbour James Lacey suspect foul play.

Their investigations lead them to the discovery that the vet was busy romancing half the women in the village with the aim of extracting money from them, apparently to
feed his gambling habit. After a local villager summons Agatha to tell her what she knows about the murder, she is also found dead.

After her cats are kidnapped, Agatha puts her own life at risk to rescue them and nail the murderer.

VICTIMS

Paul Bladen: dishy vet, womanizer and extortionist, murdered with an injection of horse medication after being hit over the head while operating on Lord Pendlebury’s
racehorse.

Mrs Josephs: a pleasant librarian and member of Carsely Ladies’ Society who was heartbroken when her ancient cat was put down by the vet without consultation. Found dead
in her bathroom, killed by an injection of adrenalin.

BOOK 3:

Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener

Jealous of James Lacey’s new love interest, divorcée and wizard gardener Mary Fortune, Agatha calls in Roy to provide an instant garden, pretending that her own
hard work and aptitude have created the vision. She erects a huge fence around her bare garden and plans to unveil the magnificent transformation on the village open day. In return for Roy’s
help, she agrees to go back to PR on a temporary basis.

As the horticultural show approaches, a series of petty crimes are committed against the contenders, including the trampling of Mrs Mason’s prize dahlias, a hole dug in Miss Simms’
lawn and James’s roses being torched. Mary comes under suspicion.