Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye Read Free Page A

this.’
    ‘Who’s producing the stuff? The IRA?’
    ‘No, it’s a Dublin fashion house called Colleen Donnelly. They decided to launch into the perfume market. They wanted it pushed as a “family” perfume, the sort of thing
you could give to your old granny. So the publicity shots were taken in various front parlours out in the bogs with gran, mam, dad and the kids. It’s been going on for months. I am awash with
tea and boredom. I thought if I had to listen to someone’s uncle stand in front of the fire and sing “Danny Boy” just one more time, I would scream.’
    ‘Should have been a joy to promote,’ said Agatha. ‘Sounds as if it would lend itself to some good photos for the glossies.’
    ‘Oh, I got them a good show. It’s not that. It’s Colleen Donnelly herself. She isn’t Irish. She’s from Manchester. Real name, Betty Clap.’
    ‘You can see why she’d want to change her name.’
    ‘She’s a bitch. She’s the worst bitch I’ve ever worked for and that includes you, Aggie.’
    ‘Here, wait just one minute –’
    ‘Sorry. She turned up the whole time, jeering at me in front of the camera crew and everyone, calling me a wimp and a half-man. I told the boss, Mr Pedman, but he said it was a big launch
and to stick with it. Then, just before the final big launch party, she phoned the agency and asked for another public relations officer. She said . . . she said, she was sick of dealing with a
twittering idiot. He sent Mary Hartley.’
    ‘Who’s she?’
    ‘Some cow who’s jealous of me and has always been trying to steal my accounts. I’m a failure. I can’t bear it. I had holiday owing, so I just took off in the car and I
found myself driving towards you.’
    ‘Have you got a bottle of the stuff with you?’
    Roy fished in his pocket and pulled out a green glass bottle with a gold stopper. Agatha took off the top and sprayed a little on her wrist.
    ‘It’s lousy, Roy.’
    ‘But it’ll get good publicity and all because of me, and Mary will take the credit.’
    Agatha handed him the television remote control. ‘You sit there and finish your drink and watch something silly. I’ll see what I can do.’
    Agatha went into her study and logged on to her computer. She opened the file which held all her old journalist contacts. Then she switched off and picked up the phone and
called Deirdre Dunn, top woman’s editor on The Bugle. To her relief, Deirdre was working late.
    ‘What is it, Agatha?’ asked Deirdre. ‘I thought you were into the detective business.’
    ‘I am. But I want you to do me a favour and knock a perfume called Green Desire.’
    ‘Why should I?’
    ‘Remember I accidentally found out you were having an affair with the Foreign Secretary, Peter Branson?’
    ‘Do you have to rake that up?’
    ‘Only if necessary.’
    ‘All right, you old whore. What am I supposed to do?’
    ‘Take this down.’
    Twenty minutes later, Agatha returned to the sitting room. ‘All fixed,’ she said cheerfully.
    ‘What is?’ demanded Roy.
    ‘Deirdre Dunn is putting a piece in the Sunday edition of The Bugle, saying that Green Desire is one crap perfume, despite the brilliant public relations work of one Roy Silver,
whom the thankless Betty Clap betrayed with her lack of business acumen by firing at the last minute and exchanging for someone with considerably less experience. She’s also sending her
assistant out into the streets to do a vox pop, spraying people with the stuff and asking them what they think of it. She’ll only print the bad comments. Deirdre has great power. The
stuff’s doomed. Revenge is thine.’
    ‘I don’t know how to thank you, Agatha. How did you persuade Deirdre?’
    ‘Oh, we go back a long way. We’re great friends.’
    Roy looked at Agatha uneasily. Deirdre, all skeletal elegance and cut-glass voice, had once said to him that if Agatha ever died, she would cheerfully piss on her grave.
    ‘Will it work?’ he asked.
    ‘Trust