Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body Read Free Page A

dry and crack, so why do it with your skin? She remembered the slogan,
‘Black is beautiful.’ Quite right, too. But if she invented a slogan saying, ‘White is beautiful,’ she’d probably end up before the Race Relations Board.
    Then she became aware that Penelope was asking, ‘Where is Mrs Courtney? She should be back. I hope she hasn’t slipped on ice.’
    ‘I’ll go and look for her,’ said Miss Simms eagerly.
    The meeting went on. Descriptions of the iniquities of Grudge Sunday wandered in and out of Agatha’s brain. She wondered where her ex-husband was and reflected on how glad she was that she
had got over her obsession for him, and yet, how empty life seemed without it.
    ‘Found her! Mrs Courtney had to go home for the hooch. It wasn’t in the car,’ cried Miss Simms from the doorway. She came into the room followed by Miriam. Both were carrying
bottles. Penelope went off to find glasses and returned with a tray full of them.
    The room was soon full of genteel murmurs – ‘Oh, I am sure one wouldn’t hurt.’ ‘Such a cold night, one does need something.’ ‘Ooh, not so much!’
– as brandy was poured.
    ‘I think it’s going to snow,’ said Miriam. ‘The wind’s getting up.’
    ‘Too cold for snow,’ said Agatha, prompted by a sudden desire to contradict Miriam on any subject she cared to bring up.
    The room was filling up with smoke. Penelope batted at it ineffectually with her large hands. ‘Must get the sweep in,’ she said.
    She stared at the French windows and screamed. The tray she was holding, with a few remaining glasses, fell to the floor. Everyone stood up, turned and looked towards the French windows and soon
the smoky air was full of cries.
    His face pressed against the glass, his bloodied hands smearing the windowpanes as he slowly sank down, was John Sunday. Seen dimly through the steamy glass, it all looked unreal, like something
out of a horror movie.
    Agatha was never to forget that long night. They were trapped in the cold vicarage drawing room. The scene-of-crime operatives in their white suits worked outside the windows
while a policeman stood guard. They seemed to take forever. Then there was a long wait for the arrival of the Home Office pathologist. After he was finished, Detective Inspector Wilkes, with
Agatha’s friend Detective Sergeant Bill Wong and one of Agatha’s pet hates Detective Sergeant Collins, an acidulous woman, arrived. One by one they were interviewed. Bill went on as if
he did not know Agatha, apart from muttering to her that he would call on her sometime. Collins insisted they were all breathalyzed before they were pronounced fit to drive home. Miriam and Miss
Simms were taken off for questioning, being the only two to have left the room.
    To add to all the misery, when Agatha and Mrs Bloxby left the vicarage, it had warmed up just enough for snow and it was coming down heavily. The cars which had been parked in front and behind
Agatha’s had already driven off.
    Snow danced hypnotically in front of her and whitened the road in front as she drove along the narrow lanes.
    Agatha dropped Mrs Bloxby at the vicarage in Carsely and then drove home, edging her way through the white wilderness.
    Her sleepy cats came to meet her. Agatha glanced at her watch. Five in the morning! She was bone tired but the palms of her hands were tingling. A murder!
    Her last waking thought was that she must get back to the office.
    She awoke late the next day to find snow piled against the windows. The central heating did not seem to be coping very well. Huddled in a dressing gown, Agatha went down to her
living room and lit the fire that her cleaner, Doris Simpson, had laid ready in the grate. Then she went through to the kitchen to prepare her breakfast – one cup of black coffee. She
retreated to the living room and phoned Toni Gilmour, knowing that her young assistant lived around the corner from the office and would be on duty.
    ‘How was your