Pushing Up Daisies Read Free

cottage. She wondered how Gerald had fared with Lord Bellington. Probably wouldn’t get past the lodge if he were honest about his business, she thought. Perhaps she should call on him and ask him. But she put that idea firmly out of her mind. Charles had made her feel silly.
    By evening, she began to feel lonely. Her two cats, Hodge and Boswell, were playing in the garden, seemingly oblivious to her presence. What stupid names for cats. It had all been her ex-husband, James Lacey’s, idea.
    She scrabbled in her deep freeze, looking for something to microwave. It all looked so unappetising. She decided to go to the pub for dinner.
    Agatha regretted her decision as soon as she walked in the doors of the pub. For sitting at a corner table and deep in conversation were Gerald and Peta Currie. Agatha ordered fish and chips and said she would eat her meal in the garden.
    Where had Peta come from, wondered Agatha? What was her background? She looked like a model. If Gerald had fallen for Peta, at least Mrs. Bloxby would be safe.
    â€œWasn’t that our village sleuth?” asked Peta.
    â€œAgatha Raisin. Yes,” said Gerald.
    â€œLooks quite ferocious.”
    â€œI don’t like private detectives,” said Gerald. “Let’s talk about something else.”
    He was still furious after his interview with Lord Bellington. He had been curtly told to mind his own business and not poke his nose into other people’s affairs. A long career of having been treated with respect had made this new brush with the real world infuriating.
    He half listened to Peta prattling on about some film she had seen and suddenly wished he could discuss Lord Bellington with Agatha.
    Lord Bellington had endured what he considered one awful day. Apart from those interfering people from Carsely, his son Damian had called. Looking more wimpish than ever, and so his father had told him. His daughter, Andrea, looked like frump, and he had told her to go on a diet because she looked sickening. He damned his ex-wife for having divorced him and left him with such awful children. The day before, his mistress, Jenny Coulter, had walked out on him, calling him a bully and a boor.
    He ate a large dinner that evening, washed down with a bottle of Sauternes. He had a weakness for sweet wine and always drank a bottle when not in company. He finished his meal with a glass of crème de menthe and decided to have an early night. He suddenly felt drunk. As he climbed into bed, his body was racked with spasms, and he vomited over the place. He bellowed for help, but his son had taken himself back off to London and his daughter had gone to a disco. His housekeeper lived on a cottage on the estate and his chauffeur in a flat above the garage. Nobody heard him, and he doubled up in agony before losing consciousness.
    Agatha only heard the news a few days later when his obituary was in the Times newspaper. Two weeks later, on a Sunday, she attended a meeting of the allotment users at the vicarage. They were all celebrating. Lord Bellington’s heir, his son, Damian, had said he had no intention of building houses on the allotments.
    When the cheers had died down, Agatha asked, “How did he die?”
    â€œVomiting and seizure followed by heart and kidney failure,” said Gerald, who had heard the news from police contacts.
    â€œReally? Sounds like classic antifreeze poisoning,” said Agatha.
    They all stared at her. Then Peta began to laugh. “Haven’t you enough to do at that agency of yours without inventing murders?”
    â€œI watch a lot of real-life crime on television,” said Agatha huffily. “It would amaze you the number of people bumped off with antifreeze, and it is always diagnosed at first as heart failure.”
    But the cheerful conversation resumed. Only Gerald suddenly felt uneasy. He had made friends at Mircester police headquarters. Inspector Wilkes had been acidulous on the subject of