The Quiche of Death Read Free

over the television screen and switched it on. There was some war going on, as there usually
     was, and it was getting the usual coverage; that is, the anchorman and the reporter were having a cosy talk. "Over to you,
     John. What is the situation now? Well, Peter..." By the time they moved on to the inevitable "expert" in the studio, Agatha
     wondered why they bothered to send any reporter out to the war at all. It was like the Gulf War all over again, where most
     of the coverage seemed to consist of a reporter standing in front of a palm tree outside some hotel in Riyadh. What a waste
     of money. He never had much information and it would surely have been cheaper to place him in front of a palm tree in a studio
     in London.
    She switched it off and picked up Gone With the Wind. She had been looking forward to a piece of intellectual slumming to celebrate her release from work, but she was amazed at
     how very good it was, almost indecently readable, thought Agatha, who had only read before the sort of books you read to impress people. The fire crackled and Agatha
     read until her rumbling stomach prompted her to put the curry in the microwave. Life was good.
    But a week passed, a week in which Agatha, in her usual headlong style, had set out to see the sights. She had been to Warwick
     Castle, Shakespeare's birthplace, Blenheim Palace, and had toured through the villages of the Cotswolds while the wind blew
     and the rain fell steadily from grey skies, returning every evening to her silent cottage with only a new-found discovery
     of Agatha Christie to help her through the evenings. She had tried visiting the pub, the Red Lion, a jolly low-raftered chintzy
     sort of place with a cheerful landlord. And the locals had talked to her as they always did with a peculiar sort of open friendliness
     that never went any further. Agatha could have coped with a suspicious animosity but not this cheerful welcome which somehow
     still held her at bay. Not that Agatha had ever known how to make friends, but there was something about the villagers, she
     discovered, which repelled incomers. They did not reject them. On the surface they welcomed them. But Agatha knew that her
     presence made not a ripple on the calm pond of village life. No one asked her to tea. No one showed any curiosity about her
     whatsoever. The vicar did not even call. In an Agatha Christie book the vicar would have called, not to mention some retired
     colonel and his wife. All conversation seemed limited to "Mawnin'," "Afternoon," or talk about the weather.
    For the first time in her life, she knew loneliness, and it frightened her.
    From the kitchen windows at the back of the house was a view of the Cotswold Hills, rising up to block out the world of bustle
     and commerce, trapping Agatha like some baffled alien creature under the thatch of her cottage, cut off from life. The little
     voice that had cried, "What have I done?" became a roar.
    And then she suddenly laughed. London was only an hour and a half away on the train, not thousands of miles. She would take
     herself up the following day, see her former staff, have lunch at the Caprice, and then perhaps raid the bookshops for some
     more readable material. She had missed market day in More-ton, but there was always another week.
    As if to share her mood, the sun shone down on a perfect spring day. The cherry tree at the end of her back garden, the one
     concession to beauty that the previous owner had seen fit to make, raised heavy branches of flowers to a clear blue sky as
     Agatha had her usual breakfast of one cup of black coffee, instant, and two filter-tipped cigarettes.
    With a feeling of holiday, she drove up the winding hill that led out of the village and then down through Bourton-on-the-Hill
     to Moreton-in-Marsh.
    She arrived in London's Paddington Station and drew in great lungfuls of polluted air and felt herself come alive again. In
     the taxi to South Molton Street she realized she did not