Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

tonight. I’ll come and pick you up at seven o’clock, right after evening service. Are you C of E?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Agatha, who wasn’t really anything but felt that her friendship with Mrs Bloxby qualified her for membership in the Church of England.
    ‘Oh, in that case, I’ll see you in church this evening and we’ll go on from there,’ said Harriet.
    Agatha was just about to lie and say she was feeling too poorly to go anywhere, when Polly said abruptly, ‘Well, go on. Tell us about your broken heart.’
    Agatha reddened. ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘When we heard you were coming,’ said Harriet, ‘and that you lived in a village in the Cotswolds, we wondered why you would want to rent in another village and so we decided you had man trouble and wanted to get away.’
    I’m going off you lot rapidly, thought Agatha. She smiled round at them all, that sharklike smile which meant Agatha Raisin was about to tell a whopping lie.
    ‘Actually I’m writing a book at the moment,’ she said. ‘I wanted somewhere to write and have peace and quiet. You see, old friends from London keep dropping down on visits and I don’t have enough time for myself. I’ll go along with you tonight, but I am afraid I’m going to be a bit of a recluse.’
    ‘What are you writing?’ asked Amy.
    ‘A detective story.’
    ‘What’s it called?’
    ‘ Death at the Manor ,’ said Agatha, improvising wildly.
    ‘And who’s your detective?’
    ‘A baronet.’
    ‘You mean you’re doing another sort of Lord Peter Wimsey?’
    ‘Do you mind if I don’t talk about my work any more?’ said Agatha. ‘I don’t like discussing it.’
    ‘Just tell us,’ said Amy, leaning forward. ‘Have you had any published?’
    ‘No, this is my first attempt. I am a real-life detective, so I thought I may as well fictionalize some of my adventures.’
    ‘You mean you work for the police?’ asked Harriet.
    ‘I occasionally work with the police,’ said Agatha grandly. She proceeded to brag about her cases. To her irritation, just as she had got to the exciting bit of one of them, Harriet rose and said abruptly, ‘Sorry, we’ve got to go.’
    Agatha saw them out. She walked with them down to the garden gate and waved them goodbye. She stayed leaning on the gate, enjoying the sunshine.
    Harriet’s voice travelled back to her ears. ‘Of course she was lying.’
    ‘Do you think so?’ Amy’s voice.
    ‘Oh, yes. Not a word of truth in any of it. Woman probably can’t write a word.’
    Agatha clenched her fists. Jealous cow. She would show her. She would write a book. Writing was writing and she had written enough press releases in her days as a public relations officer. She had brought her computer and printer with her. She began to feel quite excited. When her name topped the best-seller list, then James would sit up and take notice.
    On her way back to the house, she peered over the hedge at the driveway at the side of the house where her car was parked. What had they meant by asking if anything was missing?
    She opened the kitchen door and went down to the bottom of the garden, finding a shed behind a stand of trees. It was full of logs. She returned to the kitchen with the cats scampering at her heels. At least they’re happy with the place, she thought. She fed them and returned to checking the inventory, but all the while wondering about her visitors. Did they have husbands? They couldn’t all be widows.
    After she had finished ticking off everything on the inventory, she scraped out the contents of Genuine Bengali Curry into a pot. She would need to buy a microwave. She ate the hot mess and then decided to get down to writing that book.
    She set up the computer on the kitchen table, typed in ‘Chapter One’, and then stared at the screen. She found that instead of writing that book, she was beginning to write down excuses to get out of quilting. ‘I suffer from migraine.’ No good. They’d all call around with pills. ‘Something urgent has come up.’ What? And how on earth could she get in touch with them? Mrs Wilden at the pub would know.
    She decided to walk down to the pub.
    Agatha, as she trudged down Pucks Lane, decided she had better start observing everything about the countryside. Writers did that. The red berries of hips and haws could be seen in the hedgerow to her right. Okay. ‘The red berries of hips and haws shone like jewelled lamps . . .’ No, scrub that. ‘The scarlet berries of hips