Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

you’re missing because you do.’
    ‘I’m too old for you, Charles.’
    ‘Didn’t notice.’
    ‘Thank you for that, but see you in the morning.’
    Agatha slept uneasily. During the night, a car drew up on the road outside and she leapt out of bed and ran down the stairs and jerked open the door. But it was only a late visitor leaving a neighbour’s house.
    She drove Charles to the airport in the early light of dawn. He turned before going through security and said, ‘I’ll see you around, Aggie.’
    ‘No doubt,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?’
    Agatha put her arms round him and kissed him. He turned away, and then looked back at the security gate.
    ‘You’re too good for him, Aggie,’ he said, and then he was gone.
    With his going, hope sprang anew in Agatha’s breast. James would come, and they would talk, and during the days that followed with no murders hanging over them, they would grow closer together.
    For the next two days, she dressed in her prettiest clothes and, with full make-up on, she waited, rushing out of the villa door every time she heard a car coming down the road.
    By Thursday, she had decided that if she wore just a comfortable T-shirt and shorts and didn’t bother about make-up, he would come. But Thursday came and went, then Friday.
    She packed slowly, her heart heavy. She drove to Bilal’s laundry and told him she would leave the keys at his home on the road to the airport if he gave her the address, but that James would no doubt be back soon.
    ‘Will you ever come back?’ asked Bilal.
    ‘Yes, I probably will,’ said Agatha. ‘One day.’
    She said goodbye to him and drove back to the villa. The day was sunny but now there was a slight chill in the air.
    Agatha tried not to think of James, tried to concentrate on neat packing. She felt she should go out for a last meal but could not bring herself to leave.
    But all too soon it was the morning of her departure. She drove slowly to the airport, looking all the time eagerly at the faces of any drivers in approaching rented cars, still hoping to see James.
    Even at the airport, she scanned the faces of the passengers, hoping by some miracle he had just arrived.
    It was only when she had cleared passport control that she at last lost all hope of seeing him and knew if he came back to Carsely then nothing was ever going to be the same. She would never forgive him for having abandoned her.
    The take-off was delayed for two hours because of some hijack crisis at Stansted. They got as far as Istanbul and then had to wait four hours in a gate which did not seem to have a tannoy system. From time to time, various officials would come in and shout at the passengers in Turkish and Agatha had to beg one of the passengers to translate for her. They were going to Heathrow, they were going to Gatwick, and then it was announced that they were in fact going to Stansted after all.
    A charter plane took them off and Agatha slept and woke and slept and woke, seeing in her dreams Trevor’s pink and angry face, seeing Olivia’s head rising above the monstrous waves.
    And then the last time she awoke, the plane was descending into bleak and rainy Essex.
    She collected her car at the long-stay car park and headed home, home to Carsely, the ache at her heart lifting when she reached Chipping Norton and turned the car towards Moreton-in-Marsh.
    Down the road into Carsely, wind and rain sent spirals of coloured leaves on to the road in front of her.
    As she turned into the lane where she lived, her eyes flew immediately to James’s cottage, hoping to see smoke rising from the chimney, but it had a closed, dark, empty look.
    When she walked into her cottage, her cats, Hodge and Boswell, uncoiled themselves and came to meet her. Her cleaner had said it would be better for the cats to be left in the familiar surroundings of home and she would come every day to feed them.
    Agatha felt very lonely. She found she missed Charles. He had been such an undemanding and constant companion.
    The doorbell rang and her first, stupid, thought was, ‘James!’ And then she knew it could not possibly be James.
    She opened the door and the vicar’s wife, Mrs Bloxby, stood there, carrying a casserole.
    ‘The bush telegraph told me you had been sighted,’ said Mrs Bloxby, ‘so I put some of my Irish stew in a casserole for you. You won’t feel like cooking.’
    ‘Come in,’ said Agatha, gratefully. ‘I’ve had such an awful