Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

"Yes, I'm afraid you do. And I forgot to tell you, my detective sergeant, Peter Carroll, will be on duty soon and he wants to ask you a few more questions. I'll walk you round to the police station when you're ready."

"Aren't you coming?"

"I'm going home for a couple of hours' sleep. Ready to go?"

Detective Sergeant Peter Carroll was a thin-faced man with a courteous manner which belied his seemingly endless capacity for asking probing questions. Agatha described again the events of the previous night, although now the whole thing was beginning to seem unreal. The interview room had a high window through which sunlight shone. Dust motes floated in the sunbeams. The table at which Agatha sat was scarred and stained with the rings of many coffee cups and cigarette burns. The walls were painted that sour shade of lime green so beloved by bureaucracy in Britain.

Agatha was beginning to feel sleepy again. "So we go back to the reason you left in the middle of the night to wake up a woman you just thought might have vandalized your coat. Why?" asked Carroll.

"I am by way of being an amateur detective," said Agatha. Carroll consulted a fax on the papers in front of him and gave a brief cynical smile. Probably a fax from Wilkes telling them I'm an interfering busybody, thought Agatha. "Since Mrs. Juddle had criticized my wearing of the coat, I thought she might have had something to do with it. I thought if I paid her a surprise visit, she might still have traces of paint on her hands."

There was a knock at the door and then it opened and Tarret's head appeared around it. "A word, sir."

"Excuse me." Carroll went out. A policewoman seated in the corner by the tape machine stared stolidly ahead. Agatha stifled a yawn. Oh, to be home in Carsely in her own cottage with her cats. She had been silly to run away. She wondered if James thought of her.

Back in Carsely, James Lacey switched off the word processor. He felt restless and bored. He had a dull feeling he refused to recognize that Carsely without Agatha was a lifeless sort of place. No one seemed to know where she had gone. The vicar's wife, Mrs. Bloxby, probably knew but she wasn't telling anyone.

He decided to switch on the television and watch the teatime news. Another government scandal, another murder through road rage, and then the announcer said, "Police in Wyckhadden are investigating the death of a local witch. Mrs. Frances Juddle was found battered to death in her cottage. She was found by a visitor, a Mrs. Agatha Raisin." There was a still photograph of Agatha in a police car. "Mrs. Raisin from the village of Carsely in Gloucestershire is reported to be a friend of Inspector Jimmy Jessop, who is in charge of the case." Film of Agatha leaving the hotel with Jimmy, then a long shot of Agatha and Jimmy walking along the promenade, arm in arm. The announcer then went on to describe Wyckhadden as a quiet seaside resort where a great many retired people stayed. Interviews with various neighbours of Francie Juddle, all expressing shock. James watched, bemused. Agatha had never mentioned Wyckhadden. And surely, if she had been friend with a police inspector, she would have bragged about it.

He switched off the television and went out and along to the vicarage. Mrs. Bloxby answered the door to him. "Why, Mr. Lacey! How nice. Come in. We don't see much of you these days."

"I've been busy. What's this about Agatha?"

"She felt the need of a holiday."

"I have just seen her on television."

James told her about Agatha and the murder of the witch of Wyckhadden.

"Poor Mrs. Raisin. Murder does seem to follow her around."

"It said on the television news that Agatha was a friend of some police inspector."

"I saw the television news. How shocking! Poor Mrs. Raisin. But I never heard her mention anything about a police inspector."

"But why Wyckhadden?"

"I may as well tell you," said Mrs. Bloxby, "now that you know where she is. She didn't know anything about Wyckhadden. She just closed her eyes and stuck a pin in the map."

"She might have told me where she was going."

"Why?" asked Mrs. Bloxby gently. "You have not been close for quite a time."

"But we're neighbours!"

"No doubt she'll tell us all about it when she returns. Tea?"

"No, I don't want any more of your filthy tea," Agatha was saying to the policewoman. The sun had gone down. The interview room was cold.

The door opened and Carroll came in again. "We got someone for cutting up your coat."

"Who was it?" asked Agatha.

"It was that girl you told Tarret who attacked you on the prom. Her name's Carly Broomhead. We picked her up. She still had traces of red paint on her hands. Her sister works, or rather worked, now, as a maid at Garden Hotel. She's been fired."

"It would be someone like her," said Agatha bitterly. "I can sue her until I'm black in the face, but she'll never be able to pay for another coat."

"At least we've got that out the way and know it's not connected with the murder."