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Agatha drank her soup. She was still hungry when she had finished but then there was the venison to look forward to. The wine, although French vintage, and claiming to be Montrechat, tasted even to Agatha’s untutored palate thin and vinegary.
    But then her venison arrived. It was a small piece surrounded by carefully sculptured vegetables and covered in a cranberry sauce. No vulgar fattening potatoes. “That looks good,” said James heartily, a shade too heartily. He had ordered duck in orange sauce.
    Agatha attacked her venison. One cut, one mouthful proved her worst fears. Never had she seen a piece of meat with so much gristle. Her stomach let out a baffled rumble of disappointment.
    She cracked.
    Agatha imperiously summoned the head waiter. “Yes, madam?” He stooped over the table.
    “Can you tell me,” said Agatha in a thin voice, “which part of the animal this comes from? Its hooves? Its knees? The bit between its eyes?”
    “Perhaps madam is not accustomed to venison?”
    Deep down inside her, Agatha’s working-class soul flinched. Her temper snapped. “Don’t you dare patronize me,” she said. “This is a lump of gristle. And while we’re on the subject, that bouillabaisse was a rip-off, too.”
    “Dear me,” said an acidulous-looking woman with a strangled would-be upper-class voice from the table behind Agatha, “the tourist season is here again.”
    Agatha whipped round. “Screw you,” she said contemptuously. Then she turned her bearlike eyes back to the head waiter. “I’m telling you this stuff is crap.”
    Her voice had been overloud. Everyone had stopped talking and was staring at her. She flushed red.
    “I don’t know about the venison,” said James mildly, “but this duck is as tough as old boots and appears to have been microwaved.”
    “I will get the owner,” intoned the head waiter.
    “I’m sorry, James,” said Agatha miserably.
    He leaned across the table and poked at Agatha’s venison experimentally with his fork. “You know, you’re right,” he said. “It is a lump of gristle. And here, unless I am mistaken, comes the owner.”
    A huge man bore down on their table. He had a large body and a surprisingly small head. “I know your sort,” he said in a thick Italian accent. “Get outta here. You don’t wanna pay. So don’t pay.”
    “We do not mind paying,” said James stiffly, “just so long as you take this away and bring us some decent food.”
    The owner let out a growl of rage like a Klingon at a death ritual and seized the four corners of the tablecloth. He gathered up the lot and strode off to the kitchen with it over his shoulder, wine and gravy dripping down his massive back.
    “Time to leave,” said James. He stood up and helped Agatha out of her chair.
    Covered in shame, Agatha went outside. It was a clear, starry night. Far above the Fosse they twinkled, cold and remote from the social anguish of one middle-aged lady who felt she had not only blown the evening but destroyed all her hopes of romance. And then she realized James was laughing. He was leaning against the wall of the restaurant, laughing and laughing. At last he looked down at her, his eyes glinting in the streetlights. “Oh, Agatha Raisin,” he said, “I do love you when you’re angry.”
    And suddenly the stars above whirled and the Fosse became a Parisian boulevard and the world was young again and Agatha Raisin was young and pretty and attractive.
    She grinned and said, “Let’s go to the pub next door and get some beer and sandwiches.”
    Most of the pubs in the Cotswolds are comfortable places, redolent of age and centuries of good living. The sandwiches were delicious and the beer was good. They talked comfortably like old friends, Agatha cautiously determined to be on her best behaviour.
    “We must do this again,” he said after he had called for a taxi to take them home. “A very cheap evening after all.”
    And Agatha, a few minutes later sitting beside him in the