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mother, but over in Hadderton. She may move here because the mother’s was the more profitable business. There’s a lot of old residents in Wyckhadden and the old have ailments and some of the older generation are superstitious. We raided a couple of her seances but could find nothing phoney, like muslin, or tapes, or thugs under the table to make it move. Mind you, these things do leak out and I always felt she had been forewarned.”
    “But there must be trickery somewhere!”
    “Oh, I’m sure there is but we were never able to find any.”
    Agatha’s quiche arrived. After she had eaten it she still felt hungry and looked longingly at the display of cakes. “Like a cake?” asked Jimmy, following her gaze. “Well…”
    “I’ll have one as well.”
    “Oh, in that case…”
    May as well make a good job of it, thought Agatha, ordering a slice of chocolate fudge cake.
    The menu boasted, “We sell the best gateau cakes.” I wonder what the French tourists make of that one, thought Agatha.
    The cake was delicious.
    “So do I still have to stay in Wyckhadden?” asked Agatha.
    “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 computer. 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