Agatha's First Case by M. C. Beaton Read Free Book Online Page B

Perhaps, she thought ruefully, that now she had no longings for James, she wanted him to be kept single so that she could bask in his handsome company, a sort of “see what I’ve got” type of thing.
    The pub door opened and Sir Charles Fraith strolled in, tailored and barbered, and almost catlike with his smooth blond hair and neat features. He saw Agatha, got a drink from the bar and went to join her.
    â€œHow’s things?” he asked.
    â€œAwful.” Agatha told him all about Jill Davent.
    â€œSo she sees you as a threat,” said Charles. “What’s she got to be scared of?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Agatha. “I’m furious. Phil went there this evening and got some pics of her certificates. He’s sending them over.”
    â€œI bet you’ve been playing into her hands by raging all over the place,” said Charles. “You’re an old-fashioned snob, Aggie. This is an age when people who have risen from unfortunate beginnings brag about it all over the place.”
    â€œI am not a snob” howled Agatha, and the trophy wives giggled.
    â€œOh, don’t laugh too hard,” snarled Agatha. “Your Botox is cracking.”
    â€œYou’re a walking embarrassment,” said Charles. “Let’s get back to your computer and look at those pictures.”
    *   *   *
    Agatha saw Charles’s travel bag parked in her hall and scowled. She often resented the way he walked in and out of her life, and sometimes, on rare occasions, in and out of her bed.
    They both sat in front of the computer. “Here we are,” said Agatha. “Good old Phil. Let’s see. An MA from the University of Maliumba. Where’s that?”
    â€œAfrica. You can pay up and get a degree in anything. It was on the Internet at one time.”
    â€œA diploma in aromatherapy from Alternative Health in Bristol. A diploma in tai chi.”
    â€œWhere’s that from?”
    â€œTaiwan. The woman’s a phony, Agatha. Forget her.”
    â€œI can’t, Charles. She’s counselling Gwen Simple and I swear that woman helped in those murders. I’d like to see her records.”
    â€œOh, let’s forget the dratted woman,” said Charles, stifling a yawn. “I’m going to bed. Coming?”
    â€œLater. And to my own bed.”
    *   *   *
    Agatha would not admit that she was sometimes lonely, but she felt a little pang when Charles announced breezily at breakfast that he was going home.
    For the rest of the week, she and her staff were very busy and had to forget about Jill.
    But by the week-end, what the locals called “blackthorn winter” arrived, bringing squally showers of rain and sleet.
    Agatha decided to motor to Oxford and treat herself to a decent lunch. Her cats, Boswell and Hodge, twisted around her ankles, and she wished she could take them with her.
    She parked in Gloucester Green car park, wincing at the steep price and began to walk up to Cornmarket. This is Oxford’s main shopping street and one ignored in the Morse series, the producers correctly guessing that viewers wanted dreaming spires and colleges and not crowds of shoppers, and chain stores.
    Agatha had initially planned to treat herself to lunch at the Randolph Hotel, but instead she walked into McDonald’s, ignoring the cry from a wild-eyed woman of, “Capitalist swine.” Agatha ordered a burger, fries and a black coffee and secured a table by looming over two students and driving them away. She wished she had gone to the Randolph instead. It was all the fault of the politically correct and people like that woman who had shouted at her, she reflected. It was the sort of thing that made you want to buy a mink coat, smoke twenty a day and eat in McDonalds out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
    She became aware that she was being studied by a small, grey-haired man on the