Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam Read Online Free PDF Page A

brightened up the feelings of city-bred Agatha immensely. She bought a microwave and a further supply of microwavable meals in Marks and Spencer, had a large cholesterol-filled breakfast, bought a cheap glass vase, and returned to Fryfam in a confident frame of mind.
    After she had unpacked her shopping and fed her cats, she walked to the estate agent’s.
    She pushed open the door of Bryman’s and walked in. To her intense irritation, she saw the droopy figure of Amy Worth sitting behind a computer screen. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you worked here?’ complained Agatha.
    ‘There didn’t seem much point,’ said Amy defensively. ‘I’m just the typist. I don’t have anything to do with the renting of the houses.’
    ‘So who do I speak to?’
    ‘Mr Bryman. I’ll get him.’
    Secretive about nothing at all, fumed Agatha. Amy re-emerged and held open the door to an inner office. ‘Mr Bryman will see you now.’
    Agatha walked past her. A youngish man with a sallow face, thick lips and wet eyes stood up and extended his hand. ‘Welcome, Mrs Raisin.’
    Agatha shook his hand, which was clammy. What a damp young man, she thought. He was in shirt-sleeves and there were patches of sweat under his armpits. There was also an unpleasant goaty smell emanating from him. Amy, Agatha had noticed, was wearing the same clothes she had worn the day before. Perhaps no one in Fryfam bothered about baths.
    Agatha sat down. ‘You should have warned me there was no central heating,’ she began.
    ‘But the logs are free,’ he protested. ‘Stacks of logs.’
    ‘I do not want to have to set and clean all those fireplaces when the weather turns cold.’
    ‘We’ll let you have a couple of Calor gas heaters like the one in the kitchen. I’ll bring them round today.’
    ‘Don’t you have anywhere else?’
    ‘Not to rent. For sale only. Quite a lot of the houses in Fryfam are second homes. People leave them empty in the winter. Only come down for the summer months. There’s always a demand for second homes. You’ll find there’s few of us here in the winter.’
    ‘Okay, I’ll take the heaters. Now, there’s something else.’
    He raised his eyebrows in query.
    ‘I checked the inventory yesterday. There was definitely a stone vase in the sitting-room. Well, it’s disappeared. I saw these lights at the end of the garden and went to investigate and when I came back the vase had gone.’
    ‘Oh, I think we can overlook that, Mrs Raisin. It’s just an old vase.’
    ‘I am not going to overlook it,’ said Agatha stubbornly. ‘Is there a policeman here? There must be. I phoned the police to get your name.’
    ‘There’s PC Framp, but I wouldn’t bother –’
    ‘I will bother. Where is he? I didn’t see a police station.’
    ‘It’s out a bit on the road to the manor house.’
    ‘Which is where?’
    ‘North of the village green. The road that goes out of the village the opposite way to the one you arrived on.’
    ‘Right. When will you be arriving with the heaters?’
    ‘I’ve got a spare key. I’ll leave them in the hall if you aren’t in.’
    ‘Don’t upset my cats.’
    ‘I didn’t know you had pets, Mrs Raisin. You didn’t say anything about cats.’
    Agatha rose to her feet and looked at him truculently. ‘And you didn’t say anything about not having them. No cats, no rental.’
    She turned and marched out. She ignored Amy. She was fed up with the whole bunch of them. And she had only just arrived!
    She decided to drive. She returned home to get in her car and saw a square envelope lying inside the door. She opened it up. There was a note on stiff parchment. ‘We would like to welcome you to the village. Please come for tea this afternoon at four o’clock. Lucy Trumpington-James.’
    Summoned to the manor house, thought Agatha. Well, God knows, I’ve got nothing better to do.
    She phoned Mrs Bloxby in Carsely. ‘Haven’t heard from James,’ said the vicar’s wife promptly.
    ‘I wasn’t