Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam Read Online Free PDF

phoning about that,’ lied Agatha. ‘Just wondered how everyone was getting on.’
    ‘Same as ever,’ said Mrs Bloxby cheerfully. ‘What’s that place in Norfolk like?’
    ‘Weird,’ said Agatha. ‘It’s a small village and I gather a large proportion of the population only use their houses in summer, which is enough to turn anyone Communist when you think of the housing shortage.’
    ‘Well, your house is going to be empty for the winter. Would you like me to find a homeless family?’
    ‘No, don’t,’ said Agatha, repressing a shudder.
    ‘I thought not.’ Was the saintly Mrs Bloxby being catty ? Perish the thought.
    ‘It’s about these strange lights.’ Agatha told her all about them and about the locals’ reluctance to even discuss them.
    ‘You’ve a mystery to solve,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘I’m supposed to be meeting my destiny here, according to that fortune-teller.’
    ‘It’s early days. You’ve only just arrived. I’m sure you’ll stir something up. Oh, Charles phoned. Wanted to know where you were.’
    Agatha thought briefly of Sir Charles Fraith, lightweight, tightwad, fickle. ‘No, if my destiny is to meet some fellow, I don’t want him hanging around.’
    ‘So, any eligible men around?’
    ‘Apart from some gnarled old codger who put his hand on my knee and a sweaty estate agent, I haven’t met any. And this cottage has no central heating, nothing but log fires.’
    ‘The weather can get grim over there. Are you sure you don’t want to come back? You could use the lack of central heating as an excuse.’
    ‘Not yet, but you’re right. I can leave this place any time I want. I meant to tell that estate agent I was leaving, but I’ll hang on a bit longer.’
    After she had rung off, Agatha felt much cheered. Of course, she could simply pack up and go. But first, see what the local copper had to say.
    She drove out of the village a little way and soon saw the police station. She parked outside and went and rang the bell. There was a police car on the short drive at the side, so she was sure PC Framp was at home.
    After some minutes, the door was opened. PC Framp was a tall, thin man with receding hair above a lugubrious face. He had an apron on and was holding a frying pan.
    ‘It’s my day off,’ he said defensively.
    Agatha ignored that. ‘My name is Agatha Raisin and I have just rented Lavender Cottage. There have been peculiar lights at the bottom of my garden and a vase is missing.’
    ‘Come in,’ he said wearily. ‘But don’t mind if I cook my lunch.’
    Agatha followed him through the police office, and then along a corridor to a stone-flagged kitchen. It was amazingly dirty and smelt of sour milk. It was also very hot. The policeman put the frying pan on top of an Aga cooker, poured in oil, cracked in two eggs, then added two rashers of bacon and two slices of bread. A fine mist of fat rose from the pan and covered the already greasy black top of the cooker.
    She sat down at a crumby plastic-topped kitchen table. She leaned her elbows on it and then realized she had put one elbow in a smear of marmalade. At last Framp shovelled the mess out of the frying pan on to a chipped and cracked plate and sat down opposite her.
    ‘So,’ began Agatha impatiently, ‘what about these lights?’
    ‘Some kids playing pranks.’
    ‘So you know that for a fact?’
    ‘Educated guess.’ He stabbed the corner of a piece of fried bread into the yolk of an egg and shoved it in his mouth.
    ‘So you don’t really know?’
    He chomped steadily, filled a mug with tea, took a great swallow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then said, ‘Nothing important’s ever taken. Just bits and pieces. A worthless picture, a cream jug, three forks, things like that.’
    ‘Why don’t you come round to my cottage and fingerprint the place?’
    ‘I don’t fingerprint things. CID does that and they ain’t going to come running over with their kit and the forensic boys over a