Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘What more can I tell you?’ Agatha suddenly howled in a fury. ‘You can’t trip me up and get me to say anything else because I am telling you
the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
    ‘Calmly, dear lady,’ admonished the solicitor, Mr Times.
    ‘You,’ said Agatha, ‘have done bugger-all since you got here but looked sideways at me as if I am some sort of Lady Macbeth.’
    There was a knock at the door. Wilkes snapped, ‘Come in.’
    Bill Wong put his head around the door. ‘A word, sir. Most urgent.’
    Wilkes switched off the tape and went outside.
    Inside, Agatha’s burst of anger had gone, leaving her weak and shaky. Everything was against her. She had attacked Jimmy in front of everyone at the registry office and she had been seen
by Harry Symes to attack him that very morning. She was not free to find out who had actually done it should it prove not to have been an accident. Whom else could anyone possibly suspect? Who else
would want to kill a drunk who normally lived in a packing-case at Waterloo? Only Agatha Raisin.
    Wilkes came back into the room, his face grim. He sat down again, but did not switch on the tape.
    ‘Where is James Lacey?’ he asked.
    ‘I do not know,’ said Agatha. ‘Why?’
    ‘He did not tell you where he was going?’
    ‘No. Why?’
    ‘I am withdrawing the charge against you, Mrs Raisin, due to insufficient evidence, but must ask you not to leave the country.’
    ‘What’s happened?’ demanded Agatha, getting to her feet. ‘And why do you want James?’
    He shuffled the papers in front of him. ‘That will be all, Mrs Raisin.’
    ‘Sod the lot of you,’ said Agatha, furious again. Her solicitor followed her out.
    ‘Should you need my services again –’ began Mr Times.
    ‘Then I’ll find myself a decent lawyer,’ growled Agatha. She strode out of the police station. They had not even given her a car home. What was she supposed to do? Walk?
    ‘You need a drink,’ said a voice in her ear. She turned and saw Bill Wong. ‘Come on, Agatha,’ he urged. ‘I haven’t got long.’
    They walked across the main square under the shadow of the abbey and into the George. Bill bought a gin and tonic for Agatha and a half-pint of bitter for himself. They sat down at a corner
table.
    ‘What has happened is this,’ said Bill quickly. ‘The preliminary forensic evidence has discovered that Jimmy Raisin was strangled with a man’s silk tie. It had been
chucked into the field a little down the road. Footprints other than yours were found near the body, the footprints of a man. So the hunt’s up for James Lacey.’
    ‘What!’ Agatha glared at him. ‘They knew all along that Jimmy had been strangled and yet they let me think I might have caused him to strike his head on a rock or something.
I’ve a damn good mind to sue them. And as for James – James murder my husband? James? Believe me, the whole experience will have been so vulgar, so distasteful to my ex-lover
that all he will want to do is put as many miles between us as possible. So he can’t have been hanging around the village to murder Jimmy. That takes rage and passion, and in order to
experience that amount of rage and passion, he would need to have been in love with me!’
    ‘Come on, Agatha. The man had a bad shock.’
    ‘If he had loved me, he would have stood by me,’ said Agatha. ‘And do you know what I feel for him now? Nothing. Sweet eff all.’
    ‘Either you’re still in shock or you couldn’t have loved him all that much yourself,’ said Bill.
    ‘What do you know about it? You’re too young.’ Bill was in his twenties.
    ‘More than you think,’ said Bill ruefully. ‘I think I’ve fallen myself.’
    ‘Go on,’ said Agatha, momentarily diverted from her troubles. ‘Who?’
    ‘Maddie Hurd.’
    ‘That hatchet-faced creature?’
    ‘Now, you are not to talk about her like that, Agatha. Maddie’s bright and clever and . . . and . . . I think she cares for me.’
    ‘Oh,