Down the Hatch by M. C. Beaton

Author:M. C. Beaton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

The following morning, Agatha rose early, slipped into a dressing gown and made her way downstairs. Boswell and Hodge wound themselves around her legs, threatening to trip her in a desperate bid for breakfast.

“You can’t be this hungry again,” she reasoned with them. “I gave you huge portions when I got home last night.” The cats, whom she often suspected could understand every word she said, simply stared up at her with big eyes, feigning ignorance.

She made her way to the kitchen, filled their bowls to a chorus of delighted meows and purrs, then opened a window to dispel the smell of cat food. She picked up the container from the previous evening’s chicken tikka ready meal, which she had nuked in the microwave the moment she arrived back from the church hall, and dropped it in the bin. James had been in London, being wined and dined by his publisher, and a microwave supper was all she had the energy for. Yesterday had been pretty full-on. The tidying-up had been forgotten when a couple of glasses of Shiraz had made a TV documentary about the successful reintroduction of the red kite to the wild in Britain seem unmissable.

Then Roy had arrived, struggling under the weight of a mountain of suitcases. He had demanded to be brought right up to date on the investigation, and thankfully that hadn’t taken too long, because he had already read about the body on the bowling green. His excitement had been infectious, giving Agatha a second wind that had carried her through to the wee small hours, chatting and reminiscing with him. She assumed he was still upstairs in her spare bedroom. She hadn’t bothered checking.

Reaching for the coffee pot, she debated whether to go for instant and then had the sudden feeling that something was missing. She looked round at the worktops, the hob and the kitchen table. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. What was it that wasn’t there? Then it came to her. Not so long ago, her breakfast would have consisted of two cups of strong coffee and four cigarettes. Now there was no lighter, no ashtray and no packet of king-size filter tips. Smoking was now so much in her past that she had almost forgotten about the old addiction.

“Well, I don’t need those things any more, do I, boys?” She grinned at the cats and fancied, quite without foundation, that they grinned back. Her phone rang and she snatched it off the table. Maybe it was James. She hoped it was, but she didn’t recognise the number on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Good morning. Am I talking to Mrs. Agatha Raisin?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Can I check that we have the right address here—Lilac Lane in Carsely?”

“Why?”

“According to our records, you have recently been involved in an accident and—”

“Bugger off.” Agatha hung up. It was the sixth such speculative call she’d had that week. Somehow she had managed to get on someone’s cold-calling list. An accident? She hadn’t

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