Agatha Raisin Companion

by Beaton, M. C.

  There Goes the Bride

  The murder of Felicity Bross-Tilkington, James’s young fiancée, proves to be one of Agatha’s most perilous cases, with three attempts on her life.

  While looking for clues in Barcelona, she is grabbed from behind and knocked out with chloroform. When she awakes, she is on a boat and a woman is about to inject her with a drug. She begs her not to and the lady concedes, telling Agatha to play dead. She is then bundled on to another boat and escapes into the water, shortly before the boat explodes. Back home, she joins a dating agency and arranges to meet a respectable lord at London’s St Katharine’s Dock, but is once more drugged and escapes death by stabbing her captor in the neck with his own hypodermic needle. A third attempt is made by a woman who befriends Agatha after bumping into her in a market. She then suggests an outing to Warwick Castle, but Agatha foils her plan to inject her by stealing her handbag.

  Agatha arrives in the Cotswolds without a friend in the world and finds it hard to get close to anyone, used as she is to bullying and cajoling her way through life as a PR person. Her new life brings fringe benefits as she becomes part of the village and forms some real friendships, as well as making a few acquaintances, and even a couple of enemies.

  Below are the regular characters that pop up in Agatha’s busy life.

  Bill Wong

  Agatha’s very first friend in the Cotswolds, Bill is an amiable, likeable and often shrewd policeman from nearby Mircester. Agatha meets him when he comes to investigate the poisoned quiche in the first book and, from the pristine cookery books and the new cooking utensils in her kitchen, he quickly deduces that she has not baked it herself. He calls back later, unofficially, and advises her sagely that if she wants to make her mark on the village she should ‘try becoming popular’. The pair become firm friends and she is grateful for his company as she settles into her new home. Her first cat, Hodge, is an early gift from him.

  Bill is twenty-three when they meet. He is small and chubby, with oriental looks which come from a father who is Hong Kong Chinese. His parents, with whom he still lives, are a particularly rude pair, with excruciatingly bad taste and little to say, but Bill adores them. His mother is also a terrible cook and Agatha dreads the invitations to dinner which her young friend often issues. Bill, who frequently falls in love, also fails to notice that it is his offensive parents that put off his potential partners. Agatha ‘did not like to point out to Bill that his formidable parents could probably see off any prospect, for Bill adored his parents.’

  The one girl who seems to get on with the family is Toni Gilmour, whose home life had been much worse. Unfortunately, there was no spark between the pair and they ended as friends.

  Mrs Bloxby

  Mrs Bloxby, the wife of Carsely vicar Alf, is a kind, generous soul and a good listener. After she invites Agatha to join the Ladies’ Society, the pair become firm friends and Agatha often runs to Mrs Bloxby when she is troubled, to pour her heart out and to be soothed by this wise woman while being indulged with some home-baked scones or teacakes.

  As strident and stubborn as Agatha can be, she soon discovers that the vicar’s wife is the one person that she can’t say no to. Her ‘simple, uncomplicated goodness’ often makes the sensitive sleuth feel ashamed of her less charitable thoughts and deeds, and fills her with a ‘desire to please’.

  A petite, delicate woman, with brown hair and the ‘sort of hands that portrait painters used to love to give their subjects’, she is also the possessor of ‘mild eyes’ and boundless tolerance, even to those she secretly dislikes or distrusts.

  As well as offering sage words of advice on Agatha’s love life and perceptive views on the latest cases, Mrs Bloxby occasionally helps out in investigations. In Love, Lies and Liquor, for example, she drives to the Sussex coast to support her friend and ends up calling on suspect Archie Swale in an attempt to gain an insight into his character.

  Although she is happy to listen to Agatha’s troubles, she doesn’t approve of her friend’s obsession with James, who she believes is too cold to ever truly reciprocate.

  Alf Bloxby

  Mrs Bloxby’s husband and Carsely’s vicar. A small, thin man with a ‘compelling presence’, he is no fan of the village sleuth and calls her ‘that dreadful woman. He resents her frequent trips to the vicarage to see his wife, but Mrs Bloxby handles his rude objections with tolerant good nature.

  Doris Simpson

  Kind, shrewd and efficient, cleaner Mrs Simpson is an invaluable help to the housework-phobic detective. She is also a great source of information, picked up through village gossip, and a shrewd judge of character.

  Doris has white hair, worn in a bun, and pale grey eyes, and looks ‘more like a schoolteacher than a charwoman. Happily married to Bert, and living on the council estate in Carsely she takes in Scrabble the cat when Agatha rescues him from Wyckhadden.

  Agatha meets Doris shortly after moving to Carsely, having been told by her acerbic neighbour Mrs Barr that good cleaners are like gold dust, and Doris is too busy to help. Characteristically, Agatha sets out to steal her services by offering Doris a pound an hour more and including lunch. Of course, she succeeds.

  As well as cleaning the cottage, Doris also looks after Agatha’s cats on the frequent occasions that she is away.

  Roy Silver

  Although Roy is Agatha’s former assistant and the only friend she has from her London days, they really only became close when she moved away. Roy is slim, young, camp and often selfish, using Agatha’s home as a weekend getaway, popping down to pick her brains on a PR problem, or lure her back into work to further his own career. Although they weren’t close when they worked together, Agatha and Roy bond when he helps her on several cases and she begins to enjoy his visits much more. His way-out clothing style changes drastically, depending on his current client, and can go from full-out punk to respectable businessman in a flash. Roy possesses a cackling laugh and a wicked sense of humour, which often leaves his older friend blushing with embarrassment.

  PC Fred Griggs

  Carsely’s local bobby is a fat, jolly man who loves to patrol the village on foot, rather than in his car, so he can chat to people. ‘He looked like a village policeman in a children’s story, large and red-faced.’

  Fred has little to do with investigating the murders in the area, other than being first on the scene when the crime is reported, and is ‘unused to dealing with much more than looking for stolen cars in the tourist season and charging the odd drunk driver’. Nonetheless, his presence as a policeman is sorely missed after he retires and Agatha mourns the loss of the local bobby and believes crime in the country has soared.

  Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes

  Bill Wong’s boss and something of a nemesis to Agatha. He refuses to admit that she has helped his inquiries in any way, and often warns her off cases and scolds her for sticking her nose in. He is a ‘thin, cadaverous man with little sense of humour.

  Carsely Ladies’ Society

  Although the genteel company of the Carsely Ladies’ Society is anathema to the brash businesswoman in Agatha, she agrees to join through respect for Mrs Bloxby. An old-fashioned group, they never call each other by their first names, preferring instead full titles, such as Mrs Raisin. They meet regularly at the vicarage and organize village fundraising events and good works, such as taking elderly neighbours for a day out. Agatha is often roped in to run tea stalls and help out at fêtes and, on one memorable occasion, she is duped into driving the village’s most unsavoury couple, the Boggles, over to Bath for the day. Agatha is at her best and most useful, however, when she is using her PR skills to boost the profits at the events and gain maximum publicity.

  As well as fundraising, the group often meet with Ladies’ Societies from neighbouring village and towns, particularly in Ancombe. To Agatha’s surprise, the first such outing she attends, expecting to be fed tea and cake, turns out to be a boozy lunch, followed by a male strip show!

  Mrs Mason
is chairwoman of the society when Agatha first joins (chair ‘persons’ do not exist in Carsely because, as Mrs Bloxby points out, once you start that sort of thing you don’t know where to stop, and things like manholes would become personholes) but Mrs Bloxby is elected chairwoman in Curious Curate.

  Mrs Mason

  The chairwoman of the Society is a large, strident woman with a taste for nylon dresses. When Agatha first moves to Carsely and vows to learn to cook, Mrs Mason gives her a few lessons in the basics, although Agatha soon resorts to the microwave again. In Walkers of Dembley, Mrs Mason asks Agatha to help her niece, Deborah, discover the real killer of a murdered rambler and get Sir Charles off the hook.

  Miss Simms

  Secretary of Carsely Ladies’ Society and the village’s only unmarried mother. In her twenties when they first meet, the slim, pretty girl favours tiny miniskirts and very high heels at all times. She entertains a string of partners, always married and usually in a lucrative business, but gets bored easily. Eventually, she falls for Agatha’s employee, Patrick, but the union is predictably brief.

  Mrs Davenport

  An incomer to Carsely in Haunted House, Mrs Davenport is an expat who favours print dresses and hats. She is extremely nosy and disapproving of Agatha’s relationships. Having presented Paul Chatterton with ‘her best chocolate cake and followed it up with two jars of home-made jam’, she is miffed to discover that Agatha has been spending time with him and spreads a rumour that they are having an affair. This sparks a feud between the two women.

  Mrs Josephs

  Local librarian who, in Quiche of Death, points Agatha in the direction of the killer by revealing the loan of a book on poisonous plants. Sadly, after her cat is put down unnecessarily in Vicious Vet, she is also found dead, the victim of a murder herself.

  Mrs Darry

  Nosy, gossiping busybody from London who moves into the village in Wellspring of Death. She has ‘a face like a startled ferret’, and Agatha dislikes her intensely. Constantly sticking her nose into other people’s business, she delights in spreading gossip about Agatha around the village, but ends up a victim of one of the local murderers.

  ‘Mrs Bloxby is such a sensible, calming sort of lady,’ comments Phil in There Goes the Bride. In fact, everybody should have a Mrs Bloxby in their life. While Agatha seems to attract chaos and turbulence, her placid friend is an oasis of calm and always has exactly the right words for each occasion. Never flustered, or too busy to help, she dispenses wisdom to all the troubled souls of the parish, along with endless cups of tea and home-made teacakes. In fact, she is considerably better at tending to the flock than her bad-tempered husband, Alf

  Here are just a few of the words of wisdom from the great lady:

  On their first meeting: ‘You struck me as a lady who had never known any real love or affection. You seem to carry a weight of loneliness about with you.’ Quiche of Death.

  ‘No wonder the churches are empty. I find that people who go to clairvoyants and fortune-tellers lack spirituality.’ Fairies of Fryfam.

  ‘I have always wondered why it is when someone says something cruel or offensive, they immediately cover it up by saying “It was only a joke. Can’t you take a joke?” ’ To Roy after he insulted Agatha and then backtracked in Walkers of Dembley.

  After Agatha sleeps with Guy Freemont on their second date Agatha asks her friend, ‘Does that shock you?’

  ‘No dear, but it probably shocks you. Women of our generation never got used to casual sex,’ replies Mrs Bloxby. Wellspring of Death.

  ‘I have observed goodness in people as well as evil. There is a bit of the divine spirit in all of us.’ Wellspring of Death.

  Men do not like needy women. Believe me, they can smell needy across two continents.’ Day the Floods Came.

  ‘Remember that the person you love when you are eighteen is not the person you would love when you are, say, twenty-five.’ Mrs B’s advice to Toni in Spoonful of Poison.

  ‘Beauty is a dangerous thing. It can slow character formation because people are always willing to credit the beautiful with character attributes they do not have.’ Curious Curate.

  ‘When confronted with someone who appears to be in a perpetual state of outrage, it is tempting for other people to wind them up. Besides, I have always found the most vociferous of guardians of morality on matters of sex are those who aren’t getting any. Some tea?’ To nosy-parker Mrs Anstruther-Jones in Day the Floods Came.

  On James:

  ‘Mrs Bloxby sipped her drink and looked at the flames in the hearth. She knew that Agatha had two obsessions. One was James Lacey and the other was danger. She wondered how long Agatha would last before she started stirring things up again.’ Love, Lies and Liquor.

  ‘Do you think you’re doing the right thing? I mean, men do not like to be pursued.’ As Agatha leaves for Cyprus in Terrible Tourist.

  ‘I have doubts about James Lacey He always struck me as being a rather cold, self-contained man.’ Terrible Tourist.

  ‘He’s nice enough, I grant you, but when it comes to women he’s cold and selfish.’ Fairies of Fryfam.

  ‘You’re letting someone live rent-free in your head.’ Fairies of Fryfam.

  ‘She did not realize that the root of the problem was that she was obsessive when it came to men. Agatha was addicted to falling in love. While she was obsessive about some man, she could dream. But now, with no current obsession, when she lay down in bed at night, there seemed to be a black hole left in her head, around the edge of which swirled nagging, petty little worries.’ Perfect Paragon.

  Agatha is never happy unless she has a man to be miserable about. Her passion borders on obsession, and the very absence of a romantic target makes her more depressed than when she is lovelorn.

  Although James Lacey is the object of her most enduring fixation, there have been many passing fancies to temporarily distract her from the main prize.

  James Lacey

  James is the true love of her life. Agatha imagined she would never experience grand passion until the tall, dark, handsome stranger arrived in Carsely and bought the house next door to her. ‘Until she had set eyes on James Lacey, she would have sworn that all her hormones had laid down and died. She felt excited, like a schoolgirl on her first date.’

  Handsome enough to ‘strike any middle-aged woman all of a heap’, the ex-army-officer-turned-author is over six feet tall, with blue eyes and black hair, fashionably cut, and only slightly tinged with grey.

  Their initial meetings, when Agatha is about to crack the case of the poisoned quiche, lead him to believe that she is completely mad. When she meets his attractive sister, Agatha initially assumes that they are an item.

  As book two, Vicious Vet, opens, Agatha is returning from the Bahamas with a ‘tan outside and a blush of shame inside’. She had spent a fortune on flattering clothes, slimmed down for a bikini, and travelled halfway across the world to find that he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, she phones Mrs Bloxby to be told that he changed his mind at the last minute and went to stay with a friend in Egypt – after finding out that Agatha was planning a trip to Nassau.

  Studiously avoiding him to start with, she feels that James becomes more interested after she has a flirtation with the local vet, who is then murdered.

  In Potted Gardener, it’s Agatha’s turn to be jealous when James is revealed to have had an affair with Mary Fortune, the beautiful divorcée who is murdered after the village horticultural show. As the pair investigate the murder of a rambler in Walkers of Dembley, Agatha suggests they pose as man and wife and is thrilled that ‘for a brief period she was to be Mrs Lacey, albeit in name only. But who knew what delights that could lead to!’ Indeed, while their brief period of cohabiting is rocky, James finally warms to her and the pair make passionate love. The next day, he pops the question for real and an ecstatic Agatha accepts.

  Something of a cold fish, James never talks about his past or his feelings. Even in the run-up to their wedding,
Agatha worries that she knows little about him and asks him, ‘Do you love me, James?’ His typically insensitive reply is, ‘I’m marrying you, aren’t I?’ and he then tells his fiancée that she has been watching too much Oprah Winfrey. ‘I’m not a talking-about-feelings person, nor do I see the need for it.’

  Murderous Marriage sees Agatha’s dream of happiness dashed once more when her ex-husband, Jimmy Raisin, turns up at the wedding. A horrified James, furious that Agatha had told him Jimmy was dead, says he will never forgive her. However, when Jimmy is killed, he does return to help her find the real murderer, thereby clearing their names.

  An uneasy friendship does eventually end in marriage when Agatha returns from a long spell in Norfolk to a pining James, who proposes. The marriage is a disaster, with constant fights, jealousy and criticism and, after developing a brain tumour, James flees to a monastery in France. Agatha pursues him there, only to be told he is taking holy orders and selling his cottage. When she discovers he has changed his mind and left the monastery, she believes his new-found religion was merely a plot to get rid of her.

  After a lengthy period of absence, James makes a surprise return and moves back into the cottage next to Agatha’s in Love, Lies and Liquor. A disastrous barbecue with his incorrigibly rude friends helps Agatha feel that she is finally over him. James, however, is never keener than when he is being snubbed, so he wins her round with a promise of a mystery holiday. When they end up in a grotty seaside town in the rain, and Agatha finds herself accused of murder, the relationship takes a turn for the worse. Once more, James leaves her in the lurch and drives to France.

  By the end of Kissing Christmas Goodbye, Agatha appears to be genuinely over her former paramour. When he kisses her passionately at her Christmas dinner, she feels nothing and her indifference, as usual, fuels his own feelings for her. In a missive from Arles in France, he invites her join him and even signs off, ‘Miss you’, but Agatha is unmoved and ignores the plea.