Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye Read Online Free Page A

did
not meet the floor.
    Agatha took a strong swallow of gin and tonic, opened her handbag and took out a pen and notebook.
    ‘Why should one of your family want to kill you?’
    ‘Because I’m selling this place, lock, stock and barrel, and that includes the village.’
    ‘Why should they object?’
    ‘Because they all want to go on like lords of the manor. You see the portraits of my ancestors on the wall?’
    Agatha looked round. ‘Yes.’
    ‘All fake. That was my daughter Sadie’s idea. Ashamed of the family background because she’s married to Sir Henry Field. Now, my late husband, he made his money in building
bricks. He started work as a brickie, but he won the football pools, and the brickyard was going bust so he bought it. Then the housing boom came along and he made a fortune. Our children, there
are four of them – two sons, Bert and Jimmy, and two girls, Sadie and Fran. They all got good educations. Sadie and Fran were sent to a finishing school in Switzerland and that’s where
they got their grand ideas. My husband, Hugh, would have done anything for them, and just after they had nagged him into buying this estate, he died of cancer. I took over the business and doubled
his fortune, got a good manager for this estate who actually ran the farms at a profit.
    ‘They even made me take elocution lessons. But I want my own life now. I never liked it here. I want a small flat of my own.’
    ‘Why not just leave the estate to your children?’
    ‘They’d run it into the ground. My Hugh didn’t work hard just for me to see it all frittered away.’
    ‘But one of them wanting to kill you!’ exclaimed Agatha. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘You’d better come along to my birthday party and see them for yourself.’
    ‘I don’t come as a detective, do I?’
    ‘No, you say you’re a friend of mine. You can bring your son as well.’
    ‘He is not my son,’ said Agatha angrily. ‘He used to work for me.’
    ‘Bring a bag. You’d better stay the weekend.’
    ‘I’ll get my secretary to send you a contract outlining fees and expenses,’ said Agatha. ‘Now, is your other daughter, Fran, married?’
    ‘Was. Didn’t work out. Divorced.’
    ‘Why didn’t it work out?’
    ‘Husband, Larry, was a stockbroker. Pompous prat. Fran says he thought she was common and it was all my fault. She blames me for the divorce.’
    ‘Sadie?’
    ‘Married to a stuffed shirt, Sir Henry Field.’
    ‘And your sons?’
    ‘Bert is a darling but weak. He manages the brickworks. He married a farmer’s daughter, or rather she married him.’
    ‘Name?’
    ‘Alison.’
    ‘What’s she like?’
    ‘All four-wheel drives, tweeds, sounds like the Queen. A bully.’
    ‘And Jimmy?’
    Phyllis Tamworthy’s face softened. ‘Ah, my Jimmy. He’s a dear. Quiet and decent.’
    ‘What are the ages of your children?’
    ‘Sadie is fifty-eight, Fran, fifty-six, Bert, fifty-two and my Jimmy is forty. I thought I was past it when he came along.’
    ‘And grandchildren?’
    ‘Only two. There’s Fran’s daughter, Annabelle, she’s thirty-seven, and Sadie’s daughter, Lucy, is thirty-two.’
    ‘And do they have children?’
    ‘Just Lucy. Her child, Jennifer, is eight.’
    Agatha scribbled busily in her notebook.
    Roy piped up. ‘Which one of them do you think is going to kill you?’
    ‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.’
    Agatha raised her eyes from her notebook. ‘You’re not telling us everything. You’ve a pretty good idea of who it might be. You seem a sensible woman. You don’t just have
feelings about things.’
    ‘You’re the detective. I’m hiring you to find out.’
    Roy, again. ‘We went into the village pub to ask for directions and there seemed to be some sort of meeting going on there.’
    ‘Oh, they’re always complaining about something. I own the village as well. There was a Sir Mark Riptor owned this place before my husband bought it. When I took over, they asked me
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