Christmas Crumble
Written by M.C. Beaton, narrated by Penelope Keith

PART ONE

Agatha Raisin, private detective, and her friend Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar’s wife, sat in the shabby vicarage drawing room in the Cotswold village of Carsely one Saturday in late November, drinking coffee and looking out at a vista of sleety rain driving across the tombstones of the churchyard at the end of the garden.

“Are you going away for Christmas, Mrs. Raisin?” asked Mrs. Bloxby. Both women still addressed each other by their surnames, a fashion started in the now defunct Ladies Society but which they kept up.

“I might have a Christmas party here,” said Agatha.

“But you tried that before!” exclaimed Mrs. Bloxby.

“This time it will be all right,” said Agatha mulishly. Mrs. Bloxby surveyed her with affectionate exasperation. Good detective though she was and the very picture of modern woman from her glossy brown hair to her patent leather high boots, Mrs. Bloxby reflected, not for the first time, that there was a part of Agatha that had never grown up.

“People are apt to chase after a romantic image of Christmas which does not exist,” said Mrs. Bloxby cautiously. She brushed a wisp of hair from her face and looked anxiously at her friend. “Most of the population only experience a spiritual feeling of awe when they are small children and look on Santa Claus for the first time. That’s what they remember and are ever after chasing that magic.”

“I never met Santa Claus,” said Agatha, thinking of her own deprived childhood in a Birmingham slum.

“I think,” pursued Mrs. Bloxby, “that the true Christmas feeling is thinking and caring about other people—like the elderly and infirm, say.”

Agatha brightened. “Great idea.”

“What?” asked Mrs. Bloxby nervously.

“There are a lot of crumblies in this village. I mean sometimes the Cotswolds feel like God’s waiting room. Come in, number five, says a voice from the heavens. Your number’s up. I’ll give them a slap-up Christmas dinner.”

“They will probably be having Christmas with their families. But come to think of it, I do know six elderly people who were left alone last Christmas.”

“That’s a nice little number,” said Agatha. “I’m always working, so I’m a bit out of touch with the villagers. Who are they?”

“There’s Mrs. Matilda Glossop, Mr. Harry Dunster, Mr. Jake Turnbull, Miss Freda Pinch, Mr. Simon Trent and . . .”

She hesitated. “And who?” prompted Agatha.

“There’s Len Leech, but he can be difficult.”

“How difficult?”

“He fancies himself as a ladies’ man.”

“How old is he?”

“I believe he’s in his eighties.”

Agatha laughed. “He’s at the Look, don’t touch age. I can handle that.”

Mrs. Bloxby turned pink. “He pinched my bottom. And in the church!”

“The old devil. Maybe he got you mixed up with Pippa Middleton. What did you do?”

“I preferred to ignore it.”

“I’d have hit him with my handbag. Don’t worry. I’ll cope. Have you their addresses?”

Mrs. Bloxby rose and walked over to an old bureau. Opened a drawer and pulled out a large ledger. “I keep all the names and addresses of the parishioners in here.”

Agatha took out a notebook. “Fire away. I’ll give this lot of crumblies the best Christmas they have ever had.”

 

Matilda Glossop was a fine-looking woman in her late seventies. She had a pleasant face, thick white hair and brown eyes. She stared down at the pretty invitation card Agatha had sent her and felt tears well up in her eyes. Matilda had met Agatha at a fundraiser and had found her to be a rather terrifying woman. On the other hand, her son and daughter had written—not phoned—to say they were spending Christmas in the Bahamas. The year before, it had been the Maldives. They always holidayed together with their spouses and grandchildren. She sat down to pen an acceptance.

Harry Dunster was ninety years old and proud of it. “Go on! Guess my age,” he was fond of demanding. He was a small man with a dowager’s hump and he walked painfully with the aid of a stick. His tragedy was that he had outlived his son, Charles, who had been killed in a motor accident when he was only twenty-one. Shortly after that, Harry’s wife had died of cancer. He was often quite hungry, his pension going on cigarettes and petrol for his ancient Ford. He was delighted with Agatha’s invitation, imagining a slap-up meal of turkey and all the trimmings.

Jake Turnbull was eighty-five, a stocky barrel-shaped farmer. He had a nasty temper, no wife and no friends. He usually spent Christmas getting thoroughly drunk. He was also a bit of a miser and delighted in the thought of free food and booze.

Freda Pinch was a spinster, or, as the politically correct would say, a single woman. Her surname was appropriate, because she had a pinched little face, thinning salt-and-pepper hair and a flat-chested figure. Although she was small in stature, she had very large feet and hands, making her look like the illustration of a witch in a children’s book. She was eighty-two years old. She did not like Agatha. Agatha was known to have men staying overnight, Disgraceful! But then, there was the thought of another bleak Christmas on her own. She decided to accept.

Simon Trent was eighty years old but looked as if he were in his sixties. His brown hair had only a few threads of grey in it, and he had a pleasant craggy face. He was tall, age having not shrunk his skeleton very much. He was a retired engineer. He was considered a useful man in the village because he did car repairs, often not charging anything at all. His wife had fallen in love with a plumber a long time ago and had run off and left him. After the divorce, Simon had not felt like getting married again. He knew of Agatha’s prowess as a detective and admired her. He decided to go to her Christmas dinner.

Len Leech read his invitation with a slow smile. That Raisin woman was considered a bit of a fast mover. She must have seen him around the village and set her sights on him. When he looked in the mirror, Len saw a handsome man. Others saw an eighty-five-year-old with dyed black hair, small black eyes set too close together and a wide fleshy mouth. He had a beer paunch and thick fingers like chipolata sausaages. Agatha would have been horrified if she could have seen the pornographic film that was already running inside Len’s head. Len was pleased to think that because Agatha in her early fifties was past childbearing age, he would not have to buy condoms. Never liked the things anyway. Like making love in your socks. Three wives had divorced him before getting round to producing children. His ego swelling like a bullfrog, he wrote a fulsome acceptance, beginning, Dear lady.

 

Roy Silver, Agatha’s friend and former employee from the days when she ran a London PR agency, arrived the following weekend. His appearance changed according to which client or clients he was representing, and his latest client was a pop band called Sod Off. They were trying to reinvent punk. His fine hair was dyed pink and green and gelled up into a crest. His jeans were ripped at the knee. And, to Agatha’s horror, he had two nose rings.

“What have you done to yourself?” cried Agatha. “You look like retro shit. And those nose piercings! What are you going to do when that ridiculous fashion dies? You’ll need to pay for plastic surgery to get the holes filled in.”

Roy shrugged. “It’s this village life, babes. You’ve gone all old-fashioned.” His sleeveless denim jacket revealed thin arms covered down to the wrists in swirling blue and red tattoos. “Don’t glare,” he said. “They peel off.”

“What will the villagers think?” mourned Agatha. “Don’t go outside this cottage without a bag over your head.”

“It’s not as bad as that.”

“Trust me. It is. Does that canary-coloured gel wash off?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a start. Go upstairs and have a shower and find some more conservative clothes.”

Roy trailed sulkily upstairs, to emerge later with clean hair and wearing a striped shirt and corduroy trousers. “Now you look more like a human being and less like a throwback to the seventies,” said Agatha. She told him about her Christmas party.

“Am I invited?” asked Roy.

“I suppose so,” said Agatha reluctantly. “Haven’t you anywhere else to go?”

“No, and I’m your friend, right? I bet you’ve asked James and Charles.”

James Lacey, Agatha’s next-door neighbor, was her ex-husband, and Sir Charles Fraith a friend who came and went in her life.

“I don’t know where James is,” said Agatha. “He travels a lot. Charles has disappeared out of my life again and this is a party for the elderly. I’m concentrating on giving them a good Christmas.”

“Are you going to give them all presents?”

“I suppose so. Something small.”

“What about decorations?” asked Roy.

“I’ve got loads left over from the last two Christmas parties.”

“You’ll need a real tree.”

“Never again,” said Agatha. “The cats will sabotage it. I’m getting a nice fake one. Besides, it’s rather miserable after Christmas to have a dying tree looking at you accusingly.”

“You’ll get caterers to do the cooking.”

“I would like to do something myself,” said Agatha. “I know. I’ll make the Christmas pudding. It can’t be that hard if one treats it like a scientific experiment.”

“We’ll make it this weekend and let it mature,” said Roy.

“I’ve got a Sarah Smith cookbook,” said Agatha. “Her recipes are supposed to be easy.”

She took out the cookery book and found a recipe for Christmas pudding. “It looks awfuly complicated,” said Roy, reading over her shoulder.

“Oh, we’ll go out and buy all the stuff and then take it bit by bit,” said Agatha.

 

Late that afternoon, they returned carrying cartons of shopping. “Let’s leave it until tomorrow,” pleaded Roy.

“No, I want to get started now,” said Agatha. “Unpack all the stuff and put it on the kitchen table and then you read out Sarah’s instructions.”

“Okay. But I’m going to have a stiff drink first,” said Roy. “Have one yourself. You might need it.”

“Get yourself a drink and start reading.” Agatha wrapped herself in an apron she had never used before. Most of her cooking was done by putting readymade meals in the micro wave.

When Roy was finally seated at the table with a large vodka and tonic, he began to read out Sarah’s instructions. “ ‘Take your largest, roomiest mixing bowl and start putting in the suet, sifted flour and breadcrumbs, spices and sugar.’ I don’t think those are the right breadcrumbs, Aggie. They’re those orange ones people put on fish. And the almonds are supposed to be skinned and chopped, not put in whole. And you didn’t peel the apple.”

“Nobody’ll notice,” said Agatha. “Read on.”

What a lot of ingredients, thought Agatha. Part of the advice was to tick everything off, but Agatha couldn’t be bothered. For example, she was supposed to put the barley wine, rum and stout into a smaller basin and beat it up with the eggs, but she cut corners by just pouring it all into the mix in the big bowl.

Roy took a turn stirring. “It’s supposed to be sloppy,” he complained.

“Easily solved,” said Agatha, tipping a generous amount of rum into the bowl and then taking a swig out of the bottle to fortify herself.

“Now what?” she asked.

“You’re supposed to cover it with a clean tea towel and leave to soak overnight.”

“And what do we have to do tomorrow?”

“Steam it for eight hours. I didn’t see you sift the flour,” said Roy anxiously. “You just dumped it in.”

“So I did,” said Agatha, stifling a yawn. “We’ll steam the beastly thing in the morning.”

 

But the next day, after they had put the pudding on to steam, it seemed too boring to wait indoors and so they went to the pub for lunch and forgot about it, only remembering as they were strolling back down the road. Both broke into a run. The windows of the cottage were covered in steam. Agatha ran through billowing clouds of steam in time to put more water into the pot which was about to boil dry.

They opened the doors and windows to let the steam out and then Agatha had to field phone calls from various villagers asking if her house was on fire.

“It’s been on four hours.” Agatha peered at the pudding anxiously. “That should be enough. What do I do with it now?”

“You’re supposed to put it in a cool place like an un-heated bedroom.”

“Everything’s heated in this house,” said Agatha. “I’ll put it down in the shed.”

“Maybe you should buy one from a supermarket just in case,” suggested Roy.

“What! After all my work!”

“And mine,” pointed out Roy. “Nonetheless . . .”

“Nonetheless nothing,” said Agatha. “Sarah is supposed to be infallible.”

“Only if you follow the recipe,” muttered Roy.

 

****

 

Agatha’s friend, Sir Charles Fraith, who had the keys to her cottage, strolled in one evening shortly before Christmas, to find Agatha trying to fend off her cats, Hodge and Boswell, as she decorated a large fake-green Christmas tree.

“Thought you’d be off soon to somewhere sunny,” said Charles. “Why all the decorations?”

Agatha told him.

“For a hard-nosed detective, occasionally you’re a bit of a dreamer, Agatha. Do you expect them all to tug their forelocks and say, ‘Thank you, Lady Bountiful’?”

“Stop bitching and help me with this tinsel.”

“I hope you’ve got caterers,” said Charles.

“I have. But not for the pudding. I made that myself.”

“Where is it?”

“Down in the garden shed.”

“It’s been unusually mild recently, Agatha. Are you sure the flies won’t have got to it?”

“It’s sealed.”

“Maybe I’d better have a look at it.” Charles strolled towards the kitchen door with the cats at his heels.

“Look! But don’t touch.” Agatha called after him.

Charles opened the shed door and then backed away. He felt like someone in a CSI television programme discovering a rotting corpse. The air was full of the hum of flies. The pudding was sitting on a potting bench with black flies swirling around it. He gritted his teeth, stepped into the shed, and carried the pudding back up the garden and into the kitchen.

“You’d better come and see this,” he called. “The bowl’s covered in flies.”

Agatha rushed in, took one horrified look at the bowl, seized a can of fly killer and sprayed the pudding.

“There. That’s all right,” she said as dying flies rolled around the kitchen table.

“Don’t you think it might now taste awful?” asked Charles.

“No. It’s well sealed. Clean up those flies, Charles. I know, I’ll put it in the fridge. Why didn’t Sarah think of that?”

“Obviously because that’s one thing you shouldn’t do.”

“Rats! She said a cool place and so the fridge is a cool place. Don’t nag. Just shovel up the flies. Do you want to come to this dinner?”

“When is it?”

“Christmas Day.”

“Can’t. Got to carve the bird at home. Do video it. I could do with a laugh.”

 

Roy arrived on Christmas Eve, just as Agatha was preparing to turn the pudding onto a plate.

“There!” she said triumphantly. “Oh, no, I think it’s going to fall apart. What will I do?”

“We could make a toffee glaze and pour it over. All we need is a lot of sugar and water. I can do that.”

Agatha waited nervously until Roy had made the toffee covering. He poured it over the pudding. “Now, if we put it gently back in the fridge, it’ll harden. Stick some holly on the top and it’ll look great. But God knows what it will taste like. I checked the ingredients you had left out.”

“I didn’t leave any out,” howled Agatha.

“Suit yourself.”

 

****

 

Matilda Glossop fretted over what to wear. It seemed a long time since she had been invited to any social event. She finally chose a black wool dress and tied a scarlet silk scarf at the neck to brighten it up. She had knitted a soft wool scarf for Agatha.

Harry Dunster decided on comfort, putting on his usual ratty old cardigan and checked shirt over a pair of black trousers, shiny with age. For a present he chose a pretty Crown Derby teacup. It was a bit chipped and had lost its saucer a long time ago.

Jack Turnbull thought that Agatha was rich enough not to need any present from him. Still, it was Christmas. He relucantly wrapped up a bottle of homemade sloe gin in a piece of newspaper. He put on the ratcatchers outfit he used for hunting: tweed hacking jacket and cords. Hunting was his one luxury.

Simon Trent put on his evening suit, glad that it still fitted. He wrapped up a pretty mother-of-pearl powder compact he had found in an antique shop and also wrapped up a bottle of champagne in Christmas paper.

Freda Pinch was wearing a long green evening gown and fake pearls. Her face was heavily made up. She decided not to buy Agatha anything. If Agatha was playing the part of the Lady Bountiful, then let her give and not expect anything. Simon Trent would be there and Freda often fantasised about him.

Len Leech put on his “best” clothes: a silk shirt and striped tie, double-breasted blazer with the Carsely bowling club crest on the pocket and dark trousers. His present for Agatha was a black lace thong. That’ll get her in the right mood, he thought complacently.

 

****

 

The party of elderly people was finally assembled in Agatha’s sitting room, where she had decided to put the tree with presents for all of them underneath it. Her cats had done their best to sabotage the tree decorations and so she had begged her cleaner, Doris Simpson, to look after them for the day.

“Welcome, everyone,” cried Agatha. “I have some presents for you. Roy will pass them out.”

“Ladies first,” said Roy. “Mrs. Glossop.”

Matilda nervously unwrapped her present. It was a very beautiful cashmere shawl. Agatha had fretted about what to give everyone so much that she had settled on expensive presents.

Next came Freda Pinch. Her present was an electric foot massager. She murmured her startled thanks at the generosity of the gift.

“Harry Dunster,” called Roy. He was enjoying himself despite the fact that Agatha had forced him to wear a conservative suit and tie.

Harry creaked forward and unwrapped his long present with arthritic fingers. Revealed was an ebony cane with a silver top. He stared at it in surprise. “It be right beautiful,” he said. “Thanks.”

Jake Turnbull was equally delighted to get a case of fine burgundy. Simon Trent received a gift token for an expensive dinner for two at a posh restaurant in Broadway.

Last came Len Leech. Before Agatha could guess what he was going to do, he whipped out a spring of mistletoe, held it over her head and tried to kiss her on the mouth. She jerked her head away and said sharply, “Do open your present, Mr. Leech.”

“Len to you, sweetie,” he leered.

His present was a Chinese silk dressing gown. As he grinned down at it and then gave Agatha a salacious smile, she realised the folly of her choice of present.

Then it was Agatha’s turn. She left Len Leech’s offering to the last, wishng he would stop smirking and ogling her. His rather prominent eyes roamed over her body. She felt they were like two snails, leaving pornographic trails.

She stared down at the thong. “Thanks,” she said curtly. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

Len charged ahead and took a seat at the top of the table, leaving Agatha to sit at the other end, with her back to the hall. Freda tried to grab a seat next to Simon Trent, but she had stumbled in her rush and so he got there before her and took a place next to Matilda. Jake Turnbull was already on his other side. Roy helped old Harry Dunster to a chair next to Agatha, and then sat on her other side.

Agatha was pleased with the room. Holly decorated the picture frames and tall candles shone down on the table. She was glad she had decided to give up any pretence of having cooked practically all of the dinner herself. After the Christmas crackers had been pulled, the first course of pâté arrived.

“Has anyone heard this one about the actress and the bishop?” asked Len.

“Frequently,” snapped Agatha.

“What about the one about the gorilla? This gorilla kidnapped this woman and . . .”

“Heard it,” said Roy. “Everyone’s heard it. Kindly leave the stage.”

But Freda, flushed with unaccustomed wine and feeling like the femme fatale of her fantasies, said, “I haven’t.”

“This here gorilla,” said Len, “kidnaps this woman in Africa. Takes her up his tree and rapes her for two months. She’s rescued and gets back to America. She’s crying and telling a friend about her ordeal. ‘It must be awful for you,’ says the friend. ‘It is,’ says this woman. ‘He doesn’t write. He doesn’t phone.’ ” And Len laughed so hard, he nearly fell off his chair.

“But I don’t understand,” said Freda. “Who doesn’t write or phone?”

“The gorilla doesn’t,” said Len.

“But gorillas do not know how to write or phone. Do you mean, perhaps, whoever rescued her?”

Simon began to laugh.

“Oh, forget it,” said Len sulkily.

Their plates were removed and then the turkey was wheeled in. Soon everyone was digging in and there was a murmur of conversation from everyone but Len as vegetables were passed around and gravy poured.

“This is absolutely delicious, Mrs. Raisin,” said Matilda.

“Agatha, please.”

Roy was wondering nervously if Agatha was being too generous with the wine that the caterers were diligently pouring as soon as they saw an empty glass. He looked down the table at Len and with a sinking heart recognised the signs of a nasty drunk. Len had moved from the jolly stage to the sentimental stage. His eyes filled with tears, he kept praising and toasting Agatha. Roy guessed he would soon move to the mean and belligerent stage.

“This is very good of you,” said Simon. “The food is delicious.”

“And I’ll drink to that,” said Len. “Come on, you ancient lot. Drink up.”

“I’ve a feeling he’s going to get out of hand,” Matilda whispered to Simon. He smiled down at her, thanking his stars he had what he considered the best company at the party.

“Don’t worry. I’ll cope with him.”

Jake Turnbull pushed his glass away. He suddenly, for the first time in ages, did not feel like getting drunk. The food was marvellous and he was overwhelmed with the fact that he did not have to spend Christmas on his own.

Old Harry Dunster refused more wine as well. The food was a dream and he didn’t want to lose a bit of its savour.

“Is this a charity dinner, like?” demanded Len truculently.

“It’s a Christmas dinner, that’s all,” said Agatha.

“Makes you feel good, does it?” pursued Len. “I suppose you rich people can afford it.”

Simon threw down his napkin. He went up to Len and bent over him.

“If you don’t shut your face,” he whispered, “I’ll push your teeth down your throat.”

He then smiled around the company and resumed his seat.

Len simmered with hatred. There was that Agatha female queening it and she was little better than a whore with that toy boy of hers at her side.

Finally the plates were cleared away. Agatha went into the kitchen and paid off the caterers and then called to Roy to help her with the pudding. It stood on a decorated plate on the kitchen table. Roy sniffed it. “Agatha, I could swear this pudding smells of insecticide.”

“Nonsense.”

“Are you going to light it here?”

“No, put it on the side table behind Len. I was supposed to sit there. I’ll take in the pudding and you bring in the bowls and the brandy butter.”

Agatha carried in the pudding. Everyone except Len cheered. Roy beamed all round from the doorway. Agatha’s Christmas was a success after all.

But Agatha found that the caterers had taken away their serving table. Roy went back into the kitchen, put down his tray of bowls and brandy butter and carried in a stool.

“Is this all you can find?” asked Agatha. “It’s very low. Oh, well, I’ll see if I can manage.”

“Clear a space on the table and put it there,” said Roy.

“No, we’ll manage. Put the tray on the floor beside me and hand me a bottle of rum. I’m going to light it.”

Agatha bent over the pudding—and that is what caused the subsequent tragedy. For Agatha, in her early fifties, had dressed to distinguish herself as far as possible from her aged guests. Under her short skirt, she was wearing lacy topped stockings and frilly knickers. And as she bent over, Len swivelling round in his chair, got a splendid view. His beefy hands seem to move of their own accord. He turned round, leaned forward, slid his hands up Agatha’s skirt and squeezed her buttocks.

“You filthy bastard!” cried Agatha in a red rage. Len swung back round and stared at the table as if he had nothing to do with it. Agatha picked up the pudding in both hands and brought it down on his head.

For one shocked moment, the guests stared at what looked like Pudding Man. Where Len’s head should have been was a round pudding. The candlelight shone on the toffee coating, giving the odd illusion of two flickering eyes.

The pudding must be uncooked in the middle, thought Roy wildly, as brown gunk began to pour down onto Len’s clothes.

Then Len sagged forward and fell with his pudding head on the table and lay still.

“You’ve smothered him!” screamed Freda as Agatha began to desperately claw the pudding from Len’s head.

Simon hurried round to join her and moved her gently aside. He felt Len’s neck for a pulse and found none. “He’s dead, Agatha,” he said.

“He can’t be,” said Agatha, white-faced in the candlelight. “Roy, phone for an ambulance.”

“Just done that,” said Roy.

Simon pulled away as much of the pudding as he could and laid Len down on the floor. He tried artificial respiration and then tried the kiss of life without success.

“Get me some water and towels,” ordered Simon, “and I’ll clean him up.”

“Shouldn’t he be left like that?” said Freda’s shrill voice.

“Why?” demanded Matilda.

“Well, she killed him. That’s why. Call the police.”

“Get me that water,” ordered Simon. “He’s probably died of a heart attack. I can’t leave him like this.”

“I have to go to the toilet,” said Freda.

“Upstairs on your left,” said Roy.

No sooner was she in the bathroom than Freda called the police.

And so it was that Agatha’s first Cotswold friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, working over Christmas, received the call that Agatha Raisin had murdered Len Leech with a Christmas pudding.