He’ll think I’m stalking him, thought Agatha. Of all the rotten coincidences! ‘Get me my bill,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving now. And don’t tell these English visitors about me. How the hell do I get out of here?’

‘You can get a plane from Simferopol Airport.’

‘Call me a cab!’

James Lacey wandered over to the window of his hotel room. His fiancée, Felicity, was asleep. He was feeling some twinges of unease. What he loved about Felicity was the way she looked at him with her large eyes, appearing to drink in every word.

But on the plane journey, when he was enthusiastically describing the cavalry charge, he felt Felicity shift restlessly in her seat. For the first time, he wondered if she were listening to him. ‘The order to charge was given,’ said James, ‘and a spaceship landed in the valley and some little green men got out.’

‘Fascinating,’ breathed Felicity.

‘You weren’t listening!’

‘Just tired, darling. What were you saying?’

James heard a commotion down below the hotel. He opened the window and leaned out. A woman had tripped and fallen getting into a cab. He only got a glimpse but he was suddenly sure the woman was Agatha. A familiar voice rose on the Crimean air, ‘Snakes and bastards!’

James ran down the stairs and out of the hotel, but the cab had gone. He took out his mobile and phoned his friend, Detective Sergeant Bill Wong, back in the Cotswolds.

‘Bill,’ said James, ‘did Agatha say anything about being upset by my engagement?’

‘No,’ said Bill. ‘I honestly don’t think she was.’

‘But she was just here in Balaclava. Agatha has no interest in military history. I hope she isn’t chasing after me.’

Bill was also a loyal friend of Agatha’s. ‘Just a coincidence,’ he said. ‘You must be mistaken.’

James re-entered the hotel and asked the receptionist if a lady called Agatha Raisin had just checked out. The receptionist said firmly she could not give out the names of other guests.

Agatha decided on returning to Istanbul to take that much-needed holiday and forced herself to relax. She visited several of the famous sites: Ayasofya, the Blue Mosque, the Spice Market where James Bond got blown up in From Russia With Love, and the Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus. At the end of a week, she phoned her friend Mrs Bloxby. After telling Agatha the village news, Mrs Bloxby said, ‘James called round looking for you just after you left. He’s got a contract to write a series of guidebooks on battlefields. He was just off to the Ukraine and after that, Gallipoli. How is Istanbul?’

‘Great. Eating lots and reading lots.’

When Agatha rang off, she took out her BlackBerry and Googled Gallipoli. The site of the disastrous Allied landings by the New Zealand and Australian and British forces in 1915 was in Turkey!