I glanced again at the young bride. The poor thing’s lower lip trembled.
Lizzie said, ‘She and her new husband seem to do nothing but argue. So the old honeymooners are jolly, and the young ones are not. Pity anyone shouldn’t be jolly on their honeymoon. Isn’t it?’
I smiled. ‘You like people-watching, do you?’
‘It’s my favourite hobby,’ Lizzie admitted, with a self-deprecating laugh that made me feel fond of her.
Who should enter just then but the older honeymooners, Mr and Mrs Marston. They sat on the far side of the dining room and I indulged in a bit of people-watching myself. Mrs Marston had dark hair, just a few strands of grey and a broad, ample back. I stared over her shoulder, directly at her husband. Mr Marston was a jowly, red-faced fellow who didn’t seem to notice me, he had eyes only for his new wife. How sweet.
‘Say,’ Lizzie said, when we’d finished eating, ‘are you heading to the baths? Would you like a walk before? We could get good and chilly so the hot water will feel that much better.’
Lizzie was already on her feet. I pushed my chair back. We left the dining room together, then went to our rooms to collect warm clothes before meeting outside to venture down the frigid road, cold grey skies settling in around us. It was a good idea to get ourselves nice and cold before a soak back at the Bellefort Hotel, and cold we would get, despite our coats, hat and gloves.
‘What’s your husband like?’ I asked as we walked. If she could be direct, so could I.
‘He’s lovely,’ she said. ‘I recommend American men. They’re different from British. More emotional and expressive.’ Away from the gaze of our fellow guests she slipped her arm through mine as if we were old friends.
‘It’s nice,’ I said, ‘that you speak so kindly of him. Not all women do, of their husbands. They complain about them and malign them, and then they’re surprised when they run off with someone else.’
Lizzie laughed. She stopped and lit a cigarette, shading the flame of her match with gloved hands. ‘If the husband deserves his wife’s complaints, the person he runs off with will complain about him one day. Probably about the very same things. True?’
I patted my hat back into place. I’d taken pains to look respectable and put together. A proper married lady on holiday. Composed, running away from nothing, simply taking a little time for myself.
Lizzie’s gaze turned away from me, focused down the road. A young man came into view, walking towards us. He was tall, with a graceful step. Even at this distance, more than a hundred feet, he was clearly fixated, coming directly towards us as if he had something urgent to relay.
‘He doesn’t look quite right,’ Lizzie murmured.
I didn’t look at her, but remained focused on the man. My impression was precisely the opposite to Lizzie’s. He looked quite right to me. Almost nothing in my life required the sudden control and presence of mind to keep my voice neutral when I spoke. ‘Funnily enough, I happen to know him. Would you mind excusing us a moment?’
‘Not at all.’ She gave a pretty little shiver. ‘I’m about ready for some hot water. Perhaps I’ll see you in the baths?’
‘Perhaps.’ But I had already started moving in the opposite direction.
‘Remember not to trust strangers too quickly.’
‘Thank you.’ I spoke without looking back at her. ‘Thank you for the reminder.’
My feet moved swiftly, like they used to when I was young. Carrying me towards the man. It was like hurrying towards the best part of the past. A shift had occurred in the atmosphere. Skies opening up to bestow a gift when I least deserved one.
He wore an Aran jumper and a pea coat, open and unbuttoned, despite the cold. Black hair fell across his brow. The smile had been stamped out of his eyes, but they were still the loveliest layered blue. My heels were chunky, fine for walking, but ill-suited to the run I couldn’t help but break into. I couldn’t get to him fast enough. My coat blew open, too. If I ran into his arms, I knew he would pick me up and spin me around, but for some reason I stopped just short of them. Looking at him, making sure this was real, felt more important than embracing him.
‘Finbarr,’ I said. ‘Upon my word.’
‘Hello, Nan.’ He reached out and took my hand. Brought my palm to his lips, three beats of a kiss. ‘I’ve missed you.’
In Berkshire and Surrey, they searched as though for a dead woman. The Silent Pool, the brush, ditches. Hounds bayed, noses to the ground. If Agatha Christie were found near her home, it would be because she’d died there, by her own hand or someone else’s.
Elsewhere in England authorities searched for a live person in hiding. There were police officers from Land’s End to Cold Stream, showing Agatha’s photograph to hotel guests and proprietors. Have you seen this lady? Chilton was one of many going through these motions. He’d been charged to search for her, so searching was how he planned to conduct himself. On his arrival the day before, he’d acted an ordinary guest, checking in and eating dinner in the dining room with the sparse assortment of guests. Simon Leech’s wife had ushered him to a table and sat him opposite a pretty young lady with abundant dark hair whom Mrs Leech introduced as Miss Cornelia Armstrong.
‘Surely you’re not here all on your own,’ Chilton said to Miss Armstrong, before he could stop himself.
Miss Armstrong smiled as if she found his incredulousness a compliment. ‘Why, surely I am,’ she said, with no small note of good-natured reproach. ‘It’s 1926, or haven’t you heard? Men went to war at my age. Surely I can manage a spa.’
Chilton smiled, and the proprietor patted the table as if pleased the conversation was off to a rousing start. ‘Be sure to tell all your friends which is the best hotel in Harrogate,’ Mrs Leech trilled, before bustling off with an industrious smile. The rest of Chilton’s evening passed agreeably, as he learned more about suffrage from Miss Armstrong than he had ever known before.
On Monday morning, first thing after breakfast, Chilton caught a ride into town with Mr Leech. Leeds Police Headquarters was much as he’d left it. Lippincott always kept his door open. He waved Chilton into his office.
‘Quite a time to take your retirement, just as the crime of the century’s been committed.’
They laughed, having agreed this was no crime at all. Just a lady with a tiny bit of renown, missing when nothing else was occurring in the world, creating a Silly Season in winter. The papers were going wild. Lippincott gave Chilton some police bulletins and a photograph of Agatha from her publisher, the same one being placed in countless hands across England.