‘I don’t believe we discussed it.’
Chilton looked at me in a way I found unsettling. It was a full, unabashed examination. Not a leer, not at all, but searching, and then assessing what he found. I did not love his questions about Lizzie Clarke but at the same time I found him endearing and, faced with his gaze, I couldn’t help but bestow a small smile, as if I needed to comfort him.
The waitress approached our table but he waved her away.
‘How do you know I don’t want to order something?’ I asked. Something I would never say to Archie. Or Finbarr, only because he would never dismiss a waitress without first finding out if I were hungry.
‘Do you?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s an astonishing business,’ Chilton said.
‘You mean the disappearance? That lady novelist?’
‘Why, no. That’s not what I meant. Though surely that’s astonishing as well.’
‘Have they found her?’
‘No indeed. Her whereabouts are still very much a mystery.’
‘I think it’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘For a lady to become an author.’
He looked surprised by this change in subject. ‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘I think so too.’
‘I used to dream of becoming one myself,’ I said. ‘But life got in the way.’
Chilton nodded. He wasn’t surprised at my confiding. It’s the sort of thing that happened, at these hotels, away from the usual world. People told each other things. It’s why my fast friendship with Lizzie Clarke was not suspicious.
‘But you’re still young,’ he said. ‘Surely you’ve time to write a hundred books, if you like.’
‘Surely.’ I clattered my teacup back to its saucer.
‘What’s astonishing to me,’ he said, returning to his purpose, ‘is the Marstons.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Astonishing. Would you excuse me, Mr Chilton? I’ve finished here. I do wish you a good day.’ I put my napkin on the table and stood. ‘If you don’t mind, Mr Chilton, I must say, you don’t seem at all the type to holiday at a spa.’
‘Have I said I’m on holiday?’ He tilted his head and for just a moment he did not look unassuming. In fact, he looked rather shrewd.
‘No, of course. You’re searching for Agatha Christie. I wish you good fortune in that endeavour, Mr Chilton. Good day.’
I left the dining room, unsure of what to do with myself next. The conversation with Mr Chilton left me exhausted. How difficult it is to walk through the world with your insides intact.
Looking back on this stretch of time, not just my days in Harrogate but all the years between the two Great Wars, I often think how fine it should have been. We allowed ourselves to believe evil had been defeated, as if evil never did rise twice. We had so many of the modern conveniences – telephones, automobiles, electric lights – but not too many of them, and not too readily available. Later there would be an overabundance of noise and glare. We could all be too easily reached. The very stars dimmed from the lights reflected on earth, and you could never do what I’d just done, escape from your ordinary life and fade away, undetectable.
I went up to my room and sat on my bed, picking up The Great Gatsby to read its final chapters. My eyes scanned the text but it was my own story that filled my mind. The Clarkes had packed up and gone away. What if I did the same? I could never go back to Ireland. But what if I said to Finbarr, Forget Ballycotton. Let’s go away somewhere else. Anywhere but Ireland. Anywhere but England. I could leave Agatha and Archie Christie in the past and take hold, finally, of my own future. Begin anew. As if such a thing were possible.
A distinct sound reached me through the window I didn’t remember opening. Perhaps my imagination. Certainly it couldn’t have come from the hotel. It might have come from a pram ambling down the road. But I felt certain I heard a baby crying. That sharp, insistent mewl of need and hunger. A pain struck my breasts, stinging, as if they wanted to express milk. I threw my book aside, stood and pulled the window closed. I could never leave England. Not even with Finbarr.
Chilton knew it would not do to let Mrs Christie go undiscovered for long. Resources were being lost. People were worried. He thought it might be less embarrassing to her – that she could rectify everything more quietly – if she allowed him to deliver her home. He decided to go to her straight away and make this offer. The two of them, driving through the countryside. He found himself thinking less about the moment he appeared with her in Sunningdale – a hero – and more about the journey itself. What would they find to talk about, as they drove the country roads?
But when he arrived at the house where he’d discovered Agatha, intent on convincing her of his plan, there was no smoke spiralling from the chimney. Where the car had been hidden there were only the tyre marks it left behind, the branches that had covered it neatly stacked on the grass. Chilton pushed the front door gently, not even touching the knob. It swung open without resistance or complaint. The rooms he walked through were empty of occupants. The ash sat cold in the fireplace. In one bedroom a light scent of lavender lingered. Atop the dresser was a crisp five-pound note.
Chilton sat on the bed and pressed a pillow to his face. Inhaled. By the time the home’s rightful occupants returned, there’d be no discernible trace of it, but the next person to sleep on this pillow would dream inexplicably of fields filled with purple flowers.
He might not care for his career anymore, but he still had a modicum of pride, plus Lippincott to consider. Unless he managed to find Agatha a second time, he couldn’t possibly reveal, to anyone, the first.
Here Lies Sister Mary
WE SLEPT IN a dormitory on the second floor of the convent, narrow beds in a row, close together. During the day the room was locked so nobody could steal upstairs to rest. At night, once we were in bed, the doors were locked again, the nuns the only ones who had the keys. Sometimes, I still dream about the convent catching fire, all of us locked inside that room with no escape.