The Christie Affair(20)

‘Look at you, you little beauty.’ I took her chin in my thumb and forefinger, the way Agatha had mine the other day. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine.’ Teddy sighed in the tentative way of a child who knows things are amiss but doesn’t want to say so.

‘I brought you a present.’

She stepped back to expend some effort untwining the string. When she’d managed to unwrap the book she tossed the brown paper to the floor. At her age I would have found a proper place to discard the wrappings but this was the life Teddy lived. Not aristocratic, but posh enough that clothes and rubbish were simply flung aside for someone else to clear away. Once I became her stepmother I’d encourage her to be the sort of person who folded her clothes and put them away, who attended to her own discarded wrappings. But for now it wasn’t my place to say a word.

‘Oh,’ Teddy said, smiling at the cheerful pink cover. ‘What a funny little bear.’

I sat myself down on the round woven rug and leaned against the wall. Teddy climbed into my lap. Her hair tickled my chin and I leaned my cheek against the crown of her head as I read. It was a lovely book, inexplicably touching, Christopher Robin wandering off to find the Hundred Acre Wood.

‘But don’t you ever wander off like that,’ I said to Teddy. ‘Your mum and dad would miss you terribly.’

‘I won’t.’ Her mouth opened into a great yawn as she added, ‘Thank you for this book, Miss O’Dea. I do like it.’

Teddy read one page to me herself, then I continued reading it aloud even as I could feel Teddy’s breath slowing down, her little head tilting forward. I hoped the evenness of my voice and the sweetness of the prose might help her continue with the sleep she so dearly needed. And before long I found my eyelids fluttering closed, my head resting on the top of hers as I fell asleep, too.



‘How dare you.’

Honoria spoke in a furious hiss, designed to wake me while allowing the child to sleep. Peter trotted into the room, tail wagging, and for the first time I felt alarm. Agatha took the dog with her almost everywhere.

Teddy stirred sleepily and Honoria scooped her up and laid her on her cot. Then she gestured furiously with her head. I kissed Teddy on the forehead, then followed Honoria into the hallway.

Just at that moment Archie crested the stairs. ‘Good Lord,’ he said to me. ‘This won’t do, Nan. We can’t have your name wrapped up in all this.’ It was something he’d said repeatedly, about the divorce. Now that police were afoot it seemed to have become doubly important – getting me out of the way.

‘Wrapped up in all this what?’ I asked. ‘Where is Agatha? Is she all right?’

‘Of course she’s not all right,’ Honoria said. ‘This is all owing to you, Nan O’Dea. Don’t pretend it’s not.’

‘That will do, Honoria,’ Archie said.

She refused to retreat, crossing her arms defiantly. Archie took me by the elbow and led me downstairs to his study, where he closed the doors behind us. The room was cold. Someone had allowed the fire to go out.

‘Agatha drove off late last night and nobody’s seen her since.’ He didn’t look at my face as he told me the rest. Her Morris Cowley had been discovered in the wee hours of this morning, at the lip of the chalk pit below Newlands Corner. Off the road, its lights shining until the battery ran out. The bonnet of the car rested in the shrubbery. In the back seat were a fur coat, a packed suitcase and a driving licence. There were frustratingly few clues and it was disturbing to think that she might have wandered into the cold night without her coat.

‘Honoria says her typewriter is gone.’ Archie lay his hands flat on his desk, where Agatha sometimes wrote during the day while he was at work. His hands looked as though they were trying to absorb her last moment of industry, as if her work above all else would hold a clue to her whereabouts.

Despite the chill, a fine layer of sweat formed on Archie’s brow. He mopped it with his handkerchief. When he returned the cloth to his pocket, he drew out a folded letter. After staring at it for a moment, he ripped it into bits and threw it on the fire.

‘What was that?’ I asked. ‘Was that from Agatha?’

‘This is all some damnable stunt,’ Archie said. ‘To punish me. To punish you. To get your name into the papers.’

‘That doesn’t sound like her.’

‘That’s the point, isn’t it? She’s not herself. This whole bloody business has made her not like herself.’

Me. I was the whole bloody business. I didn’t know what to say. Certainly this was no time for the smiles he always craved. Archie clapped his hands, as though he had a task to complete but first had a few things to get out of the way. In the corner of the room, on the floor, I saw light glint off a band of gold, Agatha’s wedding ring. I pointed to it and Archie bent, reddening, to scoop it up and bury it in his suit pocket.

‘The important thing,’ he said, ‘is for you to get out of here fast as possible.’

I stood, unsure of what to do. In a way this was perfect – an added excuse to be out of touch over the next several days. At the same time it was unnerving, what seemed like Archie’s momentary defection. That wouldn’t do, not at all.

‘Nan, are you listening? You mustn’t be here. It doesn’t look right.’ He reached out and drew me to him. When I pressed my head against his chest, I could hear his heart, knocking away at an alarming clip. For a woman, a damaged reputation could bring about all manner of horror, in those days. But I knew it wasn’t concern for me that was making his heart erratic.