The Christie Affair(60)

‘But wasn’t it he you meant when you said darling? He’s not—’

‘Don’t you dare say it. I’m not nearly old enough to be Finbarr’s mother.’

‘I was going to say, your brother.’

‘He has become very like a brother to me, and is indeed very darling. Though I don’t see what business it is of yours.’

‘What business it is of mine, Mrs Christie,’ Chilton switched to her true name, though she had not yet confirmed her identity, ‘is that I am employed by the Yorkshire police. There are a good many officers searching for you.’

‘A good many? Searching for me? In Yorkshire?’

‘Yorkshire and everywhere else in England.’

Agatha frowned. She couldn’t even curse her bad luck at landing in Yorkshire. If she’d run off to Derbyshire or Cumberland or Norfolk, there would be police to come knocking on the door of her hideout.

‘Gracious,’ Agatha said, exhausted by the news. ‘What a fuss.’

‘So you admit, you’re Mrs Agatha Christie?’

‘I admit no such thing.’ But she looked doubtful.

If Miss O’Dea (he had begun thinking of me as Miss almost without considering it) or any other woman had done what Agatha did next, Chilton would have been on guard, considering it an attempt at manipulation. But when she reached out her hand, touching his arm, closing her fingers around the thick woollen cloth, he recognized the gesture as not woman to man, but human to human. A genuine and urgent entreaty.

‘Mr Chilton,’ she said, ‘have you ever been in trouble? Real trouble, the kind that comes not only from without but also from some place within? Some place you never even recognized?’

Her face looked open and painfully tender. Thirty-six is an age one looks back on as young. But at the time, living in thirty-six-year-old skin, it doesn’t feel young. Women start believing themselves old so soon, don’t they? Agatha didn’t realize it was her youth that allowed her to sit for hours in that comfortless rock of a chair, staring at her pages without need of spectacles, nary a twinge from the small of her back. One day far into the future she would look back on this time in her life and understand she had not been old, or even middle aged, but young, with the bulk of her life ahead of her, not to mention the best of it.

She trained her sharp eyes upon Mr Chilton, assessing him frankly as she let go of his sleeve.

What a different life it had been for Agatha since she’d gone on the run with Finbarr. What a different person it had made her already. Staying in an empty house without permission or even knowing the owner’s identity. Like an outlaw. This time she wouldn’t bother leaving money, no matter how much of the household she helped herself to. She had chosen a servant’s room for the sheer austerity of it, as well as the privacy. Sitting here now, with a stranger, a man, she felt no fear whatsoever, nor worry about impropriety. She had sidestepped right out of the world as she’d always known it and had landed someplace where, seemingly, nothing mattered, not even great search parties, elsewhere, all for her benefit.

‘Mr Chilton,’ she said.

He heard her, and was struck again at the lack of ploy. A beautiful rawness exhibited either her character or what her character had been reduced – or elevated – to, thanks to whatever trauma it was that drove her.

One of the difficulties of having been to war: the impossibility of appreciating someone else’s trauma at first glance. It all seems so insignificant. Now, though, faced with her lovely furrowed brow, sympathy began to stir.

‘Is there anyone else here,’ she said, ‘in Harrogate, looking for me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘This area is my purview. And you might imagine the bulk of the search is closer to home. Your home. Dragging ponds and so forth.’

‘They haven’t told Teddy, have they? My daughter. They haven’t passed that worry on to her?’ She stood up, the space where she sat no longer enough to contain the flood of concern.

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he said, and then, because placation was useful under these circumstances (even if he hadn’t precisely identified how to characterize these circumstances), he added, ‘I imagine not.’ He had never seen the child but could picture her, cossetted, protected from every bit of news or information that might cause distress, for the sake of the parents perhaps more than the child. What’s more inconvenient than another person’s distress?

He wondered if Agatha Christie had ever in her life been as willing to wear her emotions so plainly on her face.

She made an effort to collect these emotions back to invisibility. ‘Let’s not play games, Mr Chilton.’ Her voice sounded like she wanted to infuse it with accustomed authority, and yet it shook. The candle on her desk fluttered. The stove needed more coal.

‘That’s the second time you’ve said that. You needn’t say it again. I’ve no fondness for games. I only want to deliver you safely home.’ When she didn’t reply he added, ‘Mrs Christie. Isn’t that enough of all this? You’ve given your husband a fright. He’s longing to see you. Surely it’s time to put an end to it all and go home.’

‘Did you see that girl?’ Agatha said. ‘The one you said came in with Mr Mahoney?’

Now, they were getting somewhere. A mystery about to be solved.