The Christie Affair(61)

‘She happens to be my husband’s mistress. My actual husband, Colonel Christie. She imagines she’s shortly to be his wife.’

The situation began to take a shape, albeit an unreasonable one. Chilton said, ‘She seems to have hit upon a hiccup, in that regard.’

The house was still but also electric, with an awareness of the floor beneath them and all it held. Those two young lovers, at last reunited (this much was clear). Not only what took place physically but the emotion swirling around them, oozing out from under the door, floating through the house like a new and intoxicating form of oxygen. He’d scarcely noticed that he had shifted to thinking of her as Agatha rather than Mrs Christie. In that moment the mist surrounded them, intimate in its proximity.

(The Timeless Manor, Agatha and I named it later. I’ve never been back to Harrogate, or to this manor house. But sometimes I think if I did, if I tracked the coordinates precisely, I would find an empty stretch of moor and heather and bramble, the house itself having secreted itself into the mist for another hundred years.)

‘Do you think she’s beautiful?’ Agatha asked. ‘That – girl.’

She’d been on the brink of using a different word, Chilton could tell. He answered with a lack of propriety and a wealth of honesty, because both seemed to be what she needed.

‘Not as beautiful as you.’

For a moment, based on the fervency that held every one of Agatha’s features absolutely quiet, he thought she might lean over and kiss him.

But she didn’t. She only said, ‘Please don’t tell anybody you’ve found me. Not yet. Give me a day or two more.’

He knew he should be objecting, cajoling, insisting. Rejecting the notion – to let her remain concealed – entirely. Instead, Chilton got to his feet with an air of acquiescing. It wasn’t as though a murder had been committed, after all. Why rouse people out of their beds with the shrill invasion of ringing telephones? She was a grown woman of means and station, free to make her own decisions. And he seemed to be rather enjoying himself. He seemed to be not wanting any of this to end. If he did his duty, and reported her found, the odds of him ever seeing her again stood slim.

‘I promise I won’t tell anyone,’ he said, ‘for now. If you promise not to move again. Stay here, please, where I can find you if needs be.’

‘Done,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

She held out her hand for him to shake. Soft, cool skin.

‘Poor Finbarr,’ she said. ‘I do hope Nan’s not toying with him.’

‘You’re tender-hearted.’

Agatha laughed. In agreement, he realized. ‘I expect that makes two of us,’ she said.

Chilton had considered his heart so utterly undetectable for so long, it surprised him to believe her. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I thought earlier, for a moment, when you were looking at me so intently – I almost believed you were about to kiss me.’

‘I haven’t kissed a man other than my husband in years. Not since the day we met.’

‘You’ve been a good wife.’

Agatha nodded vigorously. It made her furious to think what a good wife she’d been. To Chilton she looked breathlessly young and full of thoughts he couldn’t read. It reminded him of his girl, Katherine, before the war. He felt his mind start to reach, by habit, for the next dark idea to follow, the bitter side of the world. And stopped himself.

‘Mrs Christie,’ he said.

‘Call me Agatha.’ She closed the distance between them and kissed him, a tentative but time-consuming kiss. Chilton didn’t dare lift an arm to her waist. He was afraid if he moved at all, she’d realize what she was doing and it would end – her soft lips on his, her hands resting ever so lightly on his chest. Both their mouths open just enough to inhale each other’s breath. She tasted like roses and spring grass.

‘Agatha,’ Mr Chilton said, when finally she stepped away.

‘You’d better go now.’ It almost wounded him, how even and unphased her voice sounded.

‘Yes.’ He boasted no such calm. His voice cracked like a twelve-year-old boy’s.

‘But you’ll keep your promise? And tell no one?’

‘Yes,’ he said again.

Chilton closed the door behind him. He walked down the stairs and through the front door, feeling like a ghost, as if, instead of stepping, he were gliding, feet still and floating an inch or more above the ground.





The Disappearance



Day Seven

Friday, 10 December 1926



SIR ARTHUR CONAN Doyle loved a mystery too much to admit he’d never heard of Agatha Christie prior to her disappearance. There were whispers of a publicity stunt and so what? If this was a publicity stunt, it was a damn good one.

People do like to be the ones to solve problems. The more people trying to crack a case, the more one wants to be the man to do it.

Donald Fraser, Agatha’s new agent, cleared his schedule to take a meeting with Conan Doyle. The celebrated creator of Sherlock Holmes! Even if he didn’t see how Sir Arthur could help in discovering Agatha, perhaps the author could be persuaded to abandon his current agent and join Fraser’s list?

Not that Fraser’s feelings were mercenary where Agatha was concerned. He was worried. And he felt horrible for Mr Christie. Fraser’s own wife had run off with one of his writers last spring. Fraser fully expected Agatha to have done something similar. She always conducted herself as an unassailable lady but then so had his wife.