The Christie Affair (22 page)

Now Archie sat at his desk, with the copy of the story Agatha had written – typed out but for the title ‘The Edge’ written across the top in a madwoman’s print, as if the pen had nearly punctured the paper. He read it again. The husband came across all right. And the woman, vanquishing her rival, sending her rolling down the cliff to her death. Archie thought of his wife, with a frightened kind of respect: I don’t know her, he said to himself. I don’t know her at all.

They might be searching for Agatha in every corner of England but, of course, the main hub was Berkshire and Surrey. By Wednesday the counties abounded with hounds and police officers. Even aeroplanes, the first time they’d ever been used to look for a single, missing person. The staff from the Coworth House, the largest estate in Sunningdale, took a day off to employ their knowledge of the region, which was naturally far superior to any police force. Professionally tight-lipped, they did not repeat any gossip relayed by the paltry staff at Styles (un-aware that Anna had already seen to the matter, just what one could expect from a second-rate housemaid). They were all sure Mrs Christie was now a corpse, and took great umbrage at the idea of anyone other than themselves discovering it.

How disappointing when two first footmen
did
find poor Miss Annabelle Oliver, frozen in a shallow stream, caught up in a snarl of brambles. A great cry went up at the sight of her, followed by disappointment. She was too old and too small to be Agatha Christie. One body would have been valuable. This body, belonging to someone nobody had reported missing, was not.

Archie walked down the road with Peter on a leash. He could hear the aeroplanes overhead, rotors slicing the air. Hounds bayed in the distance, a sound that had become ubiquitous since his wife had disappeared.

If Agatha had done this to drive him mad, hats off to her. Peter pulled disobediently on his leash and Archie yanked him back to his side. The dog had never liked him. But Deputy Chief Constable Thompson had asked Archie to bring her dog to the site where the Morris Cowley had been found. He could have driven but hoped the air – wind, really, cold enough to chap a man’s skin – would do something to ease the unrest swirling inside his chest.
What have I done, what have I done?
Blown his life to bits, that’s what. Caused this swirling mass, this appalling and unceasing to-do, all about him. The search was like Agatha’s anguish come to life. And he had caused it, for the sake of a girl who was good at golf. The newspapers were blaring the news of Agatha’s disappearance all the way to the continents. The police knew about his affair, thought they hadn’t been able to track down Nan for an interview (he felt grateful to me, for lying low as promised). Still, how much longer before everything else came out, everything he’d done? Once Agatha saw the story of Archie and Nan made public, would she change her mind about wanting him back? When the whole world knew? Or had he
ruined his marriage, his whole life, for what he’d begun to think of as nothing, a madness, a dalliance?

Police waited by his wife’s car, still at Newlands Corner where they’d pulled it back from the chalk pit. The officers regarded Archie sternly, many of them certain he’d done some foul play. As if that were possible. As if he had it in him. Couldn’t they tell how desperate he was to see his wife found?

‘Here you go, Peter,’ Archie said. The dog pulled on the leash again, in the direction of home. Agatha had spoiled him, allowing him on furniture, feeding him from her plate, walking him with no leash at all. Frustrated, Archie bent over to pick him up. Peter wriggled in his arms, whining. Two of the younger policemen exchanged glances. Amused or disgusted? The dashing colonel could no more control this little dog than he could his wife.

‘Come on now, Peter.’ Archie placed the dog by the car, but Peter didn’t sniff, he didn’t do anything but turn round and round in whimpering circles.

‘Well,’ said the more disapproving of the two officers. ‘I suppose that’s enough of that.’

‘I suppose it is,’ Archie said. He unclipped Peter’s leash and the dog immediately bolted down the road towards home.

‘H
old up there,’ a voice called, as Archie started to trudge after the dog. It was Thompson, looking even sterner than usual. There were moments when Archie felt sure the man was just on the brink of throttling him.

Archie opened his mouth to speak but found no voice came out at all. Instead, it was Thompson’s voice, obscuring whatever it was he’d meant to say, with the calamitous words: ‘There’s been a development, I’m afraid. The search has turned up a body.’

A body.
Agatha? Surely not. To his horror, Archie’s knees buckled, his own body, which had always been such a faithful
servant to him, committing so humiliating a betrayal. He had to reach out and grab Thompson’s collar to keep himself from crumbling to the ground.

Thompson bent at the knees himself, leveraging his weight to keep the colonel upright. He wore an undecided and consternated expression. Was this grief he witnessed, or was it guilt?

My wife, thought Archie.
A body.
It wouldn’t do. He couldn’t bear it. The world rearranged itself into an inhospitable and unforgiving place. He would have let go the officer, fallen to the road and wept, if only he’d been a different sort of man.

Early that same morning in Yorkshire, Chilton opened the door of his room to see the American woman, Lizzie Clarke, walk down the hall dressed for travelling. He pulled the door closed before she could notice him and saw her rap on a door, a delicate knock, careful to rouse only the occupant and nobody in neighbouring rooms. Once the door had opened then shut, Mrs Clarke disappearing into the room, Chilton removed his shoes and padded down the hall to listen.

‘D
onny’s had a telegram,’ the American voice said. ‘We have to cut things short. Go back to the States.’

To Chilton’s ears, the voice that responded – female, British – sounded as though she knew someone were listening. A little too loud and not quite genuine. ‘I do hope everything is all right.’

‘Yes,’ Mrs Clarke replied. ‘Everything is perfect.
Perfect
.’

Chilton imagined the two women, sitting together on the unmade bed, hands clasped. Even with the note of falsehood in the other woman’s tone, he sensed a kind of intimacy. He returned to his room and sat on the bench at the foot of his bed
to lace his shoes, which he noticed were going about the seams. He would have to tell Lippincott this morning. ‘I’ve found Agatha Christie,’ he would say. ‘Right as rain. No distress. All she wants is her privacy.’

Perhaps he and Lippincott could be kind about it, and hatch a plan that would suit the authoress. They could tell the husband and no one else, call off the search, let her reappear when she was good and ready.

But even if the law could be convinced to let it rest, the press never would. Newspapers around the world were making a mint off this story. It was Mrs Christie’s good luck that someone from the police had found her, instead of someone from the press. Mrs Christie seemed to have chosen the one place in England nobody expected her to be.

And still she’d been found. Such was the world. There was never any hiding for long. He finished dressing and headed down to breakfast. The Clarkes were at the front desk settling up with Mrs Leech.

‘How do you do,’ he said to the three of them. He pulled out a cigarette and brought it to his lips but did not light it. Mrs Clarke looked uneasy for a scant second, then adjusted herself to a stark inscrutability.

‘Good morning,’ she said, sharp American ‘r’. The husband said nothing, just shuffled bills into Mrs Leech’s hand.

‘Thank you, Mr Clarke,’ said Mrs Leech. ‘So good of you to pay in full.’ More than one guest had fled since the two deaths, and not all had been so generous. ‘Prayers for your safe voyage.’

Mr Clarke turned to Chilton, drawing a match from his pocket and lighting the other man’s cigarette. His wife said, ‘I’m looking forward to it, actually. Getting back on a ship. I think these hot pools are overrated. No offence,’ she said, glancing at
Mrs Leech with apology. ‘I just like cold water. Give me the open sea any day over a hot steamy cave.’

The young husband returned the matchbox to his inside pocket and placed a hand between his wife’s shoulder blades, manoeuvring her towards the front door as if their exit were a dance.

‘Bon voyage,’ Chilton said quietly, watching them go. The bellboy pushed a trolley holding their modest collection of luggage. Then he said to Mrs Leech, ‘How curious of them to come all this way, only to stay a few days. You’d think they’d at least go and see the continent.’

She asked him if he needed the telephone. In fact, he had not only a need but an obligation. But he found himself saying, ‘No thank you. Not just now. But I wonder if you know – are there many abandoned houses in Harrogate?’

‘Abandoned, certainly not. Unoccupied, yes, there are a few. Country homes for city folk; they come so rarely I wonder they don’t just stay in a hotel. I never did care for the city myself, Mr Chilton.’

‘Nor I.’ He pulled at the hem of his tweed jacket, which felt loose, as though he’d lost still more weight. It’s important to eat, he reminded himself. It’s important to work. To go through the motions.

He proceeded to the sparsely populated dining room. Among the few guests, a young woman sat alone, staring intently out the window, a cup of tea cooling untouched on the table in front of her. Chilton walked over directly.

‘May I?’ he said, pulling out a chair for himself.

What choice did I have but to answer, ‘Yes.’

Inspector Chilton had an advantage over me, the kind a police officer enjoys. He didn’t know how I was connected to Agatha Christie but he knew I
was
connected. I had no idea he was possessed of such information. I was still fairly reeling from the news Finbarr had given me: that
us
meant him and Agatha, that she was in hiding with him here in Harrogate. How much more would I have reeled if I’d known Chilton shared this knowledge? As it was, he hardly worried me at all.

What did worry me was Finbarr, and the effect his reappearance would have on my future. How could I return to Archie’s arms after being in Finbarr’s?
One must respect the psychology
. It took a good deal of work on the part of my own psychology, working through warring emotions, to carry out my plan and become Archie’s wife. Finbarr’s appearance threatened to upend every bit of that.