‘I’m sure she did,’ said Mr Chilton. ‘Did she say where this orphanage was located?’
‘County Cork, in Ireland. And I remember the name of the town. So poetic.’
Before Miss Armstrong could speak the words, Sunday’s Corner, Chilton looked over at Agatha. He could see from her face that in her mind as well as in his, everything had just come clear.
Perhaps you surmised in that moment, along with Chilton and Agatha: Mrs Marston and Sister Mary Clare were one and the same. Or perhaps you figured it out pages and pages ago. I wasn’t finished, that day in Sunday’s Corner, when my fingers circled around Sister Mary Clare’s throat.
In the baths, the world dripped with warm moisture. The ceiling was good and high, no need for claustrophobia as Chilton made the connection he’d felt certain was there, between his two cases and the element that connected them both. Me.
‘Funny,’ Agatha murmured. ‘My mother-in-law comes not far from Sunday’s Corner.’
‘Oh,’ Miss Armstrong said, turning to Chilton. ‘Is your mother Irish?’ At his vague nod she said to Agatha, ‘Mrs Marston was such a jolly person. Wasn’t she, Mr Chilton?’
He nodded again, just as dishonestly. Mrs Marston had the precise sort of jolliness he’d never believed in. The sort that masked something, or else the lack of something. He wished there were a way to convey this to young Miss Armstrong. It seemed an important lesson for a young person. It wasn’t only the angry people that should make one wary. The jolly ones could be even more dangerous.
‘And where do you return to, Miss Armstrong,’ Agatha asked, ‘when you go home?’
‘Mundesley.’
‘Lovely,’ said Agatha. ‘How I prefer the sea, Miss Armstrong, to this countryside. Even in the winter. I don’t care what sort of natural springs a place has to offer, or how they try to lure me. This is all well and good but there’s no place so refreshing as the sea. Do you know, my mother believed salt water cured everything, from spots to heart disease?’
‘My father says the same,’ said Miss Armstrong.
‘Give me a plunge in the cold brine.’ Agatha actually looked cosy, even refreshed, by the hot water. She sank low so that it covered her ears for a moment, as if someone might contradict her and she didn’t want to hear it.
From outside a cold wind blew, strong enough for a little chill to creep in, the glass ceiling rattling as if flimsier than promised. Agatha’s love song to the seaside was a welcome sound to Chilton. Very welcome indeed.
Chilton and Agatha bundled back into their clothes and headed outside with their hair still damp. Strands froze; Agatha scrunched a handful to hear them crackle.
‘You know what I like to imagine?’ she said, as they walked towards the road.
Neither had discussed what they’d learned, not yet, only come to a silent agreement. That’s love, thought Chilton, when your mind works in concert.
Agatha seemed to know better than him, at the moment there were more important things to think of than their romance. She said, ‘I like to imagine it wasn’t just Nan. That every single woman staying at the Bellefort had a hand in it. When you think of all the girls who passed through that place, and others like it. Seems a pity for just one to have revenge when so many deserve it.’
This was the last thing Chilton expected. He said, ‘I suppose I’ll have to get a confession out of Nan.’
‘You’ll do no such thing.’
‘But Agatha. This is murder we’re talking about, not a game.’
‘What some call murder others might call justice.’
Chilton stopped walking but Agatha continued, firm and determined footsteps. He put his hands in his pockets – first hoisting the useless one – and thought of the killing he’d done in the war. The bodies beneath his feet as he ran through no man’s land. All of it sanctioned, in fact demanded, by the world. Perhaps a woman has a different kind of measuring stick. For when it might be acceptable, or even necessary, to commit a murder.