‘Pardon me,’ Chilton said. ‘Miss.’
‘Mrs,’ I corrected him, then smiled too stiffly. I could feel the edge of my lips stretch unnaturally. ‘Mrs O’Dea.’ After escaping the baths I had walked to another hotel to clear my head, and bought a new shawl at their gift shop, as well as some paper and a fountain pen. Perhaps I’d write a story while I was here, or a poem. I pulled the shawl close around me, and its price tag tumbled from the dark threads.
Chilton reached out and touched it. ‘Is that what you’re worth, then?’
It was the sort of jest I loathed, but something in his face made me relax. He looked embarrassed at making such an easy joke. He looked mild, even kind. It was bad luck to have a police inspector at the hotel, but I saw at once it was good luck that it happened to be this one.
‘Here you go,’ said Mrs Leech, passing me a pair of shears. ‘Inspector Chilton’s here looking for a lady gone missing from Berkshire.’
‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘Missing from Berkshire and you’re searching for her in Yorkshire?’
‘All of England’s in on this hunt,’ he explained. ‘Inspectors and police officers dispatched to every county.’
This news set my teeth on edge. I smiled to conceal it and said, ‘My, my. She must be ever so important.’
Chilton intercepted the shears and cut the tag off for me. ‘If I could trouble you just a moment, Mrs O’Dea.’ He placed the snipped price tag in my hand. His fingers were chapped and tobacco stained, his clothing rumpled. He held out a photograph with his right hand. His left dangled at his side. ‘This is the lady. Have you seen her?’
‘May I?’
He nodded and I eased the photograph out of his hand. Agatha stared back at me, hair swept off her face, head tilted, wearing pearls and a suit jacket. I thought of my mother, wresting herself out of her grief over Colleen to help me have the little picture made for Finbarr, to send to him at the front. I had worn my best dress, no jewellery at all, nowhere near so glamorous.
‘Pretty,’ I said. ‘But no, I haven’t seen her in Yorkshire.’ Hopefully he’d remember my precise words, if any connection between the two of us were drawn later. ‘I do hope she’ll be all right.’ I handed the photograph back to him.
‘Ah well,’ Chilton said, as if he hadn’t expected any other reply. ‘Thank you for looking.’
As I entered the dining room, I saw that Mrs Race – the beautiful blonde bride – was now joined by her handsome, scowling husband. The two of them sat by a window, too absorbed in their silent unhappiness to notice my probably obtrusive stare.
My new friend Lizzie Clarke waved me to her table, and her husband stood to offer me a chair. He was a lanky fellow, charmingly inelegant, in the way Americans can be, with dark eyes and a sweet, earnest expression.
‘Donny Clarke,’ he introduced himself.
‘Hello, Mr Clarke.’
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Call me Donny. Thanks so much for entertaining Lizzie this morning. Fun to make a fast friend on vacation.’
I’d scarcely unfolded my napkin before I heard merry, unmistakable laughter as Mrs Marston entered the room with her husband. She looked quite a bit different to how she’d looked when I’d last seen her at the baths. Her hair was curled, and she wore a smart jacket and faux pearls.
‘Well, look who it is,’ Mrs Marston said, stopping by our table. ‘The chummy young ladies.’
Her husband, Mr Marston, stood by her side. He was decades older than she, a weathered, ruddy-faced man in his sixties. He placed a hand at the back of Donny’s chair, his smile the indulgent sort a certain kind of man likes to bestow upon young ladies. I turned my eyes back to our table. Lizzie stared back at him more frankly.