Because jocularity could be soothing under the most dire circumstances, Chilton thought about saying something such as, Who’d you think would want to off that pair? Certainly the odds of the first death being suspicious was elevated now the man’s wife was dead.
‘Any ideas about the cause?’
‘Not a mark on her, at least at a glance, nor anything else disturbed. Young for it to be heart failure, though she’d certainly had a shock.’
‘Did she take anything? Last night?’
The doctor bristled. ‘I gave her a simple sleeping draught. Perfectly harmless.’
‘Of course,’ Chilton said. ‘Damn shame.’
‘Indeed. I might be cutting this holiday short. Hardly seems right. Or restful, for that matter.’
Chilton nodded and took his leave. He felt a little guilty for having disliked the Marstons at first sight. For now he’d take care of his primary order of business, searching for Agatha Christie. He’d canvas the hotels, keep an eye out on the roads. Carefully doing his duty.
After the unfortunate ruckus I skipped breakfast, instead bundling up in my warmest clothes. As I passed the front desk, Mrs Leech greeted me with frantic cheer. ‘Off for a walk, are you? Lovely day for it, cold air will do you good. Terrible about the Marstons, him dying of a heart attack and her of a broken heart.’
‘Has the coroner made his conclusions already?’
‘Well, then, what else could it be? So sad, so sad, but could have happened anywhere! Nothing to do with us!’
I gathered more than one guest had already checked out, the hot baths not seeming much of a cure in the wake of two sudden deaths: the last thing their hotel needed.
Walking down the dusty road, I thought of my conversation with Ursula Owen at Godalming on the night of Agatha’s disappearance, about Lucid Dreaming. And how Lucid Living would be a lovely corollary. As a girl, I’d had that very ability – to think of Finbarr and suddenly he’d appear. On this day in Harrogate, for the first time since the Armistice celebration, I knew I’d regained the power. Nothing else supernatural was afoot. I felt confident the ghosts of the Marstons were well and truly departed. But I knew that if I walked in the same direction Lizzie and I had done yesterday, Finbarr would appear.
Sure enough, when I rounded the corner I’d envisioned, there he was: hands in his pockets, breath gusting out before him, cheeks rosy. This time I didn’t run to him but walked, and kept walking, as he held out his arms, straight into them.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘Are you eating? Sleeping?’
‘Yes,’ he said into my ear. His hand at my back was steady, no tremor. ‘Are you?’
‘Me?’ I pulled away from him. ‘I’m staying in a hotel. Luxury. Food. Roof and hearth fires. Where are you staying?’
‘Where there’s a roof and a hearth. You’re not to worry about us, Nan.’
‘Us?’
Someone walked over my grave. I had the most illogical, most glorious vision: Finbarr beside a wide hearth with a crackling fire, holding our child in his lap.
Chilton drove over rutted roads in the car Lippincott had provided. He slowed down as he passed a couple – young, if not tenderly so, the man old enough to have been in the war and with the look of someone who had been （Chilton could tell at a glance from almost any distance）。 Sometimes, it seemed he himself still lived in the tunnels at Arras, under the shaking ceilings; with the rubble falling and the claustrophobia – and the knowledge that if you followed your instinct and broke free, you’d find yourself in an onslaught of enemy fire. Then you’d find yourself dead, riddled with machine-gun bullets. If only Chilton had known at the time how he’d come to long for that outcome.