We couldn’t hear Agatha, upstairs, clacking away on her typewriter. She knew it was mad to stay here, to not reveal her whereabouts. She ought to get in Miss Oliver’s car and drive straight to the police station and turn herself in.
Turn herself in! She baulked with indignation at her own interior words. What crime had she committed? None at all. She had every right to storm out of the world.
And still. With so many people searching and worrying, she knew she should return home immediately. For the same reason, she knew she could never return at all. Face all those people? Provide an explanation? Look again into Archie’s face and see it entirely devoid of love? Impossible.
She hoped she could trust Chilton to keep his word. Last night his body had thrummed with respectful restraint. His lips were softer than Archie’s. He didn’t smell like any kind of soap or fancy emollients, just himself, a good grassy smell, a touch of salt water. She herself had traded her scent in these last few days, the last of the lavender fading in favour of woodsmoke and good old-fashioned sweat.
No matter that Mr Chilton was a police inspector. She could trust him to keep her secret. She knew she could.
Chilton was also awake at first light, not having changed his clothes or slept a wink. He could hardly remember the last time he’d kissed a woman. Ridiculous to feel happy. This was a conundrum. The whole world looking for a woman he’d found, and what had he done but kiss her and promise to keep her whereabouts a secret? However the years may have changed him, they certainly hadn’t made him any smarter.
From overhead he heard an unexpected thump that put him on immediate alert. One doesn’t wake to screaming one day without expecting more of the same. But after a few moments passed with only quiet, he allowed himself to breathe again. Today he would focus on the Marstons, so he could confirm Lippincott’s theory and make sure there wasn’t a murderer on the loose. Harm could be wrought by inaction as much as action. And since the war, Chilton had made an oath to himself to do no more harm in the world.
It’s not something you imagine, as a boy, even as you pretend at swords or gunfire. The lives that will end at your hands. It was a German boy from a trench raid who stuck most consistently in Chilton’s memory. The boy had been crawling out of the trenches on his hands and knees, and Chilton stooped to bayonet him through the heart. How surprised the boy looked, as if no one had told him going off to war might result in this outcome. Chilton felt so terrible, he’d kneeled to give him a drink of water from his canteen, though for this boy there was no more wanting water, or wanting anything. What are you doing, mate? a corporal had said, tossing a bomb into the trenches. Chilton screwed the top back onto his canteen. The boy was so young he still had roses in his cheeks – translucent and girlish skin, as if he’d never shaved. Later, when Chilton heard his youngest brother had also been bayoneted, the two men swapped faces, and it was Malcolm, his baby brother, everybody’s favourite, eyes glossing over with the shock of it. Young enough to be immortal amid the blaring canons. Stupid bloody idiots we all were, Chilton thought. We walked over corpses and still believed death might not touch us.
From upstairs the silence was again interrupted. Chilton heard a shout, instantly muffled, followed by a door opening and closing. He hastened upstairs, quickly but not running, to avoid the pounding of footsteps that could wake the entire hotel. In the upstairs hall he found Mr and Mrs Race, such a beautiful pair, both faces flushed – the husband’s with rage, the wife’s with anguish. Mr Race had his hand around Mrs Race’s wrist, a painful grasp that Chilton knew would leave a mark.
‘There now, let her go.’ Chilton’s voice was low and calm, as he might speak to a menacing dog while backing away. Except in this case he didn’t back away, but took a step closer.
‘This has nothing to with you, sir,’ Race said. ‘I suggest you return to your room.’
‘Good God, man. She’s your wife. That’s no way to behave towards her.’
Mrs Race wrenched her hand from her husband and held it to her chest. Her husband made a motion as if to grab her again and Chilton took another step towards him.