‘In this weather? That’ll be the death of you. Why don’t you book a treatment, Mrs O’Dea?’
I promised I might later and she sent me into the dining room. Breakfast had passed but there were tea and scones on the sideboard. I wasn’t particularly hungry but I sat myself down, staring out of the long windows. My whole body thrummed with Finbarr. I sipped my tea, gone a little cold.
‘Mrs O’Dea. May I join you?’
It was Chilton, rumpled and handsome and blurred about the edges. I hadn’t heard him come in – more like a ghost than a man.
‘You’re something of a prowler, aren’t you?’ I said.
‘Not at all.’ He sat down, though I hadn’t said yes. ‘Mrs Leech tells me you extended your stay.’
‘Did she? How indiscreet of her.’
‘She was worried about you. And apparently I’m the expert on missing women.’
Chilton had this way about him that made everything he said sound like a musing rather than a pronouncement. An interior loveliness, a willingness to question himself, apparent on his exterior. I expected I would feel fond of him right up to the moment he clapped my wrists in handcuffs. Perhaps even afterwards. Mr Chilton was not the sort of man one blamed. He was swept up by the world like the rest of us, doing his best to muddle through it. He was so entirely unthreatening to me that I couldn’t have been taken more off guard when he said, ‘I’ve been to the coroner.’
‘Have you?’
‘Yes. Poor Mr and Mrs Marston. I never got the chance to meet them properly. Did you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Frightful business. You hear of it often, don’t you? One half of a married couple dies, and the other follows for grief. Would you excuse me, Mr Chilton? I think I’d like to lie down a while.’
I stood and pushed back my chair, too abruptly. It scraped horribly. Behind my throbbing temple, the beginnings of a headache. One couldn’t function on so little sleep.
‘Goodnight, Mr Chilton,’ I said, and then amended it to, ‘Good morning.’
Chilton watched me leave, thoughtful. He lit a cigarette. He picked up the uneaten scone I’d abandoned and took a bite. Disappointed, somehow, that I didn’t seem to know he’d been at the manor last night. Did he imagine Agatha and me, gossiping about their kiss like schoolgirls?
The rain let up. He touched his lips and stood to leave the dining room. He thought to get some sleep but changed his mind and walked to the Harrogate library. It was a small and cosy building, overseen by a white-haired librarian who greeted Chilton as he entered. He asked her if she knew offhand whether they had any books by Agatha Christie.
‘All checked out,’ the librarian said. Her name was Miss Barnard. She held up the daily paper and showed him a picture of Agatha, with a wide-eyed little girl sitting in her lap. ‘Quite an interest in that lady these days. What with her tragic disappearance.’
Miss Barnard pointed him towards a table stacked with an array of new novels. Chilton looked through them, thinking he’d try to find something more to my liking than the Willy novel he’d seen me take from the shelves at the Bellefort. He could tell I’d chosen the book without enthusiasm, and believed it would behove him to make friends with me despite my resistance. After some perusal he landed upon The Silver Spoon, John Galsworthy’s latest instalment of The Forsyte Saga. As he tucked the novel under his good arm, his eyes landed upon a woman, sitting at a table in the next room, a stack of books in front of her, studying the open one intently: Mrs Agatha Christie. For the outing she had changed into her own clothes, skirt and stockings. They were much the worse for wear, wrinkled and muddied about the hem, making her appearance almost as conspicuous as if she’d been wearing her man’s clothes.
Chilton crossed into the alcove on swift feet. She was so engrossed that it took her a moment to look up at him.