The Woman on the Orient Express

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  Agatha’s face clouded.

  “Oh dear—have I put my foot in it?”

  Agatha couldn’t look at him. Did he really not know? Didn’t he read the newspapers? “I’m . . . ,” she faltered. “We’re . . . no longer married.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  “It’s all right. It was all over the papers a few weeks ago. I tend to assume people know.”

  “That must be miserable for you.”

  “It’s not pleasant.” She poured the last of the tea into the tin mugs. “I’ve had all kinds of hurtful things written about me. If the press don’t know the facts, they speculate, and their readers take it as gospel.”

  Max nodded. “I suppose I was vaguely aware of some sort of incident attached to your name. But I’ve never come across anything specific in the papers.”

  “Well, that’s something of a relief. At one time I was splashed all over the front pages. I thought the world and his wife knew everything about me.” She paused, wondering how much she should reveal. “Things had got on top of me, and I took off without telling anyone where I was going. It never occurred to me that it would cause such a sensation. People thought it was a publicity stunt.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Nearly two years ago. Just before Christmas of 1926.”

  “Ah, that explains it. I was away from England then.” He picked up his mug, took a gulp of tea, and set it down again. “I had a friend—a close friend—who was very ill. His family had taken him to the Mediterranean in the hope that the climate would help his condition. I went out to be with him, but . . .” His finger found one of the moth holes in the blanket, tracing its edges. “A few days after I got there, he died.”

  It was on the tip of Agatha’s tongue to tell him that she already knew about Esme Howard, that Katharine had told her all about it on the train. But she sensed that Max would be just as sensitive about having his private life picked over as she was. Instead, she reached out to touch his hand. It was a brief touch—no more than a heartbeat. “That must have been devastating,” she said.

  “It was.” His eyes met hers, then darted back to the blanket. “I never thought it was possible to feel such loss. He was my best friend.”

  For a moment they sat in silence. The only sound was the wind tugging at the brown paper wrappings containing the remains of their lunch. “I know it’s not quite the same thing,” Agatha said, “but I felt that way when my marriage ended. I always thought we’d be together for life. It was like a bereavement.”

  “I’m sorry to have raked it all up again for you—you’ve probably come on holiday to forget all that.”

  “Yes, I have.” She went to get up, groaning at the stiffness in her legs. “Goodness—my foot’s gone to sleep!”

  “Here—let me help you.” Max was on his feet, offering her his arm. “You’ll enjoy this next part of the journey—the scenery gets much more interesting as you get higher.”

  After a few miles, the car began to climb. They wound far up into the hills they had seen on the horizon, through oak and pomegranate trees, following a mountain stream.

  “This is Jebel Sinjar—the Yezidis’ mountain.” Max wound the window down as far as it would go and took in a long breath. “Ah! That’s better! Not too cold for you, is it?”

  “No.” Agatha stuck her head out of the window. The air was fresh and clear with a tang of citrus and wild thyme. They passed a couple of men who turned to wave as they went past. They had pale skin and bright-blue eyes and a gentle, almost melancholy, look about them.

  “There’s something very innocent about them, don’t you think?” Max said. “Human nature is said to be so pure in these parts that the Christian women can bathe naked in the streams without any fear.”

  “And do they?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never come across anyone doing it—male or female. It’s probably one of those apocryphal stories.” He pulled in at the roadside and switched off the engine. Lifting his hand from the wheel, he pointed at something in the distance. “Look—there’s Sheikh ‘Adi.”

  Agatha saw white spires rising from a grove of trees. She climbed out of the car and wrapped a shawl round her shoulders. Soon they were walking past low wooden houses with pale-eyed blond children playing outside them. When she turned to smile at them, they giggled and pointed.

  Then they came to the gates of the shrine itself. Stepping inside, she had difficulty believing that this place was on a mountaintop surrounded by desert. Peaches, figs, and lemons hung from trees growing in the courtyard. The sound of running water gave a calm, tranquil feel. As they entered, a group of the gentle-faced Yezidis came to greet them. Soon they were sitting on rugs piled with embroidered cushions, sipping tea from earthenware cups.

  “It’s incredibly peaceful here, isn’t it?” Agatha whispered as the men left them alone in the courtyard.

  “I’ve never experienced anything like it.” Max nodded. “We’ll go into the temple in a minute. It’s quite different from any church or mosque you’ll ever see. Quite sinister if you analyze the imagery, but it does something to you. You feel as if you could stay there forever.”

  They finished their tea and walked over to the entrance of the temple. Agatha immediately saw what Max had meant about the imagery. Guarding the entrance was a great black serpent, carved into the stone of one of the columns.

  “The snake is sacred to them,” Max said. “The Yezidis believe that Noah’s ark was grounded on Jebel Sinjar and that a hole was made in the side of it. The story goes that the serpent formed itself into a coil and stopped up the hole. So it saved all the people and animals on the ark.” Max bent down, untying his shoelaces. “We have to take our shoes off now,” he said. “And when we go inside, be careful not to step on the threshold; it’s forbidden to touch it, so you have to step over it. The other thing you have to remember is not to show the soles of your feet—it’s considered the worst kind of insult.”

  As she unbuckled her shoes, Agatha thought of the amulet Katharine had shown them on the train, of a snake coiled around a pair of feet. Strange that these things featured so prominently in a different religion, thousands of years after the moon worshippers of ancient Mesopotamia. Stranger still, she thought, that in both these religions the snake was revered as a protector, not vilified as an incarnation of evil.

  The interior of the temple was dark and cool. To Agatha’s surprise, she could still hear the sound of running water. She asked Max where it was coming from.

  “It’s a sacred spring,” he whispered. “It’s supposed to run all the way to Mecca. Can you see that statue—over there?”

  As Agatha’s eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, she saw what he was looking at. An enormous image of a peacock stood by an altar lit with a single candle. The peacock statue glinted in the light. It appeared to be made of silver, with jeweled feathers. Beads of emerald, amethyst, and lapis lazuli cast a shower of colors on the stone walls.

  “They bring it into the temple at festival times,” Max went on. “It’s the Peacock Angel—otherwise known as Lucifer, Son of the Morning.”

  As Agatha stared at it in wonder, a group of men in white robes appeared through a door to the right of the altar. They wore silver bells around their wrists, which made a tinkling sound as they walked. Combined with the trickling of the spring, it made Agatha feel as if she were in a meadow in the Swiss Alps.

  “We have to sit down when they do,” Max whispered. “Just over there, on those cushions.”

  Agatha soon discovered that sitting cross-legged on the floor was not an easy thing to do without exposing the soles of one’s feet. In the end she gave up, bending her legs to the side instead and tucking her toes under her bottom. She couldn’t help wondering why the Yezidis found feet so unacceptable yet—according to Max—were totally unmoved by the sight of the naked female form.

  She wasn’t sure why, but this brought Katharine to mind. She thought of he
r stepping out of the cubicle at the hammam in Damascus, totally at ease with her nakedness, proud of her voluptuous body.

  She glanced at Max, whose eyes were closed, as if he was praying or meditating. Katharine’s words came back to her. At the dig he goes to Mass every Sunday even though it’s a twenty-mile round trip by mule across the desert . . . It seemed unlikely that someone with such devout beliefs would be susceptible to a woman like Katharine. But, she reminded herself, Leonard Woolley was a religious man and he had fallen for her.

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the cool stone wall. She felt herself falling into a semiconscious state in which images drifted into her head like a flurry of snowflakes. Then her mind seemed to take flight. It was as if she were hovering somewhere above her body, looking down at herself. Suddenly, she heard Hercule Poirot’s voice. The words were as clear as if they had been spoken by a living person: Why does it disturb you so much, ma chérie, the idea of this man and that woman having a . . . tendresse?

  She was startled out of her trancelike state by the sound of a gong. One of the white-robed men walked past them swinging a censer from which pungent smoke billowed.

  Max opened his eyes and smiled. “That’s the signal for us to go,” he whispered.

  With some difficulty Agatha got to her feet. She had pins and needles again and hobbled the first few steps like an old woman. Max was in front of her, having sprung up off his cushion, agile as a cat.

  “What did you think of it?” he asked when they were back in the courtyard.

  “It’s surprisingly lovely, isn’t it? Not at all what you’d expect of a religion based on Lucifer. It feels like one of those special spots you sometimes come across on a walk in a wild place, a grove of trees with the sunlight shining through them or a waterfall in a hidden valley. They have an almost magical feeling—ancient and good and somehow right, despite any past associations with pagan worship.”

  “Yes,” Max said. “They’re sanctuaries, I suppose, just like this place.” They walked back through the gates onto the mountain track. “Actually, the shrine became more than that during the war,” he added. “Hundreds of Armenian refugees fled to Jebel Sinjar to escape the Turks. If the Yezidis hadn’t taken them in, they’d have been massacred.”

  When they reached the car, Agatha climbed inside in silence. She was thinking that despite the serenity of Sheikh ‘Adi—or maybe because of it—she now felt less composed, less certain of herself, than when she’d entered that dark, cool space with its jewel-speckled walls. The trouble with still, peaceful places was that they allowed all manner of uninvited thoughts to push their way inside your head.

  Why does it disturb you so much, ma chérie, the idea of this man and that woman having a . . . tendresse?

  It was a question she didn’t want to answer.

  CHAPTER 15

  Baghdad—Three days later

  Nancy had left the hotel early for an appointment at the British Consulate, so Agatha was having coffee on her own. The waiter brought a letter out to her on the terrace. Her heart leapt at the sight of the large, careful writing on the envelope. It was from Rosalind.

  Dear Mummy,

  Thank you very much for the letter you sent me, although it was very long. I am sorry to hear that you were sick on the boat to France. Flora Peterson was sick in Geography yesterday. It went all over my drawing of an oxbow lake . . .

  Agatha smiled to herself as she read on. But her smile vanished when Rosalind began describing how Flora Peterson had made a swift recovery when her mother came to collect her for a day out the next afternoon, and how nice she had looked in the new hat her mother had bought her. The stab of guilt intensified as the letter came to an abrupt end:

  I am getting a bit tired of writing to you, so I will now write a short letter to Daddy . . .

  At nine years old, Rosalind could be brutally honest. Just like her father. She had far more of Archie in her than Agatha, in appearance as well as temperament. Looking at Rosalind was like seeing Archie’s face superimposed on a china doll. Sometimes Agatha wondered if Rosalind could possibly love her as much as she loved her daddy, because they were so alike.

  She tucked the letter inside her bag, realizing that Archie, being in London, would have already received his. Thinking of him turned her stomach to ice. Today was the day he would become another woman’s husband. She wondered if Rosalind had included good wishes for his wedding.

  She glanced down at her wrist, an automatic movement. But she averted her eyes before they could register the position of the hands on her wristwatch. She didn’t want to know how many hours remained until her daughter acquired a new stepmother.

  Nancy made her way past the coppersmiths’ souk, on her way to the British Consulate. In the dark alcoves she caught glimpses of Arab men with blowlamps, melting metal into fantastic shapes. Outside, on the street, the finished wares were stacked up for sale. Kettles, cooking pots, and plates glinted in the morning sunshine. And a little farther on, the metal goods gave way to piles of rugs and striped horse blankets. A young boy leading a mule pushed past her. The animal was laden with bales of brightly colored cotton, the load so high it was a wonder it could move. She stepped aside to let it get ahead of her, only to be pinned to the wall by more little boys, all with trays suspended from their necks.

  “See, lady, I have pins—good English pins—and buttons!” The child looked no more than five years old, the hem of his tunic torn and dirty.

  “Look, lady! Nice elastic—good for knickers!”

  This produced gales of laughter. Nancy couldn’t help smiling, too. Katharine had warned her about buying from hawkers. Do it once, and you’ll have them swarming round you like flies. But how could she resist these impish faces with their huge dark eyes? They looked so thin and their clothes were little more than rags. She fished in her pocket for what little money she had. She had changed twenty pounds into dinars yesterday morning, most of it set aside for the hotel bill. Agatha had been very generous, paying for all the food they had had since they arrived in the city, but Nancy’s pride wouldn’t allow her to pay for the room as well.

  She divided a handful of coins among the children, taking a packet of pins and a length of elastic in return. They would come in useful when she started making her own clothes. She had found a pattern for the length of fabric she had bought in the silk souk in Damascus. As soon as they moved out of the hotel, she would be able to unpack her sewing machine and get started. Agatha had already seen a house she liked. With a bit of luck they would be moving into it tomorrow.

  The children followed Nancy as she crossed a bridge over a canal that ran parallel with the Tigris and turned into Banks Street. She walked faster, turning twice to shoo them away. Eventually, they were distracted by the sight of a gleaming car, which stopped outside one of the banks to drop off a Western woman with a little dog tucked under her arm.

  Nancy glanced up and down the street, anxious to avoid being caught a second time. It was full of people and very noisy. Along with the cries of stallholders and the braying of donkeys and mules was the guttural sound of men coughing up spittle as they walked along the pavement. This seemed commonplace in Baghdad—no one looked the least bit embarrassed to be caught doing it—and she was learning to walk with her eyes down to avoid catching any of the slimy gobbets on her shoes.

  She hurried on, past an alley of tailors sewing cross-legged on the floor, pictures of smart Western-style suits propped up beside them. Then she came to stalls piled high with bales of velvet and embroidered brocade. This route was familiar to her now. It was her third visit to the British Consulate, her last-ditch attempt to get some answers about Delia’s death. On each of her previous visits, she had been fobbed off by officials who were unfailingly polite and respectful but absolutely unmovable. She had been given no more than the date of her cousin’s death, the location of her grave in the English cemetery, and the fact that she had died at her apartment in Baghdad.

  It was Agatha wh
o had suggested she should demand an appointment with the top man—the Consul-General. She had offered to come along, but Nancy felt that this was something she needed to do by herself. Now that the time had come, she wondered if it had been the right decision. Agatha was so much more confident than she was and had such a quick brain. She was not the sort of person who would allow herself to be cowed by any government official, however high-ranking.

  Nancy was at the gates of the building now. She rang the bell and waited for someone to come and let her in. She was led in silence across the inner courtyard to a door with a polished brass plate inscribed with the words “Consul-General.” Her mouth went dry as the door opened. She caught a glimpse of a tall man with a shock of white hair standing with his back to her, looking out of the window. As she entered the room, he turned to face her. He had the look of a bird of prey about to swoop from the sky. Cold blue eyes and an aquiline nose.

  “Lady Nelson?” He reached across his desk to shake her hand with a grip so strong it crushed her bones. “Please sit down. My sincere condolences on the loss of your cousin. Miss Grandfield was an outstanding member of the team here in Baghdad and her absence is keenly felt by everyone who worked with her.”

  “Thank you.” Nancy felt a lump in her throat. She must not cry. Not now. “I . . . I just wanted to know what happened. No one seems to be able to tell me anything.”

  He clasped his hands together, resting them on a piece of paper on the desk. “I’m afraid that the circumstances of Miss Grandfield’s death are subject to the Official Secrets Act. I’m not at liberty to disclose any details.”

  “But surely you can tell me how she died? Was it natural causes or . . . ,” she faltered, unable to voice her worst fears. He was staring at her, unblinking, saying nothing in response. The silence was unnerving. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Her instinct was to get up and run from the room, away from his penetrating gaze. But she remembered Agatha’s instructions: Don’t let him intimidate you. You must insist on an explanation.