It was lonely for her, being an only child, when she needn’t have been. How much more lonely for James, who has no one now. But he could have a father. And a sister.
“Yes,” I whisper, “he’s alive.”
“Does he know about me?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
Hercule whispers as I hesitate: The train must go on. Trust the train . . .
AFTERWORD
Throughout this story I have mixed fiction with the detail of real lives. My intention was to shine a light on a critical period in Agatha Christie’s life by weaving imagined incidents and characters into the recorded history. Readers who long to know what is factual and what is made up would be wise to read Christie’s autobiography, followed by Laura Thompson’s excellent biography, entitled Agatha Christie: An English Mystery (Headline, 2007).
For those who prefer a more immediate explanation, here are the key facts:
Agatha Christie really did board the Orient Express in autumn 1928. Her divorce from Archie was granted in October of that year, and he married his fiancée Nancy Neele two weeks later.
When Archie first confessed to the affair with Nancy in 1926, Agatha suffered a mental breakdown, which resulted in her “disappearance” for ten days to a hotel in the north of England, where she lived under the name “Mrs. Neele” until two members of the staff guessed her true identity and informed the police. She later claimed that the whole episode was the result of amnesia brought on as a consequence of her breakdown, which she attributed to overwork.
Katharine Woolley was a real person and is believed to have been the inspiration for the character Louise Leidner in Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia. Her first husband did commit suicide six months after the wedding, although the medical condition I have described is a matter of speculation. In his memoir (Dodd, Mead, 1977), Max Mallowan writes that “she was not intended for the physical side of matrimony.”
Agatha Christie met Katharine Woolley when she visited the dig at Ur in 1928, and the two became friends. Max was not at the dig on that particular occasion—Christie met him when she returned the following year. They married in 1930 and spent many years in the Middle East, where Max directed digs in Syria and Iraq. A record of their life at that time is contained in Christie’s memoir entitled Come, Tell Me How You Live (William Morrow, 1946).
Nancy Nelson is a fictitious character. Her physical appearance is based on that of Archie’s lover, Nancy Neele.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In addition to the sources already mentioned in the afterword, I drew on a number of Christie’s crime novels in the writing process. Murder in Mesopotamia, They Came to Baghdad, The Mystery of the Blue Train, and of course, Murder on the Orient Express were wonderful resources for the creation of characters and settings.
Equally important in my research were the books Christie wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. They give intimate glimpses of her private life, as she began writing them in the aftermath of her breakup with Archie. I drew particularly on Unfinished Portrait, a semiautobiographical novel about a woman contemplating suicide after the failure of her marriage.
I would like to thank my friend and mentor, Janet Thomas, for all the encouragement and inspiration she has given me during the writing process. I’m also grateful to Jodi Warshaw and the team at Lake Union for all their support, and to my editor Christina Henry de Tessan.
Thank you also to my husband, Steve Lawrence, for his love and unfailing enthusiasm throughout the writing of this book. In October 2015 we were lucky enough to have our wedding at Agatha Christie’s beautiful home, Greenway, on the banks of the River Dart in Devon. If there could be such a thing as a patron saint of second marriages, I can think of no better candidate than Agatha Christie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Isabella Ashford
Lindsay Jayne Ashford grew up in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom. She was the first woman to graduate from Queens’ College, Cambridge, in its 550-year history. After earning her degree in criminology, Ashford worked as a reporter for the BBC and a freelance journalist for a number of national magazines and newspapers. She has four children and currently lives in a house overlooking the sea on the west coast of Wales.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Woman on the Orient Express Page 31