A Talent For Murder

by Andrew Wilson

  I slipped off the kimono and lowered myself into the hot water. If I could just relax a little I might be able to figure a way out of this dreadful situation. I tried to think of happier times: of the feel of the water and the sunshine on my back in South Africa and Honolulu; of the giddy delights I had felt when I had first met Archie at the dance in Chudleigh; of the news that my first novel had been accepted for publication. The memories drifted over my consciousness like ripples in water, but I could not let go of the overwhelming sense that I was being poisoned. Of course, this wasn’t a physical poison that would result in organ failure or respiratory problems or a heart attack. This toxin was seeping into my soul, staining everything that was good and honourable in my life. If I allowed it to spread I would be left as lifeless as one of the cadavers I had seen spread out on the mortuary slab during the war. The poison would have to be cut out before it infected the whole. There was, I knew, a risk that part of me would have to be sacrificed, like that amputated leg that I had once thrown into the hospital furnace, but I could see no other way.

  After easing myself out of the water and drying myself, I dressed in the kimono again and went back to my room. I sat on the bed with an exercise book, half of which I had already used for the plotting of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and began to note down the events of the day, including the names Dr Patrick Kurs, Archie Christie, Nancy Neele, John Davison, Una Crowe and, at the bottom of the list, my own initials: A.C. As I did so I felt distinctly uncomfortable. This was one story I did not want to write.

  Chapter Three

  When I awoke from a night of fitful sleep my head was in a complete fug. I could still recall the stench of his breath, a smell that had left me with a near permanent nausea. When I sat down for breakfast the sight of the congealed scrambled eggs turned my stomach. I decided it would be best if I went hungry. Although I had doubted my sanity, I knew now that my encounter with Kurs had been all too real.

  As I walked out of the Forum I half expected him to be waiting for me, standing over by the Royal Artillery Memorial like a harbinger of ill fortune, a sentinel of death. The recurring nightmare of my childhood, the sinister figure of the Gunman, had become a reality. Had I had a premonition of him since girlhood? Or had I somehow conjured his appearance? And how would it ever be possible to free myself of him? I recalled the conversation with Kurs of the day before. I was certain I could disappear for a few days, but there was no possibility that I could commit an offence, never mind one so heinous as murder. Writing about crime was one thing, but doing it oneself? It was quite out of the question.

  I had considered telephoning that nice man Davison and asking his advice about what to do. But what if – as I suspected – Davison contacted the police? Could I risk that? Would it not be better if I tried to handle this myself?

  The thought of Kurs’s touch on the base of my spine sent a chill through me and turning up the collar on my coat against the cold did little to comfort me. I was due to see my agent at his office on Fleet Street, and although I had thought of cancelling the appointment, I remembered that Kurs had told me to go about my business as usual. Normally I would have taken the Underground, but the nasty incident at Victoria was still fresh in my mind, and so I took a taxi. The car stopped outside number 40 Fleet Street, a tall, imposing building, and after taking a couple of deep breaths I made my way up to the office. Of course, there was no question of telling Mr Cork about my troubles; ours was a purely professional relationship and I could not bear it if I were to break down in front of him.

  As I entered the office a tall young man with an enigmatic smile greeted me. Edmund Cork had taken over the agency from the fearsome Hughes Massie after the old man’s death, and he seemed to be making rather a success of it. I feared, however, that his expectations for me were higher than the poor reality.

  ‘Good m-morning, Mrs Christie, p-please sit down,’ he said with his slight stutter.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Now, h-how is the writing progressing? Well, I hope?’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t made as much progress as I had wished. Ever since the death of my mother I have found it rather difficult to concentrate.’ There was no need to mention the recent upheaval in my personal life.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘Take your time by all means. But I am pleased to inform you that there do seem to be a good many people waiting for your next book. The Evening News will almost certainly want to buy the serial rights. Perhaps we could ask for an increase on the £500 they paid you for The Man in the Brown Suit.’

  At the time, I had been astounded by the amount of mone0y the newspaper had been prepared to pay for the opportunity to serialise my novel, even if they did run it under that ridiculously silly name, Anna the Adventuress. I had considered complaining about that, but then I thought of the £500 and decided to keep my mouth firmly shut. I used the money to buy my darling Morris Cowley motor car.

  ‘And we are, of c-course, looking forward to the publication of The Big Four.’

  I certainly wasn’t; in fact, I wished I could have strangled the thing at birth. Had it not been for the help of dear Campbell, Archie’s brother, I doubted whether I could have pulled the thing off.

  ‘I wish I could have come up with something a little more original. After Roger Ackroyd, I feel that my readers, such as they are, will be more than a trifle disappointed.’

  ‘That c-cannot be helped now,’ said Mr Cork, running his long, elegant fingers across a pile of papers on the desk in front of him. ‘How do you like the cover design? Rather striking, I thought.’

  The artwork, in tones of blue and black, showing a giant number 4 towering over the silhouette of the London skyline at night, was probably the best thing about the whole book. Again, this was something I thought best not expressed at this point.

  ‘I’m rather dreading the reviews,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind those. However, I have heard that we are likely to get what I hope is a positive one from The Times Literary Supplement. By the way, I have heard that publication is scheduled for the autumn in America.’

  There was a slight pause.

  ‘I’m sure you have your head full of ideas for the next book, and you wouldn’t want to give anything away, b-but you couldn’t possibly g-give me a—’

  ‘I’m afraid I’d rather not say,’ I said. ‘I’m rather superstitious on that score, as you know.’

  ‘Of course, I understand,’ he replied.

  I let him continue to talk business – contracts, percentages, serial negotiations – for the next twenty minutes, but I could not concentrate. ‘I must return home so I can get back to my desk,’ I said, standing up.

  ‘Thank you once again for calling in to see me, Mrs Christie.’ Mr Cork led me towards the door. ‘And I look forward to receiving your new book whenever you are ready. I won’t hear the last of it from my wife until you do. She does rather hope it will feature your funny little Belgian detective with that curious moustache. Can you put her out of her misery?’

  ‘I am giving nothing away, Mr Cork,’ I said. ‘I would have thought you knew me better than to ask.’ The words formed themselves in a rather harsher fashion than I had intended.

  ‘Of c-course, g-goodbye,’ he said, blinking and looking a little startled. ‘Until next t-time.’

  As soon as I was out of the door I felt the sting of shame eating away inside me. Why had I been so rude to dear Mr Cork? The taxi driver who took me from Fleet Street to Waterloo Station also tried to engage me in polite conversation, but I was so full of anger and anxiety that I cut him short too, which in turn resulted in me feeling even more at odds with myself.

  Normally, I loved travelling by train and would usually savour every moment of the journey home to Sunningdale, but today I felt I could not enjoy even the simplest, most joyful of sights. Kurs was turning my soul black.

  From the station I walked the ten minutes home with my overnight bag, again without noticing my surrou
ndings. With each step the feeling of dread increased, as if I were walking towards my death. Apart from Rosalind and Charlotte, my secretary and good friend, and of course Peter, my wire-haired terrier, I had this past year come to associate the house with nothing but misery and despair.

  When I had first looked around the rather grand and absurd house, with its gabled bay front and tall chimneys, I knew that it would cost too much money to run, but Archie had declared that it was just what we had been looking for, and so I had agreed. Later, I had learnt that the house had a reputation for being if not exactly cursed, then certainly unlucky; its first owner had apparently lost a great deal of money and its next had experienced marital difficulties – I had heard that the mistress of the house had run off with another man. And whatever had possessed Archie to name it Styles, after the house featured in my first novel, a building steeped in deception, deceit, and murder?

  Kitty the maid took my hat, coat and overnight bag and told me that Miss Fisher – Charlotte – had taken Rosalind and Peter out for a walk. Thank goodness, as I knew it would be hard for me to stop myself from telling Charlotte everything. If she saw the distress in my eyes I would have to lie and say that I had had yet another argument with Archie. She knew all about my marital problems, I’m sure the whole household did, including the servants; one would have to be deaf to be ignorant of them.

  Upstairs, in my bedroom, I took out the set of three golf balls and tees in a leather case that I had bought for Archie for Christmas. I opened the case and breathed in the heady smell of new leather. A silly present, really, in the face of it all. Who was I fooling? Archie was most probably lost to me now. Another woman had captured his heart. But I knew that, if tomorrow he were to say to me that he had thrown over Miss Neele, I would be ready to embrace him. A line from one of my books came back to me: ‘The heart of a woman who loves will forgive many blows.’ It was certainly true enough for me.

  I knew that he was too handsome for me the first time we met at that dance given by the Cliffords at Ugbrooke House. He was tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a classic profile and a dimple in his chin that made me swoon. I had been much younger then, only twenty-two, but I had always considered myself plain, despite what some of my previous suitors had said. What on earth had Archie ever seen in me, I wondered. I was hardly the world’s best conversationalist. But there had been something, some spark, some connection, that both of us felt on that first meeting fourteen years ago.

  He had, I remembered, persuaded me to disappoint a good number of dance partners that night; he wanted, it seemed, to monopolise me. And I had been swept away by him. At the end of the evening I told myself to be content with the mere thrill of the occasion; I was sure that I would never see him again. I would make do with good, kind-hearted Reg, who one day would return from Hong Kong. He had sent me nice letters and although I realised that he would make a decent husband I knew he was not the sort of man who would thrill me every time he walked into the room. Looking back, I acknowledged that I had been a fool to expect anything more than the Reggies of this world. I should not have aimed higher. I should not have sought out or accepted the attentions of a man like Archie. How I wished that I had listened to my mother who had warned me of his character. How had she put it? He had, she had said, a ruthless streak. And Archie’s mother, Peg, had never liked me and, quite ridiculously, had branded me as a ‘modern’ woman, no better than I should be. All because I had been rather fond of wearing those Peter Pan collars. How funny, I thought. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  The opposition of both our mothers, together with the advent of the war, had made us all the more determined to forge a future together. And so, when Archie had been given three days’ leave in the Christmas holidays of 1914, we ignored the protestations of his mother, with whom we were staying, and married on Christmas Eve. It had all been done in such a rush that I had not had the time to get ready properly. I must have looked quite a fright in that funny little purple velvet hat. It did not matter, of course, because we were happy.

  ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ I heard as the front door opened. ‘We’re back!’

  I dabbed my eyes with a handkerchief, checked myself in the glass and came down the stairs to greet Rosalind, my little angel.

  ‘Oh, you should have seen Peter, he was so funny,’ she said, taking off her coat. ‘He made a little friend, a little sausage dog called Freddie, while we were walking on the edge of the golf course. The two of them started chasing each other around. And then all of a sudden this golf ball came whizzing past them and they shot off in the direction of—’

  ‘That’s enough now, Rosalind, dear,’ said Charlotte in her singsong Scottish lilt, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder to quieten her. ‘You can tell your mother all about it after you’ve had your bath.’

  Rosalind opened her mouth to protest, but Charlotte shot her one of her faux-stern looks that always did the trick. When my daughter was upstairs and the maid had retreated to the kitchen Charlotte took my arm and, as I suspected, began to question me about what was wrong. I looked awfully pale, she said. Had I been crying? I told her that I was suffering from another attack of nervous tension, brought on by the ongoing situation with Archie. She offered to postpone her trip to London the next day – she had been so looking forward to her day off – but I told her that on no account must she do such a thing. Unknown to her, I had my own motives for getting her out of the house.

  Yet I don’t know how I would have coped without her support, the sight of her kind grey eyes, the soft touch of her hand on mine. Charlotte sometimes said things that were difficult for me to hear. After the initial revelation about his affair with Miss Neele, Archie had left me, only to return a few weeks later. He had admitted that he had made a mistake, and he thought that it was worth trying to keep our marriage going for the sake of Rosalind. We shared a bed for a time, but that had all stopped months ago and now he slept in another room. ‘He won’t stay,’ Charlotte had said to me, a remark that had made me furious at the time. I related that conversation back to her now and told her that she had been right all along.

  ‘Well, it sounds as though you could do with some cheering up,’ she said.

  ‘I think you’re right, Carlo,’ I said, using the name that Rosalind had given her.

  ‘Dancing it is then – doctor’s orders.’

  I gasped, as I immediately thought of Kurs and what he had said to me.

  ‘No, I’m being selfish. You’re tired, I can tell.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I lied. ‘I’m sure it will do me the world of good.’

  Chapter Four

  I had hoped that the dancing would do something to calm me, but as I lay in bed my nerves felt frazzled. When sleep eventually came it was disturbed and, at dawn, I was relieved to see the weak December sunlight begin to leak through the edges of the curtains. I got up and walked across the bedroom to the chest of drawers in the corner. In the third drawer down, amongst a selection of ribbons and buttons, souvenirs and postcards, I pulled out an envelope and from it I selected a letter. It was the letter my father had written to my mother a few days before his death. ‘You have made all the difference in my life,’ he had written. ‘No man ever had a wife like you. I thank you for your affection and love and sympathy. God bless you, my dearest, we shall soon be together again.’ At times, over this last year, I had taken out the letter and pretended that Archie had written it to me. It was silly and foolish, but it made me feel better; now I knew that it would be impossible to make that imaginative leap.

  As I sat at my dressing table, brushing my hair, I heard Charlotte telling the maid that she would be back later that evening, soon followed by the slam of the front door. Now all I needed to do was deal with Archie. I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t risk Archie being at Styles when something arrived from Kurs. No, I would need to behave in such a way as to alienate him even more so as to drive him out of the house. That shouldn’t be too difficult. Archie was a supremely
selfish being and hated feeling guilty just as much as he hated the thought of not being happy. If I could try to make him feel both guilty and unhappy I would have brought about the desired effect.

  I dressed for breakfast and went in to see Rosalind, who was playing with her teddies on her bed. She told me that she had already had breakfast, and she wanted to know what the day held in store for her. I too could have asked the same question.

  ‘If you are a good girl and stay in your room for the next half an hour or so, I promise to take you to see your grandmother later,’ I said, hoping that I would be able to keep my word.

  ‘Can Peter come too?’ she asked.

  ‘Very well,’ I replied.

  Archie had already finished a plate of bacon and eggs by the time I arrived in the breakfast room.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, barely looking up from The Times.

  ‘Good morning, dear.’

  Archie grimaced at this term of endearment, but said nothing more.

  ‘Oh, it will be lovely to see some real countryside,’ I said. ‘Berkshire – it’s all very well and good in its own way, but it’s a little too clean-cut and organised for it to be remotely like real countryside, don’t you find? How I long for some open space and fresh air. I don’t feel I can even breathe properly in this county. To be near the sea or the wilds of Dartmoor. Don’t you think that would be wonderful, Archie?’

  ‘I hardly think it practicable,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure you could get a position in Exeter or Plymouth. Or you could set up your own business and come up to London and stay in your club for a few days when need be. I do think we would be happier, don’t you, Archie?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘And we could put whatever has happened behind us and start again. We might even be lucky enough to buy one of those houses on a cliff overlooking the sea. Do you remember when we were first married and we took that jaunt along the coastal road from Dartmouth to Strete and Torcross? And do you remember me pointing out that rather wonderful house that seemed to hover over the bay just outside Blackpool Sands? St Michael’s Manor, I think it was called. I’m sure I would be able to write there, in a room overlooking the sea. We could take Peter for such lovely walks and Rosalind, well, imagine how much she would adore it. I’m sure she would just come alive, all of us would. And we both know so many people down there, people we really like, not the superficial set that you get up here. And just imagine the—’