A Talent For Murder

by Andrew Wilson

  ‘I can understand why you are hesitant, Mrs Christie,’ said Davison, sensing my reluctance. ‘For your information, the inquest into Una’s death is due to be heard next week. Hartford, my colleague, and I have managed to keep your name out of it entirely. Kurs will not be mentioned either and the coroner will declare Una’s death to be a suicide, the result of an unsound mind. Her father’s death will be given as the main contributing factor in her breakdown. An expert will testify that Una tied her own feet together with tape and then – well, you know the rest of it.’ He looked down as he swallowed. ‘The press will never get hold of your involvement and to the public you will continue to be seen as the slightly eccentric lady novelist who suffered an attack of amnesia and, for eleven or so days, lost a grip on reality.’

  ‘And in return?’ I knew that all this would not come without a price.

  ‘Do you remember what I mentioned to you that day on the steps of the Forum? And in Harrogate?’

  I felt my heart begin to beat faster. ‘Yes, yes, I do.’

  ‘Well, I wondered if you had thought any more about my proposal. Something has come up and we wondered if—’

  ‘I’m afraid the doctors have prescribed complete rest for the next couple of months. They say I really should take a holiday somewhere warm, but I don’t know. I adore travel, but—’

  ‘Well, that’s something we may be able to help with.’

  ‘In what regard?’

  ‘The work would involve a trip to the Canary Islands. There’s a rather delicate matter that’s cropped up, a very queer case, if you ask me. We wondered whether you’d be interested in helping us.’

  I remained silent as I considered what to say.

  ‘Of course,’ said Davison in the manner of an aside, ‘you do know that Flora Kurs was not dying?’

  It was as if Davison was suddenly speaking in a foreign tongue. ‘What? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Certainly, her health was delicate, but her medical records show that she did not have cancer, any kind of tumorous growth.’

  ‘But she said . . . ’ I felt my face begin to drain of blood. I remembered the scene that day in her house, when she had told me about her illness. It all made sense now. Flora had made a greater sacrifice than I had thought. She had murdered her husband so that I did not have to. She had chosen to lie to me about her health to make it easier for me to accept her course of action. How could I ever repay her? How much did Davison know? Quite a lot by the sound of it. But why had Davison suddenly decided to tell me this? How astute of him to know that this was the final piece of information I needed in order to make up my mind.

  It was too late now to think of regrets, of what I might have done; it was time to make plans for the future. Perhaps, if I went ahead with Davison’s suggestion, I could go some way towards making reparation for the deaths of Flora and Miss Crowe.

  ‘I will tell you everything, but only you and only once,’ I said somewhat sternly. ‘After this, I will never speak of it again, do you hear? Never.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  I felt a sense of excitement rising within me. I knew what I wanted to do.

  ‘But before I begin, why don’t you tell me a little more about the Canary Islands?’ I said, my voice softening. ‘It’s funny, I’ve always wanted to go there. They say there is some spectacular scenery, and of course the climate is so very healing, especially at this time of year.’

  The Facts

  • Agatha Christie travelled to London on Wednesday, 1 December 1926 and stayed overnight at her club, the Forum. The next day she saw her agent, Edmund Cork, at 40 Fleet Street, and then returned to her house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire. On Friday, 3 December, Agatha and her husband Archie had a row and he told her he was going to spend the weekend at his friends’ house, Hurtmore Cottage, near Godalming; the other guest was his mistress, Nancy Neele. Later that night, Agatha left Styles and drove to Newlands Corner, Surrey, where her Morris Cowley car was found abandoned the next day.

  Agatha checked herself into the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate under the name of Mrs Teresa Neele on Saturday, 4 December. That night she was seen dancing to ‘Yes! We Have No Bananas’. At some point during her stay she told a fellow guest, Mrs Robson, that she had suffered the loss of a baby daughter. She also told another guest, ‘This Mrs Christie is a very elusive woman, but I don’t want to bother with her.’ On Tuesday, 7 December she took delivery of a parcel from London, which she said contained a ring that she had lost in Harrods. On Friday, 10 December she travelled to Leeds.

  It’s thought that her identity was discovered by chambermaid Rosie Asher, who told two bandsmen that the lady staying in Room 105 was the missing novelist. On Tuesday, 14 December, Archie Christie travelled to Harrogate and met his wife, who introduced him to a fellow guest as her brother.

  The official statement released by the family was that Agatha had suffered a serious episode of amnesia. She rarely talked about the experience and omitted its mention entirely from her autobiography. Missing from her archive is the notebook she used to plot her masterpiece, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. On Sunday, 23 January 1927, she left Southampton on the ship the SS Gelria, bound for Las Palmas.

  Agatha and Archie Christie divorced in 1928 and he went on to marry Nancy Neele.

  Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time.

  • On Saturday, 4 December, Superintendent William Kenward of Surrey Police immediately launched an investigation to find the missing woman, a hunt that continued over the course of the next ten days. The failure to solve the case – he had believed that Agatha Christie was dead – resulted in public humiliation. He retired from the Surrey Police Force in 1931 and died the following year, age fifty-six.

  • Twenty-year-old Una Crowe, the daughter of Sir Eyre Crowe, was last seen by her family on Saturday, 11 December 1926. Her body was discovered at the bottom of cliffs near Ballard Point, outside Swanage, Dorset, on Sunday, 19 December. The inquest heard that her ankles had been tied together with green tape; the verdict was ‘Suicide while of unsound mind’.

  Turn the page to read an exclusive extract from Andrew Wilson’s

  next Agatha Christie adventure,

  Chapter One

  As I felt the ship tilt and roll I looked out of the porthole to see a hidden horizon, the skyline obscured by a dirty smudge of a black storm cloud. I sat up and took a sip of water, trying to swallow down the feelings of nausea as well as wash away unpleasant memories of bad times at sea.

  Perhaps a little fresh air would do me good, I thought, as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I checked myself in the looking glass, tidied my hair, quickly threw on some clothes and, as I knew it would be cold outside on deck, picked up the shawl that my friend Flora Kurs had given me and draped it across my shoulders.

  I listened at the connecting door that led through to the cabin where Rosalind and Carlo were sleeping. All was quiet and so I decided not to disturb them. I knew from previous experience that if we were in for a rough crossing then it would be best if my daughter and my secretary were able to sleep through it.

  I made my way down the corridor, but as I did so I had to place a hand on the wall to steady myself. Oh, please let this not be another Madeira. On that journey, the outward leg of the Empire Tour, the trip around the world that I had taken with Archie, I had suffered such terrible sea sickness that at one point I thought I would die. In fact, a fellow passenger, a lady who had caught a brief glimpse of me through the open door, had asked the stewardess, ‘Is the lady in the cabin opposite dead yet?’

  Although that made me smile now, at the time I had not found the observation amusing. I had had to be confined to the cabin for four days and, like a sick dog, had brought back anything I had swallowed. I had tried everything – dry biscuits, pickles, brandy, champagne – but nothing did any good. In the end, the doctor had given me what he said was liquid chloroform and after twenty-four hours without food Archie fed me with Bran
d’s Essence of Beef directly from the jar. How fine that had tasted! I knew Archie hated illness of any kind and the sight of him offering me a spoon of the dark, viscous substance had made me love him all the more.

  That love had gone for good now, at least on his part. The crisis at the end of the last year had finally squeezed the life out of our marriage. Archie had gone back to live at Styles, with a view to selling the house, while the new woman in his life, Nancy Neele, had left the country. Her parents had not wanted her to be caught up in the scandal I had caused with my ‘disappearance’ and had ordered her into temporary exile. I had heard, however, that on her return from her travels she and Archie planned to marry. The word divorce sounded so brutal, so ugly, and although I did not like the idea of it – with all the stigma and shame that accompanied it – I knew that it was something I would have to endure.

  It was as inevitable as the force of the sea, I thought, as I opened the door and stepped onto the deck. The wind was beginning to whip up the water, sending its surface into a fury of white. A fine spray of sea mist left its moist trail on my face and, as I ran my tongue over my lips, I tasted salt. After leaving Southampton we had sailed through the English Channel heading for Portugal. Although I had been prepared for a spot of mal de mer as we sailed into the Bay of Biscay, the sea had actually been as calm as a duck pond. It was only after leaving Lisbon and travelling south that we encountered the bad weather.

  I held onto the rail as I walked along the deck, straining my eyes towards the distance. Somewhere out there was my destination: Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. John Davison, the man I had met at the end of the last year, had finally persuaded me to help him investigate the murder of one of his agents, a youngish chap called Douglas Greene. I had tried to resist his pleas to work with the Secret Intelligence Service – in fact, I remember to begin with I thought the whole thing had been nothing more than a silly joke – but after the deaths of Flora Kurs and Davison’s friend Una Crowe I felt duty bound to help. Neither woman would have died had it not been for me. How could I say no?

  And there was something very queer about the circumstances surrounding the murder of Greene: Davison had told me that the agent’s partly mummified body had been found in a cave on the island. At first sight, it appeared as though Greene’s corpse had been covered in blood, but on further examination the glossy red sheen that covered his flesh was in fact the sap from the Dragon Tree, native to Tenerife. Bizarrely, all of his own blood had been drained from his system, but there was no trace of it on the dry earth in the cave or nearby.

  When Davison had related this to me I could hardly believe it. But I knew, perhaps better than most people, that evil really did exist in this world. The way some people talked about crime astonished me – as if a sadistic murder or violent sexual attack could be blamed on a dreadfully unhappy childhood or an underprivileged background. No, I was certain that some people were born, not made, evil. Those that disagreed with me, I am afraid, were nothing more than blinkered idealists who could not face up to the brutal realities of human nature. I had stared wickedness in the face, in the form of Dr Kurs, and I would never forget it; one could literally smell the stench of evil emanating from him. His scheme to manipulate me into committing a murder had driven me to a point of utter distraction and despair. I doubted I would ever be the same again. Certainly, my dreams were still haunted by the horrors of those eleven days in December of the previous year. When I closed my eyes I still saw the faces of Una Crowe, that poor young girl who had been determined to follow my trail, and Flora Kurs, the woman who had sacrificed herself for me.

  I looked out to sea once more and watched the sky blacken in the distance. As a child living in Devon, I would spend hours watching the shifting waters of Torquay Bay, the changing colour of the sea and sky, the reflection of the clouds upon the waves. I would imagine what lay over the horizon, the far-flung countries with their exotic climates and strange people, and try to picture my future. I don’t think I ever dreamt that I would be a writer, much less get involved with working for a government agency. It all seemed so fantastical somehow, and yet it was true.

  Davison had told me – what was it? – that I had a first-rate brain, or some such nonsense. I surmised that it had more to do with the fact that the division he worked for was extremely short on women. And surely no-one would ever suspect a socially inept, middle-aged lady of anything? I could move about in an almost invisible state, asking questions, listening to confidences. I could simply serve as an extra pair of eyes and ears. Before embarking on the journey Davison had stressed the importance of never placing myself in a dangerous situation. The murder of his friend Una still weighed heavily on him. He was taking no chances this time, and he had insisted on accompanying me on the journey to Tenerife. However, while on the S.S. Gelria – the ship that would take us from Southampton to Las Palmas, before it continued its journey – and also in Tenerife, he would travel under an assumed name: that of Alexander Blake. It would be simpler and more straightforward, he said, if we pretended to meet for the first time on the ship.

  I had intended to leave my daughter Rosalind behind, under the care of my sister at Abney Hall, on the outskirts of Manchester, but when I mentioned to her that I might have to go away again she became terribly distressed. At eight, she was old enough to understand something of the miseries of the adult world and, no doubt, the thought of my absence brought back the horrors of the previous year: the sight of uniformed police, the strained atmosphere in the house, the look of worry and strain on servants’ faces, the anxiety that she might see the front page of a newspaper or hear a newsboy’s ghoulish call. Also, I don’t think she had ever quite forgiven me for abandoning her for almost a year on my world tour in 1922. And so I had reluctantly accepted that my daughter would have to accompany me to the Canaries. She would be looked after by Carlo and I would make sure she did not come to any harm. It had taken me some time to persuade the family, and those fussing doctors, that a holiday would be beneficial – they worried about the difficulties of travel, the water, the foreign food – but finally they relented. A few weeks in a balmy climate would soothe my nerves and restore my spirits.

  Just then a blast of icy wind forced me to hug the paisley shawl tighter across my shoulders. The fresh air had done me good, but the cold was getting too much. But then, just as I turned to return to my cabin, I heard what I first thought was the high-pitched cry of a gull. I stopped and gripped the rail. The sound split the air again: the unmistakable scream of a woman that seemed to be coming from the back of the ship. I ran from the front of the boat along the empty deck towards the stern. I looked around to enlist help, but there was no one to be seen. I heard my breathing – fast, shallow and full of panic – as I ran, but by the time I got to the stern the screams seemed to have stopped. Instead, I saw a heavily-set, dark-haired woman standing on the very back of the ship, staring into the sea. A few feet away from her stood another woman, a thin blonde, who on seeing me took a tentative step towards her companion.

  ‘No, Gina, don’t,’ said the blonde-haired woman, stretching out a hand in the direction of her friend. ‘I know you hate me, you hate us both probably, but really it’s not worth it, we’re not worth it.’

  In response to this, the brunette climbed over the railings onto a narrow ledge, holding onto the wooden balustrade with both arms.

  ‘Please, no,’ I shouted into the wind, unsure whether the woman could hear my words. ‘What’s your name?’

  I turned to her friend, the beautiful blonde whose face was wet with tears. ‘Gina, did you say? Is that what she’s called?’

  ‘Yes, it’s Gina all right,’ she said. ‘She somehow stowed away on the boat. She’s been missing in England, no one knew she was here. She discovered, well, that her husband, Guy—’

  I didn’t hear the rest because at that moment a terrific gust of wind blasted in from the sea, forcing me to take a step back. Big fat drops of rain began to lash down from the ever-dark
ening sky.

  ‘Have you tried to get help?’ I shouted. ‘Sorry, what is your name?’

  ‘Miss Hart. No, I got up early to have a walk around the deck. I just chanced upon her and there was no one around. That’s when I started to scream. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Are you close to her?’

  ‘We were – once. But I’m sure she must hate me now. You see, Guy, that’s Mr Trevelyn and I, well—’

  I began to understand the sorry state of affairs. Guy had obviously been carrying on with Miss Hart behind his wife’s back. Just like Archie had deceived me with Miss Neele.

  I turned away from Miss Hart, as I tried to mask my contempt for her. ‘Gina, listen to me,’ I said, slowly moving towards her. ‘Tomorrow, everything will seem very different, I can assure you. I found myself in just the same situation and at one point I even thought of doing, well, something stupid. But it is extraordinary what time, and a little perspective, can do. Of course, you feel like everything is worthless, but it is not the case. I’m sure you have a great deal left to live for. I’m sure you have friends, family, a favourite aunt or grandmother, a pet who adores you.’ I thought of the feel of my dear dog Peter’s soft head and the deliciously awful stench of his breath. ‘Your life is precious, you may not think so now, but it is, especially to those close to you.’

  She seemed to be on the point of turning around and looking at me and perhaps even climbing back over the railings. But then from behind me I heard Miss Hart scream once more. This time, the noise was low and guttural, primitive almost.

  ‘Gina! No! Please don’t!’ she shouted, launching herself forwards. ‘Not now. Not after everything!’