“Take me,” she said, holding up her arms for Núñez’s handcuffs. “I’m ready.”
Just as Núñez locked the handcuffs and I was about to relax, Rupert Mabey strode across the room, and before anyone could stop him, he took a swipe at Edmund.
“That’s for what you did to my brother,” spat Rupert. “If I had a gun I would shoot you dead, you bastard. The way you left him, it was barbaric. When I went to see that place, where you—” He stopped and drew back his fist. Perhaps he had been the one I had surprised that day in the cave by Martiánez beach.
Edmund tried to raise his hand to protect himself, but he did not have the strength. Rupert hit him again, splitting his lip.
“Stop, stop,” cried Violet. “It’s impossible, Edmund wouldn’t do such a thing. He would never hurt another person. I don’t believe a word that awful woman has told us,” she said, looking at me.
Núñez came over and placed a protective arm around the girl, but as he did so, Violet reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his gun.
“Get away from me,” she said, pointing the weapon at Núñez. “You’ve never understood. I’ve never even liked you, never mind loved you. I love Edmund, I always will.”
“Violet—Miss Grenville, you don’t know what you are doing,” said Núñez.
“Move back,” she said.
As the inspector stepped away from her, Violet, her small hands shaking violently, swung the gun around and pointed it at Helen.
“You’ll never do it,” said Helen, smirking. “You haven’t got it in you. Do you know what Edmund used to call you, besides the decoy, that is? Shrinking Violet. Yes, that’s right!” Helen laughed as she watched Violet’s face crumple. “We used to mock you behind your back, with your simpering ways and old-fashioned dresses. The way you used to worship Edmund—oh, it gave us hours and hours of fun. Did you think that he would ever seriously contemplate loving you? You fool—Edmund always hated girls like you . . .” she said, pausing for full effect. “Virgins.” She spat out the word as if she had tasted poison.
At this, Violet’s face underwent a transformation. Her eyes, although still brimming with tears, hardened with hatred, hatred towards not just Helen Hart, but no doubt towards her father too. The toxic emotions of frustration, repression, anger, and jealousy seemed to distill themselves into a moment of pure resolve. It was time for Violet to get her revenge. She took a deep breath and readied herself to pull the trigger. As Helen prepared to take the bullet, she looked towards her murderer with an expression of triumph.
“Put the gun down, Violet,” shouted Davison, his gun trained on the girl. Violet did not look in his direction. “I don’t want to shoot, but I will. You must let the people who carried out these crimes stand trial for what they did. I’m in no doubt that they will be executed.”
“Edmund did nothing—it was all her fault,” said Violet. “She is the one who has to die.”
Violet started to press the trigger of the gun, but then, just as she took aim to shoot Helen in the chest—just at the same moment as Davison was about to fire a bullet into the girl’s shoulder or leg—the great bulk of Grenville crashed into his daughter. Inspired by Guy’s attempt to save Helen, he brought the full force of his body in front of Violet to serve as a shield and to take the bullet fired from Davison’s gun. What he had done to his daughter was beyond contempt, but there was no doubt that he loved her.
There was a cry of pain and a splatter of blood. Father and daughter collapsed onto the floor. Davison ran forwards and kicked the gun from Violet’s hand and towards me, and with Núñez’s help, pushed the obese form of Grenville off the girl. His shirt and jacket were stained with blood and life was ebbing from his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Grenville. “Violet, please forgive me.” They were his last words.
43
Davison opened the door to his suite at the Taoro. Sunlight streamed into the room, which looked out towards the sea, casting everything in a warm, golden glow.
“It’s gorgeous weather, isn’t it?” he said as he gestured for me to sit down on the sofa by the window. “The horizon is so crisp and sharp. A time of new beginnings if ever there was one.”
“And for some, a time of endings,” I said. “Have you heard any more from Núñez?”
“Yes, it seems as though Edmund Ffosse has finally made a full confession and admits to coming up with the whole plan. How could he not, though, after what Miss Hart said?”
“So the inspector’s got everything he needs now to charge all three of them?”
“Yes, it seems so,” said Davison, pouring me a cup of tea. “Guy Trevelyan sang like the proverbial canary and has told Núñez how he disposed of his wife. The police are looking for her body, or what remains of it, in the Thames, down by the docks. Apparently he is full of regrets and remorse. I think I believe him.”
“I do, too,” I said. “Not that that will help him.” I thought back to the time on the Gelria when Guy made that outburst about the female being the deadlier of the species. “I bet he wished he had never met Helen.”
“And I’m sure she wishes you had never been on that ship or out here in Orotava,” he said, taking a sip of tea.
“Perhaps, but Helen really was very clever,” I said. “From the beginning she needed a witness to the death of the woman we were supposed to believe was Gina Trevelyan. Of course it looked to me as though she was doing everything in her power to prevent a suicide. But in effect, that sudden lurch that Helen made towards the fake Gina made the poor girl jump to her death. When I mentioned the possibility of recovering her body to the first officer, Helen let out a sob, which at the time I assumed was one of grief. Now I realize it was motivated by something else—fear of discovery. But listen, I’m running ahead of myself.”
I paused to take breath. “It was incredibly risky of her to attempt it, but I suppose Miss Hart is the type of woman who thrives on danger. You see, on the Gelria there was one person who would have recognized the real Gina Trevelyan—Mrs. Brendel. She would have known that the fake Gina who Helen and Guy said had stowed away on the ship was not her at all. It must have been maddening for Helen and Guy to learn that Mrs. Brendel had booked a last-minute passage on the ship. But they couldn’t change their plan; it was too late for that. They knew that Mrs. Brendel did not like to get up early, but to make sure she didn’t see anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had slipped something into her drink the night before. Do you remember that Mrs. Brendel said she had woken up feeling a little off-color? Miss Hart also waited until bad weather set in, as she knew that there would be a high likelihood of not recovering the body. When the ship passed through the Bay of Biscay, which was like a duck pond, she must have been beside herself. When would she be able to put her plan into action? But then as we left Lisbon, the weather changed, and a storm appeared on the horizon. Miss Hart seized her moment, soon after dawn.”
“How ingenious of her,” said Davison.
“And extremely wicked. Miss Hart also realized that if she presented herself as the guilty party, then she would almost certainly not be believed. That’s why she made that silly confession to the captain on the ship, claiming that she was the one responsible for Gina’s death. It was all staged, you see, like a tableau from a play, including a very touching scene I overheard later on the ferry. They must have known that I was listening.”
“And she would have got away with it had it not been for a couple of careless throwaway remarks made first by Howard Winniatt and then Mrs. Brendel.”
“That evening at dinner, our first night here, Guy suddenly looked distressed and he explained the change in his mood and countenance by saying he had just been thinking about Gina. But of course it wasn’t that at all. Howard Winniatt must have said something to Guy about noticing the change in the weight of Guy’s luggage between arrival and departure. Miss Hart was worried about whether other people at the table had heard. But Mrs. Brendel, who had been sitting next to Mr. Wi
nniatt, actually had overheard something, even though she didn’t realize its significance—how could she? But Guy and Helen knew that if this small detail got out, it could undermine their whole plan. Guy and Helen knew that Howard would have written this comment down, and Helen, after killing him, must have stolen his notebook from his pocket and burnt it to destroy the evidence.”
“And all done for money? For Gina’s fortune?” said Davison.
“That and love, of course. The love that Miss Hart felt for Edmund Ffosse.” I thought of the comment Helen Hart had made to me: about how love had the power to turn us all into criminals. “Yes, a very toxic combination indeed.”
“And Grenville was innocent all along.”
“Well, innocent of murder,” I said, deciding not to elaborate. Since Edmund’s arrest, Violet had been talking about having nothing left to live for. I just hoped that, at some point, she would be able to come to terms with what had happened with both Ffosse and her father and learn to appreciate the one man who truly loved her: Núñez. Apparently, she was pleading with Núñez to charge her with the attempted murder of Helen Hart and the accidental death of her father, but the inspector told her that he was sure it would not come to that. What would her future hold? Would she live to appreciate Núñez, the one man who truly loved her?
I hoped too that Mme Giroux would one day allow herself to trust another man. It would be difficult, as I had told her over breakfast earlier that morning, but not impossible. During that meeting I had shared with her some of the details regarding my so-called mental collapse of the year before. I told her of my grief following the death of my mother and the breakdown of my marriage to Archie: the awful rows, my dark feelings relating to his mistress Miss Neele, the jealousy that had eaten away at me, the belief that I would not be able to exist without my husband. But now, as I had told her, I felt able to imagine a life, a future, without Archie. Soon I might even feel ready to remove the wedding ring that still encircled my finger.
“Is something troubling you, Agatha?” asked Davison with a concerned expression.
Although I suspected Davison knew what I was thinking—he was that rare kind of man who seemed to divine a woman’s innermost thoughts—I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of intimate conversation. “I was just wondering if there was any more news about Rupert Mabey?” I asked.
“He’s not saying anything at present,” said Davison. “But we have our ways and means. We’re also waiting for some more information from the department about Mabey’s links to Arcos, the All-Russian Co-operative Society. You remember when I first asked you to come out here to investigate the death of Greene? We suspected someone of feeding information to Arcos. Of course we could never have imagined then that all these other crimes would happen. That reminds me, I received a telegram from Hartford this morning.”
“Oh, yes?”
“He’s got nothing but the highest praise for you. He wants you to go and see him when you return to England.”
“Really? Whatever for?”
“I expect he wants to thank you in person for what you did. As do I.”
Since the arrests, Núñez had received praise from his superiors; I was happy for him to take credit for solving the crimes. I asked for only one thing in return: that he destroy any incriminating evidence he had in his possession about Davison. The loss of Douglas Greene was bad enough for him. Now I couldn’t bear the thought of Davison losing his reputation or his job.
“It was nothing compared with saving my life,” I said.
Davison smiled as he poured me some more tea. “In addition to settling a decent amount of money on you, Hartford would like to pay for you to have a little holiday. It’s the least the department can do.”
“You haven’t got a destination in mind?”
“No, not this time,” he said, laughing.
“Well, I must say the Taoro is a lovely hotel, but I have got rather tired of the late-morning mists and the fact that it’s more or less impossible to swim here.”
“What about Madeira? I’ve heard that there is—”
“I’m not sure,” I said. It was a place I had been supposed to visit with Archie on the Empire Tour. I had been stuck on the boat with seasickness. To go back there would make me too sad.
“Or Grand Canary? I know a delightful man in Las Palmas, a Dr. Lucas.”
I gave him a quizzical expression. “Not another doctor, please,” I said, thinking of Kurs and Trenkel, who was due to be charged with various counts of theft. “I think I’ve had my fill of medical men for the time being.”
“Dr. Lucas is nothing like them. It’s a shame I couldn’t introduce you when we first docked, but as you know, we had our work to do here. He’s something of a born healer and possibly the sweetest, most caring person I know. He might be just the thing you are looking for. He lives there very quietly with his wife, an Australian lady, and his sister, Mrs. Meek. There won’t be much of a social scene, but I can promise Dr. Lucas will ensure you get lots of sleep, and there’s also the possibility of some rather good swimming.”
“A change of scene is a very good idea, and it would be a nice little holiday for Carlo and Rosalind,” I said. “I feel like I’m coming down with a sore throat and I certainly could do with a rest.” I remembered the brutal way Helen Hart had pressed down on my neck and the vicious look in her eyes. I was convinced that she would have killed me if Davison had not threatened to shoot her. “And the lack of a social life would be just the thing I need. I do have my novel to finish.”
So much had happened since I had witnessed that poor girl leap off the side of the Gelria. There had been so much unhappiness, so much death. In addition to Douglas Greene, there had been Howard Winniatt, Edith Brendel, and Gerard Grenville. And next, no doubt, there would be the forthcoming trials and executions of Guy Trevelyan, Helen Hart, and Edmund Ffosse. I hoped, now that evil had been rooted out, that this would that be the end of it. Yet I could not be certain.
After all, old sins do cast awfully long shadows.
The Facts
♦ After her much-publicized disappearance in December 1926 and the breakdown of her marriage to Archie, Agatha Christie was desperate to escape Britain. “There could be no peace for me in England now after all I had gone through . . . life in England was unbearable,” she wrote in her autobiography.
On 23 January 1927, Agatha Christie set sail on the SS Gelria with her daughter, Rosalind, and her secretary, Carlo, bound for Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. She stayed at the Taoro Hotel, in Puerto Orotava, Tenerife, between February 4 and 27.
From Tenerife, Agatha journeyed back to Gran Canaria, arriving in Las Palmas with what she described as an ulcerated throat. There she met Dr. Lucas, a man she thought of as a born healer, who told her, “You’ve got plenty of strength and courage. You’ll make a good thing out of life yet.”
♦ Agatha believed that her mother possessed psychic abilities and the writer had been interested in the occult for some time. By this point in her life, Agatha—in addition to her crime novels—had already written a number of supernatural-themed stories, including “The Woman Who Stole a Ghost” (later published as “The Last Séance”). These tales would be gathered together in the volume The Hound of Death (1933). While in Tenerife, she was also inspired to write the short story “The Man from the Sea,” which is set on the island and was subsequently published in the collection The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930).
♦ Arcos—the All Russian Co-operative Society—started trading in London in October 1920. The British secret service suspected that the organization was being used as a front for subversive activities and on May 12, 1927, its headquarters at 49 Moorgate, London, was raided. In Parliament, the prime minister Stanley Baldwin read from a number of deciphered Soviet telegrams that he claimed proved that the Russians were guilty of espionage.
♦ While in the Canary Islands, Agatha finished her eighth novel, The Mystery of the Blue Train, published in 1928. “Really, how that wretched book ev
er came to be written, I don’t know,” she said. This was a turning point in Christie’s life as she realized that from now on, she would have to support herself by her writing. “That was the moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional,” she wrote in her autobiography. Her divorce from Archie Christie was finalized in April 1928. She is still the bestselling novelist of all time.
Acknowledgments
Firstly, I must thank Agatha Christie herself, who has provided so many hours of pleasure to readers all around the world, including me.
This is a work of the imagination, but during the research for the book I consulted a number of sources, which proved invaluable.
For life in Puerto de Orotava, as it was known then, I read the excellent El turismo en la historia del Puerto de la Cruz by Nicolás González Lemus and Melecio Hernández Pérez (Escuela Universitaria de Turismo Iriarte, 2010); Tenerife, fin de trayecto by Ana J. Hernández (Ediciones Idea, 1995); and Misters: británicos en Tenerife by Austin Baillon (Ediciones Idea, 1995). For details on the Guanche civilization and the process of mummification: Guanches: Legend and Reality by J. P. Camacho (Weston, 2012) and Tierras de Momias: La técnica de eternizar en Egipto y Canarias by Milagros Álvarez Sosa and Irene Morfini (Ediciones ad Aegyptum, 2014).
While doing my research in and around Puerto de la Cruz, in the north of Tenerife, I was helped enormously by Ana E. Castillo; Ramón Michán; and Hortensia Hernández and the whole team at CIT who organize the biennial Agatha Christie festival.
For details about life on board ocean liners during the golden age of travel, I consulted the books of the late John Maxtone-Graham, particularly The Only Way to Cross (Macmillan, 1978).
There are a great many people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help bring a book to life, but I would like to single out the following.
I would like to thank my fabulous agent and friend, Clare Alexander, as well as the whole team at Aitken Alexander Associates, in particular Lisa Baker, Lesley Thorne, Leah Middleton, Nishta Hurry, Nicola Chang, Anna Watkins, and Ben Quarshie.
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