“And I shall tell you a secret in return,” Agatha offers.
“You needn’t tell me anything, Mrs. Christie. It’s enough that you’re willing to do so,” she says, and my heart sinks. I wanted to hear Agatha’s secret. “Where should I begin?”
“At the beginning,” Agatha says.
With Agatha’s gentle encouragement, Celia paints a watercolor for us, a dappled-light impressionist landscape with two portraits at its center. Within the frame, we observe two nurses who become close, bonding over long shifts and difficult patients, bunking near each other at the hospital accommodations, and spending their not-so-copious free hours at cafés and shops. We watch the lark to Brighton unfold, with a giddy jaunt to France added at the last moment—all as we surmised. At the edge of this particular painting is the terrible aftermath of the trip, and Celia’s eyes well up with tears when she describes the awful night of May’s vanishing. Worried sick about her friend, Celia had been left without money or tickets and had walked to a convent several miles away for lodging and a phone so she could ring her parents when the police seemed uninterested in her plight or May’s.
The brushwork completed, Celia finishes. She is well-spoken and forthcoming. Nothing about her straightforward presentationof the facts around the girls’ trip to Brighton and Boulogne—and May’s disappearance—deviates from what we’ve already ascertained.
But there are so many shadowy corners left. Must I be the one to dig into them? So it seems. Glancing over at Agatha, I seek something like permission to take over, but her face is, once again, inscrutable.
“Did you two generally spend all your leaves together?” I ask.
“No, not all of them. Often we’d return home to our families, but we would occasionally travel or arrange outings in London,” Celia answers.
“Like the theater plans you made for the night before you headed out to Brighton? When you and Miss Daniels stayed at your sister’s flat and saw a show?” I ask, thinking back on my conversation with May’s own sisters.
Celia’s brow furrows. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have a sister who lives in London; mine lives in Leeds near my parents. May and I met in Brighton. She came from visiting her sisters, and I’d been with my parents.”
“Apologies; I must be confused,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm and even. But my heart is racing at the contradiction between what May told her sisters and what actually transpired. The day and night before her disappearance are unaccounted for. The secret, darker scene at the corner of the pleasant, vivid painting is becoming clearer.
“Wedidgo to the theater in August,” Celia says.
My heart beats even faster. “Did you happen to seeCavalcadetogether?”
Her mouth forms a circle of surprise. “How did you know?”
“We found the tickets among her belongings. Good show?”
Agatha shoots me a look; she must be disappointed that I hadn’t shared this with her. But when did I have the opportunity for a full debrief? While we scampered about the streets of Birmingham,attempting to collide with Celia? And anyway, I hadn’t thought that the information we’d unearthed at May’s sisters would become relevant so soon.
“Brilliant.” Celia’s eyes well up with tears. “It was our last outing before Brighton.”
“They were excellent seats. How did you afford them on a trainee nurse’s budget?” I ask.
“Someone had given them to May.”
“As a gift? For her birthday or Christmas?”
“No, just a kind gesture from a friend.”
“Did she mention who the friend was?”
“No,” Celia replies, but the word is somehow unfinished. As if she’s weighing whether to add more. “But she did mention that the friend had asked her to pop backstage to thank someone for the tickets.”
“Did May tell you who this backstage person was? The friend of her friend?” I ask. “Perhaps you joined her?”
“No!” Celia snaps. “She was adamant that she go alone. And by the time she finally emerged from backstage and joined me on the street outside the theater, I’d nearly given up on waiting for her.”
“Did she say what took her so long?”
“No. She didn’t want to talk about it. We had a very quiet tram ride back to the hospital housing.”
I nod, as if this all makes perfect sense instead of setting off alarms left and right. Then, in an offhand manner, I ask,”Did she mention anything about a newspaper article she’d read about a missing London girl right before you left for Brighton?”
Celia’s eyes are wide. “Of course not! I would have remembered that when she went missing herself.”
I sense there is more she could tell me about this theater outing, but her face is closed off now. Given that I have other important questions to ask, I decide to move on.
