Catherine Narracott
The Wife
I sit with a Lillet Blanc listening to this evening’s musical entertainment.
It’s hard not to think they’re trying to enliven the atmosphere with a bombastic rendition of Cole Porter’s songs.
The vampish singer – spangled wiggle dress, peroxide hair and lacquered red lips – could be a double for the hotel’s most famous (infamous) resident.
‘Would you like some company, my dear?’
I look up to see Miss Marple, toting a generous knitting bag.
‘Oh,’ I say, ‘yes, please. If your companions can spare you.’ In this lonely, fraught time she is a comfort, in spite of everything. She reminds me a little of Great Aunt Elizabeth, on Daddy’s side: very discreet and proper.
‘All of us being trapped here,’ I say, over the clicking of Miss Marple’s needles and the strains of ‘Night and Day’, ‘it’s like a nightmare!
Everyone is frightened …’ I gesture towards the other guests.
They hunch over their digestifs talking in low tones and darting suspicious looks at the strangers about them.
‘It’s just awful,’ I say. ‘My husband, and now his friend … Mr Crane was not particularly … pleasant, of course. I was very frightened when he burst into my room and threatened me. But all the same. And I can’t help thinking that now I might be in danger,’ I say. ‘What if they come for me next?’
She nods. ‘Inspector Moreau is working hard to find the culprit. But, my dear, if you notice anything or anyone behaving in a way that seems odd will you promise to let me know, too?’
‘Yes of course,’ I say, though wonder how on earth she, a frail old woman, can think she might be of any help. Both of us observe the crowded room for a few moments in silence as though someone might in this very moment be about to reveal themselves as a murderous madman.
Then Miss Marple sits forward a little in her chair.
‘And I have been thinking, Catherine. I couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be some confusion from Bruno Crane about your being here too …
I wondered if that meant there was some other business element to his and your husband’s trip here.
Did Mr Narracott mention any other motive in coming to the mountains? ’
‘Not to me,’ I say. ‘But I am beginning to wonder about it myself.’
Back up in my room I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and then my hair one hundred times, like Nanny used to, until my dark hair shines like jet.
I find grooming soothing at times of high tension; it feels like a way of keeping body and soul together.
I go to pluck my eyebrows too, but realise I have forgotten to bring my tweezers.
Overlooking a little qualm of wrongness, I look through my husband’s wash-bag for a pair.
I do not find any tweezers, but I happen upon something else tucked deep into the inner pocket of the bag.
I pull it out. It is a photograph. The shock of it is as sharp and unexpected as a wasp sting.
I know this person, though only in the sense that they are currently staying at this hotel.
But what possible business does their picture have being in my husband’s wash-bag?
I pace up and down as the clock ticks cacophonously in the silent room, looking at the photograph and feeling Anthony’s absence as I wonder about his possible connection to this person.