Kit looked at his watch. The man was ten minutes late, but that was no big deal. He’d warned Kit he couldn’t be sure when he’d get to their rendezvous. It would depend on the eternally unpredictable traffic on the Mi5. Kit stirred his mug of tea, rearranging the film on the orangey-brown surface. The two men at the table next to him scattered a handful of coins on the table to pay for their breakfasts and walked out, leaving behind a copy of the Daily Mail. Kit reached across and snagged the paper. He ignored the political splash on the front page and flicked forward. The story that caught his eye was the lead on page five. Missing thriller writer’s car found at beauty spot A car belonging to missing crime writer Georgia Lester has been found abandoned in woods near a popular tourist destination several miles from the best selling author’s country cottage. Dorset police revealed that the car was spotted by walkers yesterday near Burman’s Pond, a local beauty spot near Dorchester. The car, which was unlocked, contained an overnight bag and a distinctive Moschino jacket, both belonging to Miss Lester. A police spokesman said, “There is no sign of a struggle or any indication that Miss Lester met with an accident. If she is safe and well, we would urge her to get in touch with her nearest police station as soon as possible. If anyone saw Miss Lester or her car prior to Sunday evening, we would also ask them to contact Dorset police.” He refused to say whether police were regarding Miss Lester’s disappearance as suspicious. Fears have been growing for her safety since she failed to turn up for a lecture she was due to deliver at the British Film Institute on Wednesday evening. Her husband, Anthony Fitzgerald, said last night, “I am very worried about Georgia. I spoke to her on Tuesday evening and she told me she was looking forward to the BFI event. The first I knew that she had missed her lecture was when I returned home on Wednesday evening to find several urgent messages from the organizers on our answering machine. I have been trying to contact her ever since, without success. I did report her missing to the police on Friday morning, but they didn’t seem to be taking it very seriously. But I know my wife, and I know she would never let her fans down willingly. Something has happened to her, but I have no idea what.” There has been speculation that Miss Lester has deliberately gone missing. Colleagues have suggested that she was angry with her publishers, Carnegie House, for refusing to supply her with bodyguards for an upcoming book tour. Miss Lester claimed that following the murder of fellow thriller writer Drew Shand, she was in fear of her life. A friend said last night, “We all thought Georgia was overreacting, but she was adamant that her publisher was recklessly putting her at risk. When she didn’t show up at the BFI, some people reckoned she was trying to punish them. But now we’re beginning to wonder if she was right after all.”
“Oh, shit,” Kit muttered under his breath, hastily turning the pages. What struck him most forcibly was Anthony’s reaction. To have reported Georgia missing to the police suggested this was no stunt on Georgia’s part. And Kit couldn’t quite believe that Georgia would have kept Anthony in the dark, leaving him to worry and fret needlessly. Causing deliberate pain to those she cared about just wasn’t part of Georgia’s make — up.
Almost the whole of page eleven was taken up with a feature article, illustrated with a large photograph of the instantly recognizable Agatha Christie. Inset into it was a smaller shot of Georgia, looking haughtily glamorous as ever, her artfully blonde hair swept up in a convoluted arrangement on top of her head. The Lady Vanishes The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of contemporary Queen of Crime Georgia Lester has strange echoes of another famous disappearing act. The most distinguished crime writer of them all, Dame Agatha Christie, went missing for eleven days in 1926 before being discovered in a hotel in Harrogate where she had registered under the assumed name of her husband’s mistress. Agatha’s disappearance followed a row with her philandering husband Colonel Archibald Christie. He had packed his bags and gone to spend the weekend with his mistress, Nancy Neele. That evening, leaving their daughter Rosalind asleep in bed, Agatha drove off from her Sunningdale mansion in her grey Morris Cowley. She left a letter for her secretary, saying her engagements should be cancelled and that she was off to Yorkshire. But she also posted a letter to the Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey, claiming she feared for her life and asking for his help. Her car was found abandoned next morning. Like Georgia Lester’s Jaguar, Agatha’s Morris was found near a local beauty spot, Silent Pool. Inside the car was Agatha’s fur coat and a small suitcase containing three dresses, two pairs of shoes and her expired driving licence. The newspapers of the time fell upon the story, speculating on whether the missing mystery writer had been murdered or committed suicide. This newspaper even offered a 100 reward for information leading to her discovery. Suspicion naturally fell on her unfaithful husband while the manhunt continued. Silent Pool was dredged, light aircraft flew low over the area looking for traces and a pack of Airedales and bloodhounds were tracked over the ground, all to no avail. The police of four counties coordinated a mass search of the Downs, in which 15,000 volunteers took part. Criminologist Edgar Lustgarten wrote a piece for the Daily Mail, commenting that Agatha was indulging in “a typical case of ‘mental reprisal’.” Sales of her books boomed, naturally. Meanwhile, at the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate (now the Old Swan) a woman registered as Mrs. Neele was enjoying all the facilities the hotel had to offer for seven guineas a week. She was chatting to guests, claiming to be from South Africa, taking meals in the restaurant and enjoying the ballroom dancing. But a sharp-eyed banjo player in the hotel band recognized her from the press photographs. Police were called in and watched her for two days before her husband arrived and confirmed that the mysterious Mrs. Neele was in fact his wife. The press accused her of publicity-seeking, although two doctors testified that she was suffering from a genuine case of amnesia brought on by stress. Agatha Christie carried the truth behind her vanishing act to her grave. We will never know if she really lost her memory or if she was taking public vengeance against her husband. And today, similar questions must arise from Georgia Lester’s disappearance. With her new book due out, is she simply seeking publicity? Is she taking her revenge against her publisher for not taking her fears of a stalker seriously? Or has something more sinister happened to Britain’s contemporary Queen of Crime? Her legions of fans anxiously await the answer.
They weren’t the only ones, Kit thought. He wouldn’t mind some answers himself. What’s more, if Georgia had indeed staged her disappearance, he felt he deserved them. They were supposed to be mates, him and Georgia. She had been one of the first crime writers he’d ever met once he was himself a published author.
He vividly remembered the first event they’d done together, at a literary festival in the Midlands. His first novel had just come out in paperback, and it was only the third public appearance he’d ever made as an author. He was overawed to find himself on the same platform as Georgia, already a bestseller, and another writer whose books had leapt to prominence on the back of a particularly classy TV adaptation. In the green room before the event, the TV-tie-in author had gleefully spotted Kit’s nerves and was indulging himself in a pernicious mixture of patronizing put-downs and the sort of event-disaster anecdote calculated to trigger a fit of panic in any but the most sanguine.