On the Blue Train by Kristel Thornell

seen the day before, but he’d read over that detail. A daughter was left behind, too.
    Teresa was concentrating on her toast. There were several newspapers at nearby tables, but no one appeared to be casting suspicious glances in her direction. Could it be that no one else at the Hydro had noticed this article or yesterday’s? Or that no one who’d seen them had found any coincidence between the unexplained disappearance attracting so much attention and the arrival of the elusive Mrs Neele? Was discretion so much the norm here that if anyone had paused to wonder, they’d have guarded against showing it? Had Harry simply gone mad?
    ‘You didn’t stay long in the ballroom last night, my dear,’ Mrs Jackman reprimanded Teresa affectionately. ‘I was going to ask your opinion on a crossword clue—you solve them so masterfully—and I couldn’t find you.’
    ‘I was sleepy. And anxious to get back to a book. But today I feel so full of energy. The ghastly water doing its witchcraft. Or this place. Harrogate is, I’m convinced of it, a tonic. And the shopping is delightful. Today I’ve decided that I need a shawl.’
    He didn’t presume to know Teresa. How could he, when she was barely an acquaintance—an acquaintance who was possibly lying to him, to everyone at the Hydro? But this talk was, he sensed, wrong coming from her. To his ears, it had a slightly manic flavour.
    ‘Indeed? I might be able to advise you on shops,’ Mrs Jackman offered timidly.
    ‘I’d like that. What was the clue?’
    ‘The clue? Oh. Typical, now I’ve forgotten it . . .’
    Finding the situation unreal, he returned to his newspaper. A Mrs de Silva, described as a family friend, said that the missing woman was a kind, sweet person, devoted to her husband. She had been severely afflicted by the loss of her mother, who had recently died . . . This had left the authoress poorly and unable to write.
    Plates were taken away and Teresa, pink-cheeked, pronounced, ‘Delicious.’
    Her eyes finally met Harry’s and she smiled, just a quiver. In that moment, he was certain she was her . To be the only one who knew her true identity was electrifying. It created a curious subterranean intimacy between them. He smiled in return and suffered from an urge to reach across the table to touch her hand, which seemed stranded. He was also entertaining a fantasy of catching her alone somewhere, cornering her and obliging her to explain everything to him.
    ‘I hear you have every kind of dangerous animal over there,’ Mr Jackman was saying to him.
    ‘Hm? Oh, in Australia? Well, I haven’t been back in over a decade, but, yes, the last time I checked.’
    ‘Harry grew up on a farm,’ Mr Jackman explained to his wife. ‘Livestock?’
    ‘Fruit orchard.’
    ‘Ah, what kind of fruit?’
    ‘Cherries, mainly. And some plums. Stone fruit.’
    ‘You have all that over there? I suppose you do. We’re fanatical about cherries. And I gather you have snakes that will kill you?’
    ‘Indeed.’
    Harry was awarded a fascinated smile.
    Mrs Jackman and Teresa left the dining room, bound in a tête à tête. Mr Jackman paused as the two men made to follow. ‘One last question about the Australian wildlife. Is it true you have a spider that . . .’
    ‘Yes, yes, it will all kill you.’
    By the time they’d arrived at the foot of the stairs, the ladies were not to be seen.

    He encountered another newspaper soon after. On Crescent Street, just outside the Royal Baths, a gentleman stood absorbed in a Daily Express . Harry halted. Staring right at him from the front page was Teresa.
    It wasn’t at all how he had grown used to seeing her, and once again the image was grainy and shadowy, yet in some way he thought it came closer to precision than the last photograph.
    She was accompanied by a female child. Of six years or so, he guessed. Had to be her daughter. Very pretty child. Their faces alongside one another, the child was notably prettier than the mother,