In 1926 the world’s bestselling author vanished for 11 days. Did she go into hiding to frame her husband for murder? Historian Lucy Worsley reopens a case still shrouded in mystery
just wanted my life to end,” she explained. “All that night I drove aimlessly about … In my mind there was the vague idea of ending everything. I drove automatically down roads I knew … to Maidenhead, where I looked at the river. I thought about jumping in, but realised that I could swim too well to drown … then back to London again, and then on to Sunningdale. From there I went to Newlands Corner.
Christie’s car was found lodged in a hedge, its front wheels “over the edge of the chalk pit”. Had it not been for the hedge, “the car would have plunged over and been smashed to pieces”. It seems that Christie shocked herself into realising that whatever happened, life was worth living. So what should we believe? Christie reported that on that Saturday morning, while the police were investigating her abandoned car, she had “lost her memory”. With the help of a psychotherapist, she would later begin to put together a narrative of the movements she had blanked out. “I remember arriving at a big railway station,” she recalled, eventually, “and being surprised to learn it was Waterloo.
Christie arrived with no suitcase, but explained she had recently come from South Africa and had left her luggage with friends. She gave her name as Mrs Teresa Neele, signing the register in her usual handwriting.