The Skull Beneath the Skin (33 page)

Ambrose obviously took the view that his guests were dissenters, if not worse, who required a strong lead in the responses, and Ivo retained throughout an attentive gravity and showed a familiarity with the liturgy which suggested that this was his normal Sunday morning activity. Simon managed the organ competently enough, although Oldfield let it run out of wind at the end of the
Te Deum
and it produced a late, noisy and discordant amen. Roma forgot her resolve to remain silent and sang in a rich contralto only slightly out of tune. Father Hancock
used the 1662
Book of Common Prayer
without deletions or substitutions and his congregation proclaimed themselves miserable offenders who had followed too much the devices and desires of their own hearts and promised amendment of life in a slightly ragged but resolute chorus. It was only at the end of the petitions when, unexpectedly, he inserted a prayer for the souls of the departed that Cordelia heard a small concerted intake of breath and the air of the Church grew for a moment colder. The sermon lasted fifteen minutes and was a learned dissertation on the Pauline theology of the redemption. As they rose to sing the hymn Ivo whispered to Cordelia: “That’s all one asks of a sermon. No possible relevance to anything but itself.”

Before luncheon, Munter served dry and chilled sherry on the terrace. Father Hancock managed three glasses without apparent effect and talked happily to Sir George about bird-watching and to Ivo about liturgical reform on which Ivo showed himself surprisingly well informed. No one mentioned Clarissa, and it seemed to Cordelia that, for the first time since her murder, her restless, menacing spirit was subdued. For a few precious moments the weight of guilt and misery lifted from her own heart. It was possible to believe, innocently talking in the sun, that life was as well ordered, as certain, as austerely decent and reasonable as the great Anglican compromise in which they had taken part. And when they went in to their roast ribs of beef and rhubarb tart—a conventional and rather heavy Sunday luncheon provided, she suspected, primarily for the benefit of Father Hancock—it was a relief to have him there, to hear the thin but beautiful voice discussing such a harmless interest as the nesting habits of the song thrush and to watch his frank enjoyment of the food and wine. Only Simon, his face flushed, drank as steadily, downing the claret as if it were water, reaching for the
decanter with a shaking hand. But Father Hancock seemed as spry as ever after a meal which would have reduced many a younger man to stupor and he took his leave of them with the same serene contentment with which he had greeted them four hours earlier.

As
Shearwater
drew away, Roma turned to Cordelia and said with gruff embarrassment: “I’m going for a walk for half an hour. Would you care to come? I’d like to have a word with you.”

“All right. If Grogan wants us he can send for us.”

They walked together, without speaking, up the long greensward beyond the rose garden, then under the shadow of the beeches, crunching their way through the bright drifts of fallen leaves and hearing above the scuffle of their tramping feet the strengthening pulse of the sea. After five minutes they emerged from the trees and found themselves on the edge of the cliff. To their right was a concrete bunker, part of the 1939 defences of the island, its low entrance almost blocked with leaves. They moved round it and settled their backs against its rough-textured wall, looking down through a green and gold pattern of beech leaves to the narrow strip of beach and the glitter of the sea-washed shingle.

Cordelia didn’t speak. The walk had been at Roma’s request. It was for her to say what was on her mind. But she felt curiously peaceful and at ease with her companion, as if none of their differences could weigh against the fact of their common femininity. She watched as Roma picked up a beech twig and began methodically shredding it of leaves. Without looking at Cordelia, she said: “You’re supposed to be an expert in these things. When do you suppose we can get away? I’ve got a shop to look after, my partner can’t manage indefinitely on his own. The police can’t keep us here, surely? The investigation could take months.”

Cordelia said: “They can’t legally hold us at all unless they arrest us. Some of us will have to attend the inquest. But I should think you could leave tomorrow if you wanted to.”

“And what about George? He’ll need some help. Is he going to sort out her things, jewellery, clothes, makeup, or does he expect me to?”

“Hadn’t you better ask him?”

“We can’t even get into her bedroom. The police still have it sealed. And she’s brought drawers of stuff with her. She always did, even for a weekend. And then there’ll be all the clothes in the Bayswater flat and at Brighton, suits, dresses, her furs. He can hardly dump it all on Oxfam.”

Cordelia said: “They’d be surprised, certainly. But I expect they’d find a good use for it all. They could sell the clothes in their gift shops.” She would have found this female chat about Clarissa’s wardrobe bizarre if she hadn’t realized that Roma’s concern about her cousin’s clothes masked a deeper concern: Clarissa’s money. Again there was a silence.

Then Roma said gruffly: “Did you know that I’d asked Clarissa for a loan just before she was killed and that she’d turned me down?”

“Yes. I was there when she told Sir George.”

“And you haven’t told the police?”

“No.”

“That was decent of you, considering that I haven’t been particularly pleasant to you.”

“What has that to do with it? If they want that kind of information they can get it from the person concerned, you.”

“Well, they haven’t got it so far. I lied. I’m not proud of it and I’m not even sure why. Panic, I suppose, and a feeling that it would suit them to pin the murder on me rather than on
George or Ambrose. One’s a baronet and war hero and the other’s rich.”

“I don’t think they want to pin it on anyone except the guilty person. I don’t take to either of them, Grogan or Buckley. But I think they’re honest.”

Roma said: “It’s odd. I’ve never much liked or trusted the police, but I always took it for granted that, faced with a crime as serious as murder, I’d co-operate with them up to the hilt. I want Clarissa’s murderer caught, of course I do. So why do I feel so defensive? Why do I act as if Grogan and Buckley are in league against me? And it’s humiliating to find oneself lying, lying and terrified, and ashamed.”

“I know. I feel the same.”

“It looks as if George hasn’t told them about our quarrel either. Nor has Tolly, apparently. Clarissa sent her out while we were talking, but she must have guessed. What do you think she has in mind, blackmail?”

Cordelia said: “I’m sure not. But I think she knows. She was in the bathroom while I was there, and she probably overheard. Clarissa was pretty vehement.”

“She was vehement with me, vehement and offensive. If I were capable of killing her, I’d have done it then.”

They were silent for a moment, then she said: “What I can’t get used to is the way we all carefully avoid discussing who it was killed her. We don’t even confide what we’ve told Grogan. Since the murder, we’ve behaved to each other like strangers, telling nothing, asking nothing. Don’t you find it strange?”

“Not really. We’re stuck here together. Life will be intolerable if we start hurling accusations or recriminations at each other or divide into cliques.”

“I suppose so. But I don’t think I can go on, not knowing, not even talking about it, pretending to make polite conversation
when we’re all thinking about the same thing, carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, wondering, locking our doors at night. Did you lock yours?”

“Yes. I wasn’t sure why. I don’t think for one moment that there’s a homicidal maniac on the island. Clarissa was always the intended victim. She wasn’t killed by mistake. But I did lock my door.”

“Against whom? Who do you think did it?”

Cordelia said: “One of us who slept in the castle on Friday night.”

“I know that. But which one?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

Roma’s twig was a thin denuded wand. She threw it away, found another and began again the work of methodical destruction.

“I should like it to be Ambrose if anyone, but I can’t believe it. Wasn’t it George Orwell who wrote that murder, the unique crime, should arise only from strong emotions? Ambrose never felt a strong emotion in his life. And he hasn’t the courage or the ruthlessness. He isn’t capable of that much hatred. He likes to play with the toys of violence; a tag end of executioner’s rope, a blood-stained nightdress, a pair of Victorian handcuffs. With Ambrose, even the horror comes second-hand, disinfected by time and charm and quaintness. And it can’t be Simon. He never even saw the marble limb and, anyway, he’d have confessed by now. He’s a weakling like his father. He wouldn’t have the psychological strength to stand up to Grogan for five minutes if the going got rough. And Ivo? Well, Ivo’s dying. He’s nearly served his life sentence. He may feel that he’s out of the reach of the law. But where’s his motive? I suppose George is the main suspect, but I don’t believe that either. He’s a professional soldier, a professional killer if you like. But he
wouldn’t do it in that way, not to a woman. It could be the Munters, singly or together, or even Tolly, but I can’t think why. That leaves you and me. And it wasn’t me. And, if it’s any comfort to you, I don’t think it was you either.”

Cordelia said: “Tell me about Clarissa. You spent a lot of your holidays with her as a child, didn’t you?”

“Oh God, those awful Augusts! They had a house on the river at Maidenhead and spent most of the summer there. Her mother thought that Clarissa ought to have young company and my parents were glad to have me fed and boarded free. Oddly enough, we got on quite well together then, united I suppose by our fear of her father. When he came down from London she lived in terror.”

“I thought that she adored him, that he was an over-indulgent, devoted papa.”

“Is that what she told you? How typical of Clarissa! She couldn’t even be honest about her own childhood. No, he was a brute. I don’t mean he physically ill-treated us. In some ways that would have been more endurable than sarcasm, a cold adult anger, contempt. I didn’t understand him then, of course. Now I think I do. He didn’t really like women. He married to get himself a son—he had the egotism that can’t imagine a world in which he hasn’t at least a vicarious immortality—and he found himself with a daughter, an invalid wife who’d no intention of breeding again and a job in which divorce wasn’t an option. And Clarissa wasn’t even pretty when she was a child. And his coolness and her fear killed any spontaneity, any affection, even any intelligence which she might have shown. No wonder she spent the rest of her life obsessively looking for love. But then don’t we all?”

Cordelia said: “After I was told something about her, something she’d done, I thought that she was a monster. But perhaps no one is, not entirely, not when you know the truth about them.”

“She was a monster all right. But when I think of Uncle Roderick, I can understand why. Hadn’t we better be getting back? Grogan will suspect us of conspiracy. We can probably scramble down to the beach from here and walk back by the sea.”

They trudged back along the edge of the surf. Roma, her hands sunk in her jacket pockets, walked ahead, splashing through the small receding waves, seeming oblivious of the wet trouser bottoms flapping against her ankles, of her sodden shoes. The way back was longer and slower than the walk through the copse, but at last they turned the headland of a small bay and the castle was suddenly before them. They stopped and watched. A young man in bathing trunks and carrying a rough wooden box was climbing down the fire escape from the window of Cordelia’s first bedroom. He climbed carefully, hooking his arms round the rungs, being careful not to touch them with his hands. Then he glanced round, walked to the edge of the rocks and with a sudden violent gesture flung the box out to sea. Then he stood poised for a moment, arms raised, and dived. About thirty yards from the end of the terrace rocked a boat, a different boat from the police launch. A diver, sleek and glittering in his black suit, rested on the gunwale. As soon as the box hit the water he twisted his body and dropped backward out of sight. Roma said: “So that’s what the police are thinking?”

“Yes. That’s what they’re thinking.”

“They’re after the jewel casket. And suppose they do manage to dredge it up?”

Cordelia said: “It will be bad news for someone on this island. I think that they’ll find that it still holds Clarissa’s jewels.” But what else might it hold? Would the notice of Clarissa’s performance in
The Deep Blue Sea
still be in the secret drawer? The police had taken very little interest in that single square of
newsprint, but suddenly it seemed to Cordelia that it must have had some significance. Wasn’t there just the possibility that it had a bearing on Clarissa’s death? The thought at first seemed absurd, but it persisted. She knew that she wouldn’t be satisfied until she had seen a duplicate. The obvious first step was to call at the newspaper office in Speymouth and examine the archives. She knew the year, Jubilee year, 1977. It shouldn’t be too difficult. And at least it would give her something positive to do.

She was aware that Roma was standing absolutely still, her eyes fixed on the lone swimmer. Her face was expressionless.

Then she shook herself and said: “We’d better go in and face another round of what, with Chief Inspector Grogan, passes for the third degree. If he were openly impertinent, or even brutal, I’d find it less offensive than his veiled masculine insolence.”

But when they passed through the hall and were drawn by the sound of voices into the library they were told by Ambrose that Grogan and Buckley had left the island. They were said to be meeting Dr. Ellis-Jones at the Speymouth mortuary. There would be no more questioning until Monday morning. The rest of the day was their own to get through as best they could.

Buckley thought that Sunday afternoon was a hell of a time for an autopsy. He didn’t exactly enjoy them whenever he had to attend, but Sunday, even when he was on duty, had about it a lethargic, post-prandial calm which called for a comfortable chair in the Sergeants’ Mess and a desultory reading over of reports rather than an hour spent on his feet while Doc Ellis-Jones sliced, sawed, cut, weighed and demonstrated with his gloved and bloody hands. It wasn’t that Buckley felt squeamish. He didn’t in the least care what indignities were practised on his own body once he was dead, and he couldn’t see why anyone should be more perturbed by the ritual dismemberment of a corpse than he had been as a lad watching his Uncle Charlie in that exciting shed behind his butcher’s shop. Come to think of it, Doc Ellis-Jones and Uncle Charlie shared the same expertise and went about their business in much the same way. This had surprised him when, as a newly appointed constable fresh out of regional training school, he had attended his first post-mortem. He had expected that it would be more scientific, less brutal, and far less messy than it had, in fact,
proved to be. It had occurred to him then that the main differences between Doc Ellis-Jones and Uncle Charlie were that Uncle Charlie worried less about infection, used a smaller variety of somewhat cruder instruments and treated his meat with more respect. But that wasn’t surprising when you considered what he charged for it.