The Black Tower

by P. D. James

  The black tower reared out of the mist so suddenly that his first realization of its presence was to scrape his palms—instinctively flung forward—against its cold infrangible scales. Then, suddenly, the mist rose and thinned and he saw the top of the tower. The base was still shrouded in swirls of white clamminess but the octagonal cupola with its three visible slits seemed to float gently from behind the last sinuous threads of mist to hang motionless in space, dramatic, menacingly solid, and yet unsubstantial as a dream. It moved with the mist, a fugitive vision, now descending so low that he could almost believe it within his reach, now rising, numinous and unobtainable, high over the thudding sea. It could surely have no contact with the cold stones on which his palms rested or the firm earth beneath his feet. To steady his balance he rested his head against the tower and felt reality hard and sharp against his forehead. Here at least was a landmark. From here he thought he could remember the main twists and turns of the path.

  It was then that he heard it; the spine-chilling scrape, unmistakable, of bone ends clawing against the stone. It came from inside the tower. Reason asserted itself over superstition so quickly that his mind hardly had time to recognize its terror. Only the painful thudding of his heart against the rib cage, the sudden ice in the blood, told him that for one second he had crossed the border into the unknowable world. For one second, perhaps less, childish nightmares long suppressed rose to confront him. And then the terror passed. He listened more carefully, and then explored. The sound was quickly identified. To the seaward side of the tower and hidden in the corner between the porch and the round wall was a sturdy bramble. The wind had snapped one of the branches and two sharp unleashed ends were scraping against the stone. Through some trick of acoustics the sound, distorted, seemed to come from within the tower. From such coincidences, he thought, smiling grimly, were ghosts and legends born.

  Less than twenty minutes later he stood above the valley and looked down on Toynton Grange. The mist was thinning now and he could just discern the Grange itself—a substantial, dark shadow marked by blurs of lights from the windows. His watch showed that it was eight minutes past three. So they would all be closeted now in solitary meditation waiting for the four o’clock summons to announce their final votes. He wondered how, in fact, they were passing their time. But the result was hardly in doubt. Like Julius he thought it unlikely that Wilfred would have called a council unless he were sure of getting his way. And that, presumably, would mean handing over to the Ridgewell Trust. Dalgliesh assessed how the votes might go. Wilfred would no doubt have received an undertaking that all jobs would be safe. Given that assurance Dot Moxon, Eric Hewson and Dennis Lerner would probably vote for the take-over. Poor Georgie Allan would have little choice. The views of the other patients were less certain but he had the feeling that Carwardine would be content enough to stay, particularly with the increased comfort and professional skill which the Trust would bring. Millicent, of course, would want to sell out and she would have had an ally in Maggie Hewson, if Maggie had been allowed to participate.

  Looking down on the valley he saw the twin squares of light from the windows of Charity Cottage where, excluded, Maggie waited alone for the return of Eric. There was a stronger and brighter haze from the edge of the cliff. Julius, when at home, was extravagant with electricity.

  The lights, although temporarily obscured as the mist shifted and re-formed, were a useful beacon. He found himself almost running down the slope of the headland. And then, curiously, the light in the Hewson cottage windows went off and on again three times, deliberate as a signal.

  He had such a strong impression of an individual call for help that he had to remind himself of reality. She couldn’t know that he, or anyone, was on the headland. It could only be by chance if the signal were seen by anyone at Toynton Grange, preoccupied as they were with meditation and decision. Besides, most of the patients’ rooms were at the back of the house. It had probably been no more than a fortuitous flickering of the lights; she had been uncertain, perhaps, whether to watch television in the dark.

  But the twin smudges of yellow light, now shining more strongly as the mist thinned, drew him towards the Hewson cottage. It was only about three hundred yards out of his way. She was there alone. He might as well look in, even at the risk of becoming involved in an alcoholic recital of grievances and resentment.

  The front door was unlocked. When no voice responded to his knock he pushed it open and went in. The sitting-room, dirty, untidy, with its grubby air of temporary occupation, was empty. All three bars of the portable electric fire were glowing red and the room struck very warm. The television screen was a blank. The single unshaded lightbulb in the middle of the ceiling shone down garishly on the square table, the opened and almost empty bottle of whisky, the upturned glass, the sheet of writing paper with its scrawl of black biro, at first relatively firm, then erratic as an insect trail across the white surface. The telephone had been moved from its usual place on the top of the bookcase and stood now, cord taut, on the table, the receiver hanging loosely over the edge.

  He didn’t wait to read the message. The door into the back hall was ajar and he pushed it open. He knew with the sick and certain premonition of disaster, what he would find. The hall was very narrow and the door swung against her legs. The body twisted so that the flushed face slowly turned and looked down at him with what seemed a deprecating, half melancholy, half rueful surprise at finding herself at such a disadvantage. The light in the hall, from a single bulb, was garish, and she hung elongated like a bizarre and gaudily painted doll strung up for sale. The scarlet tight-fitting slacks, the white satin overblouse, the painted toe and finger nails and the matching gash of mouth looked horrible but unreal. One thrust of a knife and the sawdust would surely spill out from the stuffed veins to pyramid at his feet.

  The climber’s rope, a smooth twist of red and fawn, gay as a bell rope, was made to take the weight of a man. It hadn’t failed Maggie. She had used it simply. The rope had been doubled and the two ends passed through the loop to form a noose, before being fastened, clumsily but effectively, to the top banister. The surplus yards lay tangled on the upper landing.

  A high kitchen stool fitted with two steps had fallen on its side obstructing the hallway as if she had kicked it from under her. Dalgliesh placed it beneath the body and, resting her knees on its cushioned plastic, mounted the steps and slipped the noose over her head. The whole weight of her inert body sagged against him. He let it slip through his arms to the floor and half carried it into the sitting-room. Laying her on the mat in front of the fireplace he forced his mouth over hers and began artificial respiration.

  Her mouth was fumed with whisky. He could taste her lipstick, a sickly ointment on his tongue. His shirt, wet with sweat, stuck to her blouse, gumming together his thudding chest and her soft, still warm but silent body. He pumped his breath into her, fighting an atavistic repugnance. It was too like raping the dead. He felt the absence of her heart beat as keenly as an ache in his chest.

  He was aware that the door had opened only by the sudden chill of flowing air. A pair of feet stood beside the body. He heard Julius’s voice.

  “Oh, my God! Is she dead? What happened?”

  The note of terror surprised Dalgliesh. He glanced up for one second into Court’s stricken face. It hung over him like a disembodied mask, the features bleached and distorted with fear. The man was fighting for control. His whole body was shaking. Dalgliesh, intent on the desperate rhythm of resuscitation, jerked out his commands in a series of harsh disjointed phrases.

  “Get Hewson. Hurry.”

  Julius’s voice was a high, monotonous mutter.

  “I can’t! Don’t ask me. I’m no good at that sort of thing. He doesn’t even like me. We’ve never been close. You go. I’d rather stay here with her than face Eric.”

  “Then ring him. Then the police. Wrap the receiver in your handkerchief. May be prints.”

  “But they won’t answer! They
never do when they are meditating.”

  “Then for God’s sake fetch him!”

  “But her face! It’s covered with blood!”

  “Lipstick. Smudged. Phone Hewson.”

  Julius stood unmoving. Then he said:

  “I’ll try. They will have finished meditating by now. It’s just four. They may answer.”

  He turned to the telephone. From the corner of his eye Dalgliesh glimpsed the lifted receiver shaking in his hands, and the flash of white handkerchief which Julius had wrapped around the instrument as awkwardly as if trying to bandage a self-inflicted wound. After two long minutes the telephone was answered. He couldn’t guess by whom. Nor did he afterwards remember what Julius had said.

  “I’ve told them. They’re coming.”

  “Now the police.”

  “What shall I tell them?”

  “The facts. They’ll know what to do.”

  “But oughtn’t we to wait? Suppose she comes round?”

  Dalgliesh straightened himself up. He knew that for the last five minutes he had been working on a dead body. He said:

  “I don’t think she’s going to come round.”

  Immediately he bent again to his task, his mouth clamped over hers, feeling with his right palm for the first pulse of life in the silent heart. The pendant lightbulb swung gently in the movement of air from the open door so that a shadow moved like a drawn curtain over the dead face. He was aware of the contrast between the inert flesh, the cool unresponsive lips bruised by his own, and her look of flushed intentness, a woman preoccupied in the act of love. The crimson stigmata of the rope was like a double-corded bracelet clasping the heavy throat. Remnants of cold mist stole in the door to twine themselves round the dust-encrusted legs of table and chairs. The mist stung his nostrils like an anaesthetic; his mouth tasted sour with the whisky-tainted breath.

  Suddenly there was a rush of feet; the room was full of people and voices. Eric Hewson was edging him aside to kneel beside his wife; behind him Helen Rainer flicked open a medical bag. She handed him a stethoscope. He tore open his wife’s blouse. Delicately, unemotionally, she lifted Maggie’s left breast so that he could listen to the heart. He pulled off the stethoscope and threw it aside holding out his hand. This time, still without speaking, she handed him a syringe.

  “What are you going to do?” It was Julius Court’s hysterical voice.

  Hewson looked up at Dalgliesh. His face was deathly white. The irises of his eyes were huge. He said:

  “It’s only digitalis.”

  His voice, very low, was a plea for reassurance, for hope. But it sounded, too, like a plea for permission, a small abdication of responsibility. Dalgliesh nodded. If the stuff were digitalis it might work. And surely the man wouldn’t be fool enough to inject anything lethal? To stop him now might be to kill her. Would it have been better to carry on with the artificial respiration? Probably not; in any case that was a decision for a doctor. And a doctor was here. But in his heart Dalgliesh knew that the argument was academic. She was as beyond harm as she was beyond help.

  Helen Rainer now had a torch in her hand and was shining it on Maggie’s breast. The pores of the skin between the pendulous breasts looked huge, miniature craters clogged with powder and sweat. Hewson’s hand began to shake. Suddenly she said:

  “Here, let me do it.”

  He handed over the syringe. Dalgliesh heard Julius Court’s incredulous “Oh, no! No!” and then watched the needle go in as cleanly and surely as a coup de grâce.

  The slim hands didn’t tremble as she withdrew the syringe, held a pad of cotton wool over the puncture mark and, without speaking, handed the syringe to Dalgliesh.

  Suddenly Julius Court stumbled out of the room. He came back almost immediately holding a glass. Before anyone could stop him he had grasped the whisky bottle by the top of its neck and had poured out the last half inch. Jerking one of the chairs out from the table he sat down and slumped forward, his arms half circling the bottle.

  Wilfred said:

  “But Julius … nothing should be touched until the police arrive!”

  Julius took out his handkerchief and wiped it over his face.

  “I needed that. And what the hell! I haven’t interfered with her prints. And she’s had a rope round her neck, or haven’t you noticed? What d’you think she died of—alcoholism?”

  The rest of them stood in a tableau round the body. Hewson still knelt at his wife’s side; Helen cradled her head. Wilfred and Dennis stood one on each side, the folds of their habits hanging motionless in the still air. They looked, thought Dalgliesh, like a motley collection of actors posing for a contemporary diptych, their eyes fixed with wary anticipation on the bright body of the martyred saint.

  Five minutes later Hewson stood up. He said dully:

  “No response. Move her to the sofa. We can’t leave her there on the floor.”

  Julius Court rose from his chair and he and Dalgliesh together lifted the sagging body and placed it on the sofa. It was too short, and the scarlet-tipped feet, looking at once grotesque and pathetically vulnerable, stuck out stiffly over the end. Dalgliesh heard the company sigh gently, as if they had satisfied some obscure need to make the body comfortable. Julius looked round, apparently at a loss, searching for something with which to cover the corpse. It was Dennis Lerner who, surprisingly, produced a large white handkerchief, shook it free of its folds and placed it with ritual precision over Maggie’s face. They all looked at it intently as if watching for the linen to stir with the first tentative breath.

  Wilfred said:

  “I find it a strange tradition that we cover the faces of the dead. Is it because we feel that they are at a disadvantage, exposed defenceless to our critical gaze? Or is it because we fear them? I think the latter.”

  Ignoring him, Eric Hewson turned to Dalgliesh.

  “Where …?”

  “Out there in the hall.”

  Hewson went to the door and stood silently surveying the dangling rope, the bright chrome and yellow kitchen stool. He turned towards the circle of watchful, compassionate faces.

  “How did she get the rope?”

  “It may be mine.” Wilfred’s voice sounded interested, confident. He turned to Dalgliesh.

  “It’s newer looking than Julius’s rope. I bought it shortly after the old one was found frayed. I keep it on a hook in the business room. You may have noticed it. It was certainly hanging there when we left for Grace’s funeral this morning. You remember, Dot?”

  Dorothy Moxon moved forward from her shadowed refuge against the far wall. She spoke for the first time. They looked round as if surprised to find her in the company. Her voice sounded unnatural, high, truculent, uncertain.

  “Yes, I noticed. I mean, I’m sure I would have noticed if it hadn’t been there. Yes, I remember. The rope was there.”

  “And when you got back from the funeral?” asked Dalgliesh.

  “I went alone into the business room to hang up my cloak. I don’t think it was there then. I’m almost sure not.”

  “Didn’t that worry you?” asked Julius.

  “No, why should it? I’m not sure that I consciously noticed that the rope was missing at the time. It’s only now, looking back, that I am fairly confident that it wasn’t there. Its absence wouldn’t have particularly concerned me even had I registered it. I should have assumed that Albert had borrowed it for some purpose. He couldn’t have done so, of course. He came with us to the funeral, and got into the bus before me.”

  Lerner said suddenly:

  “The police have been telephoned?”

  “Of course,” said Julius, “I rang them.”

  “What were you doing here?” Dorothy Moxon’s didactic question sounded like an accusation, but Julius who seemed to have taken control of himself, answered calmly enough:

  “She switched the light off and on three times before she died. I happened to see it through the mist from my bathroom window. I didn’t come at once. I didn’t th
ink it was important or that she was really in trouble. Then I felt uneasy and decided to walk over. Dalgliesh was already here.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “I saw the signal from the headland. Like Julius, I didn’t feel more than slightly uneasy, but it seemed right to look in.”

  Lerner had moved over to the table. He said:

  “She’s left a note.”

  Dalgliesh said sharply:

  “Don’t touch it!”

  Lerner withdrew his hand as if it had been stung. They moved round the table. The note was written in black biro on the top sheet of a quarto-size pad of white writing paper. They read silently:

  “Dear Eric, I’ve told you often enough that I couldn’t stick it out in this lousy hole any longer. You thought it was just talk. You’ve been so busy fussing over your precious patients I could die of boredom and you wouldn’t notice. Sorry if I’ve mucked up your little plans. I don’t kid myself you’ll miss me. You can have her now and by God you’re welcome to each other. We had some good times. Remember them. Try to miss me. Better dead. Sorry Wilfred. The black tower.”

  The first eight lines were plainly and strongly written, the last five were an almost illegible scrawl.

  “Her handwriting?” asked Anstey.

  Eric Hewson replied in a voice so low that they could barely hear him.

  “Oh, yes. Her handwriting.”

  Julius turned to Eric and said with sudden energy:

  “Look, it’s perfectly plain how it happened. Maggie never intended to kill herself. She wouldn’t. She’s not the type. For God’s sake, why should she? She’s young enough, healthy, if she didn’t like it here she could walk out. She’s an SRN. She’s not unemployable. This was all meant to frighten you. She tried to telephone Toynton Grange and get you over here—just in time, of course. When no one replied, she signalled with the lights. But by that time she was too drunk to know exactly what she was doing and the whole thing became horribly real. Take that note, does it read like a suicide note?”