The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  She turned to Cordelia: “Just get anything you want from your room and let me have both the keys. I’ll set the alarm for two-forty-five so come up about then and I’ll let you know if there’s anything I want you to do during the performance. And don’t rely on being able to watch up front. I may want you backstage.”

  Cordelia left them still together and went into her room by the communicating door. As she substituted her long cotton dress for shirt and jeans, she thought about Roma’s extraordinary request. Why hadn’t she done the obvious thing and waited until after the performance when she might have hoped to catch her cousin in the euphoria of success? But perhaps she had seen this as the most propitious, perhaps the only possible time. If the performance were a fiasco Clarissa would be unapproachable; it was possible that she might even leave the island without waiting for a celebratory party. But surely Roma must have known her cousin well enough to see that whatever moment she chose, hers was a hopeless cause. What was she hoping for; that Clarissa would once again indulge in the grand generous gesture as she obviously had with Simon Lessing, that she wouldn’t be able to resist the insidiously gratifying role of patron and deliverer? Cordelia thought that two things were certain. Roma must be in desperate need of the money; and Roma, for one, wasn’t betting on Clarissa’s success.

  She brushed her hair vigorously, gave a final look at herself in the glass without enthusiasm, and locked her bedroom door leaving the key in the lock. Then she knocked at the communicating door and went through. The key to that door was in the lock on Clarissa’s side. Sir George and Tolly had left and Clarissa was seated at the dressing-table brushing her hair with long firm strokes. Without looking round she said: “What have you done with your key?”

  “Turned it and left it in the lock. Shall I lock the communicating door now?”

  “No. I’ll see to it. I want to check that you’ve locked your outside door.”

  Cordelia said: “I’ll stay within call. If you want me I’ll be at the end of the corridor. I can perfectly well get a chair from my room and sit there with a book.”

  Clarissa’s anger flared: “Can’t you understand English? What are you trying to do, spy on me? I’ve told you! I don’t want you next door and I don’t want you pussy-footing up and down the corridor. I don’t want you, or anyone, near me. What I want now is to be left in peace!”

  The note of hysteria was new and unmistakable. Cordelia said: “Then will you roll up one of your towels tightly and wedge it against the door? I don’t want any notes delivered to you by hand.”

  Clarissa’s voice was sharp.

  “What do you mean? Nothing has happened since I arrived, nothing!”

  Cordelia said soothingly: “I just want to ensure that it stays that way. If whoever is responsible should land on Courcy Island, he might make one last attempt to get a message to you. I don’t in the least think that it will happen. I’m sure it won’t. The notes have probably stopped for good. But I don’t want to take any risks.”

  Clarissa said ungraciously: “All right. It’s not a bad idea. I’ll block the bottom of the door.”

  There seemed nothing else to say. As Cordelia went out, Clarissa followed her, firmly closed the door on her and turned the key. The scrape of metal, the small click were faint but Cordelia’s keen ears heard them distinctly. Clarissa was locked in. There was nothing more that she could do until two-forty-five. She looked at her watch. It was just one-twenty.

  4

  There was only an hour and a half to be got through, but Cordelia found herself possessed of an irritable restlessness which made the slow minutes stretch interminably. It was a nuisance that her room was barred to her and that, before locking it, she had forgotten to pick up her book. She went to the library hoping to pass an hour with old bound copies of The Strand magazine. But Roma was there, not reading but sitting upright close to the telephone, and the look she gave Cordelia was so unwelcoming that it was obvious she was expecting or hoping for a call and wanted to take it in private. Closing the door, Cordelia thought with envy of Simon, probably even now enjoying his solitary swim, and of Sir George, striding out with his binoculars at the ready. She wished that she could be with him, but her long skirt was unsuitable for walking and, in any case, she felt that she shouldn’t leave the castle.

  She made her way to the theatre. The house lights were already on and the crimson-and-gold auditorium with its rows of empty seats seemed to be waiting in a hushed, portentous, nostalgic calm. Backstage, Tolly was checking the main women’s dressing room, setting out boxes of tissues and a supply of hand towels. Cordelia asked if she needed any help and received a polite but definite refusal. But she remembered that there was something she could do. Sir George, when he was at Kingly Street, had mentioned checking the set. She wasn’t sure what he had had in mind. Even if the poison pen managed to secrete a missive on the set or among the props, Clarissa would hardly open and read it in the middle of a performance. But Sir George had been right. It was a sensible precaution to check the set and the props and she was glad to have something definite to do.

  But all was well. The set for the first scene, a Victorian garden outside the palace, was simple: a blue backcloth, bay trees and geraniums in stone urns, a highly sentimental statue of a woman with a lute, and two ornate cane armchairs with cushions and footrests. At the side of the stage stood the props table. She checked over the assortment of Ambrose’s Victoriana assembled for the indoor scenes: vases, pictures, fans, glasses, even a child’s rocking horse. A suede glove stuffed with cotton wool was placed ready for the prison scene and did, indeed, look unpleasantly like a severed hand. The music box was here, as was the silver-bound jewel chest for the Second Act. Cordelia opened it, but no missive lurked in its rosewood depths.

  There was nothing else she could usefully do. There was still an hour before she was due to wake Clarissa. She walked for a time in the rose garden, but the sun was less warm here on the westerly side of the castle and, in the end, she returned to the terrace and sat in the corner of the bottom step leading to the beach. It was a small sun trap; even the stones struck warm to her thighs. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun, relishing the soft air on her eyelids, the smell of pines and seaweed, and soothed by the gentle hiss of the waves on the shingle.

  She must have dozed briefly, but was roused by the arrival of the launch. Ambrose and both the Munters were there to receive the cast, Ambrose already changed and wearing a voluminous silk cloak over his dinner jacket, which gave him the appearance of a Victorian music-hall conjurer. There was a great deal of excited chatter as the cast, some of the men already in Victorian costume, jumped ashore and disappeared through the archway which led to the eastern lawn and the main entrance to the castle. Cordelia looked at her watch. It was two-twenty; the launch was early. She settled down again but didn’t dare risk closing her eyes. And twenty minutes later, she set off through the French windows to call Clarissa.

  She paused outside the bedroom door and glanced at her watch. It was two-forty-two. Clarissa had asked to be called at two-forty-five but a few minutes could hardly matter. She knocked, quietly at first, and then more loudly. There was no reply. Perhaps Clarissa was already up and in the bathroom. She tried the door and to her surprise it opened and, looking down, she saw that the key was in the lock. The door opened easily with no obstructing wedge of towel. So Clarissa must have already got up.

  For some reason which she was never able afterwards to understand, she felt no premonition, no unease. She moved into the dimness of the room calling gently: “Miss Lisle, Miss Lisle. It’s nearly two-forty-five.”

  The lined and heavy brocade curtains were drawn across the windows, but brightness pierced the paper-thin slit between them, and even their heavy folds couldn’t entirely exclude the afternoon sun which seeped through as a gentle diffusion of pinkish light. Clarissa lay, ghostlike, on her crimson bed, both arms gently curved at her sides, the palms upwards, her hair a bright stream over the pillo
w. The bedclothes had been folded down and she was lying on her back, uncovered, the pale satin dressing gown drawn up almost to her knees. Lifting her arms to draw back the curtains, Cordelia thought that the subdued light in the room played odd tricks; Clarissa’s shadowed face looked almost as dark as the canopy of the bed, as if her skin had absorbed the rich crimson.

  As the folds of the second curtain swung back and the room sprang into light she turned and saw clearly for the first time what it was on the bed. For a second of incredulous time her imagination whirled crazily out of control, spinning its fantastic images: Clarissa had applied a face mask, a darkening, sticky mess which had even seeped into the two eye pads; the canopy was disintegrating, dripping its crimson fibres, obliterating her face with its richness. And then the ridiculous fancies faded and her mind accepted the stark reality of what her eyes had seen. Clarissa no longer had a face. This was no beauty mask. This pulp was Clarissa’s flesh, Clarissa’s blood, darkening and clotting and oozing serum, spiked with the brittle fragments of smashed bones.

  She stood at the side of the bed, shaking. The room was full of noise, a regular drumming which filled her ears and pounded against her ribs. She thought: I must get someone, I must get help. But there was no help. Clarissa was dead. And she found that her limbs were rooted, only her eyes could move. But they saw things clearly, too clearly. Slowly she turned them from the horror on the bed and fixed them on the bedside chest. Something was missing, the silver jewel casket. But the small round tray of tea was still there. She saw the shallow cup, delicately painted with roses, the pale dregs of tea with two floating leaves, the smear of lipstick on the rim. And beside the tray there was something new: the marble limb, thick with blood, resting on top of a sheet of white paper, the chubby blood-stained fingers seeming to pin it to the polished wood. The blood had seeped over the paper, almost obliterating the familiar skull and crossbones, but the typed message had escaped that insidious stream and she could read it clearly:

  Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out:

  The element of water moistens the earth,

  But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

  And then it happened. The alarm clock on the other bedside cabinet rang, making her leap with terror. Her limbs were galvanized into life. She dashed round the bed and tried to silence it, grabbing it with hands so shaking that the clock clattered on the polished wood. Oh God! Oh God! Would nothing stop it? Then her fingers found the button. The room was silent again, and in the echo of that dreadful ringing she could hear once again the thudding of her heart. She found herself looking at the thing on the bed as if terrified that the din had woken it, that Clarissa would suddenly jerk up stiff as a marionette and confront her with that faceless horror.

  She was calmer now. There were things she must do. She must tell Ambrose. Ambrose would have to ring the police. And nothing must be touched until the police arrived. She found herself looking round the room, noticing all the details with great intensity: the balls of cotton wool smeared with makeup on the dressing table, the bottle of eye lotion still unstoppered, Clarissa’s embroidered slippers neatly placed on the hearth-rug, her makeup box open on a fireside chair, her copy of the script fallen by the bed.

  As she turned to the door it opened and she saw Ambrose with Sir George behind him, his binoculars still round his neck. They stared at each other. No one spoke. Then Sir George pushed past Ambrose and moved up to the bed. Still without a word he stood gazing down at his wife, his back rigid. Then he turned. His face was taut, all its restlessness stilled, the skin almost green. Then he swallowed and put his hand to his throat as if he were about to retch. Cordelia made an instinctive movement towards him and cried: “I’m sorry! I’m so very sorry!”

  The words in all their futile banality appalled her as soon as she had uttered them. And then she saw his face, a mask of astonished horror. She thought: Oh, God, he thinks I’m confessing! He thinks I killed her.

  She cried: “You employed me to look after her. I was here to keep her safe. I should never have left her.”

  She watched the horror drain from his face. He said calmly, almost crisply: “You couldn’t have known. I didn’t believe she was in any danger, no one did. And she wouldn’t have let you stay with her, you or anyone. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “But I knew that the marble had been taken! I should have warned her.”

  “Against what? You couldn’t have expected this.” He said again, sharply as if he were giving a command: “Don’t blame yourself, Cordelia.”

  It was the first time he had used her Christian name.

  Ambrose was still at the door. He said: “Is she dead?”

  “See for yourself.”

  He moved up to the bed and looked down at the body. His face flushed a deep red. Watching him, Cordelia thought that he looked more embarrassed than shocked. Then he turned away.

  He said: “But this is incredible!” Then he whispered. “Horrible! Horrible!”

  Suddenly he darted to the communicating door and turned the knob. It was unlocked. They followed him into Cordelia’s room and through into the bathroom. The window to the fire escape was open as she had left it. Sir George said: “He could have got out this way and down the fire escape. We’d better organize a search of the island. The castle too, of course. How many men can we muster including those in the play?”

  Ambrose made a rapid calculation.

  “About twenty-five of the players and six of us including Oldfield. I don’t know whether Whittingham will be much use.”

  “That’s enough for four search parties, one for the castle, three to cover the island. It needs to be systematic. You’d better ring the police at once. I’ll get the men organized.”

  Cordelia could imagine the disruption that thirty or more people tramping over the house and island would cause. She said: “We mustn’t touch anything. Both these rooms must be locked. It’s a pity that you handled the door knob. And we’d better prevent the audience from landing. About the search, mightn’t it be better to wait for the police?”

  Ambrose looked uncertain. Sir George said: “I’m not prepared to wait. That’s not possible. It’s not possible, Gorringe!”

  His voice was fierce. His eyes looked almost wild. Ambrose said soothingly: “No, of course not.”

  Sir George asked: “Where’s Oldfield?”

  “In his cottage, I imagine. The stable block.”

  “I’ll get him to take out the launch and patrol the Channel between here and Speymouth. That’ll block any escape by sea. And then I’ll join you in the theatre. Better warn the men that I’ll be wanting them.”

  He was gone. Ambrose said: “It’s best that he has something to do to keep him busy. And I don’t suppose they’ll do any harm.”

  Cordelia wondered what Oldfield was supposed to do if he did intercept a boat leaving the island. Board it and tackle a murderer single-handed? And did either Ambrose or Sir George seriously expect to find an intruder on Courcy? Surely the significance of that bloody hand couldn’t have escaped them.

  Together they checked the door in Cordelia’s room leading to the corridor. It was locked from the inside with the key still in place. So the murderer couldn’t have left by that route. Next they closed and locked the communicating door. Finally they locked Clarissa’s room behind them and Ambrose pocketed the key. Cordelia said: “Are there any duplicate keys?”

  “No, none. The spare bedroom keys were missing when I inherited and I’ve never bothered to have others made. It wouldn’t have been easy, anyway. The locks are complicated; these are the original keys.”

  As they turned from the door they heard footsteps and Tolly appeared round the corner of the gallery. Acknowledging them with only a nod she went up to Clarissa’s door and knocked. Cordelia’s heart thumped. She looked at Ambrose, but he seemed bereft of speech. Tolly knocked again, this time more loudly. Then she turned to Cordelia.

  “I thought you were supposed to call her at two-forty-
five. She should have left it to me.”

  Cordelia said, through lips which were so dry and swollen that she thought they would crack: “You can’t go in. She’s dead. Murdered.”

  Tolly turned and knocked again.

  “She’s going to be late. I have to go to her. She always needs me before a performance.”

  Ambrose took a step forward. For a moment Cordelia thought that he was going to lay a hand on Tolly’s shoulder. Then his arm dropped. He said in a voice which seemed unnaturally harsh: “There isn’t going to be a performance. Miss Lisle is dead. She’s been murdered. I’m just about to ring the police. Until they arrive no one can go into that room.”