The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  Grogan had finished his drawing. The plan of the room was complete. Now, while they watched him in silence, he drew on the great bed a small sprawled matchbox figure with wisps of hair over the pillow. Lastly and with care, he blocked in the face. Then he put his great hand over the drawing and ripped out the page, crumpling it in his fist. The gesture was unexpectedly violent, but his voice was quiet, almost gentle.

  “Thank you, sir. You’ve been very helpful. And now, if you’ve nothing else to tell us, no doubt you’ll be wanting to go back to your guests.”

  7

  When Ivo Whittingham came into the room, Buckley, embarrassed, looked quickly down and began flipping back the pages of his notebook, hoping that Whittingham hadn’t caught his first look of horror and surprise. Only once before had he seen so gaunt a figure, and that was his Uncle Gerry in those last weeks before the cancer finally got him. He had felt as much affection for his uncle as he was capable of feeling and the protracted agony of his dying had left him with one resolution: if that was what the body could do to a man, then it owed something in return. From now on he would take his pleasures without guilt. He might have become a cheerful hedonist if ambition and the caution which went with it hadn’t been stronger. But he hadn’t forgotten either the bitterness or the pain. And Ivo Whittingham reminded him in another way. His uncle had looked at him with just such glittering eyes as if they burned with all that remained of life and intelligence. He glanced up as Whittingham seated himself stiffly, grasping the chair sides with his skeletal hands. But when he spoke his voice was surprisingly strong and relaxed.

  “This is unpleasantly reminiscent of a summons to one’s housemaster. Good seldom came of it.”

  It was an irreverent beginning which Grogan was unlikely to encourage. He said curtly: “In that case I suggest that we make it as brief as possible. I take it that you knew Miss Lisle well.”

  “You may take it that I knew her intimately.”

  “Are you telling me, sir, that she was your mistress?”

  “That hardly seems the right word for so spasmodic a liaison. Mistress suggests a certain permanence, even a measure of respectability. One is reminded of dear Mrs. Keppel and her King. It would be more accurate to say that we were lovers for a period of about six years as opportunity and her whim dictated.”

  “And did her husband know?”

  “Husbands. Our relationship outlasted more than one marital episode. But I imagine that you’re interested only in George Ralston. I never told him. I don’t know whether she did. And if you’re wondering whether he took his revenge the idea is ludicrous. Why should he wait until a higher power, or fate or luck, whatever you choose to believe in, is about to rid him of me permanently? Ralston isn’t a fool. And if you would like to ask whether I sent the lady on before me, the answer is no. Clarissa Lisle and I had exhausted each other’s possibilities on this bank and shoal of time. But I could have killed her. I had the opportunity; I was alone in my room conveniently close all afternoon. In case you haven’t already inquired, it’s on the same floor as Clarissa, a mere fifty feet away, overlooking the eastern front of the castle. I had access to the means since I had been shown the marble limb. I suppose I could have found the strength. And I think she might have opened her door to me. But I didn’t kill her and I don’t know who did. You’ll have to take my word for it. I can’t prove a negative.”

  “Tell me what she was like.”

  It was the first time Grogan had asked that question. And yet, thought Buckley, it was at the heart of every murder investigation, and, if it were possible to find the answer, most other questions would become superfluous. Whittingham said: “I was going to say that you’ve seen her face, but, of course, you haven’t. A pity. One needed to know the physical Clarissa to get any clue to what else there might have been to know. She lived intensely in and through her body. The rest is a list of words. She was egocentric, insecure, clever but not intelligent, kind or cruel as the mood took her, restless, unhappy. But she had certain skills which a gentlemanly reticence inhibits me from discussing but which weren’t unimportant. She probably gave more joy than she caused misery. Since that can’t be said of many of us, it’s unbecoming of me to criticize her. I remember that I once sent to her the words of Thomas Malory, Lancelot speaking to Guinevere: ‘Lady, I take record of God, in thee I have had my earthly joy.’ I don’t take them back, whatever she may have done.”

  “Whatever she may have done, sir?”

  “A form of words merely, Chief Inspector.”

  “So you mourn her?”

  “No. But I shan’t forget her.”

  There was a pause. Then Grogan asked quietly: “Why are you here, sir?”

  “She asked me to come. But there was another reason. One of the Sunday papers commissioned me to do a piece on the island and the theatre. What was wanted was period charm, nostalgia and salacious legend. They should have sent a crime reporter.”

  “And that was enough to tempt a reviewer of your eminence?”

  “It must have been, mustn’t it, since here I am.”

  When Grogan asked him, as he had the other suspects, to describe the events of the day, he showed signs of tiredness for the first time. The body sagged in its chair like a puppet jerked from its string.

  “There isn’t much to tell. We had a late breakfast and then Miss Lisle suggested we see the church. There’s a crypt with some ancient skulls and a secret passage to the sea. We explored both and Gorringe entertained us with old legends about the skulls and a reputed drowning of a wartime internee in the cave at the end of the passage. I was tired and didn’t listen very closely. Then back to luncheon at twelve. Miss Lisle went to rest immediately afterwards. I was in my room by quarter past one and stayed there, resting and reading, until it was time to dress. Miss Lisle had insisted that we change before the play. I met Roma Lisle at the head of the staircase as she came down from her room and we were together when Gorringe appeared with Miss Gray and told us that Clarissa was dead.”

  “And during the morning, the visit to the Church and the cave, how did Miss Lisle seem to you?”

  “I think I would say, Chief Inspector, that Miss Lisle was her usual self.”

  Lastly Grogan spilled out from the folder the sheaves of messages. One of them fluttered to the floor. He bent and picked it up, then handed it to Whittingham.

  “What can you tell us about these, sir?”

  “Only that I knew she was getting them. She didn’t tell me, but one does tend to pick up bits of theatre gossip. But I don’t think it was generally known. And here, again, I seem to be the natural suspect. Whoever sent these knew Miss Lisle and knew his Shakespeare. But I don’t think I would have added the coffin and the skull. An unnecessarily crude touch, don’t you think?”

  “And that is all that you want to tell us, sir?”

  “It’s all that I can tell you, Chief Inspector.”

  8

  It was nearly seven o’clock before they got around to seeing the boy. He had changed into a formal suit and looked, thought Buckley, as if he were attending his stepmother’s funeral instead of an interview with the police. He guessed that there was no more than eight years’ difference in their ages, but it could have been twenty. Lessing looked as neatly pressed and nervous as a child. But he had himself well under control. Buckley felt that there was something vaguely familiar about his entrance, the care with which he seated himself, the serious expectant gaze which he fixed on Grogan’s face. And then he remembered. This was how he had looked and behaved at his final interview to join the police. He had been advised then by his headmaster: “Wear your best suit, but no fountain pen or fancy handkerchief peeping coyly out of the jacket pocket. Look them straight in the eye, but not so fixedly that you embarrass them. Be slightly more deferential than you feel; they’re the ones with the job on offer. If you don’t know an answer, say so, don’t waffle. And don’t worry if you’re nervous, they prefer that to over-confidence, but show that you’ve
got the guts to cope with nervousness. Call them ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ and thank them briefly before you leave. And for God’s sake, boy, sit up straight.”

  And as the interview progressed beyond the first easy questions designed, Buckley could almost believe, to put the candidate at his ease, he sensed something else, that Lessing was beginning to feel as he had done: if you followed the advice, the ordeal wasn’t so bad after all. Only his hands betrayed him. They were broad and unpleasantly white with thick stubbed fingers, but narrow—almost girlish—nails cut very short and so pink that they looked painted. He held his hands in his lap and from time to time he would stretch and pull at the fingers as if he were routinely performing some prescribed strengthening exercise.

  Sir George Ralston remained standing with his back to them, looking out of the window through the partly drawn curtains. Buckley wondered whether the intention was to demonstrate that he wasn’t influencing the boy by word or glance. But the pose looked perverse, the more so as there was nothing in that still darkness which he could possibly see. Buckley had never known such silence. It had a positive quality; not the absence of noise but a silence which sharpened perception and gave importance and dignity to every word and action. He wished, not for the first time, that they were at headquarters with the sound of passing feet, of doors closing, of distant voices calling, all the comfortable background noises of ordinary life. Here it wasn’t only the suspects who were under judgment.

  This time Grogan’s doodle looked innocuous, even charming. He seemed to be redesigning his kitchen garden. Neat rows of chubby cabbages, climbing runner beans and ferntopped carrots grew under his hand. He said: “So after your mother died you went to live with her brother and his family and you were there when Lady Ralston came to visit you in the summer of 1978 and decided to adopt you?”

  “There was no formal adoption. My uncle was my guardian and he agreed that Clarissa would be … well, a kind of foster mother, I suppose. She took over the whole responsibility for me.”

  “And you welcomed that arrangement?”

  “Very much, sir. Life with my uncle and aunt wasn’t really congenial to me.”

  And that was an odd word for the boy to use, thought Buckley. It made it sound as if they’d taken the Mirror instead of The Times and he hadn’t been able to get his after-dinner port.

  “And you were happy with Sir George and his wife?” Grogan couldn’t resist the small note of sarcasm. He added: “Life was congenial to you?”

  “Very, sir.”

  “Your stepmother—is that how you thought of her, as a stepmother?”

  The boy blushed and glanced sideways at the silent figure of Sir George. He moistened his lips and said: “Yes, sir. I suppose so.”

  “Your stepmother has been receiving some rather unpleasant communications during the last year or so. What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing, sir. She didn’t tell me.” He added, “We don’t … we didn’t see a great deal of each other. I’m at school and she was often at the Brighton flat during the holidays.”

  Grogan pulled one of the messages from his file and pushed it over the desk.

  “That’s a sample. Recognize it?”

  “No, sir. It’s a quotation, isn’t it? Is it Shakespeare?”

  “You tell me, lad. You’re the one at Melhurst. But you’ve never seen one of these before?”

  “No, never.”

  “Right then. Suppose you tell us exactly what you did between one o’clock today and two-forty-five.”

  Lessing looked down at his hands, seemed to become aware of his nervous methodical stretching, and grasped both sides of his chair as if to prevent himself from springing to his feet. But he gave his account lucidly and with growing confidence. He had decided to swim before the play and had gone straight to his room after lunch where he had put on his swimming-trunks under his jeans and shirt. He had taken his jersey and towel and made his way across the lawn to the shore. He had walked on the beach for about an hour because Clarissa had warned him not to swim too soon after his meal. He had then returned to the small cove just beyond the terrace and had entered the water at about two o’clock or shortly after, leaving his clothes, towel and wrist-watch on the shore. He had seen no one during either his walk or his swim, but Sir George had told him that he had watched him coming ashore through his binoculars when he himself was returning to the castle after his bird-watching. Here he again glanced round at his stepfather as if inviting corroboration and again got no response.

  Grogan said: “So Sir George Ralston has told us. And what then?”

  “Well, nothing really, sir. I was on my way back to the castle when Mr. Gorringe saw me and came to meet me. He told me about Clarissa.”

  The last few words were almost a whisper. Grogan bent his ruddy head forward and asked softly: “And what exactly did he tell you?”

  “That she was dead, sir. Murdered.”

  “And did he explain how?”

  Again the whisper.

  “No, sir.”

  “But you asked, presumably? You betrayed some natural curiosity?”

  “I asked him what had happened, how she had died. He said that no one could be sure until after the post-mortem.”

  “He’s right. There’s nothing you need to know except the fact that she is dead, and that it must have been homicide. And now, Mr. Lessing, what can you tell us about the arm of the dead princess?”

  Buckley thought that Sir George gave an exclamation of protest; but he still didn’t interrupt. The boy looked from face to face as if the police had gone mad. No one spoke. Then he said: “You mean, in the church? We visited the crypt to see the skulls this morning. But Mr. Gorringe didn’t say anything about a dead princess.”

  “It wasn’t in the church.”

  “You mean, it’s a mummified arm? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a marble hand, a limb to be accurate. A baby’s limb. Someone has taken it from Mr. Gorringe’s display case, the one outside this door, and we’d rather like to know who and when.”

  “I don’t think I’ve seen it, sir. I’m sorry.”

  Grogan had completed his kitchen garden and was separating it from the lawn by a trellis and archway. He looked up at Lessing and said: “My officers and I will be back here tomorrow. We’ll probably be around for a day or two. If there’s anything that occurs to you, anything that you remember which is the least unusual or likely to help, however small and unimportant it seems, I want you to get in touch. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Grogan nodded and the boy got to his feet, glanced for the last time at the still back of Sir George and went out. Buckley almost expected him to turn at the door and ask whether he’d got the job.

  Sir George turned at last: “He’s due back at school on Monday morning before midday. Special leave. I take it he can go.”

  Grogan said: “It would be helpful to us, sir, if he could stay until Tuesday morning. It’s just a question of convenience. If anything does occur to him or to us it would be helpful to be able to clear it up quickly. But obviously he can go early on Monday if you think it important.”

  Sir George hesitated.

  “Don’t suppose a day will make much odds. Better for him, though, to be away from here, back at work. I’ll get in touch with the school tomorrow or Monday. He’ll need leave later for the funeral, but I suppose it’s too early yet to think about that.”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  Sir George was almost at the door when Grogan called softly: “There’s one other thing, sir, which I have to ask. Your relationship with your wife. Would you say that yours was a happy marriage?”

  The slim upright figure paused for a second, hand on the doorknob. Then Sir George turned to face them. His face was twitching violently, like that of a man afflicted with a nervous spasm. Then he controlled himself.

  “I find that question offensive, Chief Inspector.”

  Grogan’s voice was
still gentle, dangerously gentle. “In a murder investigation, we sometimes have to ask questions which people find offensive.”

  “It’s meaningless unless you ask both parties. Too late for that now. Not sure that my wife had the capacity for happiness.”

  “And you, sir?”

  He answered with great simplicity.

  “I loved her.”

  9

  After he had gone, Grogan said with sudden vehemence: “Let’s pack up and get out of this place. It’s getting claustrophobic. What time is the launch expected with Roper and Badgett?”

  Buckley looked at his watch.

  “It should be here within fifteen minutes.”

  Detective Constables Roper and Badgett were to be on duty in the business room, but for one night only. Their presence was almost a formality. No one at the castle had asked for police protection, nor did Grogan believe that they were in need of it. He had few enough officers without wasting manpower. The whole of the island including the secret passage to the Devil’s Kettle had been searched; if anyone still believed in the theory of the casual intruder it was apparent that he wasn’t now on Courcy. Tomorrow the police inquiries on the island would be complete and the investigation moved to an incident room at the Speymouth station. It was likely, thought Buckley, to be a tedious and less than comfortable vigil for Roper and Badgett. Ambrose Gorringe had offered a bedroom and had said that the two officers should ring for Munter if there was anything they needed. But Grogan’s instructions had been clear.