The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  The French windows had been shut against the chill of the autumn night and a thin wood fire crackled in the immense grate. But surely those fitfully leaping flames couldn’t account for the oppressive heat of the room? It seemed to Cordelia that it was getting hotter by the minute, that the heat of the day had been trapped and thickened, making it difficult to breathe, intensifying the smell of the food so that she felt faintly nauseous. And in her imagination the room itself changed; the Orpens splurged and spread into amorphous colours so that the walls appeared to be hung with crude tapestries and the elegantly stuccoed roof raised smoked hammer beams to a black infinity, open to an everlastingly starless sky. She shivered despite the heat and reached for her wine glass as if the physical feel of cool glass could strengthen her hold on reality. Perhaps only now were the full horror of Clarissa’s death and the strain of the police interrogation taking their physical toll.

  One candle wavered as if blown by an invisible breath, flickered, and went out. Simon gave a gasp, then a long terrified moan. Hands, half lifted to mouths, became motionless. They turned in a single movement and stared at the window. Silhouetted against the moonlight reared an immense form, its black arms flailing, hurling itself against the window. Its anger came to them faintly, something between a wail and a bellow. As they gazed in fascinated horror it suddenly ceased its frantic beating and was for a moment still, quietly looking in at their faces. The gaping mouth, raw as a wound, seemed to suck at the window. Two gigantic palms, fingers splayed, imprinted themselves on the glass. The pressed, distorted features dissolved against the window into a mess of slowly draining flesh. Then the creature gathered its strength and heaved. The doors gave, and Munter, wild-eyed, almost fell into the room. The night air rushed cool and sweet over their faces and the distant sighing of the waves became a surging tide of sound as if the swaying figure had been borne in on them by the force of a violent storm, bringing the sea with him.

  No one spoke. Ambrose got to his feet and moved forward. Munter brushed him aside and shambled up to Sir George until their faces almost touched. Sir George stayed in his seat. Not a muscle moved. Then Munter spoke, throwing back his head and almost howling the words: “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”

  Cordelia wondered when Sir George would move, whether he would wait until Munter’s fingers were actually at his throat. But Ambrose had moved behind and had seized the shuddering arms. At first the contact seemed to calm Munter. Then he gave a violent wrench. Ambrose said breathlessly: “Could one of you help?”

  Ivo had begun peeling a peach. He seemed totally unconcerned. He said: “I’d be no use in this particular emergency, I’m afraid.”

  Simon got up and grasped the man’s other arm. At his touch Munter’s belligerency left him. His knees buckled and Ambrose and Simon moved closer, supporting his sagging weight between them. He tried to focus his eyes on the boy, then slurred out a few words, guttural, unintelligible, sounding hardly English. But his final words were clear enough.

  “Poor sod. God, but she was a bitch that one.”

  No one else spoke. Together Ambrose and Simon urged him to the door. He gave no further trouble but went as obediently as a disciplined child.

  After they had left, the two men and Cordelia sat in silence for a minute. Then Sir George got up and closed the French windows. The noise of the sea became muted and the wildly flickering candles steadied and burned with a clear flame. Returning to the table he selected an apple and said: “Extraordinary fellow! I was at Sandhurst with a chap who drank like that. Sober for months at a time, then paralytic for a week. Torpedoed in the Med in the winter of ’42. Foul weather. Picked up from a raft three days later. Only one of the party to survive. He said that it was because he was pickled in whisky. D’you suppose Gorringe lets Munter have the key to his cellar?”

  “I shouldn’t think so.” Ivo sounded amused.

  Sir George said: “Extraordinary arrangement, a butler who can’t be trusted with the keys. Still, I suppose he has other uses. Devoted to Gorringe obviously.”

  Ivo asked: “What happened to him, your friend I mean?”

  “Fell in his own swimming pool and drowned. The shallow end. Drunk at the time, of course.”

  It seemed a long time before Ambrose and Simon reappeared. Cordelia was struck with the boy’s pallor. Surely coping with a drunken man couldn’t have been so horrifying an experience. Ambrose said: “We’ve put him to bed. Let’s hope he stays there. I must apologize for the performance. I’ve never known Munter to behave before in such a spectacular way. Will someone please pass the fruit bowl?”

  After dinner they gathered in the drawing room. Mrs. Munter had not appeared and they poured their own coffee from the glass percolator on the sideboard. Ambrose opened the French windows and one by one, as if drawn by the sea, they walked out on the terrace. The moon was full, silvering a wide swath to the horizon, and a few high stars pinpricked the blue-black of the night sky. The tide was running strongly. They could hear it slapping against the stones of the quay and the distant whisper of the spent waves hissing on the shingle beach. The only other sound was the muted footfalls of their walking feet. Here in this peace, thought Cordelia, it would be easy to believe that nothing mattered, not death, nor life, nor human violence, nor any pain. The mental picture of that splodge of battered flesh and congealed blood which had been Clarissa’s face, scored as she thought forever on her mind, became unreal, something she had imagined in a different dimension of time. The disorientation was so strong that she had to fight against it, to tell herself why she was here and what it was she had to do. She came out of her trance to hear Ambrose’s voice.

  He was speaking to Simon. “You may as well play if you want to, I don’t suppose a half hour of music would offend anyone’s susceptibilities. There must be something appropriate between a music-hall medley and the ‘Dead March’ from Saul.”

  Without replying, Simon went over to the piano. Cordelia followed him into the drawing room and watched while he sat, head bowed, silently contemplating the keys. Then, suddenly, hunching his shoulders, he brought down his hands and began playing with quiet intensity and she recognized the slow movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Ambrose called from the terrace: “Trite but appropriate.”

  He played well. The notes sang into the silent air. Cordelia thought it interesting that he should play so much better with Clarissa dead than he had when she was alive.

  When he had finished the movement she asked: “What’s going to happen, about your music I mean?”

  “Sir George has told me not to worry, that I can stay on at Melhurst for a final year and then go to the Royal College or the Academy if I can get in.”

  “When did he tell you this?”

  “When he came to my room after Clarissa was found.”

  That was a remarkably quick decision, thought Cordelia, given the circumstances. She would have expected Sir George to have had other things on his mind just then than Simon’s career. The boy must have guessed her thoughts.

  He looked up and said quickly: “I asked him what would happen to me now and he said that I wasn’t to worry, that nothing would change, that I could go back to school and then on to the Royal College. I was frightened and shocked and I think he was trying to reassure me.”

  But not so shocked that he hadn’t thought first of himself. She told herself that the criticism was unworthy and tried to put it out of her mind. It had, after all, been a natural childish reaction to tragedy. What will happen to me? How will this affect my life? Wasn’t that what everyone wanted to know? He had at least been honest in asking it aloud. She said: “I’m glad, if that’s what you want.”

  “I want it. I don’t think she did. I’m not sure I ought to do something she wouldn’t have approved of.”

  “You can’t live your life on that basis. You have to make your own decisions. She couldn’t make them for you even when she was alive. It’s silly to expect her to make them now that she’s dead.”


  “But it’s her money.”

  “I suppose it will be Sir George’s money now. If it doesn’t worry him I don’t see why it need worry you.”

  Watching the avid eyes desperately gazing into hers Cordelia felt that she was failing him, that he was looking to her for sympathy, for some reassurance that he could take what he wanted from life and take it without guilt. But wasn’t that what everyone craved? Part of her wanted to respond to his need; but part of her was tempted to say: “You’ve taken so much. Why jib at taking this?” She said: “I suppose if you want to salve your conscience about the money more than you want to be a professional pianist, then you’d better give up now.”

  His voice was suddenly humble.

  “I’m not all that good, you know. She knew that. She wasn’t a musician, but she knew. Clarissa could smell failure.”

  “Oh well, that’s a different issue, whether you’re good enough or not. I think you play very well, but I can’t really judge. I don’t suppose that Clarissa could either. But the people at the colleges of music can. If they think you’re worth accepting, then they must think you have at least a chance of making a career in music. After all, they know what the competition’s like.”

  He looked quickly round the room and then said, his voice low: “Do you mind if I talk to you? There are three things I must ask you.”

  “We are talking.”

  “But not here. Somewhere private.”

  “This is private. The others don’t seem likely to come in. Is it going to take long?”

  “I want you to tell me what happened to her, how she looked when you found her. I didn’t see her, and I keep lying awake and imagining. If I knew it wouldn’t be so awful. Nothing is as awful as the things I imagine.”

  “Didn’t the police tell you? Or Sir George?”

  “No one told me. I did ask Ambrose but he wouldn’t say.”

  And the police would, of course, have had their own reasons for keeping silent about the details of the murder. But they had interviewed him by now. She didn’t see that it mattered any more whether he knew or not. And she could understand the horror of those nightly imaginings. But there was no way in which she could make the brutal truth sound gentle. She said: “Her face was battered in.”

  He was silent. He didn’t ask how or with what. She said: “She was lying quite peacefully on the bed, almost as if she were asleep. I’m sure she didn’t suffer. If it were done by someone she knew, someone she trusted, she probably didn’t even have time to feel afraid.”

  “Could you recognize her face at all?”

  “No.”

  “The police asked me if I’d taken anything from a display cabinet, a marble hand. Does that mean they think it was the weapon?”

  “Yes.”

  It was too late now to wish that she’d kept quiet. She said: “It was found by the bed. It was … it looked as if it had been used.”

  He whispered, “Thank you,” but so quietly that she had difficulty in hearing him. After a moment she said: “You said there were three things.”

  He looked up eagerly as if glad that his mood had been broken. “Yes, it’s Tolly. On Friday when I went swimming while the rest of you toured the castle, she waited for me on the shore. She wanted to persuade me to leave Clarissa and live with her. She said that I could go straight away and that she had a room in her flat I could have until I’d found myself a job. She said that Clarissa might die.”

  “Did she say how or why?”

  “No. Only that Clarissa thought she was going to die and that people who thought that often did die.” He looked straight at her. “And next day, Clarissa did die. And I don’t know whether I ought to tell the police what happened, about waiting for me, what she said.”

  “If Tolly were actually planning to murder Clarissa she’d hardly warn you in advance. She was probably trying to tell you that you couldn’t rely on Clarissa, that she might change her mind about you, that she might not always be there.”

  “I think she did know. I think she guessed. Ought I to tell the Chief Inspector? I mean, it is evidence, isn’t it? Suppose he found out that I’d been keeping something back?”

  “Have you told anyone?”

  “No. Only you.”

  “You must do what you think is right.”

  “But I don’t know what’s right! What would you do if you were in my place?”

  “I wouldn’t tell. But then I have a reason. If you feel that it’s right to tell, then tell. If it’s any comfort to you, I don’t think the police will arrest Tolly on that evidence alone and they haven’t any other, at least as far as I know.”

  “But she’d know that I must have told them! What would she think of me? I don’t think I could face her after that.”

  “You might not have to. I don’t suppose she’ll stay on now that Clarissa’s dead.”

  “So you would tell if you were me?”

  Cordelia’s patience snapped. It had been a long day ending in the trauma of Munter’s dramatic appearance and she was weary in spirit as well as body. And it was difficult to sympathize with Simon’s obsessive self-concern.

  “I’ve told you. I wouldn’t tell. But I’m not you. It’s your responsibility and you can’t force it on anyone else. Surely there’s something you’re capable of deciding for yourself.”

  She regretted the unkindness almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She turned her eyes from his scarlet face and stricken, dog-like eyes and said: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I suppose we’re all on edge. Wasn’t there a third thing you wanted to ask?”

  He whispered, his mouth trembling: “No. There’s nothing else. Thank you.”

  He got up and closed the piano. He added quietly and with some attempt at dignity: “If anyone asks about me, I’ve gone to bed.”

  Unexpectedly, Cordelia found that she, too, was close to tears. Torn between irritation and pity and despising her own weakness she decided to follow Simon’s example. The day had gone on long enough. She went out on the terrace to say goodnight. The three black-clad figures were standing apart, silhouetted against the iridescence of the sea, motionless as bronze statues. At her approach they simultaneously turned and she could feel the concentrated gaze of three pairs of eyes. No one moved or spoke. The moment of moonlit silence seemed to her protracted, almost ominous, and as she said her goodnights the thought that for the past twenty-four hours she had tried to suppress surfaced in all its stark and frightening logic. “We are here together, ten of us on this small and lonely island. And one of us is a murderer.”

  4

  Cordelia fell asleep almost as soon as she had closed her book and put out the bedside light. But her awakening was as sudden. She lay for a moment confused and then put out her hand and found the switch. Her wristwatch, curled on the bedside table, showed her that it was just after three-thirty, far too early, surely, for her to have woken naturally. She thought that her sleep had been pierced by some sound, perhaps the shriek of a night bird. The moonlight streamed through the half-drawn curtains cutting a swath of light over the ceiling and walls. The silence was absolute except for the pulse of the plangent sea, louder now than in the stir of the daylight hours. Her mind, still drugged with sleep, took hold of the tag end of a dream. She had been back in Kingly Street and Miss Maudsley had been showing her with pride a newly rescued kitten. As is the way of dreams, she found it unsurprising that the kitten should be sleeping in a carved cradle with a red canopy and side curtains, a miniature of Clarissa’s bed, or that, when she peered into the cot and pulled aside the shawl she should see, not a kitten but a baby and should know that this was Miss Maudsley’s illegitimate child and that she must be very tactful and not betray that she knew. She smiled at the memory, put out the light and tried to relax into sleep.

  But this time it was elusive. Once woken, she was restless. Her mind busied itself again with the mystery and horror of Clarissa’s death. Image succeeded image, unsought but insistent, disconnect
ed in time but horribly clear: Clarissa’s satin-clad body gleaming pale under the crimson canopy; Clarissa gazing down into the swirl of water at the Devil’s Kettle; Clarissa’s slim figure passing to and fro on the terrace, pale as a ghost; Clarissa standing on the pier and stretching her arms bat-winged in welcome; Clarissa removing her makeup, turning on Cordelia one naked and diminished eye in a freakish, strange and discordant gaze which seemed now to hold a look of sad reproach.

  Her mind held that last picture as if unwilling to let it fade. Something about it was significant, something that she ought to have known or remembered. And then the realization came. She saw again the dressing table, the balls of cotton wool smeared with makeup, the smaller pads shifting across the mahogany, blackened with mascara. Clarissa had used a special lotion to cleanse her eyes. But those pads hadn’t been on the dressing table when her body was discovered. Perhaps she hadn’t troubled to remove her eye makeup. Was that something which the forensic pathologist would be able to detect even beneath that shattered and swollen flesh? But why should she take off her powder and foundation and leave her eyes under a weight of shadow and mascara, particularly as she proposed to rest them under the moistened pads. But wasn’t there another possibility, that she had kept on all her makeup because she was expecting a visitor and that it had been the visitor who had wiped her face clean before smashing it to pulp? And that implied a man. A man was surely the most likely secret visitor. Clarissa was too obsessed with her appearance to meet even a woman with a naked face. But wouldn’t a woman be more likely to realize that she must use the special pads to remove the eye makeup? Tolly would have known it certainly. But Roma? Roma’s eyes were devoid of mascara and in the urgency and terror of the moment she would be unlikely to make a close inventory of the bottles on the dressing table. A man was still the most likely to make such a mistake, except perhaps Ivo with his knowledge of theatrical makeup. But the strangest part of it all was surely Tolly’s silence. The police must have questioned her about the makeup, must have asked her if everything on the dressing-table looked normal. And that meant that Tolly had held her tongue. Why and for whom?