The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  “I should like to have a word with Miss Tolgarth alone. May I, please?”

  The woman didn’t reply but looked at her friend and was given a small nod. Without speaking, she left them.

  Tolly waited, patient, unsmiling, her hands folded before her. There was something which Cordelia would like to have asked first, but she didn’t need to. And she was less arrogant now than when she had first taken the case. She told herself that there were questions she had no right to ask, facts she had no right to be told. No human curiosity, no longing to have every piece of the jigsaw neatly fitted into place as if her own busy hands could impose order on the muddle of human lives, could justify asking what she knew in her heart was true, whether Ivo had been the father of Tolly’s child. Ivo who had spoken of Viccy with knowledge and love, who had known that Tolly had refused to accept any help from the father; Ivo who had taken the trouble to get in touch with the hospital and learn the truth about that telephone call. How strange to think of them together, Ivo and Tolly. What was it, she wondered, that they had wanted of each other? Had Ivo been trying to hurt Clarissa, or assuage a deeper hurt of his own? Was Tolly one of those women, desperate for a child, who prefers not to be burdened with a husband? The birth of Viccy, if not the pregnancy, must surely have been deliberate. But none of it was her business. Of all the things that human beings did together, the sexual act was the one with the most various of reasons. Desire might be the commonest, but that didn’t mean that it was the simplest. Cordelia couldn’t even bring herself to mention Viccy directly. But there was something she had to ask. She said: “You were with Clarissa when the first of the messages came, during the run of Macbeth. Would you tell me what they looked like?”

  Tolly’s eyes burned into hers with a sombre, considering stare, but not, she thought, with resentment or dislike. Cordelia went on: “You see, I think it was you who sent them and I think she might have guessed and known why. But she couldn’t do without you. It was easier to pretend. And she didn’t want to show the messages to anyone else. She knew what she had done to you. She knew that there were things even her friends might not forgive. And then what she hoped would happen did happen. Perhaps there had been some change in your life which had made you feel that what you were doing was wrong. So the messages stopped. They stopped until one of the small number of people who had known about them took over. But then they were different messages. They looked different. Their purpose was different. And their end was different and terrible.”

  Still there was no reply. Cordelia said gently: “I know I’ve no right to ask. Don’t answer me directly if you’d rather not. Just tell me what those first messages were like and I think I shall know.”

  Then Tolly spoke: “They were written by hand in capital letters on lined paper. Paper torn from a child’s exercise book.”

  “And the messages themselves. Were they quotations?”

  “It was always the same message. A text from the Bible.”

  Cordelia knew that she was lucky to have gained so much. And even this confidence wouldn’t have been given if Tolly hadn’t recognized some sympathy, some empathy between them. But there was one more question which she thought she might risk.

  “Miss Tolgarth, have you any idea who it was who took over?”

  But the eyes looking into hers were implacable. Tolly had told all she intended to tell.

  “No. I concern myself with my own sins. Let others look to theirs.”

  Cordelia said: “I shall never pass on to anyone what you’ve just said to me.”

  “If I thought that you would, I wouldn’t have told you.” She paused, and then asked in the same even tone: “What will happen to the boy?”

  “To Simon? He told me that Sir George will keep him on at Melhurst for his final year and that he’ll then try for a place at one of the colleges of music.”

  Tolly said: “He’ll be all right now she’s gone. She wasn’t good for the young. And now, if you’ll excuse me, Miss, I’d like to help my friend finish her packing.”

  3

  There was nothing more to be said or done. Cordelia left the two women together and went to her bedroom to get ready for the afternoon’s excursion. As her object was to search for the newspaper review, her full scene-of-crime kit was hardly necessary, but she slipped a hand magnifying glass, a torch and notebook into her shoulder bag and pulled her Guernsey over her shirt. It might be cold on the boat on the return trip. Lastly she wound the leather belt twice round her waist and buckled it tight. As always, it felt like a talisman, a girding on of resolution. As she crossed the terrace from the western front of the castle she saw that Mrs. Munter and Tolly were already making their way towards the launch, both of them carrying a case in either hand. Oldfield must only recently have landed. He was still dragging his crates of wine and groceries on to the jetty, helped rather surprisingly by Simon. Cordelia thought that the boy was probably glad of something to do.

  Suddenly Roma appeared from the dining-room windows and hurried down the terrace in front of her. She went up to Oldfield and spoke to him. The canvas post bag was on top of his trolley and he unbuckled it and took out the bundle of letters. Drawing close to them Cordelia could sense Roma’s impatience. It looked as if she might snatch the bundle from Oldfield’s gnarled fingers. But then he found what she was wanting, and handed her a letter. She almost ran from him, then slowed to a walk and, without noticing Cordelia’s approach, tore the envelope open and read the letter. For a moment she stood absolutely still. Then she gave a sob, so high that it was almost a wail, and began stumbling along the terrace, pushed past Cordelia, and disappeared down the far steps to the beach.

  Cordelia paused for a moment, uncertain whether to follow. Then she called to Oldfield to wait for her, that she wouldn’t be long, and ran after Roma. Whatever the news, it had devastated her. There might be something she herself could do to help. And even if not, it was impossible just to board the launch and set off as if the scene had never happened. She tried to silence the small resentful voice which protested that it couldn’t have occurred at a more inconvenient time. Was she never to be allowed to get off the island? Why should she always have to be the one to act as universal social worker? But it was impossible to ignore such distress.

  Roma was stumbling and reeling along the shore, her hands flung out before her, groping the air. Cordelia thought that she could hear a high continued scream of pain. But perhaps it was the cry of the gulls. She had almost caught up with the fleeing figure when Roma tripped, fell at full length on the shingle and lay there, her whole body shaking with sobs. Cordelia came up to her. To see the proud and reserved Roma in such an abandonment of grief was as physically shocking as a blow to the stomach. Cordelia felt the same rush of impotent fear, the same helplessness. All she could do was kneel in the sand and put her arms round Roma’s shoulders, hoping that this human contact might at least help to calm her. She found herself softly cooing as she might to a child or an animal. After a few minutes the dreadful shaking ceased. Roma lay so still that, for a second, Cordelia feared that she had ceased to breathe. Then she heaved herself clumsily upright and threw off Cordelia’s arm. Walking unsteadily into the surf she bent and began splashing her face. Then she stood upright for a moment, looking out to sea before turning to face Cordelia.

  Her face was grotesque, bloated as a long-drowned visage, the eyes like gummed slits, the nose a bulbous mess. When she spoke, her voice was harsh and guttural, the sounds forcing themselves through swollen vocal cords.

  “I’m sorry. That was a disgusting exhibition. I’m glad it was you, if that’s any comfort.”

  “I wish I could help.”

  “You can’t. No one can. As you’ve probably guessed, it’s the usual commonplace sordid little tragedy. I’ve been chucked. He wrote on Friday night. We only saw each other on Thursday. He must have known then what he was going to do.”

  She pulled the letter from her pocket and held it out.

  “Go on, read it! R
ead it! I wonder how many drafts it took to produce this elegant, self-justifying piece of hypocrisy.”

  Cordelia didn’t take the letter. She said: “If he hadn’t the decency and courage to tell you to your face, he isn’t worth crying over, he isn’t worth loving.”

  “What has worth to do with love? My God, why couldn’t he have waited?”

  Waited for what? thought Cordelia. For Clarissa’s money? For Clarissa’s death? She said: “But if he had, could you ever have been sure?”

  “Of his motive, you mean? Why should I care? I haven’t that kind of pride. But it’s too late now. He wrote a day too soon. Oh God, why couldn’t he have waited? I told him that I’d get the money, I told him!”

  A wave, larger than its fellows, broke at Cordelia’s feet and rolled a woman’s silver evening sandal among the brighter sea-washed stones. She found herself looking at it with an artificial intensity, making herself wonder what sort of woman had worn it, how it had come to be in the sea, from what wild party on what yacht it had been lost overboard. Or was its owner out there somewhere, a slim, half-clad body turning in the waves? Any thought, even that thought, helped to shut out the harsh unnatural voice which might any moment say those fatal words which couldn’t be taken back and which neither of them would be able to forget.

  “When I was a child I went to a co-educational school. All the children paired off. When the friendship cooled they used to send each other what they called a chuck note. I never had one. But then I never had a boyfriend. I used to think it would be worth getting the chuck note if only I’d had the friendship first, just for one term. I wish I could feel that now. He was the only man who has ever wanted me. I think I always knew why. You can only deceive yourself so far. His wife doesn’t much enjoy sex and I was a free fuck. All right, don’t look like that! I don’t expect you to understand. You can get love whenever you want it.”

  Cordelia cried: “That isn’t true, not of me, not of anyone!”

  “Isn’t it? It was true of Clarissa. She only had to look at a man. One look, that’s all it ever took. All my life I’ve watched her using those eyes. But she won’t any more. Never again. Never, never, never.”

  Her anguish was like an infection, strong and feverish and smelling of sweat. Cordelia could feel its contamination in her own blood. She stood on the shingle, afraid to approach Roma since she knew that physical comfort would be unwelcome, reluctant to leave her, miserably aware that Oldfield would be getting impatient. Then Roma said gruffly: “You’d better go if you want to catch the launch.”

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry. You can escape with an easy conscience, I shan’t do anything stupid. That’s the euphemism, isn’t it? Isn’t that what they always say? Don’t do anything stupid. I’ve been taught my lesson. No more stupidity, Roma! I can tell you what will happen to me, in case you’re interested. I’ll take Clarissa’s money and buy myself a London flat. I’ll sell the shop and find myself a part-time job. From time to time I’ll take a foreign holiday with a woman friend. We shan’t much enjoy each other’s company, but it will be better than travelling alone. We’ll devise little treats for ourselves, a theatre, an art show, dinner at one of those restaurants where they don’t treat solitary women as pariahs. And in the autumn I’ll enrol for evening classes and pretend an interest in throwing pots, or the Georgian architecture of London or comparative religion. And every year I shall get a little more fussy about my comforts, a little more censorious of the young, a little more fretful with my friend, a little more right-wing, a little more bitter, a little more lonely, a little more dead.”

  Cordelia would have liked to have said: “But you’ll have enough to eat. You’ll have your own roof over your head. You won’t die of cold. You’ll have your strength and your intelligence. Isn’t that more than three-quarters of the world enjoys? You’re not a Victorian shell-gatherer, waiting for a man to give purpose and status to your life. There doesn’t even have to be love.” But she knew that the words would be as futile and insulting as telling a blind man that there was always the sunset.

  She turned and walked away leaving Roma still staring out to sea. She felt like a deserter. It seemed discourteous to hurry, and she waited until she reached the terrace before breaking into a run.

  4

  No one spoke during the passage to the mainland. Cordelia sat in the prow of the launch fixing her eyes on the gradually approaching shore. Mrs. Munter and Tolly settled themselves together in the stern, their bags at their feet. When Shearwater finally berthed, Cordelia waited until they were ashore before herself getting up. She watched while the two women, side by side but still unspeaking, made their slow way up the hill towards the station.

  The town was less crowded and less busy than on the Friday morning, but it still held its slightly archaic air of cheerful sunlit domesticity. What she found extraordinary was to be so unnoticed. She had half expected that people would turn to stare at her, that she would hear the whispered word “Courcy” at her back, that she would bear an all-too-visible mark of Cain. How marvellous it was to be free of Grogan and his minions, at least for a few blessed hours, no longer one of that apprehensive, self-regarding coterie of suspects, but an ordinary girl walking an ordinary street, anonymous among the early afternoon shoppers, the last holiday visitors, the office workers hurrying back to their desks after a belated lunch. She wasted a few minutes in a chemist’s shop behind a charming Regency façade buying a lipstick which she didn’t need, taking more than usual care over her selection. It was a small gesture of hope and confidence, a salute to normality. The only mention she saw or heard of Clarissa’s death was a couple of placards advertising national dailies with the words “ACTRESS MURDERED ON COURCY ISLAND” written, not printed, under the paper’s name. She bought one at a kiosk and found a brief account on the third page. The police had given the minimum of information and Ambrose’s refusal to speak to the press had obviously frustrated them in making much of a story. Cordelia wondered whether, in the end, it would prove to have been wise.

  She learned from the news agent that there was now only one local paper, the Speymouth Chronicle, which came out twice a week on Tuesday and Friday. The office was at the northern end of the Esplanade. Cordelia found it without difficulty. It was a white converted house with two large windows, one painted with the words “Speymouth Chronicle” and the other filled with a display of newspaper photographs. The front garden had been paved to provide a parking space for half a dozen cars and a delivery van. Inside she found a blonde girl of about her own age presiding at a reception desk and simultaneously coping with a small switchboard. At a side table an elderly man was sorting pictures.

  Her luck held. She had feared that old copies of the paper might be kept elsewhere or might not be readily available to the public. But when she explained to the girl that she was researching into provincial theatre and wanted to look up the reviews of Clarissa Lisle’s performance in The Deep Blue Sea no questions were asked and no difficulties made. The girl called out to her companion to keep an eye on the desk, ignored a light on the switchboard, and took Cordelia through a swing door and down a steep flight of ill-lit stairs to the basement. There she unlocked a small front room from which the exciting musty smell of old newsprint rose to the nostrils like a miasma. Cordelia saw that the archives were bound in springback folders filed in chronological order on steel shelves. In the middle of the room was a long trestle table. The girl switched on the light and two fluorescent tubes glowed into harsh brightness. She said: “They’re all here, going back to 1860. You can’t take anything away and you mustn’t write on the papers. Don’t slip off without telling me. I have to come and lock up after you’ve finished. OK? See you later then.”

  Cordelia approached her task methodically. Speymouth was a small town and was unlikely to have a permanent theatre company. It was almost certain, therefore, that Clarissa had played with a repertory company during the summer season, most likely between May and Se
ptember. She would begin her search with those five months. She found no mention of the Rattigan play in May, but she did note that the summer repertory company, based in the old theatre, opened with each new offering on a Monday and played for two weeks. The first reviews appeared on a page devoted to the arts in each Tuesday’s edition, a commendably quick response for a small provincial paper. Presumably the reviewer telephoned his copy from the theatre. The first mention of The Deep Blue Sea appeared in an advertisement in early June, which stated that Miss Clarissa Lisle would be guest star for the two weeks beginning 18 July. Cordelia calculated that the notice would appear on the arts page, invariably page nine, on 19 July. She lugged the heavy bound volume containing the editions from July to September onto the table and found the paper for that date. It was larger than the normal edition, consisting of eighteen pages instead of the usual sixteen. The reason was made apparent on the first page. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had visited the town on the previous Saturday as part of their Jubilee Year provincial tour, and the Tuesday edition had been the first one following the visit. It had been a big day for Speymouth, the first Royal visit since 1843, and the Chronicle had made the most of it. The account on the first page stated that further pictures were shown on page ten. The words struck a chord of memory. Cordelia was now almost sure that the reverse side of the notice she had seen had been not newsprint but a picture.