The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  But now that success was so close she felt a sudden loss of confidence. All she would discover would be the review by a provincial reporter of a revival which hardly anyone in Speymouth would now remember. Clarissa had said that it was important to her, important enough to keep in the secret drawer of her jewel box. But that, with Clarissa, could have meant anything. Perhaps she had liked the notice, met the reviewer, enjoyed a brief but satisfactory love affair. It could have been as sentimentally unimportant as that. And what possible relevance could it have to her death?

  And then she saw that the sheet she wanted wasn’t there. She checked twice. No careful turning of the newspaper disclosed pages nine and ten. She bent back the thick wedge of newsprint where it was gripped by the binder. Down the margin of page eleven she thought she could detect a thin impression as if the paper had been faintly scored with a knife or razor blade. She got out her magnifying glass and moved it slowly over the bound edges. Now she could see it clearly, the telltale mark, in some places actually cutting the paper, showing where the sheet had been excised. She could detect, too, minute shreds of paper where the edge of page nine was still clasped in the binder. Someone had been here before her.

  The girl at the desk was busy with a customer inquiring, but without any visible signs of grief, how she went about inserting a death notice and how much extra a nice bit of verse would cost. She handed over a child’s exercise book and pointed out the rounded, laboriously formed letters. Cordelia, always curious about the idiosyncrasies of her fellow humans and for a moment forgetting her own concerns, edged closer and slewed her eyes to read:

  The pearly walls were shining,

  St. Peter whispered low,

  The golden gate was opened,

  And in walked Joe.

  This piece of extremely dubious theology was received by the girl with a lack of interest which suggested that she had read its like before. She spent the next three minutes attempting to explain what the probable cost would be including the extras if the notice were boxed and surmounted with a wreathed cross, a consultation which was punctuated by long considering silences as they both contemplated samples of the designs on offer. But after ten minutes all was satisfactorily decided and she was then able to turn her attention to Cordelia who said: “I’ve found the right edition but the sheet I think I want isn’t there. Someone’s cut it out.”

  “They can’t have. It isn’t allowed. Those are the archives.”

  “Well they have. Is there another copy?”

  “I’ll have to tell Mr. Hasking. They can’t go cutting the archives about. Mr. Hasking will be in a rare state about that.”

  “I’m sure. But I do need to see that page urgently. It’s page nine of the edition of 19 July, 1977. Haven’t you any other back numbers I could look through?”

  “Not here. The Chairman might have a set up in London. Cutting the archives! Mr. Hasking sets great store by those old copies. That’s history, that is, he says.”

  Cordelia asked: “Can you remember who last asked to see them?”

  “There was a blonde lady from London last month. Writing a book about seaside piers she said. They blew this one up in 1939 so the Germans couldn’t land, then the Council hadn’t any money to build it again. That’s why it’s so stumpy. She said they used to have a music hall on the end when she was a girl and artistes used to come down from London in the season. She knew a lot about piers.”

  Cordelia thought that a better equipped or more efficient private detective would have come with photographs of the victim and suspects for possible identification. It would have been useful to know whether the blonde woman who was so knowledgeable about piers looked like Clarissa or Roma. Tolly, unless she had disguised herself, surely an unnecessarily dramatic ploy, was obviously out. She wondered whether Bernie would have thought of photographing the house party unseen, prepared for just such an eventuality. She hadn’t herself felt such a tricky procedure was possible or useful. But she did, after all, have the Polaroid in her kit on the island. Perhaps it would be worth a try. She could come back tomorrow. She said: “And is the pier lady the only one who has recently asked to see the archives?”

  “While I’ve been here. But then, I’ve only been on the desk a couple of months. Sally could have told you about anyone before that, but she’s left to get married. And I’m not always on the desk. I mean someone could’ve come when I was in the office and Albert was on the desk.”

  “Is he here?”

  The girl looked at her as if astounded at such ignorance.

  “Albert? Of course he isn’t. Albert’s never here Mondays.”

  She looked at Cordelia with sudden suspicion. “Why d’you want to know who else has been here? I thought you were just after seeing that review.”

  “I am. But I was curious who could have cut out that page. As you said, these are important records. And I wouldn’t like anyone to think it was I. You’re quite sure there isn’t a copy anywhere else in the town?”

  Without looking round, the elderly man who was still arranging new photographs in the display frame with a deliberation and an eye for artistic effect which suggested that the job could well take the rest of the day, made his suggestion.

  “Nineteenth July, ’77 did you say? That’s three days after the Queen’s visit. You could try Lucy Costello. She’s kept press cuttings on the Royal family for the last fifty years. Isn’t likely she’d have missed the Royal visit.”

  “But Lucy Costello’s dead, Mr. Lambert! We had an article about her and her press cuttings the day after they buried her. Three months ago, that was.”

  Mr. Lambert turned round and spread out his arms in a parody of patient resignation: “I know Lucy Costello’s dead! We all know she’s dead! I never said she wasn’t dead. But she’s got a sister, hasn’t she? Miss Emmeline’s still alive as far as I know. She’ll have the cuttings books. Isn’t likely she’d throw them out. They may have buried Miss Lucy but they haven’t buried her press cuttings with her, not that I know of. I said to try her. I didn’t say speak to her.”

  Cordelia asked how she could find Miss Emmeline. Mr. Lambert turned away again to his photographs and spoke gruffly, as if regretting his former loquacity: “Windsor Cottage, Benison Row. Up the High Street, second left. Can’t miss it.”

  “Is it far? I mean, ought I to take a bus?”

  “You’d be lucky. Catch yer death you would waiting for that Number 12. Ten minutes walk at most. No trouble for a young ’un.”

  He selected a picture of a portly gentleman in a mayoral chain, whose sideways glance of salacious bonhomie suggested that the official banquet had more than fulfilled expectations, and positioned it carefully beside a photograph of a well-endowed and decidedly underclad bathing beauty, so that his eyes appeared to be gazing down her cleavage. Cordelia thought that here was a man who enjoyed his work. She thanked him and the girl for their help and set out to find Miss Emmeline Costello.

  5

  Mr. Lambert had been right about the distance. It was almost exactly ten minutes’ admittedly brisk walk to Benison Row. Cordelia found herself in a narrow street of Victorian houses curving above the town. Although there was a pleasing unity in the age, architecture and height of the cottages, they were charmingly individual. Some had bow windows, others had been fitted with wooden window boxes from which a profusion of variegated ivy, geraniums and aubrietia trailed their bright pattern against the painted stucco, while the two at the end of the row had bay trees in painted tubs set each side of the gleaming front door. Each had a narrow front garden set behind wrought-iron railings which, perhaps because of their delicate ornamentation, had escaped being sacrificed for scrap iron in the last war. Cordelia realized that she had never before seen a row of houses with their railings complete and they gave to the street, which was outwardly so English in its small-scale prettiness, a touch of charming but alien eccentricity. The little gardens rioted with colour, the warm deep reds of autumn seeming to burst against the railings.
Although it was late in the season, the air was a potpourri of lavender and rosemary. There were no cars parked at the curb, no throat-catching tang of petrol fumes. After the bustle and hot smells of the High Street, walking into Benison Row was like stepping back into the cosy simplicity of another and legendary age.

  Windsor Cottage was the fourth house down on the left-hand side. Its garden was plainer than the rest, a neat square of immaculate lawn bordered with roses. The brass door knocker in the shape of a fish gleamed bright in every scale. Cordelia rang the bell and waited. There was no sound of hurrying footsteps. Again she rang, this time a longer peal. But there was silence. She realized with a pang of disappointment that the owner was out. It had, perhaps, been stupidly sanguine to expect that Miss Costello would be waiting at home simply because she, Cordelia, wanted to see her. But the disappointment dragged at her spirit and filled her with a restless impatience. She was convinced now that the missing news cutting was vital, and only in this neat little house was there a chance of finding it. The prospect of having to return to the island with this clue unexplored, her curiosity unsatisfied, appalled her. She began pacing up and down outside the railings, wondering how long it might be worth waiting, whether Miss Costello would return, perhaps from shopping, or whether she had shut up the house and gone away for a holiday. And then she noticed that the two upper windows were open at the top, and her spirits rose. A middle-aged woman came out of the next-door house, looked up the road as if expecting someone, and was about to close the door when Cordelia ran forward: “Excuse me, but I was hoping to see Miss Costello. Do you know if she’s likely to be back this afternoon?”

  The woman replied pleasantly: “She’ll be at the Washateria, I expect. She always does her washing on Monday afternoons. She shouldn’t be long, unless she decides to have tea in the town.”

  Cordelia thanked her. The door closed. The little street sank back into silence. She leaned against the railings and tried to wait in patience.

  It wasn’t long. Less than ten minutes later she saw an extraordinary figure turn the corner into Benison Row, and knew at once that this must be Miss Emmeline Costello. She was an elderly woman, trundling after her a canvas-covered shopping trolley from the top of which bulged a plastic-covered bundle. She walked slowly but upright, her thin figure obliterated by a khaki army greatcoat so long that its hem almost scraped the pavement. Her small face was as softly puckered as an old apple and further diminished by a red-and-white-striped scarf bound round her head and tied under the chin. Over it had been pulled a knitted purple cap topped with a bobble. If such a superfluity of clothing was necessary on a warm September day, Cordelia could only wonder how she dressed in winter.

  As Miss Costello came up to the gate Cordelia moved to open it for her and introduced herself. She said: “Mr. Lambert of the Speymouth Chronicle suggested that you might be able to help me. I’m looking for a cutting from an old edition of the paper—19 July, 1977. Would it be an awful nuisance if I looked through your sister’s collection? I wouldn’t trouble you, but it really is important. I’ve tried the newspaper archives but the page I want isn’t there.”

  Miss Costello might present to the world an appearance of almost intimidating eccentricity, but the eyes which looked into Cordelia’s were sharp, bright as beads, and accustomed to making judgments, and when she spoke it was in a clear, educated and authoritative voice, which immediately and unmistakably defined her precise place in the complicated hierarchy of the British class system.

  “When you’re eighty-five, my child, don’t live on top of a hill. You’d better come in and have some tea.”

  In just such a voice had Reverend Mother greeted her when she had first arrived, tired and frightened, at the Convent of the Holy Child.

  She followed Miss Costello into the house. It was apparent that nothing would be done in a hurry and, as a supplicant, she could hardly insist that it was. She was shown into the drawing room while her hostess went off to remove several layers of her outer clothing and to make tea. The room was charming. The antique furniture, probably brought from a larger family home, had been selected to suit the room’s proportions. The walls were almost covered with small family portraits, watercolours and miniatures, but the effect was of an ordered domesticity, not of clutter. A mahogany wall cupboard inlaid with a pattern of rosewood held a few choice pieces of porcelain and, on the mantelshelf, a carriage clock ticked away the moments. When Miss Costello reappeared, wheeling a trolley before her, Cordelia saw that the tea service was in green decorated Worcester and that the teapot was silver. It was an occasion, she thought, on which Miss Maudsley would have felt perfectly at home.

  The tea was Earl Grey. As she sipped it from the elegant shallow cups, Cordelia had a sudden and irresistible impulse to confide. She couldn’t, of course, tell Miss Costello who she was or what she was really seeking. But the peace of the room seemed to enclose her with a warm security, a comforting respite from the horror of Clarissa’s death, from her own fears, even from loneliness. She wanted to tell Miss Costello that she came from the island, to hear a sympathetic human voice saying how awful it must have been, a comforting elderly voice assuring her in the remembered tones of Reverend Mother that all would be well. She said: “There’s been a murder on Courcy Island. The actress Clarissa Lisle has been killed. But I expect you know. And now Mr. Gorringe’s manservant has been drowned.”

  “I have heard about Miss Lisle. The island has a violent history. I don’t suppose these will be the last deaths. But I haven’t read the newspaper account, and, as you see, we don’t have a television set. As my sister used to say, there’s so much ugliness now, so much hatred, but at least we don’t have to bring it into our sitting room. And at eighty-five, my dear, one is entitled to reject what one finds unpleasing.”

  No, there was no comfort to be had here in this seductive but spurious peace. Cordelia was ashamed of the momentary weakness that had sought it. Like Ambrose, Miss Costello had carefully constructed her private citadel, less beautiful, less remote, less extravagantly self-indulgent, but just as self-contained, just as inviolate.

  Neither excitement nor impatience had impaired Cordelia’s appetite. She would have been grateful for more than the two thin slices of bread and butter provided, particularly as the meagreness of the meal bore no relation to its length. It was surprising that Miss Costello could take so long drinking two cups of tea and nibbling her share of the food. But at last they had finished. Miss Costello said: “My late sister’s press cuttings are in her room upstairs. She was a dedicated monarchist”—here Cordelia thought she detected a nuance of indulgent contempt—“and there was scarcely a royal occasion during the last fifty years which escaped her attention. But her main interest was, of course, in the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. I shall leave you to search on your own if I may. I am unlikely to be able to help you. But please don’t hesitate to call if you feel that I could.”

  It was interesting but not altogether surprising, thought Cordelia, that Miss Costello hadn’t troubled to inquire what she was seeking. Perhaps she regarded such a question as vulgar curiosity or, more likely, feared that it might only provoke one more intrusion of the disagreeable into her ordered life.

  She showed Cordelia into the front bedroom. Here Miss Lucy’s obsession was immediately apparent. The walls were almost covered with photographs of royalty, some of them half-effaced with scribbled signatures. On a long shelf over the bed was closely ranged a collection of Coronation mugs while a glass-fronted display cabinet was filled with other memorabilia, crested and decorated teapots, cups and saucers and engraved glass. The whole of the wall facing the window was fitted with shelves holding a collection of scrapbooks. Here was the famous collection.

  Each of the books was marked on the spine with the dates covered, and Cordelia was able, without difficulty, to find July 1977. The local press photographers had done justice to Speymouth’s big day. There was hardly an aspect of the Royal visit which had gone unrecorded. There
were pictures of the Royal arrival, the mayor in his chain, the curtseying mayoress, the children with their miniature Union Jacks, the Queen smiling from the Royal car, hand raised in the distinctive Royal wave, the Duke at her side. But there was no cutting which precisely fitted Cordelia’s memory of the shape and size of the missing piece. She sank back on her heels, the book open before her, and felt for a moment almost sick with disappointment. The microdots of grinning, anticipatory, self-satisfied faces mocked her failure. The chance of success had been slight, but she was chagrined to realize how much hope she had invested in it. And then she saw that hope was not yet lost. On the bottom shelf was stacked a row of stout manilla envelopes, each with the year written on it in Miss Lucy’s upright hand. Opening the top one, she saw that it also contained press cuttings, perhaps duplicates sent to Miss Lucy by friends anxious to help with her collection, or cuttings she had rejected as unworthy of inclusion but hadn’t liked to throw away. The envelope for 1977 was plumper than its fellows as befitted Jubilee year. She tipped out the medley of cuttings, most already fading with age, and spread them around her.

  And, almost immediately, she found it, the remembered oblong shape, the heading “Clarissa Lisle triumphs in Rattigan revival,” the third column cut down the middle. She turned it over. She didn’t know what she had expected, but her first reaction was one of disappointment. The whole of the reverse was taken up with a perfectly ordinary press photograph. It had been shot across the esplanade and showed the opposite pavement thronged with smiling faces, a row of children squatting on the curb, their flags at the ready, their more adventurous elders perched on window ledges or clinging to lamp posts. At the back of the crowd two stout women with Union Jacks round their hats stood on the steps of a house, holding up a sagging banner with the words, “Welcome to Speymouth.” Royalty hadn’t yet arrived but the picture conveyed the sense of happy expectation. Cordelia’s first irrelevant thought was to wonder why Miss Costello had rejected it. But then, there had been so many pictures to choose from, many in which the Queen was actually shown. But what possible interest could this not particularly distinguished photograph, this record of local patriotism, have for Clarissa Lisle? She looked at it more closely. And then her heart leaped. To the right of the photograph was the slightly blurred figure of a man. He was just stepping out into the road, obviously intent on some private business, oblivious of all the excitement around him, his preoccupied face staring past the camera. And there could be no doubt about it. The man was Ambrose Gorringe.