The Skull Beneath the Skin

by P. D. James

  Ambrose in Speymouth in July 1977. But that had been the year of his tax exile. Surely he had had to stay overseas for the whole of the financial year; she could remember reading somewhere that even to set foot in the United Kingdom would vitiate the non-resident status. But suppose he had sneaked back—and this picture proved that he must have done—wouldn’t that make him liable for all the tax he had avoided, all the money he must have spent on restoring the castle, acquiring his pictures and porcelain, beautifying his private island? She would have to find an expert, discover what the legal position was. There would be firms of solicitors in Speymouth. She could consult a lawyer, put a general question on tax law; there would be no need to be specific. But she had to know and there wasn’t much time. She glanced at her watch. Already it was ten minutes to five. The launch would be waiting for her at six o’clock. It was essential to get some kind of confirmation before she returned to the island.

  As she gathered up the unwanted cuttings and replaced them in the envelope and went downstairs to find Miss Costello, her mind was busy with this new knowledge. If Clarissa had realized the significance of that press photograph, why hadn’t anyone else? But then, why should they? Ambrose hadn’t lived on the island in 1977. He had probably visited it only rarely; it was unlikely that his face would be known locally. Those who knew him best lived in London and were unlikely ever to see the Speymouth Chronicle. And he had written his bestseller under a pseudonym. Even if someone living locally did recognize the picture, he was unlikely to realize that this was A. K. Ambrose, the author of Autopsy, who was supposed to be spending a year in tax exile. It was hardly the kind of thing one advertised. No, it had been his appallingly bad luck that Clarissa had been playing in Speymouth that week and had wanted to read her notice. And Clarissa had extorted her price for silence. Oh, it would have been subtly managed; there would have been nothing crude or blatant about this blackmail. Clarissa would have laid down her terms with charm, even a tinge of amused regret. But the price would have been demanded, and it had been paid. So much was clear to her now: why Ambrose had tolerated the disruption of his life by the Players, why Clarissa made use of the castle as if she were its chatelaine. Cordelia told herself that none of this proved that Ambrose was a murderer; only that he had a motive. And she held the proof of it in her hand.

  Afterwards it was to strike her as strange that never for one moment did she consider taking the cutting at once to the police. First she must get confirmation; then she must confront Ambrose. It was as if this murder investigation had nothing to do with the police. It was a matter between herself and Sir George who had employed her, or perhaps, between herself and the woman she had failed to protect. And Chief Inspector Grogan’s arrogant masculine voice rang in her ears: “You may be too bright for your own good, Miss Gray. You’re not here to solve this crime. That’s my job.”

  She found Miss Costello in her small back kitchen, folding her linen ready for ironing. She was happy for Cordelia to take away the cutting and said so without bothering to look at it or to take her attention from her pillowcases. Cordelia asked whether she could recommend a firm of local solicitors. This request did evoke a swift upward glance from the shrewd eyes, but still she asked no questions. Escorting her guest to the door she merely said: “My own advisers are in London, but I have heard that Blake, Franton and Fairbrother are considered reliable. You will find them on the esplanade about fifty yards east from the Victoria memorial. You would be wise to hurry. Little useful activity, professional or otherwise, goes on in Speymouth after five o’clock.”

  6

  Miss Costello was right. By the time Cordelia arrived, panting, at the polished Georgian door of Messrs. Blake, Franton and Fairbrother it was shut firmly against any further clients for that day. The lower rooms were in darkness, and although there was a light in the second storey, a name-plate on the side of the door showed that this part of the house was a separate flat. Even if it hadn’t been, she could hardly disturb a strange solicitor in his private house for advice on what was, on the face of it, hardly an urgent matter. Perhaps there was a firm which remained open until six; but how to find it? There was always the Yellow Pages, if the post office provided this directory in the provinces. She was ashamed to discover that, Londoner as she was, this was a fact she didn’t know. And even if she could find a directory which gave the names of local solicitors, there would be the difficulty of locating the offices without a town map. She seemed to have come on this excursion singularly ill-equipped. As she stood irresolute a young man came up bearing a carton of vegetables and pressed the bell of the flat. He said: “Closed are they?”

  “Yes, as you see. I wanted a solicitor in a hurry. It’s rather urgent.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing about solicitors. If you have to have ’em it’s usually urgent. You could try Beswick. He’s got an office in Gentleman’s Walk. About thirty yards down the street and turn left. He’s about half-way up on the right.”

  Cordelia thanked him and ran. Gentleman’s Walk was easily found, a narrow cobbled street of elegant early eighteenth-century houses. A brass nameplate, polished to the point of being almost indecipherable, identified James Beswick, Solicitor. Cordelia was relieved to see that a light still shone behind the translucent glass and the door opened to her touch.

  Seated at the desk was a fat, rather untidy woman with immense scarlet-rimmed spectacles, wearing a tightly belted suit in a brightly patterned cretonne of overblown roses and intertwined vine leaves which gave her the look of a newly upholstered sofa. She said: “Sorry, we’re shut. Call or ring tomorrow, ten o’clock onwards.”

  “But the door was open.”

  “Literally, but not figuratively. I should have locked it five minutes ago.”

  “But since I’m here … It’s very urgent. It won’t take more than a few minutes, I promise.”

  A voice from an upper room called out: “Who is it, Miss Magnus?”

  “A client. A girl. She says it’s very urgent.”

  “Is she comely?”

  Miss Magnus jerked her spectacles to the end of her nose and looked at Cordelia over the rims. Then she shouted up the stairs: “What’s that got to do with it? She’s clean, she’s sober and she says it’s urgent. And she’s here.”

  “Send her up.”

  The footsteps receded. Cordelia, suddenly assailed by doubts, asked: “He is a lawyer, isn’t he? A good one?”

  “Oh yes, he’s that all right. Nobody’s ever said that he isn’t a good lawyer.”

  The emphasis on the last word was ominous. Miss Magnus nodded at the staircase.

  “You heard him. First floor to the left. He’s feeding his tropical fish.”

  The man who turned to her from the window was tall and gangling with a lean, creased, humorous face and half-spectacles worn low on his long nose. He was sprinkling seed from a packet into an immense fish tank, not shaking it from the packet but pinching small quantities between his fingers and dropping the seed in a careful pattern on the surface of the water. There was a tumble of red and bright blue as the fish swirled together and snapped at the food. He pointed as one of the fish streaked to the surface in a blaze of polished bronze.

  “Look at him. Isn’t he a beauty? That’s the dawn tetra, an expensive little fellow from British Guyana. But perhaps you prefer the glowlight tetra. There he is, lurking under the shells.”

  Cordelia said: “He’s very beautiful, but I don’t much enjoy tropical fish in tanks.”

  “Is it the fish or the tanks or the conjunction you object to? They’re perfectly happy I assure you, at least one assumes so. Their small world has been artistically and scientifically devised for their comfort, and they get their food regularly. They sow not neither do they reap. Ah, there’s a beauty! Look at that flash of gold and green.”

  Cordelia said: “I wanted some urgent information. It isn’t about my affairs, it’s just a general inquiry. You do give that kind of advice?”

  “Well, it isn’t
usual. I’m not sure that it’s wise. Solicitors are rather like doctors. You can’t really generalize or deal in hypotheses; each case is unique. You have to know all the circumstances if you’re really going to help. That’s an interesting analogy, come to think of it; and I’ll go further. If your doctor tells you to go abroad at once you can always settle for sunny Torquay instead. If your solicitor suggests you go abroad, you’d be wise to make for Heathrow immediately. I hope you’re not in that precarious situation.”

  “No, but it’s about going abroad that I’ve come to consult you. I want to know about tax avoidance.”

  “Do you mean tax avoidance, which is legal, or tax evasion, which isn’t?”

  “The first. Suppose I came into a very large sum of money, all of it in one tax year. Could I avoid paying tax if I went abroad for twelve months?”

  “That depends what you mean by ‘came into a large sum of money.’ Are you talking about an inheritance, a gift, a football pool win, a sale of property or shares or what? You’re not contemplating a bank raid, are you?”

  “I mean earned income. Money I received by writing a successful play or a novel, or painting a picture or acting in a film.”

  “Well if you were sensible you would arrange your contracts so that the money wasn’t all received during the one financial year. That would be a matter for your accountant rather than for me.”

  “But suppose I didn’t expect it to be so successful?”

  “Then you could avoid paying tax on it by becoming nonresident for the whole of the subsequent financial year. Money earned in that way is taxed retrospectively as you probably know.”

  “Could I come home for a holiday or weekend?”

  “No. Not even for a day.”

  “Suppose I needed to? I might be homesick.”

  “I should strongly advise you not to. Tax exiles can’t afford the luxury of homesickness.”

  “But if I did come back?”

  He sighed.

  “If you really want an authoritative answer I would have to do some delving to see if there is any case law. And as I say, it’s more a question for a tax accountant than for me. My present view, for what it’s worth, is that you would become liable for tax on the income received during the whole of the preceding year.”

  “And if I concealed the fact of my return from the Inland Revenue?”

  “Then you could be prosecuted for attempted fraud. Probably they wouldn’t bother with that if the amount wasn’t large, but they would see that they got the tax due. I mean, they’re in the business of getting their hands on tax properly due.”

  “How much would that be?”

  “Well the present top rate on earned income is sixty percent.”

  “And in 1977?”

  “Ah, in those unregenerate days it was rather more. Eighty percent or more on an income of over twenty-four thousand of taxable income. Something like that.”

  “So they might ruin me?”

  “Bankrupt you, you mean. Indeed they might if you were so ill-advised as to spend all your previous year’s income in advance in the confident expectation that it wouldn’t be taxable. Death and taxation catch up with us all.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been very kind. Can I pay now? If it’s more than two pounds I’m afraid I’ll have to give you a cheque. I have a cheque card.”

  “Well, it hasn’t taken very long, has it? And I think Miss Magnus has balanced the petty cash and locked away the box. Suppose you have this consultation on me?”

  “I don’t think that would be right. I ought to pay for your time.”

  “Then put a pound in the doggy box and we’ll call it quits. When you’ve written your bestseller you can come back and I’ll give you some proper advice and charge you highly for it.”

  The doggy box was on his desk, the brightly painted model of a lugubrious spaniel holding between his paws a collecting tin bearing the name of a well-known animal charity. Cordelia folded in a couple of pound notes with the mental promise that she would charge only one to Sir George’s account.

  And then she remembered. There probably wouldn’t be any account. Perhaps she would return to the office poorer than when she had left. Sir George had reassured her that she would be paid, but how could she charge him for so tragic a failure; it would be too like blood money. And how on earth would her bill be worded? It was strange how many small complications the huge complication of murder threw up. She thought: even in the midst of death we are in life, and the petty concerns of life don’t go away.

  She reached the harbour with two minutes to spare. She was surprised and a little disconcerted to find that the launch wasn’t waiting, but told herself that Oldfield must have been kept by some job on the island; she was, after all, a little ahead of time. She sat on the bollard to wait, glad of the chance to rest, although her mind, stimulated by the excitements of the day, soon drove her to action. She got up and began restlessly pacing the harbour wall. Below her a sluggish tide sucked at the verdigrised stones and a swag of seaweed spread its gnarled and drowned hands under the darkening surface. Daylight was fading and the warmth died with the light. One by one the houses climbing the hill lit their glowing oblongs behind drawn curtains and the winding streets became festive with sparkling necklaces of light. The late shoppers and holidaymakers had gone home and she heard only the occasional echo of a solitary footfall on the harbour wall. The little town, as if regretting its hours of unseasonable frivolity, was settling into a chill autumnal calm. The smells of summer were forgotten and a rank watery smell rose from the harbour.

  She looked at her watch. She saw that it was six-thirty, and the time was immediately confirmed by the striking of a distant church clock. She walked to the harbour mouth and gazed towards the island. There was no sign of the launch and the sea was empty except for two or three late returning boats gliding with slackened sails towards their moorings.

  Still she paced and waited. Seven o’clock. Seven-fifteen. The evening sky, layered in mauve and purple, flamed into darkness, and the moon, pale as a tissue, shed a trembling path of light over the sea. In the distance, Courcy Island crouched like an animal against the paler hue of the sky. Night had distanced it. It was hard now to believe that only two miles of water separated that black and ominous shore from the lights, the gathered domesticity of the town. Looking out at it she shivered. Ambrose’s story came back into her mind with the primitive atavistic force of a childhood nightmare. She could understand why so many local fishermen down the ages had thought the island accursed. Almost she could picture that desperate sailor, fighting the onset of the plague and the fury of the sea, wild-eyed and exultant on his way to his dreadful vengeance.

  It was after seven-thirty now. Whether by accident or design, Oldfield wasn’t going to come. But at least she could leave the quay to ring the island and inquire without the fear of missing him. She remembered seeing two telephone boxes near the Victoria statue. Both were free, and when she had shut herself into the first she was glad to find that it hadn’t been vandalized. It was irritating that she hadn’t made a note of the castle number and for a moment she feared that Ambrose’s obsession with privacy might have caused him to be ex-directory. But the number was listed, although under Courcy Island, not his name. She dialled and could hear the ringing tone. Then the receiver was lifted, but no one replied to her voice. She thought that she could detect the sound of breathing but told herself that this must be imagination.

  She said again: “It’s Cordelia Gray here. I’m ringing from Speymouth. I was expecting the launch at six o’clock.” Still there was no reply. She spoke again, more loudly, but there was nothing but silence and the impression, eerie but unmistakable, that there was someone there, but someone who had lifted the receiver with no intention of speaking. She replaced the handpiece and dialled again. This time she got the engaged signal. The receiver had been taken off the rest.

  She made her way back to the harbour though now with little hope that the launch would b
e in sight. And then she saw that there were lights and signs of activity on one of the moored vessels. Standing on the edge of the quay she looked down at a shabby but sturdy wooden boat with a crudely constructed cabin amidships, brown sails and an outboard motor. The port and starboard lamps were lit and there was a dragnet heaped in the stern. It looked as if the sailor was preparing for a night’s fishing. And he must, she thought, have a small galley. The salty, mouth-watering tang of fried bacon rose from the cabin above the fainter pervasive smell of tar and fish. As she gazed down, a stocky and bearded young man squeezed through the cabin door and looked up, first at the sky and then at her. He was wearing a patched jersey and sea boots and was biting into a thick sandwich. With his cheerful ruddy face and shock of black hair he looked like an amiable buccaneer. On impulse she called down to him.

  “If you’re setting out, could you land me on Courcy Island? I’m staying there and the launch hasn’t come for me. It’s terribly important that I get back tonight.”

  He moved along the boat, still munching the wedge of greasy bread, and looked up at her with eyes which were shrewd but not unfriendly. He said: “They say there’s someone murdered there. A woman, isn’t it?”