The Lighthouse

by P. D. James

  Five minutes later, his helmet bumped gently against the overhanging roof. This was the crux. It was a jutting shelf of splintered granite festooned with foliage. A gull had perched on the edge, bright-beaked, motionless in its sleek white-and-grey perfection, dominating the cliff and seeming oblivious to the sweating invader only two feet below. Then it rose in a tumult of battered air, and he felt rather than saw its white wings passing over his head. He knew that there would be a piton already in place at the top of the crack. If he failed to climb the roof, it would have to hold him. He found the peg, clipped on one end of a long runner and then called down, “Tight rope,” and felt it tighten. Looking down and using the tension on the rope for balance, he reached round the roof with his right hand and felt for a hold on the wall above. After thirty seconds of anxious scrabbling he found it, and then one for his left hand. Swinging into the air, he pulled up on his hands, found holds for his feet and got back into balance. He put another runner over a flake of rock and clipped on. He was secure.

  And now there was no more anxiety, only a remembered joy. The rest of the climb was steep, but the rock was clean with good holds all the way to the top. He hauled himself over the edge of the cliff and lay for a moment, exhausted, with the smell of earth and grass like a benison and the sand gritty against his mouth. He got to his feet and saw Kate coming towards him. Looking into her face, radiant with relief, he had to resist a ridiculous impulse to rush into her arms.

  She said, “Congratulations, Benton,” then turned away as if afraid to let him see what the strain of the last half-hour had done to her.

  He found the nearest large boulder, made a belay, clipped in, took hold of the rope and called down to Jago, “Climb when you’re ready.”

  Kate, he knew, would have dealt with the evidence while Jago was at the bottom of the cliff. The stone and the remnant of torn latex would already have been sealed in an exhibit bag. And now Jago’s life was in his hands. He felt an old exhilaration like a surge of the blood. This was what it was about: the shared danger, the mutual dependence, the fellowship of the climb.

  With astonishing speed, Jago was with them, hauling up and re-coiling the ropes, carrying the gear. He said, “You did all right, Sergeant.”

  He strode off with his gear towards the buggy, then hesitated and turned back. Walking up to Benton, he held out his hand. Benton grasped it. Neither spoke. They threw the climbing gear into the back of the buggy and got in. Kate took the wheel, turned the key in the ignition and made a wide sweep to trundle back towards the house. Looking at her face, Benton realised, in a moment of surprised revelation, that Kate could be called beautiful.

  7

  * * *

  All through the rest of Tuesday, part of Kate’s mind was in that unseen sickroom high up in the tower and she had to restrain herself from phoning Guy or Jo Staveley to enquire what was happening. But she knew that if there were anything to tell her they would find time to telephone. In the meantime, they had their job to do and she had hers.

  Mrs. Burbridge, finding what relief she could in domestic routine from the double peril of a murderer at large and a potentially fatal disease, asked what they would like for supper and whether it should be delivered to Seal Cottage. The thought was intolerable to Kate. To sit at the table where Dalgliesh had sat, seeing his rain jacket hanging in the porch, to feel his absence more strongly than his presence, would be like entering the house of the dead. Her apartment in the stable block was small but it would do. She was anxious, too, to stay close to the house and to have Benton next door. It wasn’t only a matter of convenience; she admitted to herself that she would feel reassured by having him near. With that realisation came another: he had become her colleague and partner. She told him what she had decided.

  Benton said, “If it’s all right by you, ma’am, why don’t I move my easy chair and anything else we need into your sitting room. Then we can use your apartment as the incident room and mine for meals. I’m quite good at cooking breakfast. And we’ve both got small fridges—large enough for milk anyway—which could be helpful if we’re working late and need coffee. The rest of the rooms in the stable block haven’t. Staff have to take what they need from the large fridge in the staff dining room. I’ve spoken to Mrs. Plunkett, and she can send over some salad and cold meats, or we can collect them. Would one o’clock be all right?”

  Kate wasn’t hungry, but she could see that Benton had his mind on food. And the lunch, when he fetched it, was excellent. The salad and cold lamb came with baked potatoes, followed by fruit salad. To her surprise she ate it avidly. Afterwards they sat down to discuss the future programme.

  Kate said, “We have to set priorities. We can begin by cutting down the number of suspects, at least for the present. Jo Staveley wouldn’t have killed Boyde, and nor, I think, would her husband or Jago. We’ve always assumed that Mrs. Burbridge, Mrs. Plunkett and Millie are in the clear. That leaves us with Dennis Tremlett, Miranda Oliver, Emily Holcombe, Roughtwood, Dan Padgett and Mark Yelland. Logically, I suppose, we should include Rupert Maycroft, but we’ll discount him for the present. We’re assuming of course that there’s only one murderer at Combe, but perhaps we should keep an open mind.”

  Benton said, “We’ve tended to discount Yelland, ma’am, or at least not to concentrate on him, but he hasn’t an alibi, and he had as much reason to hate Oliver as anyone on the island. And I don’t think we ought to eliminate Jago, at least not yet. And, of course, there’s still Dr. Speidel. We’ve only his word for the time of the assignation.”

  Kate said, “Let’s begin by concentrating on Tremlett, Roughtwood, Padgett and Yelland. All four disliked Oliver, but we’re up against the old problem as far as the first three are concerned: why wait until this weekend to kill him? And you’re right about Dr. Speidel. We need to question him again if and when he recovers, but God knows how long that will be.”

  They then went through the written statements. As they had expected, no one admitted to being on the headland after nine o’clock except for the Staveleys, who had had dinner at the house with Rupert Maycroft and Adrian Boyde. Boyde had joined them in the library for his usual pre-dinner tomato juice. He had seemed subdued and preoccupied, but that didn’t surprise them. He had been more upset than anyone over Oliver’s death. Afterwards he had only stayed for the main course, and had left, they thought, just before half-past eight. The Staveleys and Maycroft had coffee together in the library, then the Staveleys had left together by the front door for their cottage. They were a little vague about the time, but thought it was about half-past nine.

  Kate said, “We’ll see all of them individually tomorrow and see if there’s anything else to be got out of them. We need to check the times.”

  But there were other decisions that were more difficult. Ought they to ask all the suspects to hand over the clothing they had worn last night, and send it to the lab when Boyde’s body and the other exhibits were removed?

  As if sensing her dilemma, Benton said, “It seems pointless, ma’am, to start collecting clothes before we have a prime suspect. After all, unless we take the whole wardrobe, there’s no guarantee they’ll hand over what they were wearing. And Calcraft could have stripped to the waist. There was no hurry. He had the whole night to clean up after the job.”

  Kate said, “There could be prints on the taps and the shower in Chapel Cottage, but all we can do there is to keep the place secure and preserve the evidence until the technical back-up arrives, if ever. It almost makes me wish we were back in the old days, before our time, when the investigating officer would have an insufflator and equipment for fingerprinting in his murder kit and could get on with the job. But we’ll bag up the bathroom towels in the hope of DNA, and we need to send the cardboard box with the body. I don’t think we’ve got an exhibit bag big enough. We’ll have to get a plastic bag from the house. We’ll ask Mr. Maycroft, not Mrs. Burbridge.”

  It was three-thirty before the helicopter arrived, and as soon as it land
ed, they unlocked Benton’s apartment and wheeled out the stretcher. They had covered Boyde’s body with a sheet, obscuring the cope, although they knew it was unlikely that Mrs. Burbridge would have kept silent. Kate wished that she had bound her to secrecy. That was a mistake, but one which it was probably too late to rectify. Millie would ask about the cope the next time she was in the sewing room, and it was hopeless to expect discretion from Millie. They had mittened Boyde’s hands to preserve any possible evidence under the nails but had done nothing else to the body. Distanced they watched, standing side by side, as the masked figures zipped it into a body bag and lifted it and the exhibit bags aboard.

  Behind them, the house was absolutely silent, and they had no sense even of eyes watching from the windows. It was in curious contrast to the morning, when there had been constant activity as people moved into the house and the stable block. The buggy had lumbered to and fro, laden with the bags and books which Emily Holcombe considered necessary for her stay and the luggage from Peregrine Cottage, with Tremlett driving and Miranda Oliver sitting bolt upright in the buggy, every inch of her rigid body expressing disapproval. Yelland carried his bags, striding in through the back door of the house and speaking to no one. Kate thought it was as if the island were expecting an invasion, the barbarians already sighted, and everyone was seeking sanctuary in Combe House, preparing to make a last stand.

  But then both the Staveleys came out of the house, and Jago appeared, driving the buggy. Kate saw with a lurch of the heart that oxygen cylinders and two large boxes, obviously of medical equipment, were being carefully unloaded, and that Jago and Dr. Staveley were receiving them and placing them in the buggy. A table had been placed at some twenty yards from the helicopter, on which the formalities could be concluded without risk. With everyone masked and keeping their distance as far as possible, the business, including the handing over of the exhibit bags, took some time. Ten minutes later, the helicopter took off. Kate and Benton stood gazing up at it until it was out of sight, then turned silently away.

  The day wore on. There was little they could do now, as Kate had decided to leave the interviews until Wednesday. The day had been shocking for everyone. They had the written statements, and it would probably be unproductive to begin further questioning now.

  As daylight faded, she said, “I’m going up to the sickroom. It’s time we learnt what’s happening to Mr. Dalgliesh, and we need to know where the surgical gloves are kept and who had access to them.”

  She showered and changed before setting out, then went first to look at the sea, feeling the need for a few minutes of solitude. She both needed and feared an encounter with the truth. Dusk was falling fast, obliterating the familiar objects. Behind her the lights came on one by one in Combe House, but the cottages and all the stable block, except her and Benton’s rooms, were in darkness. The lighthouse was the last to disappear, but even when its shaft had blurred into a pale spectre, the waves were still a white curdle against the blackening cliffs.

  She unlocked the side door and passed through the hall to the lift. Moving upwards, she stared at her image. Her face seemed years older, the eyes tired. With her fair hair tightly brushed back, her face looked vulnerable, stripped for action.

  Jo Staveley was in the surgery. It was the first time Kate had seen it, but she had no eyes for the details except for the steel cabinets with their meticulously printed labels.

  She said, “How is Mr. Dalgliesh?”

  Jo Staveley, white-coated, was standing at a desk studying a file. She turned to Kate a face from which all vitality had drained. Closing the file, she said, “I suppose the orthodox reply is that he’s as well as can be expected, or I could say comfortable. Only he isn’t comfortable, and his temperature is higher than we would like. It’s early days. An erratic temperature may not be atypical. I’ve no experience in nursing patients with SARS.”

  “May I see him? It’s important.”

  “I don’t think so. Guy is with him now. He’ll be here in a minute. Why don’t you sit down and wait until he comes.”

  “And Dr. Speidel?”

  “He’ll live. Decent of you to ask. Most people seem to have forgotten him.”

  Kate said, without preliminaries, “What happens if visitors need something from the surgery—pills, a bandage, something like that?”

  The abrupt change of subject, the almost peremptory question, obviously surprised Jo. She said, “They’d ask me for it. There wouldn’t be any problem.”

  “But is the surgery open? I mean, could they come and help themselves?”

  “Not to the drugs. All the prescription drugs are locked up.”

  “But the surgery door isn’t locked?”

  “Even so, I can’t see people wandering in and out. If they did, they couldn’t do any harm to themselves or others. I keep some of the over-the-counter drugs like aspirin locked up too.” She was looking at Kate now with frank curiosity.

  Kate persevered. “And things like bandages or surgical gloves?”

  “I can’t think why visitors should want them, but they’re not locked up. If they did want them, I imagine they’d ask me or Guy. That would be courteous as well as sensible. They’d hardly help themselves.”

  “But you would know if any were missing?”

  “Not necessarily. There were things we needed when we were nursing Martha Padgett. Mrs. Burbridge helped occasionally. She’d take what she needed. Why all this curiosity? You haven’t found drugs, have you? If so, they didn’t come from this surgery.”

  “No, I haven’t found drugs.”

  The door opened and Guy Staveley came in. Jo said, “Inspector Miskin wants to see Mr. Dalgliesh. I’ve told her I think it’s unlikely to be possible tonight.”

  “I’m afraid not. He’s resting quietly at the moment, and it’s important he’s not disturbed. Perhaps sometime tomorrow, if his temperature falls and if he’s still here. I’m thinking of transferring him to the mainland tomorrow morning.”

  Kate said, “Didn’t he tell you that he wanted to remain on the island?”

  “He was pretty insistent about it, which is why I asked for the oxygen and other equipment I might need. Jo and I can cope at present, but if his temperature is still high in the morning I’m afraid he’ll have to be transferred. We haven’t the facilities here for a dangerously ill man.”

  Kate was sick at heart. She thought, And you’d rather he died in hospital than here. She said, “If he’s adamant he wants to stay, can you really transfer him against his will? Isn’t he much more likely to die if you do that?”

  There was a trace of irritability in Staveley’s reply. “I’m sorry but I can’t take the responsibility.”

  “But you’re a doctor. Isn’t it your job to take responsibility?”

  There was a silence, then Staveley turned away. Kate saw that Jo was looking intently at her husband, but neither of them spoke. Something to which she, Kate, could never be privy was being communicated. Then she heard him say, “All right, he can stay. And now I have to get back to him. Good night, Miss Miskin, and good luck with the investigation.”

  Kate turned to Jo. “Could you give him a message when he’s well enough?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Tell him that I have found what he thought we might find and that it’s been sent to the lab.”

  Jo said, without apparent curiosity, “Yes, I’ll tell him that.”

  There was nothing else Kate could do, and she found nothing else to say. Now she was faced with a second call to Emma. She could tell her that AD was resting quietly. That had to be good, that would surely give her some comfort. But for Kate, walking out into the darkness, there was none.

  8

  * * *

  At five o’clock on Thursday morning Kate was awake after a restless night. She lay looking out at the darkness, trying to decide whether to turn over and attempt another few hours’ sleep, or to accept defeat, get up and make tea. It promised to be a frustrating and disappointing
day. Her exhilaration at the discovery of the stone was waning. The forensic biologist might be able to identify the blood as Boyde’s, but where did that get them if the fingerprint expert couldn’t raise prints from the stone or the remnant of glove? The lab was giving the case top priority, but Kate had no hope that any bloodstains would be discovered on the cope other than Boyde’s. This murderer had known his business.

  It was all conjecture. Of the four suspects she and Benton were concentrating on, Roughtwood and Padgett were the ones who could get most easily to the lighthouse unseen, using the under-cliff. Tremlett—in Peregrine Cottage, north of the harbour—wouldn’t have had that advantage, but he was the suspect most likely to have read Speidel’s note. He could have seen Oliver leaving the cottage early and followed him, knowing that, once in the lighthouse, he would have to act quickly but that there was little chance of immediate discovery. He would have had the security of that bolted door and would probably have depended on what in fact had happened: Speidel, finding he couldn’t get in, had given up and gone away.

  Turning restlessly, she tried to plan the priorities for the coming day, weighed with an almost overwhelming conviction of failure. She was in charge. She would be letting down AD and Benton as well as herself. And in London, Harkness would already have been discussing with the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary what back-up could be provided on Combe without risk of infection, might even have discussed with the Home Office the advisability of the local force taking over the whole investigation. He had talked about giving her until Friday night. That was only two days away.