The Skull Beneath the Skin (32 page)

They had taken her up to the bedroom and asked her to look round carefully but without touching anything, and say whether the room was as she would expect to find it, whether there was anything which struck her as unusual. She had shaken her head. Before leaving she had stood for a moment gazing over the chaise longue, the stripped and empty bed with a look which Buckley couldn’t fathom. Sadness? Speculation? Resignation? The right word eluded him. Her eyes were open but he thought he saw her lips moving. For a moment he had the extraordinary idea that she might be praying.

Back in the business room he had asked: “You were happy working for Miss Lisle? You liked each other?”

And that was as tactful a way as he knew of asking whether she had hated her employer enough to bash in her skull.

She had replied quietly: “We are used to each other. My mother was her nurse. She asked me to look after her.”

“And you can’t think of a reason why anyone should want to kill her. All one big happy family, were they?”

The attempt at Grogan-like sarcasm had been unsuccessful. She had met it with a brand of her own.

“There’s never a good reason for people to kill each other, even in happy families.”

He had had little more success with Mrs. Munter. She, too, had been a polite but unrewarding witness, saying as little as possible, resisting all his blandishments to entice her into volubility or indiscretion. Ambrose Gorringe had concealed his secrets, if any, with a spate of apparently artless conjecture. Miss Tolgarth and Mrs. Munter had concealed theirs with a silence and obstinacy which just avoided being overtly uncooperative. Buckley thought that Grogan could hardly have selected two more difficult witnesses for him to practise interrogation on. Perhaps that had been the idea. The impression they apparently wanted to convey was that murder, like most of the world’s violence, was a male concern from which, as women, they were only too happy to be excluded. From time to time he had found himself staring at them with what he was uncomfortably aware must have been obvious frustration. But human beings weren’t like school geometry problems. If you stared at them long enough, they didn’t suddenly make sense. He said: “Miss Tolgarth admits that she didn’t leave Miss Lisle until after Sir George had gone and that accords with his evidence. Miss Gray was in her own room so nobody saw her leave. She could have returned to the bathroom, pretended to busy herself with preparations for the bath, come back into the bedroom when Gray had left, and killed her mistress then.”

“The timing would be very tight. Mrs. Munter saw her downstairs in the pantry at one-twenty.”

“So she says. I got the feeling, sir, that those two are standing together. I got precious little out of either of them, Rose Tolgarth in particular.”

“Except one highly interesting lie. Unless, of course, the lady is less sharp-eyed than I give her credit for.”

“Sir?”

“In the bedroom, Sergeant. Think. You asked her if everything looked as she would expect to find it. Her answer was a nod. But visualize that dressing table. What among all that female clutter was missing, something which we would have expected to see, given the things which, in fact, we did see?”

But the launch bringing Roper and Badgett had actually touched the quay before Buckley was able to work out the answer to the conundrum.

And now, at last, the dreadful day was over. Soon after ten o’clock struck, one by one and with brief “goodnights,” they had crept silently to their beds. The casual night-time commonplaces had become unsayable—“I’m terribly tired. It’s been a long day. Sleep well. See you all in the morning,”—all bore a weight of innuendo, tactlessness or bad taste. Two women police officers had moved Cordelia’s things from the De Morgan room, a touch of delicacy which would have amused her had she been capable of being amused. The new bedroom was on the same gallery floor but on the other side of Simon and overlooking the rose garden and the pool. As she turned the key in the lock and breathed the stuffy, scented air Cordelia thought that it might not often be used. It was small, dim and cluttered and looked as if Ambrose had furnished it strictly in period for the edification of his summer visitors. The lightness and delicacy which he had achieved in so much of the castle was absent.

Every square inch of the walls was covered with pictures and ornaments and the ornate furniture, papier-mâché lined
with mahogany, seemed to press in on her, dark and threatening. The room felt musty but when she opened wide the window the sound of the sea burst in, no longer soporific and comforting but a steady menacing roar. She lay wondering whether she could summon up the energy to get out of bed and half close the window. But that was her last conscious thought before weariness took over and she felt herself drifting unresistingly down the long stream of tiredness into sleep.

At nine-fifteen Cordelia went into the business room to ring Miss Maudsley, wondering as she lifted the receiver whether the police would be listening in. But monitoring private telephone calls, even from the scene of a murder, counted as phone tapping and for that the consent of the Home Secretary was surely necessary. It was strange how little she knew about a real police investigation despite Bernie’s tutelage. It had already struck her that their legal powers were a great deal less extensive than a reading of detective fiction might suggest. On the other hand, their physical presence was far more frightening and oppressive than she would have believed possible. It was like having mice in the house. They might for a time be both silent and invisible but, once known to be there, it was impossible to ignore their secret and polluting presence. Even here in the business room the force of Inspector Grogan’s rebarbative personality still lingered, although all trace of his brief occupation had been cleared away. It seemed to her that the police had left the room tidier than they had found it, and this in itself was sinister. As she
dialled the London number it was difficult to believe that the call would go unrecorded.

It was a nuisance that Miss Maudsley in her cheap bed-sitting room had no private telephone. The single instrument was in the darkest and most inaccessible corner of the hall at Mancroft Mansions and Cordelia knew that she might have to wait for minutes until one of the other residents, driven mad by its insistent ring, came out to silence it, and that she would then be lucky if he understood English and luckier still if he were willing to trudge up four flights to call Miss Maudsley. But this morning her call was answered almost immediately. Miss Maudsley confided that she had bought her usual Sunday paper on the way home from eight o’clock Mass and had been crouching on the bottom step of the stairs wondering whether to ring the castle or to wait for Cordelia’s call. She was almost incoherent with anxiety and distress and the brevity of the press report hadn’t helped. Cordelia thought how chagrined Clarissa would be to learn that her fame, even after a violent death, didn’t justify top billing on a day when a spectacular parliamentary scandal, the death of a pop star from a drug overdose and a particularly brutal terrorist attack in Northern Italy had presented the editor with a surplus of candidates for the front page.

Miss Maudsley, her voice breaking, said: “It says that she was … well … battered to death. I can’t believe it. And it’s so horrible for you. Her husband, too, of course. That poor woman. But naturally one thinks of the living. I suppose it was some kind of intruder. The paper does say that her jewellery is missing. I do hope that the police won’t get any wrong ideas.”

And that, thought Cordelia, was as tactful a way as any of saying that she hoped that Cordelia herself wasn’t under suspicion.

Cordelia gave her instructions slowly, and Miss Maudsley made audible attempts to calm herself and listen.

“The police will be sure to check up on me and on the Agency. I don’t know the procedure, whether someone will call from the Dorset C.I.D. or whether they’ll get the Met to do it for them. But don’t worry. Just answer their questions.”

“Oh dear, yes I suppose we must. But it’s all so dreadful. Am I to show them everything? Suppose they ask to see the accounts? I did balance the petty cash on Friday afternoon, at least it didn’t balance exactly I’m afraid. Mr. Morgan, a delightful man, came to fix the name plaque.… He said that he’d leave the bill until you got back, but I sent Bevis for some biscuits for him to have with his coffee and he forgot how much they cost and we threw away the packet with the price on it.”

“They’re more likely to ask about Sir George Ralston’s visit. I don’t think the police will be interested in the petty cash. But let them see anything they ask for except, of course, the clients’ files. They’re confidential. And Miss Maudsley, tell Bevis not to try to be clever.”

Miss Maudsley promised in a voice which had become calmer; she was obviously making efforts to convey her total reliability to deal with whatever crises Monday might bring. Cordelia wondered which would be the more damaging, Bevis’s play-acting or Miss Maudsley’s passionate protestations that in no possible circumstances could dear Miss Gray be capable of murder. Probably Bevis would be intimidated by the physical presence of the law from the worst excesses of his histrionic talents unless, by some ill chance, he had happened recently to view one of those television documentaries devoted to exposing the corruption, brutality and racism of the police, in which case anything was possible. But at least she could be certain that, whoever visited Kingly Street, it wouldn’t be
Adam Dalgliesh. From the rarefied and mysterious heights of hierarchy which he now inhabited any such chore was unthinkable. She wondered whether he would read about the crime, whether he would learn that she was involved.

Nothing could have prepared Cordelia for the singularity of the rest of Sunday morning. As he was helping himself to his breakfast scrambled eggs, Ambrose suddenly paused, spoon in hand.

“My God, I’ve forgotten to cancel Father Hancock! It’s too late now. Oldfield will be on his way to fetch him.”

He turned to explain: “He’s an elderly Anglican priest who has retired to Speymouth. I usually invite him to take Sunday morning service when I have guests. People nowadays seem to feel the need of these ministrations. Clarissa liked him to come when she was here for a weekend. He amused her.”

“Clarissa!” Ivo gave a hoarse burst of laughter which shuddered his gaunt frame. “He’ll probably arrive at the same time as the police. So we explain to Grogan that we aren’t at his disposal for an hour or so because we’ll all be at Divine Service. I can’t wait to see his face. Admit that you didn’t cancel on purpose, Ambrose.”

“No, I assure you. It entirely slipped my mind.”

Roma said: “He probably won’t come. He’ll have heard of the murder by now—it’ll be all over Speymouth—and he’ll assume that you don’t expect him.”

“Don’t you believe it. If we were reduced by mass homicide to two and Oldfield were available to fetch him, he’d come. He’s nearly ninety and has his own priorities. Besides, he enjoys his sherry and luncheon. I’d better remind Munter.”

He went out, smiling his secretive complacent smile.

Cordelia said: “I wonder if I ought to change out of trousers.”

Ivo seemed suddenly to have found an appetite. He spooned out a generous helping of egg.

“Unnecessary, surely? I don’t suppose you’ve brought gloves and a prayerbook. Never mind, even if the props are missing we can still proceed to church in the approved Victorian fashion. I wonder whether the Munters and Oldfield will come to make a showing in the servants’ pew. And what on earth will the old man find to preach about?”

Ambrose reappeared.

“Well, that’s settled. Munter hadn’t forgotten. Will you all be coming or have we any conscientious objectors?”

Roma said: “I disapprove, but I don’t mind putting in an appearance if the object is to irritate Grogan. We aren’t expected to sing, are we?”

“Of course. There is the
Te Deum
and the responses and we have one hymn. Would anyone like to choose it?”

No one volunteered.

“Then I suggest ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way.’ We meet the launch at ten-forty.”

And so the astonishing morning got under way.
Shearwater
beat the police launch to the jetty by five minutes and Ambrose received a frail figure in cloak and biretta who alighted with remarkable sprightliness and gazed on them benignly from moist and faded blue eyes. Before Ambrose could make the introductions he turned to him and said: “I was sorry to hear of your wife’s death.”

Ambrose said gravely: “Yes, it was unexpected. But we weren’t married, Father.”

“Were you not? Dear me! Forgive me, I hadn’t realized. Drowned, I think they said. These waters can be very treacherous.”

“Not drowned, Father. She suffered a severe concussion.”

“I thought that my housekeeper said drowned. But perhaps I’m thinking of someone else. The war, perhaps. A long time ago, anyway. I’m afraid my memory is not what it was.”

The police launch shuddered to the quay and they watched while Grogan, Buckley and two other plainclothes officers alighted. Ambrose said formally: “May I introduce Father Hancock who is here to take Morning Service according to the rites of the Church of England. It usually lasts an hour and a quarter. You and your officers are, of course, very welcome to attend.”

Grogan said curtly: “Thank you, but I am not a member of your Church and my men make their own arrangements and in their off-duty time. I should be glad if we could again have access to all parts of the castle.”

“Of course. Munter will look after you. And I shall, of course, be available myself after luncheon.”

The Church received them into its archaic, multi-coloured silence. Simon was persuaded to seat himself at the organ and the rest of the party filed decorously into the high pew originally built for Herbert Gorringe. The organ was old, requiring to be pumped, and Oldfield was already there, hand at the ready. With the appearance of a surpliced Father Hancock the service got underway.