The Skull Beneath the Skin (34 page)

He was glad to get out at last into the fresh air. It wasn’t that the p.m. room stank. It would have been less objectionable to him if it had. Buckley strongly disliked the smell of disinfectant which overlay rather than masked the smell of putrefaction. The smell was elusive but persistent and tended to linger in his nose.

The mortuary was a modern building on upper ground to the west of the little town, and as they made their way to their Rover they could see the lights coming on like glow worms along the curving streets and the dark form of Courcy Island lying supine as a half-submerged and sleeping animal, far out to sea. It was odd, thought Buckley, how the island seemed to draw closer or recede depending on the light and the time of day. In the mellow autumnal sunshine it had lain in a blue haze, looking so near that he could imagine it possible to swim to that multi-coloured and tranquil shore. Now it had drawn far into the Channel, remote and sinister, an island of mystery and horror. The castle was on its southern shore and no lights beckoned. He wondered what the small company of suspects was doing at this moment, how they would face the long night ahead. It was his guess that all but one of them would sleep behind locked doors.

Grogan came up to him. Nodding towards the island he said: “So now we know what one of them knew already, how she died. Stripped of Doc Ellis-Jones’s technical chat about the mechanics of force and the local absorption of kinetic energy
in injuries to the head, not to mention the interesting and characteristic pattern in which the skull disintegrates under the weight of impact, what have we? Much as we expected. She died from a depressed fracture of the front of the skull made with our old friend, a blunt instrument. She was probably lying on her back at the time, much as Miss Gray found her. The bleeding was steady but almost entirely internal and the effect of the blow was intensified by the fact that the bones of the skull are thinner than normal. Unconsciousness supervened almost immediately and she died within five to fifteen minutes. The subsequent damage was done after death, how long after he can’t unfortunately say. So we have a murderer who sits and waits while his victim dies and then … what? Decides to make sure? Decides that he didn’t much like the lady and may as well make that fact plain? Decides to cover up how she died by giving her more of the same thing? You aren’t going to tell me that he waited ten minutes or so before deciding to panic?”

Buckley said: “He could have spent the time searching for something and been enraged when he didn’t find it. So he took out his frustration on the corpse.”

“But searching for what? We haven’t found it either, unless it’s still there in the room and we’ve missed its significance. And there’s no sign of a search. If the room was searched it was done with care and by someone who knew what he was about. And if he was looking for something, my guess is that he found it.”

“There’s still the lab report to come, sir. And they’ll have the viscera within the hour.”

“I doubt whether they’ll find anything. Doc Ellis-Jones saw no sign of poison. She may have been drugged—we mustn’t theorize too far ahead of the facts—but my guess is
that she was awake when she died and that she saw the face of her killer.”

It was extraordinary, thought Buckley, how cold the day became once the sun had gone. It was like moving from summer to winter in a couple of hours. He shivered and held open the car door for his Chief. They moved slowly out of the car park and turned towards the town. At first Grogan spoke only in laconic spurts: “You’ve heard from the coroner’s officer?”

“Yes, sir. The inquest’s fixed for two o’clock on Tuesday.”

“And the London end? Burroughs is getting on with those inquiries?”

“He’s going up first thing in the morning. And I’ve told the divers we’ll be needing them for the rest of the week.”

“What about the bloody press conference?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, sir. Four-thirty.”

Again there was silence. Changing gear to negotiate the steep and twisting hill which ran down to Speymouth, Grogan suddenly said: “The name Commander Adam Dalgliesh mean anything to you, Sergeant?”

There was no need to ask of what force. Only the Met had Commanders. Buckley said: “I’ve heard of him, sir.”

“Who hasn’t? The Commissioner’s blue-eyed boy, darling of the establishment. When the Met, or the Home Office come to that, want to show that the police know how to hold their forks and what bottle to order with the
canard à l’orange
and how to talk to a Minister on level terms with his Permanent Secretary, they wheel out Dalgliesh. If he didn’t exist, the Force would have to invent him.”

The gibes might be unoriginal but there was nothing second-hand about the dislike. Buckley said: “It’s a bit old-fashioned isn’t it, sir, all that stuff?”

“Don’t be naive, Sergeant. It’s only unfashionable to talk like that any more, but that doesn’t mean that they’ve changed their thinking or their actions. He could have had his own force by now—probably be chairing A.C.P.O.—if he hadn’t wanted to stick to detection. That and personal conceit. The rest of you can struggle in the muck for the prizes. ‘I’m the cat who walks alone and all places are alike to me.’ Kipling.”

“Yes, sir.”

Buckley paused and then asked: “What about the Commander?”

“He knows the girl, Cordelia Gray. They tangled together in a previous case. Cambridge apparently. No details offered and none asked for. But he’s given her and that Agency a clean bill. Like him or not, he’s a good copper, one of the best. If he says that Gray isn’t a murderess I’m prepared to take that as evidence of a sort. But he didn’t say that she’s incapable of lying and I wouldn’t have believed him if he had.”

He drove on in a moody silence. But his mind must have been mulling over yesterday’s interviews. After a space of ten minutes in which neither of them had spoken, he said: “There’s one thing which struck me as intriguing. You probably noticed it yourself. They all described the visit on Saturday morning to the Church and the crypt. They all mentioned that story about the drowned internee. But it was done a little too casually; the mere mention of an unimportant trifle; just a short excursion we happened to fancy before lunch. As soon as I invited them to dwell on the incident they reacted like a bunch of virgins who’d had an interesting experience in the Marabar caves. I suppose the allusion is wasted on you, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not degenerating into one of those literary cops. I’ll leave that to Dalgliesh. We did
A Passage to India
as a set book when I was at school. I used to think it overrated. But no knowledge is wasted in police work as they used to tell me at training school, not even E. M. Forster apparently. Something happened in the Devil’s Kettle which none of them is prepared to talk about and I’d like to know what.”

“Miss Gray found one of the messages.”

“So she says. But I wasn’t thinking of that. It’s probably a long shot, but we’d better find out more about that 1940 drowning. I suppose Southern Command would be the starting point.”

Buckley’s thoughts went back to that white, scientifically butchered body, to a nakedness which had been totally unerotic. And more than that. For a moment watching those gloved and probing fingers he had felt that no woman’s body would ever excite him again. He said: “There was no rape and no recent intercourse.”

“That hardly surprised us. Her husband hadn’t the inclination and Ivo Whittingham hadn’t the strength. And her murderer had other things on his mind. We’ll call it a day, Sergeant. The Chief Constable wants a word with me first thing tomorrow. No doubt that means that Sir Charles Cottringham has been having a word or two with him. That man’s a nuisance. I wish he’d stick to amateur theatricals and leave real-life drama to the experts. And then we’ll get back to Courcy Island and see if a night’s sleep has refreshed their memories.”

At last the interminable hours dragged to dinner time. Cordelia came in from a last and solitary walk with barely time to shower and change, and by the time she went down, Ambrose, Sir George and Ivo were already in the dining room. They were all seated before Simon appeared. He was wearing a dark suit. He looked at the others, flushed and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that we were going to change. I won’t be long.”

He turned to the door. Ambrose said with a touch of impatience, “What does it matter? You can dine in your swimming trunks if it makes you feel more comfortable. No one here cares what you wear.”

Cordelia thought that it wasn’t the happiest way of putting it. The unspoken words hung on the air. Clarissa would have cared; but Clarissa wasn’t there. Simon’s eyes slewed to the empty chair at the top of the table. Then he sidled to a chair beside Cordelia.

Ivo said: “Where’s Roma?”

“She asked for soup and chicken sandwiches in her room. She says she has a headache.”

It seemed to Cordelia that everyone was simultaneously doubting the reality of the headache while mentally congratulating Roma on having hit on so simple an expedient for avoiding this their first formal dinner together since Clarissa’s death. The table had been rearranged, perhaps in an attempt to minimize the trauma of that empty chair. The two end places hadn’t been laid and Cordelia and Simon sat facing Ambrose, Ivo and Sir George, almost, it seemed, eyeball to eyeball, while an expanse of mahogany stretched gleaming on either side. Cordelia thought that the arrangement made them look like a couple of
viva-voce
candidates facing a not particularly intimidating panel of examiners, an impression which was strengthened by Simon’s suit in which, paradoxically, he looked less cool and more formally overdressed than did the other three in their frills and dinner jackets.

Neither Munter nor his wife were present. Bowls of vichyssoise were already set at each place and the second course was under covers on the sideboard hotplates. There was a faint smell of fish, an unlikely choice for a Sunday. It was obviously to be a convalescent’s dinner, blandly inoffensive, unexciting to the palate or the digestion. It was, thought Cordelia, a nice point of culinary etiquette, the choice of menu for a house party of murder suspects dining together the day after the crime.

Ivo’s thoughts must have been running with hers for he said: “I wonder what Mrs. Beeton would reject as the most inappropriate meal for this kind of occasion. My choice would be borscht followed by steak tartare. I can’t decide on the pudding. Nothing too crude, but it needs to be richly indigestible.”

Cordelia said in a low voice: “Don’t you care at all?”

He paused before replying as if her question merited careful thought: “I don’t like to think that she suffered or was in
terror even for a moment. But, if you mean do I care that she’s no longer alive, then no, I don’t really care.”

Ambrose had finished pouring the Graves. He said: “We’ll have to serve ourselves. I told Mrs. Munter to take the evening off and get some rest and Munter hasn’t shown himself since luncheon. If the police want to interview him again tomorrow they’ll be unlucky. It happens about every four months, and invariably if I’ve had a house party. I’m not sure whether it’s a reaction from the excitement, or just his way of discouraging me from too much entertaining. As he’s usually considerate enough to wait until my guests have left I can’t really complain. He has compensating qualities.”

Sir George said: “Drunk is he? I thought he might take to the bottle.”

“I fear so. It usually lasts three days. I did wonder whether the violent death of one of my guests would break the pattern, but apparently not. I suppose it’s his release from some intolerable internal boredom. The island isn’t really congenial to him. He has an almost pathological dislike of water. He can’t even swim.”

Ambrose, Ivo and Cordelia had moved to the sideboard. Ambrose lifted a silver lid to reveal thin fillets of sole in a creamy sauce. Ivo asked: “Why then does he stay?”

“I’ve never asked him for fear that the same question might occur to him. Money, I suppose. And he likes solitude even if he would prefer it not to be guaranteed by two miles of sea. He has only me to please. An easy job on the whole.”

“And easier now that Clarissa’s dead. I take it you won’t be going ahead with the drama festival?”

“Not even, my dear Ivo, as a memorial to her.”

They then seemed to realize that the exchange, even though Sir George was seated too far away to overhear, was in poor taste. Both of them glanced at Cordelia. She felt a little
angry with Ambrose. Helping herself to mange-tout peas she said on impulse: “I was wondering whether he might have found a way to augment his wages, perhaps a little smuggling on the side. The Devil’s Kettle would be a useful unloading point. I noticed that he keeps the trapdoor bolt well oiled and he’d hardly need to do that if you don’t show the place to summer visitors. And on Friday night I saw a light flashing at sea. I thought that it might be acknowledging a signal.”

Ambrose laughed as he carried back his plate, but when he spoke the thin note of spite was unmistakable. “Clever Cordelia! You’re wasted as an amateur. Grogan would be glad to enrol you in the ranks of official snoopers. Munter may have his private arrangements but he doesn’t confide in me and I certainly have no intention of inquiring. Courcy is traditionally a smuggler’s haven and most sailors in these parts do a little amateur smuggling. It wouldn’t amount to much, a few casks of brandy, an occasional bottle of scent. Nothing as spectacularly naughty as drugs if that’s what you have in mind. Most people like a little tax-free income and a touch of risk adds to the fun. But I don’t advise you to confide your suspicions to Grogan. Let him get on with the investigation he has in hand.”

Ivo said: “What about the lights Cordelia saw?”

“Warning off his pals I expect. He’d hardly want the stuff landed with the island swarming with police.”

Ivo said evenly: “Except that Cordelia saw the signal on Friday. How could he know that the police would be here next day?”

Ambrose shrugged, unworried.

“Then it couldn’t have been the police he feared. Perhaps he knew or guessed that we were being favoured with the company of a private eye. Don’t ask me how he knew. Clarissa didn’t confide in me and I shouldn’t have told Munter even if
she had. But it’s my experience that little goes on under any roof that a good servant doesn’t learn first.”