The Skull Beneath the Skin (48 page)

She said: “Please leave me. I want you to go away.”

But he didn’t move. After a moment she heard him say, quietly and gently: “I’m sorry, Cordelia. I’m sorry.”

And then, as if aware for the first time of that silent uniformed watcher he added: “Your first visit to Courcy Island hasn’t been as happy for you as I hoped. I wish it could have been otherwise. Please forgive me.”

She knew that this was the only admission that he would ever make. It had no validity in law. It would never be given in evidence. But she believed, almost despite herself, that it had been sincere.

She watched him as he walked briskly towards his castle. At the doorway Chief Inspector Grogan appeared and moved out to meet him. Without speaking they went inside together.

And still she sat and waited. A uniformed officer, painfully young and with the face of a Donatello angel, came across to her. He blushed and said: “There’s a telephone call for you, Miss Gray. In the library.”

Miss Maudsley was trying hard not to sound fussed but her voice was close to panic.

“Oh, Miss Gray, I do hope it’s all right to call you. The young man who answered said that it was. He was so helpful. But I wondered when you’ll be coming home. There’s a new case just in. It’s terribly urgent, a lost Siamese kitten, a seal point. It belongs to a child who is just out of hospital after her leukemia treatment and she’s only had it a week. It was a coming-home present. She’s dreadfully distressed. Bevis is at another audition. If I go there’s no one to look after the office. And Mrs. Sutcliffe has just rung. Her Pekinese, Nanki-Poo, is lost again. She wants someone to go round at once.”

Cordelia said: “Put a notice on the door to say that we’ll be open at nine o’clock tomorrow. Then lock up and start looking for the kitten. Ring Mrs. Sutcliffe and tell her I’ll call round this evening about Nanki-Poo. I’m just on my way to the inquest, but Chief Inspector Grogan will ask for an adjournment. It shouldn’t take long. And then I’ll catch the mid-afternoon train.”

Putting down the receiver, she thought: and why not? The police would know where to find her. She wasn’t yet free of Courcy Island. Perhaps she never would be. But she had a job waiting for her. It was a job that needed doing, one that she was good at. She knew that it couldn’t satisfy her for ever but she didn’t despise its simplicities, almost she welcomed them. Animals didn’t torment themselves with the fear of death, or torment you with the horror of their dying. They didn’t burden you with their psychological problems. They didn’t surround themselves with possessions, nor live in the past. They didn’t
scream with pain because of the loss of love. They didn’t expect you to die for them. They didn’t try to murder you.

She walked through the drawing room and out to the terrace. Grogan and Buckley were waiting for her, standing motionless, Grogan at the prow of the police launch, Buckley at the stern. In their still intensity they looked like unweaponed knights standing guardian over some fabled vessel, waiting to bear their king to Avalon. She paused and regarded them, feeling the concentrated gaze of their unwavering eyes, aware that the moment held a significance which all three recognized but which none of them would ever put into words. They were struggling with their own dilemma. How far could they rely on her sanity, her honesty, her memory, her nerve? How far dare they trust their reputations to her fortitude when the going got rough? How would she acquit herself if the case ever came to trial and she found herself standing in that loneliest of places, the witness box of the Crown Court? But she felt distanced from their preoccupations as if nothing that they could do or think or plan had any relevance to her. It would all pass as they and she would pass. Time would take their story and fold it with the half-forgotten legends of the island: Carl Blythe’s lonely death, Lillie Langtry sweeping down the great staircase, the crumbling skulls of Courcy.

Suddenly she felt inviolate. The police would have to make their own decisions. She had already made hers, without hesitation and without a struggle. She would tell the truth, and she would survive. Nothing could touch her. She hitched her bag more firmly on her shoulder and moved resolutely towards the launch. For one sunlit moment it was as if Courcy Island and all that had happened during that fateful weekend was as unconcerned with her life, her future, her steadily beating heart, as was the blue uncaring sea.