The Skull Beneath the Skin (30 page)

“The young usually hunt in gangs.”

“Several young men, then. Or a couple if you prefer it. One of them gets in with the general idea of a prowl round while the house is quiet. That supposes a local boy, one who knew about the play. He creeps into Miss Lisle’s room—she had forgotten to lock the communicating door or had thought the precaution unnecessary—and sees her apparently asleep on the bed. He is about to make his exit, with or without the jewel case, when she takes the pads off her eyes and sees him. In a panic he kills her, seizes the box and makes his escape the same way as he came in.”

Grogan said: “Having thoughtfully provided himself in advance with the marble hand, which according to your evidence must have been taken from the display case between midnight and six-fifty-five this morning.”

“No, I don’t think he came provided with anything except a general intention of mischief. My theory is that he found the weapon ready to hand—forgive the atrocious pun—on the bedside chest together, of course, with the quotation from the play.”

“And who are you suggesting put them there? The door to that room was locked, remember.”

“I don’t think there’s much mystery about that, surely. Miss Lisle did.”

Grogan said: “With the object of frightening herself into hysteria, or merely providing any potential murderer who might drop in with a convenient weapon?”

“With the object of providing herself with an excuse if she failed in the play. As I’m afraid she almost certainly would. Or she may have had more devious reasons. Miss Lisle’s complex personality was something of a mystery to me as it was, I suspect, to her husband.”

“And are you suggesting that this young, impulsive, unpremeditating killer then replaced the pads over his victim’s eyes? That argues we have two complex personalities to elucidate.”

“He could have done. You’re the expert on murder, not I. But I could think of a reason if pushed. Perhaps she seemed to be staring up at him and his nerve broke. He had to cover those dead accusing eyes. The suggestion is a little over-imaginative perhaps, but not impossible. Murderers do behave oddly. Remember the Gutteridge case, Chief Inspector.”

Buckley’s hand jerked on his shorthand pad. He thought: “My God, is he doing it on purpose?” The small audacity must surely have been deliberate. But how could Gorringe have learned of the chief’s habit of referring to old cases? He glanced up, not at Grogan, but at Gorringe and met only a look of bland innocence. And it was to him that Gorringe spoke: “Long before your time, Sergeant. Gutteridge was the police constable shot by two car thieves in an Essex country lane in 1927. An ex-convict, Frederick Browne, and his accomplice, William Kennedy, were hanged for the crime. After killing him, one of them shot out both his eyes. It is thought that they were superstitious. They believed that the dead eyes of a murdered man, fixed on the killer’s face, will bear his visage imprinted on the pupils. I doubt whether any murderer willingly looks into his victim’s eyes. An interesting feature of an otherwise dull and sordid case.”

Grogan had finished his drawing. The plan of the room was complete. Now, while they watched him in silence, he drew on the great bed a small sprawled matchbox figure with wisps of hair over the pillow. Lastly and with care, he blocked in the face. Then he put his great hand over the drawing and ripped out the page, crumpling it in his fist.
The gesture was unexpectedly violent, but his voice was quiet, almost gentle.

“Thank you, sir. You’ve been very helpful. And now, if you’ve nothing else to tell us, no doubt you’ll be wanting to go back to your guests.”

When Ivo Whittingham came into the room, Buckley, embarrassed, looked quickly down and began flipping back the pages of his notebook, hoping that Whittingham hadn’t caught his first look of horror and surprise. Only once before had he seen so gaunt a figure, and that was his Uncle Gerry in those last weeks before the cancer finally got him. He had felt as much affection for his uncle as he was capable of feeling and the protracted agony of his dying had left him with one resolution: if that was what the body could do to a man, then it owed something in return. From now on he would take his pleasures without guilt. He might have become a cheerful hedonist if ambition and the caution which went with it hadn’t been stronger. But he hadn’t forgotten either the bitterness or the pain. And Ivo Whittingham reminded him in another way. His uncle had looked at him with just such glittering eyes as if they burned with all that remained of life and intelligence. He glanced up as Whittingham seated himself stiffly, grasping the chair sides with his skeletal hands. But when he spoke his voice was surprisingly strong and relaxed.

“This is unpleasantly reminiscent of a summons to one’s housemaster. Good seldom came of it.”

It was an irreverent beginning which Grogan was unlikely to encourage. He said curtly: “In that case I suggest that we make it as brief as possible. I take it that you knew Miss Lisle well.”

“You may take it that I knew her intimately.”

“Are you telling me, sir, that she was your mistress?”

“That hardly seems the right word for so spasmodic a liaison.
Mistress
suggests a certain permanence, even a measure of respectability. One is reminded of dear Mrs. Keppel and her King. It would be more accurate to say that we were lovers for a period of about six years as opportunity and her whim dictated.”

“And did her husband know?”

“Husbands. Our relationship outlasted more than one marital episode. But I imagine that you’re interested only in George Ralston. I never told him. I don’t know whether she did. And if you’re wondering whether he took his revenge the idea is ludicrous. Why should he wait until a higher power, or fate or luck, whatever you choose to believe in, is about to rid him of me permanently? Ralston isn’t a fool. And if you would like to ask whether I sent the lady on before me, the answer is no. Clarissa Lisle and I had exhausted each other’s possibilities on this bank and shoal of time. But I could have killed her. I had the opportunity; I was alone in my room conveniently close all afternoon. In case you haven’t already inquired, it’s on the same floor as Clarissa, a mere fifty feet away, overlooking the eastern front of the castle. I had access to the means since I had been shown the marble limb. I suppose I could have found the strength. And I think she might have opened her door to me. But I didn’t kill her and I don’t know who did. You’ll have to take my word for it. I can’t prove a negative.”

“Tell me what she was like.”

It was the first time Grogan had asked that question. And yet, thought Buckley, it was at the heart of every murder investigation, and, if it were possible to find the answer, most other questions would become superfluous. Whittingham said: “I was going to say that you’ve seen her face, but, of course, you haven’t. A pity. One needed to know the physical Clarissa to get any clue to what else there might have been to know. She lived intensely in and through her body. The rest is a list of words. She was egocentric, insecure, clever but not intelligent, kind or cruel as the mood took her, restless, unhappy. But she had certain skills which a gentlemanly reticence inhibits me from discussing but which weren’t unimportant. She probably gave more joy than she caused misery. Since that can’t be said of many of us, it’s unbecoming of me to criticize her. I remember that I once sent to her the words of Thomas Malory, Lancelot speaking to Guinevere: ‘Lady, I take record of God, in thee I have had my earthly joy.’ I don’t take them back, whatever she may have done.”

“Whatever she may have done, sir?”

“A form of words merely, Chief Inspector.”

“So you mourn her?”

“No. But I shan’t forget her.”

There was a pause. Then Grogan asked quietly: “Why are you here, sir?”

“She asked me to come. But there was another reason. One of the Sunday papers commissioned me to do a piece on the island and the theatre. What was wanted was period charm, nostalgia and salacious legend. They should have sent a crime reporter.”

“And that was enough to tempt a reviewer of your eminence?”

“It must have been, mustn’t it, since here I am.”

When Grogan asked him, as he had the other suspects, to describe the events of the day, he showed signs of tiredness for the first time. The body sagged in its chair like a puppet jerked from its string.

“There isn’t much to tell. We had a late breakfast and then Miss Lisle suggested we see the church. There’s a crypt with some ancient skulls and a secret passage to the sea. We explored both and Gorringe entertained us with old legends about the skulls and a reputed drowning of a wartime internee in the cave at the end of the passage. I was tired and didn’t listen very closely. Then back to luncheon at twelve. Miss Lisle went to rest immediately afterwards. I was in my room by quarter past one and stayed there, resting and reading, until it was time to dress. Miss Lisle had insisted that we change before the play. I met Roma Lisle at the head of the staircase as she came down from her room and we were together when Gorringe appeared with Miss Gray and told us that Clarissa was dead.”

“And during the morning, the visit to the Church and the cave, how did Miss Lisle seem to you?”

“I think I would say, Chief Inspector, that Miss Lisle was her usual self.”

Lastly Grogan spilled out from the folder the sheaves of messages. One of them fluttered to the floor. He bent and picked it up, then handed it to Whittingham.

“What can you tell us about these, sir?”

“Only that I knew she was getting them. She didn’t tell me, but one does tend to pick up bits of theatre gossip. But I don’t think it was generally known. And here, again, I seem to be the natural suspect. Whoever sent these knew Miss Lisle and knew his Shakespeare. But I don’t think I would have added
the coffin and the skull. An unnecessarily crude touch, don’t you think?”

“And that is all that you want to tell us, sir?”

“It’s all that I can tell you, Chief Inspector.”

It was nearly seven o’clock before they got around to seeing the boy. He had changed into a formal suit and looked, thought Buckley, as if he were attending his stepmother’s funeral instead of an interview with the police. He guessed that there was no more than eight years’ difference in their ages, but it could have been twenty. Lessing looked as neatly pressed and nervous as a child. But he had himself well under control. Buckley felt that there was something vaguely familiar about his entrance, the care with which he seated himself, the serious expectant gaze which he fixed on Grogan’s face. And then he remembered. This was how he had looked and behaved at his final interview to join the police. He had been advised then by his headmaster: “Wear your best suit, but no fountain pen or fancy handkerchief peeping coyly out of the jacket pocket. Look them straight in the eye, but not so fixedly that you embarrass them. Be slightly more deferential than you feel; they’re the ones with the job on offer. If you don’t know an answer, say so, don’t waffle. And don’t worry if you’re nervous, they prefer that to over-confidence, but show that you’ve
got the guts to cope with nervousness. Call them ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ and thank them briefly before you leave. And for God’s sake, boy, sit up straight.”

And as the interview progressed beyond the first easy questions designed, Buckley could almost believe, to put the candidate at his ease, he sensed something else, that Lessing was beginning to feel as he had done: if you followed the advice, the ordeal wasn’t so bad after all. Only his hands betrayed him. They were broad and unpleasantly white with thick stubbed fingers, but narrow—almost girlish—nails cut very short and so pink that they looked painted. He held his hands in his lap and from time to time he would stretch and pull at the fingers as if he were routinely performing some prescribed strengthening exercise.

Sir George Ralston remained standing with his back to them, looking out of the window through the partly drawn curtains. Buckley wondered whether the intention was to demonstrate that he wasn’t influencing the boy by word or glance. But the pose looked perverse, the more so as there was nothing in that still darkness which he could possibly see. Buckley had never known such silence. It had a positive quality; not the absence of noise but a silence which sharpened perception and gave importance and dignity to every word and action. He wished, not for the first time, that they were at headquarters with the sound of passing feet, of doors closing, of distant voices calling, all the comfortable background noises of ordinary life. Here it wasn’t only the suspects who were under judgment.

This time Grogan’s doodle looked innocuous, even charming. He seemed to be redesigning his kitchen garden. Neat rows of chubby cabbages, climbing runner beans and ferntopped carrots grew under his hand. He said: “So after your
mother died you went to live with her brother and his family and you were there when Lady Ralston came to visit you in the summer of 1978 and decided to adopt you?”

“There was no formal adoption. My uncle was my guardian and he agreed that Clarissa would be … well, a kind of foster mother, I suppose. She took over the whole responsibility for me.”

“And you welcomed that arrangement?”

“Very much, sir. Life with my uncle and aunt wasn’t really congenial to me.”

And that was an odd word for the boy to use, thought Buckley. It made it sound as if they’d taken the
Mirror
instead of
The Times
and he hadn’t been able to get his after-dinner port.

“And you were happy with Sir George and his wife?” Grogan couldn’t resist the small note of sarcasm. He added: “Life was congenial to you?”

“Very, sir.”

“Your stepmother—is that how you thought of her, as a stepmother?”

The boy blushed and glanced sideways at the silent figure of Sir George. He moistened his lips and said: “Yes, sir. I suppose so.”

“Your stepmother has been receiving some rather unpleasant communications during the last year or so. What do you know about that?”

“Nothing, sir. She didn’t tell me.” He added, “We don’t … we didn’t see a great deal of each other. I’m at school and she was often at the Brighton flat during the holidays.”