The Skull Beneath the Skin (9 page)

—to the brutally explicit lines from
King Henry VI:

Seen together, the sonorous reiteration of death and hatred was oppressive, the silly childish drawings limned with menace. She began to understand what this carefully organized programme of intimidation might do to a sensitive and vulnerable woman, to any woman come to that, darkening the mornings, making terrible such ordinary events as the arrival of the post, a letter on the hall salver, a note pushed under the door. It was easy to advise the victim of a poison-pen to flush the messages down the lavatory like the rubbish they were. But in all societies there was an atavistic fear of the malevolent power of a secret adversary, working for evil, willing one to failure, perhaps to death. There was a horrible and rather frightening intelligence at work here, and it wasn’t pleasant to think that the person responsible might be one of that small group who would be with her on Courcy Island, that the eyes which would meet hers over the dining table could be hiding such malignancy. For the first time she
wondered whether Clarissa Lisle could be right, whether there really was a threat to her life. Then she put the thought aside, telling herself that the messages were beginning to exercise their malevolence even on her. A murderer did not advertise his intention over a period of months. But was that necessarily true? To a mind consumed with hatred, might not the act of killing be too swift, too momentary in its satisfaction? Could Clarissa Lisle have an enemy so bitter that he needed to watch her suffer, to destroy her slowly with terror and failure before he moved in for the kill?

She shivered. The warmth of the day was already dissipating, the night air, drifting through the open window, even in this city eyrie held the taste and tang of autumn. She put away the last message and closed the folder. Her own instructions had been clear: to safeguard Clarissa Lisle from any worry or distress before Saturday’s performance of
The Duchess of Malfi
and, if possible, to discover who was sending her the messages. And that, to the best of her ability, she would do.

Victorian Speymouth, which to the surprise of its citizens had converted its street lamps to gas without explosion or other disaster, had seen no reason to reject the new railway or, while accepting its inevitability, to banish it as had Cambridge to an inconvenient distance from the town. The charming little station was only a quarter of a mile from the statue of Queen Victoria which marks the centre of the promenade and when Cordelia stepped out into the sunlight, bag in one hand and portable typewriter in the other, she found herself gazing down over a jumble of brightly painted houses to a stone-enclosed harbour, tiny as a pool, and beyond it to the stunted pier and the shimmering sea. She was almost sorry to leave the station. With its gleaming white paint and its curved roof of wrought iron, delicate as lace, it reminded her of the summer issues of her weekly childhood comic where the sea had been always blue, the sand a bright yellow, the sun a golden ball and the railway a highly coloured toy-town welcome to these imagined joys. Mrs. Wilkes, the poorest of all her foster mothers, had been the only one to buy her a comic, the only
one whom Cordelia remembered with affection. Perhaps it was a happy augury that she should think of her now.

There was already a small queue waiting for the taxis but she saw no reason to join it. The road was downhill and the quay clearly in sight. She stepped out, almost oblivious of the weight of her luggage in the pleasure of the day. The little town was bathed in sunshine and the rows of Georgian terraced houses, simple, unpretentious and dignified with elegant façades and wrought-iron balconies looked as charmingly artificial and as brightly lit as a stage set. In the bay the grey shape of a small warship rested stiffly immobile as a child’s cutout toy. She could almost imagine putting out her hand and plucking it from the water. As she made her way down a steep, cobbled street, terraces of fawn, pink and blue houses curved upwards towards a glimpse of distant hills, while below the brightly painted statue of Queen Victoria, majestically robed, pointed her sceptre imperiously towards the public lavatories.

And everywhere there were people, jostling on the pavements, spilling from the Esplanade on to the beach, laid in sunburned rows on the gritty sand, lumped in sagging deck chairs, queuing at the ice-cream kiosk, peering from the windows of cars in search of a parking place. She wondered where they had all come from on this mid-September weekday when the holiday season was surely over, the children back at school. Were they all truants from work or schoolroom, drawn out from autumn’s hibernation by this resurgence of summer, with their mottled red faces above white necks, their glistening chests and arms, recently covered against September’s chills, revealing again the unlovely evidence of harsher suns? The day itself smelt of high summer, of seaweed, hot bodies and blistering paint.

The busy little harbour was a confusion of rocking dinghies
and furled sails but the launch with
Shearwater
painted on its bow was soon identified. It was about thirty feet long with a central, low-roofed cabin and a slatted seat in the stern. One wizened seaman seemed to be in charge. He was squatting on a bollard, his thin legs clamped, wearing seaboots and a blue jumper with
Courcy Island
emblazoned across the chest. He looked so like Popeye that Cordelia suspected that the pipe, which he slowly took from his apparently toothless gums on seeing her approach, was sucked for effect rather than solace. He touched his hat and grinned when she gave her name but didn’t speak. Taking the typewriter and her bag he stowed them in the cabin, then turned to offer her his hand. But Cordelia had already jumped on board and had seated herself in the rear. He resumed his seat on the bollard and, together, they waited.

Three minutes later a taxi drew up at the mouth of the quay and a boy and a woman got out. The woman paid the fare—not, it seemed, without some argument—while the boy stood uneasily to one side, then loitered to the edge of the quay to stare down at the water. She joined him and they moved together to the launch, he a little behind her like a reluctant child. This, thought Cordelia, must be Roma Lisle with Simon Lessing in tow, neither apparently pleased with the chance that had forced them into sharing a taxi.

Cordelia observed her as she allowed herself to be handed aboard. Superficially, she had nothing in common with her cousin except the shape of the lower lip. She too was fair, but it was an ordinary Anglo-Saxon blandness in which the strong sun already revealed the glint of grey. Her hair was short and expensively shaped to her head. She was taller than her cousin and moved with a certain assurance. But her face, with its lines scored across the forehead and from nose to mouth, had a look of brooding discontent and there was no peace in the
eyes. She was dressed in an extremely well-tailored fawn trouser suit with blue braid facing the collar and a high-necked sweater striped in fawn and pale blue, an outfit which seemed to Cordelia to combine superficial suitability for a holiday weekend with an inappropriate smartness, perhaps because she was wearing it with high-heeled shoes which made the descent into the launch less than graceful. The colour, too, was unflattering to her skin. It was impossible not to recognize that here was a woman who cared about clothes without having any clear idea what suited either her or the occasion. About the young man there was less chance to make a judgement, sartorial or otherwise. He glimpsed Cordelia in the stern, blushed and scuttled into the cabin with an alacrity which suggested that he was unlikely to add to the gaiety of the weekend. Miss Lisle seated herself in the bow while the boatman again took his seat on the bollard. They waited in silence while the launch gently rocked against the fender of old tires slung against the stones of the quay and small boats gently edged past them on the way to the open sea.

After a few minutes Miss Lisle called out: “Oughtn’t we to be moving off? We’re expected for lunch.”

“One more a-comin’. Mr. Whittingham.”

“Well, he couldn’t have been on the nine thirty-three. He’d have been here by now. And I didn’t recognize him at the station. Perhaps he’s driving down and has got delayed.”

“Mr. Ambrose said he’d be a-comin’ by train. Said to wait for him.”

Miss Lisle frowned and gazed fixedly out to sea. Two more minutes passed. Then the boatman called out.

“Here he be. He’s a-comin’ now. That’ll be Mr. Whittingham.” The triple assurance given he rose, and began making ready to move off. Cordelia looked up and saw through a distorting
dazzle of sun what seemed at first like a death’s head on stilts jerking across the quay towards her, its skeleton fingers grasping a canvas holdall. She blinked and the picture composed itself, moved into focus, became human. The skull clothed itself in flesh, stretched and grey over the fineness of the bones, but still human flesh. The sockets moistened into eyes, keen and a little amused. The figure was still the thinnest and most desperately sick man she had ever seen moving on his own feet but the voice was firm, and the words were easy and comfortable.

“Sorry to hold you up. I’m Ivo Whittingham. The quay looked deceptively close. And having started walking I couldn’t, of course, find a taxi.”

He brushed aside Oldfield’s proffered arm, but without impatience, and lowered himself into a seat in the bow, wedging his bag between his legs. No one spoke. The final end of rope spilled free from the bollard and was wound aboard. The engine shuddered into life. Almost imperceptibly the launch crept away from the quay and made for the harbour mouth.

Ten minutes later they seemed no closer to the island towards which crabwise they were edging, although the shore was visibly receding. The fishermen on the end of the pier shrank into matchstalk men with fairy wands, the bustle of the town was swallowed up in the noise of the engine and finally shaken off, the royal statue became a coloured blur. The horizon was a pale purple curdling into low clouds from which there separated great islands of creamy whiteness which rose to float almost motionless against a clear azure blue. The small waves seemed to be leaping with light, absorbing it from the bright air and reflecting it back to the paler blue of the sky. Cordelia thought that the sea and the distant shore were like a Monet painting, bright colour laid in streaks
against bright colour, light itself made visible. She leaned over the edge of the boat and plunged her arm into the leaping wake. The cold made her gasp, but she held her arm under the water, spreading her fingers so that three small wakes spouted into the sunlight, watching the hairs on her forearm catch and hold the shining drops. Suddenly her mood was broken by a woman’s voice. Roma Lisle had made her way round the cabin and come up beside her. She said: “It’s typical of Ambrose Gorringe just to send Oldfield and leave his guests to introduce themselves. I’m Roma Lisle, Clarissa’s cousin.”

They shook hands. Her fingers were firm and pleasantly cool. Cordelia gave her name. She said: “But I’m not a guest. I’m going to the island to work.”

Miss Lisle’s glance went to the typewriter. She said: “Good Lord, Ambrose isn’t writing another blockbuster is he?”

“Not as far as I know. I’m employed by Lady Ralston.” It might, thought Cordelia, have been more accurate to say that she was employed by Sir George but she sensed that this might only lead to complications. But sooner or later some explanation of her presence would have to be given. It might as well be now. She prepared for the inevitable questions.

“By Clarissa! Doing what, for God’s sake?”

“Dealing with her correspondence. Making telephone calls. Generally easing things along while she concentrates on the play.”

“She’s got Tolly to ease things along. What does she think of this—Tolly I mean?”

“I haven’t the least idea. I haven’t met her yet.”

“I can’t see her liking it.” She gave Cordelia a look in which suspicion mingled with puzzlement.

“I’ve read of those stagestruck oddballs, without talent
themselves, who try to buy themselves into the club by attaching themselves to one of their idols, cooking, shopping, running errands, acting as a kind of poodle. They either die of overwork or end up with nervous breakdowns. You’re not one of that pathetic breed are you? No, I can see that you aren’t. But don’t you find your job well … odd?”

“What do you do? And is your job any less odd?”

“I’m sorry. I was being offensive. Put it down to the fact that I’m a failed schoolteacher. At present I work in a bookshop. It may sound pretty orthodox but I assure you it has its moments. You’d better meet Clarissa’s stepson. Simon Lessing. He’s probably nearer your age than anyone else on this benighted weekend.”

Hearing his name, the boy came out of the cabin and blinked in the sun. Perhaps, thought Cordelia, he preferred a voluntary appearance to being dragged out by Miss Lisle. He held out his hand and she shook it, surprised that his clasp should be so firm. They murmured a conventional greeting. He was better looking than a first glimpse had suggested, with a long, sensitive face and widely spaced grey eyes. But his skin was pitted with the scars of old acne with a fresh outcrop along the forehead, and his mouth was weak. Cordelia knew that with her wide brow, high cheek-bones and cat-like face she looked younger than her age but she couldn’t imagine any time when she wouldn’t have felt older than this shy boy.

And then there was a fresh voice. The last passenger was making his way astern to join them. He said: “When the Prince of Wales came to Courcy Island in the eighteen-nine-ties, puffing across the bay in a steam launch, old Gorringe used to have his private band waiting on the quay to play him ashore. They were dressed, for some reason not recorded, in
Tyrolese costume. Do you suppose that Ambrose’s love affair with the past extends to laying on a similar welcome for us?”

But before anyone had a chance to respond, the launch had turned the eastern edge of the island and the castle itself came suddenly into sight.