The Skull Beneath the Skin Read online

  There was a silence in which it seemed to Cordelia that they all simultaneously recognized that they were cold, that it wasn’t yet half-past six and that while it might appear unfeeling to express a wish to return to bed and hopeless to expect sleep once there, it was unreasonably early to get dressed and face the day.

  Ambrose said: “Would anyone care for tea or coffee? I don’t know what’s likely to happen about breakfast. You may get none unless I cook it, but I assure you I’m perfectly competent. Is anyone hungry?”

  No one admitted to being hungry. Roma shivered and hunched herself deeper into her padded nylon dressing gown. She said: “Tea would be welcome, the stronger the better. And then I, for one, am going back to bed.”

  There was a general murmur of acquiescence. Then Simon spoke.

  “There’s something I forgot. There’s some kind of box down there. I felt it when I released the body. Ought I to bring it up?”

  “The jewel casket!” Roma turned re-animated, the desire for bed apparently forgotten.

  “So he had it after all!”

  Simon said eagerly: “I don’t think it’s the casket. It felt larger, more smooth. He must have dropped it as he fell.”

  Ambrose hesitated: “I suppose we ought to wait until the police arrive. On the other hand, I have a curiosity to see what it is, if Simon has no objection to a second immersion.”

  So far from objecting, the boy, shivering as he was with cold, seemed impatient to get back to the pool. Cordelia wondered if he had temporarily forgotten that sprawled body. She had never seen him so animated, almost frantic. Perhaps it was the result of being, for once, the centre of the action.

  Ivo said: “I think I can contain my curiosity. I’m going back to bed. If anyone is making tea later I’d be grateful if you’d bring up a cup.”

  He left on his own. Roma was apparently cured of both her headache and her tiredness. They returned to the pool. The fading moon was tissue thin and the sky was streaked with the first light of day. The air rose in a thin mist from the water and struck them with a damp autumnal chill. Bereft of the moonlight’s bleak enchantment and the sense of unreality which moonlight bestows, the body looked at once more human and more grotesque. The flesh of the left cheek, resting against the stones, was pressed upwards to distort the eye so that it seemed to be leering at them, ironic and knowing. From the drooling mouth a trickle of bloodstained saliva had hung and dried on the stubble of the chin. The sodden clothes looked as if they had already shrunk and a thin stream of water still ran from the trouser legs and dripped slowly into the pool. In the uncertain light of the first dawn it seemed to Cordelia that his life blood was seeping away, unregarded and unstaunched. She said: “Can’t we at least cover him up?”

  “Of course.” Ambrose was at once solicitous.

  “Could you fetch something from the house, Cordelia? A tablecloth, a sheet, a towel, or even a coat would do. I’m sure you’ll find something suitable.”

  Roma turned on him, her voice harsh.

  “Why send Cordelia? Why should she be expected to run all the errands round here? She’s not paid to take your orders. Cordelia isn’t your servant. Munter was.”

  Ambrose looked at her as if she were an unintelligent child who had for once succeeded in making a sensible remark.

  He said calmly: “You’re perfectly right. I’ll go myself.”

  But Roma, in angry spate, was beyond appeasement.

  “Munter was your servant and you can’t even bring yourself to say you’re sorry he’s dead. You don’t care do you? You didn’t care about Clarissa and you don’t care about him. Nothing touches you as long as you’re comfortable and saved from boredom. You haven’t said a word of regret since we found his body. And who are you, for God’s sake? Your grandfather made his money out of liver pills and gripe water. You haven’t even the excuse of caste for not behaving like a human being.”

  For a second Ambrose’s body froze, and two moons of red appeared on the smooth cheeks, then as quickly faded, leaving him very pale. But his voice hardly altered. “The only human being I know how to behave like is myself. I shall grieve for Munter in my own time and place. This hardly seems an appropriate moment for a valediction. But if its absence offends you I can always emulate Prince Hal.

  What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh

  Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell,

  I could have better spared a better man.

  And if it’s any comfort to you, I would rather see all of you, with one possible exception, dead at the bottom of my pool than lose Carl Munter. But you’re right about Cordelia. One is too ready to take advantage of competence and kindness.”

  After he had left there was an embarrassed silence. Roma, her face blotched, her chin creased with stubborn anger, stood a little apart. She had the truculent, slightly defensive air of a child who knows that she has said something indefensible but who is not altogether ungratified by the result.

  Suddenly she swung round and said gruffly: “Well, at least I managed to provoke a human reaction from our host. So now we know where we stand. I take it that Cordelia is the privileged one among us whom Ambrose would be reluctant to see dead at the bottom of his pool. Even he isn’t entirely immune to a pretty face, apparently.”

  Sir George stared down at the water lilies. “He’s upset. Natural, after all. Hardly the time to quarrel among ourselves.”

  Cordelia felt that she ought to make some comment, but unable to think of anything appropriate, remained silent. She was puzzled by Roma’s outburst which she hardly felt was the result of concern or affection for herself. It could, she supposed, have been a gesture of feminine solidarity or a blast against male arrogance. But she suspected that it was more likely a spontaneous release of pent-up terror and shock. Whatever the cause, the result had been interesting. And Ambrose had been remarkably apt with his quotation from King Henry IV, Part I. Was that because he was a natural lover of Shakespeare, or because he had recently been spending some time looking through the Shakespearean section of The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations?

  They heard Ambrose’s returning footsteps on the stones. He was carrying a folded red-checked tablecloth. While they watched he shook it out then let it fall gently over the body. Cordelia thought that, as a temporary shroud, it was hardly the most appropriate covering he could have found. He knelt and tucked it solicitously round the body as if making it comfortable. Still no one spoke. Then Sir George turned to Simon and barked out his order. “Right, boy. Let’s get on with it.”

  Simon had already judged the depth of the pool and this time he dived. His body cleft the water in a neat curve, parting the water lilies. There was a flurry and a brief commotion. And then his sleek head broke the surface and he raised both his arms high. Between them he held a dark wooden box about twelve inches by nine. A few seconds later he had pushed his burden into Ambrose’s waiting hands and was drawing himself up over the side of the pool. He gasped: “It was caught under the netting. What is it?”

  For reply Ambrose opened the lid. The music box, watertight, had emerged a little scratched but otherwise undamaged. The cylinder slowly turned and a tinkle of sweet, disjointed notes plucked out a familiar tune, one which Cordelia had last heard during the final rehearsal, “The Bluebells of Scotland.”

  They listened silently until the tune was at an end. Then there was a pause and the next tinkle began, soon to be identified as “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.”

  Ambrose closed the box. He said: “The last time I saw this it was with the other music box on the props table. He must have been taking it back to the tower room. This would be the direct route from the theatre to the tower.”

  “But why? What was the hurry?”

  Roma frowned at the box as if its appearance had disappointed her expectations. Ambrose said: “There was no hurry. But he was drunk and I suppose he was acting irrationally. Munter shared my slight obsession with order and he strongly disliked any of the things in t
he castle being used as theatrical props. I suppose his muddled brain thought that this was as good a time as any to start putting things to rights.”

  Cordelia thought that Sir George had been remarkably silent. Now he spoke for the first time.

  “What else has he moved? What about the other box?”

  “That was kept in the cupboard in the business room. As far as I can remember, one box was there, the second with the clutter in the tower room.”

  Sir George turned to Simon.

  “Better get dressed, boy. You’re shivering. There’s nothing else to do here.”

  It was a dismissal, almost brutal in its peremptoriness. Simon seemed to realize for the first time that he was cold. His teeth began to chatter. He hesitated, nodded, then shambled off.

  Roma said: “That boy has more talents than I gave him credit for. And how, incidentally, did he know what Clarissa’s jewel box was like? I thought you only gave it to her when she arrived on Friday morning.”

  Cordelia said: “I suppose he knows in the same way as you and I know: because we’ve been to her room and been shown it.”

  Roma turned to go.

  “Oh, I realized, of course, that he must have been in her room. I was just wondering when exactly.” She added: “And how did he know that Munter was carrying the box when he fell? It could have been lying there on the bottom for months?”

  “It was a safe assumption, surely, given the position of the body and the fact that it and the box were both caught by the netting.”

  Ambrose’s voice held a lightness and a determined incuriosity which Cordelia sensed was a little too controlled, a little too careful. He added: “Why not leave the questions to Grogan. One amateur detective in the house is surely enough. And accusations of murder come more appropriately from the police, don’t you feel?”

  Roma turned away, hunching her shoulders more deeply into the collar of her dressing gown. “Well, I’ll get back to bed. Perhaps I could have some tea in my room too when you get around to making it. And when I’ve had my stint with Grogan I’ll relieve you of my presence here. Either the Courcy curse is still operative or, in your paradise, death is becoming infectious.”

  Ambrose watched while she stumped away and disappeared into the shadows of the arches. He said: “That woman could be dangerous.”

  Sir George was still staring after her departing back. “Only unhappy.”

  “With a woman that amounts to the same thing. And with those beefy swimmer’s shoulders, she shouldn’t wear a padded dressing gown. And she shouldn’t choose that shade of blue, or any blue for that matter. I suppose that we may as well see whether the second music box is back where it’s normally kept.”

  Back in the business room he knelt and opened the doors of a walnut chiffonier. Cordelia could see that it contained a number of box files, two carefully wrapped parcels which could have been ornaments as yet unpacked, and a box in dark wood similar in size to the first. He placed it on the table and raised the lid. The box plucked out the tune “Greensleeves.”

  Sir George said: “So he did return it. Odd. Probably couldn’t rest until he’d started putting things to rights.”

  Cordelia said: “Except that he’s changed them around. This one belonged in the tower room.”

  Ambrose’s voice was unexpectedly sharp.

  “How can you possibly know?”

  “Because I saw it there on Friday afternoon while Clarissa was rehearsing. I went to explore the tower and found the room. I couldn’t be mistaken.”

  “They look very alike.”

  “But they play a different tune. I opened the box in the tower, this box. It played “Greensleeves.” The one used at the rehearsal played the Scottish medley. You know. You were there.”

  Sir George said: “So yesterday afternoon he fetched this one from the tower and not from the business room.” He turned to Ambrose.

  “Did you know that, Gorringe?”

  “Naturally not. I knew that we had two boxes and that one was kept here, the other in the tower room. I didn’t know which was which. They aren’t a particular passion of mine. When Munter told me what he also told the police, that he hadn’t left the ground-floor apartments and that he’d fetched a music box from the business room, I saw no reason to doubt him.”

  Cordelia said: “When Clarissa or the producer first asked for a music box, he acted as one would expect. He fetched the nearer and less valuable box. Why trouble to go all the way to the tower room when there was a box easily to hand here in the business room? He wouldn’t have gone to the tower room if Clarissa hadn’t rejected the first box.”

  Ambrose said: “The only entrance to the tower is from the gallery. Munter lied to the police. At about two o’clock yesterday he was within a few feet of Clarissa’s door. That means he could have seen someone entering or leaving. The police may feel that he could have gone in to her himself, locked door or no locked door. And that’s why he was so obsessive about returning the boxes, each to the room he said he’d taken it from. He needn’t have troubled, of course. I don’t see how anyone could have known the truth. It was pure chance that you, Cordelia, wandered into the tower and found the second box. Whether the police believe you is, of course, another matter.”

  Cordelia said: “It wasn’t altogether chance. If Clarissa hadn’t ordered me out of the theatre I should have watched the rehearsal to the end. And I don’t see why the police shouldn’t believe me. They may find it easier to believe that I was curious to explore the tower room than that you, who are so fond of your Victoriana, didn’t know precisely where you kept each of your music boxes.”

  As soon as she had spoken, she wondered whether this frankness had been wise; spoken to her host, it had hardly been courteous. But Ambrose accepted the comment without offence. He said easily: “You’re probably right. I doubt whether they’ll believe either of us. After all they only have our word for it that Munter lied. And it’s very convenient for us, isn’t it: a dead suspect who can’t now deny what any of us choose to say about him? The butler did it. Even in fiction, so I’m led to believe, that solution is regarded as unsatisfactory.”

  Sir George lifted his head: “I think the police launches are arriving.”

  He must, thought Cordelia, have remarkable ears for an ageing man. Hers had caught nothing. And then she sensed rather than heard the throb of engines. They looked at each other. For the first time Cordelia saw in their eyes what she knew they must be recognizing in hers, the flicker of fear. Ambrose said: “I’ll meet them at the quay. You two had better get back to the body.”

  Sir George and Cordelia were alone. If it were to be said, it had to be said now, before the police questioning began. But it was hard to get out the words, and when she did they sounded harsh, accusatory.

  “You recognized that drowned face, didn’t you? You think he could have been Blythe’s son?”

  He said unsurprised: “It did strike me, yes. Never occurred to me before.”

  “You’d never seen Munter like that before, his face upturned, dead and drowned. That’s how you last saw his father.”

  “What made you think of it?”

  “Your face when you looked down at him. The war memorial he decorates every Armistice Day. The words he shouted out at you: ‘Murderer, murderer!’ It was his father he meant, not Clarissa. And I think he muttered in German to Simon. Even his Christian name. Didn’t Ambrose say he was Carl? And his height. His father died slowly because he was so tall. But, most of all, his name. Munter is German for blythe. It’s one of the few German words I know.”

  She had seen that look of strained endurance on his face before, but all he said was: “Could be. Could be.”

  She asked: “Are you going to tell Grogan?”

  “No. None of his business. Not relevant.”

  “Not even if they arrest you for murder?”

  “They won’t. I didn’t kill my wife.” Suddenly he said, quickly as if the words were forced out of him: “I don’t believe I
deliberately let them kill him. May have done. Difficult to understand one’s motives. Used to think it was all so simple.”

  Cordelia said: “You don’t have to explain to me. It’s none of my business. And you were a young officer at the time. You can’t have been in command here.”

  “No, but I was on duty that evening. Should have discovered that something was afoot, should have stopped it. But I hated Blythe so much that I couldn’t trust myself to go near him. That’s one thing you never forget or forgive, cruelty when you’re a child and defenceless. I shut my mind and my eyes to anything that concerned him. May have shut them deliberately. You could call it a dereliction of duty.”

  “But no one did. There was no court martial, was there? No one blamed you.”

  “I blame myself.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then he said: “Never knew he was married. No mention of a wife at the inquest. There was talk of a girl in Speymouth but she never showed herself. No talk of a child.”

  “Munter probably wasn’t born. And he could have been illegitimate. I don’t suppose we shall ever know. But his mother must have been bitter about what happened. He probably grew up believing that the Army had murdered his father. I wonder why he took a job on the island: curiosity, filial duty, the hope of revenge? But he couldn’t have expected that you would turn up here.”

  “He might have hoped for it. He took the job in the summer of 1978. I married Clarissa that year, and she has known Ambrose Gorringe nearly all her life. Munter probably kept track of me. I’m not exactly a nonentity.”

  Cordelia said: “The police have made mistakes before now. If they do arrest you I shall feel free to tell them. I shall have to tell them.”

  He said quietly: “No, Cordelia. It’s my concern, my past, my life.”