P. James - The Skull Beneath The Skin

'And so you killed her?'

He refilled her glass and his own, then looked at her. She had the feeling that he was measuring something, her probable response, his need to confide, perhaps even how much time remained to them. He smiled, and the smile was one of genuine amusement which almost broke into a laugh.

'My dear Cordelia! Do you really believe that you're sitting here, sipping Chateau Margaux with a murderer! I congratulate you on your sang-froid. No, I didn't kill her. I thought you understood that. I haven't that brand of courage or ruthlessness. No, she was dead when I battered in her face. Someone had been there before me. She couldn't feel it, you see. Nothing matters, nothing exists as long as you can't feel it. It. wasn't living flesh that I beat into a pulp. It wasn't Clarissa.'

But, of course. What had made her so blind? She had reasoned all this out before. Clarissa must have been dead when he raised the marble limb and brought it down, the limb of a dead princess who, by chance, had borne the same name as that other child who, more than a century later, had died uncomforted by her mother in a London hospital bed. He said:

'There was no upward spurt of blood. How could there be? She was already dead. It isn't so very difficult to strike when the kill has been made. No blood, no pain, no guilt. All I did was to cover up for the murderer. Admittedly my motive was mainly self-interest. I needed to find and destroy that vital scrap of newsprint. I knew that it would be somewhere in the room. That was one of her little tricks, to keep it near her, to take it out of her handbag occasionally and pretend to read the review. But you should credit me with some disinterested concern for the killer. It pleased me to concoct for him a way of escape if he had the guts to take it. After all, I did owe him something.'

'She could have taken photocopies of the photograph.'

'Perhaps, although it wasn't likely. And what would it matter if she had? They'd be found with her effects at home, trivia to be thrown away with the detritus of her essentially trivial life, the half-used jars of face cream, the dead love-letters, the hoarded theatre programmes. And even if George Ralston had found it and realized its significance – an unlikely eventuality – he wouldn't have done anything. George wouldn't have seen it as his business to do the work of the Inland Revenue. I came back here for one day and one night to be with a dying man. Would you, or anyone you know, use that knowledge to inform on me?'

'No.'

'And will you now?'

'I must. It's different now. I have to tell, not the tax people, the police. I have to.'

'Oh, no you don't, Cordelia! No you don't! Don't try to fool yourself that you no longer have the responsibility of choice.'

She didn't answer. He leaned forward and refilled her glass.

'It wasn't the possibility of other copies that worried me. What I couldn't risk was the police finding that one copy, and in her room. And I knew that, if it were there to find, then they'd find it. They'd be looking for a motive. Everything in that room would be collected, docketed, scrutinized, examined. There was a chance, of course, that they'd take the cutting at its face value, a critic's notice kept for purely sentimental reasons. But why that particular notice, a not very important play in a provincial theatre? It's never safe to rely on the stupidity of the police.'

She said with great sadness: 'So it was Simon. Poor Simon! Where is he now?'

'In his room. Perfectly safe, I assure you. Don't you want to know what happened?'

'But he couldn't have planned it! Not Simon. He couldn't have meant it.'

'Planned it, no. Meant it? Who's to say what he meant? She's just as dead, isn't she, whatever he meant? What he told me was that she invited him to her room. He was to say that he was going for a swim, put on his swimming-trunks under his jeans and shirt, wait until thirty minutes after she'd gone to rest, then knock three times at the door. She'd let him in. She said there was something she wanted to talk to him about. There was, of course. Herself. Whatever else did Clarissa ever want to talk about? He, poor deluded fool, thought she was going to tell him that he could go to the Royal College, that she'd pay for his musical education.'

'But why send for Simon? Why him?'

'Ah, that I doubt whether we shall ever know. But I can make a guess. Clarissa liked to make love before a performance. Perhaps it gave her confidence, perhaps it was a necessary release of tension, perhaps she only knew of one way to stop herself thinking.'

'But Simon! That boy! She couldn't have wanted him!'

'Perhaps not. Perhaps, this time, she only wanted to talk, wanted companionship. And, with all respect to you, my dear Cordelia, she had never looked to a woman for that. But she may have thought that she was doing him a service in more ways than one. Clarissa is totally incapable of believing that a man exists – a normal man anyway – who wouldn't take her if he could get her. And to do her justice, my sex hasn't done much to disabuse her of the idea. And what better time for Simon to begin his privileged education than on a warm afternoon after, I pride myself, an excellent luncheon and when she needed a new sensation, a divertissement to take her mind off the performance ahead? And who else was there? George, poor chivalrous booby, would lie to the death to protect her reputation, but my guess is that he hasn't touched her since he discovered that he's a cuckold. I'm no use to her. And Whittingham? Well, Ivo has had his turn. And can you imagine her wanting him even if he had the strength? It would be like handling the dry skin of death, infecting your tongue with the taste of death, smelling corruption in your nostrils. Given dear Clarissa's peculiar needs, who was there but Simon?' 'But it's horrible!'

'Only because you're young, pretty and intolerant. It would have done no harm with a different boy and at a different time. He might even have thanked her. But Simon Lessing was looking for a different kind of education. Besides, he's a romantic. What she saw in his face wasn't desire, it was disgust. Of course, I could be wrong. She may not have thought it out very clearly. Clarissa seldom did. But she asked him to come to her. And as with me and my uncle, he came.'

She said:

'What happened? How did you find out?'

'I lied to Grogan about the time I left my room. I changed at once and quickly so that just after twenty minutes to two I was passing Clarissa's door. At that moment Simon looked out. The encounter was completely fortuitous. We stared at each other. His face was ghastly – ashen-white, the eyes glazed. I thought he was going to collapse. I pushed him back into the bedroom and locked the door. He was wearing only his swimming-trunks and I saw his shirt and jeans in a heap on the floor. And Clarissa was lying sprawled on the bed. She was dead.'

'How could you be sure? Why didn't you get help?'

'My dear Cordelia, I may have led a sheltered life but I know death when I see it. I did check. I felt for a pulse. None. I drew the corner of my handkerchief across the eyeball, a disagreeable procedure. No response. He had brought the jewel box crashing down on her head and smashed the skull. The box was actually lying there on her forehead. Oddly enough, there was very little bleeding, a small smudge on his forearm where the blood had spurted upwards, a thin trickle running from her left nostril. It had almost dried when I saw her and yet she had only been dead for ten minutes. It looked like a crooked gash, a disfigurement above the gaping mouth. That's one last humiliation which none of us can do anything about, looking ridiculous in death. How she would have hated it! But then you know. You saw her.' Cordelia said:

'You forget. I saw her later. I saw her when you'd finished with her. She didn't look ridiculous then.'