P. James: The Skull Beneath The Skin

'Poor Cordelia! I'm sorry. I would have spared you that if I could. But I thought it would look suspicious if I went up early to call her myself. That's something I've learnt from popular fiction. Never be the one to find the body.'

'But why? Did he say why?'

'Not very coherently. And I was more concerned to get him away than to discuss the psychological complications of the encounter. But neither of them had got what they wanted. She must have seen the shame and the disgust in his eyes. And he saw the loss of all his hopes in hers. She taunted him with his sexual failure. She told him that he was as useless to her as his father had been. I think it was at that moment when she lay there half-naked on the bed smiling at him, mocking him and his dead father together, destroying all his hopes, that his control snapped. He seized the jewel casket, the only weapon to hand, and brought it down.'

'And after that?'

'Can't you guess? I told him precisely what he must do. I schooled him in his story to the police. He was to say that he'd gone to swim after lunch as he told us all that he would. He'd walked along the beach until about an hour after the end of the meal and had then entered the water. He had started off back to the castle at about a quarter to three to dress for the play. I made sure that he had it by heart. I took him into Clarissa's bathroom and washed off the small spot of blood. Then I dried the basin with toilet paper and flushed it down the WC. I found the newspaper cutting. It didn't take long. Her handbag or the jewel box were the two obvious places. Then I took him next door and instructed him how to get down the fire escape from your bathroom window being careful not to touch any of the rungs with his hands. He was like a dutiful child, obedient, extraordinarily calm. I watched while he managed the fire escape, carrying the box under his arm, then as he went to the edge of the cliff and hurled it out to sea as I'd instructed him. And if the police do succeed in dredging it up, they'll find that the valuable jewels are missing. I took them out and flung them into another part of the sea. Forgive me if I don't demonstrate my confidence in you by saying precisely where. But it would never have done if all that the police found missing in the casket was one reputed sheet of newsprint. Then he dived and I watched him strike out strongly towards the west cove.'

'But someone else was watching too; Munter from the tower room window, the only window which overlooks the fire escape.'

'I know. He managed to make that plain to us in his drunken ramblings when Simon and I were helping him to his room. It wouldn't have mattered. Munter was absolutely safe. I told Simon not to let it worry him. Munter would have taken any secret of mine to the grave.'

Cordelia said:

'He took it to the grave conveniently early. And could you really trust a drunkard?'

'I could trust Munter, drunk or sober. And I didn't kill him. And nor, as far as I know, did Simon. That death, at least, was accidental.'

'What did you do next?'

'I had to work quickly. But the haste and the risk were remarkably stimulating. My plotting of this real-life mystery was almost as ingenious as it was in Autopsy. I cleaned the make-up from Clarissa's face so that the police wouldn't suspect that she'd invited a visitor to her room. Then I set out to destroy the evidence of how precisely she was killed and to substitute a weapon which Simon couldn't have brought with him because he didn't know it existed, a weapon which would deceive the police into thinking that the murder was connected with the threatening quotations. I didn't tell Simon what I proposed and I didn't touch the body until he'd left. His ignorance was his greatest safeguard. He never saw Clarissa's shattered face.'

'And you had the limb with you, I suppose, in the inside pocket of your cloak?'

'I had both of them ready, the marble and the note. I was intending to put them in the casket which Clarissa would open in the second scene of Act Three. It would have had to be done under cover of the cloak and at the last minute, requiring some sleight of hand. But I think I might have managed it. And I assure you the result would have been spectacular. I doubt whether she would have got through the scene.'

'And is that why you took the job of assistant stage manager and occupied yourself with the props?'

'That's why. It was natural enough. People assumed that I wanted to keep an eye on my belongings.'

'And after you'd destroyed Clarissa's face, I suppose you took Simon's clothes to the cove, also hiding them under your cloak.'

'How well you understand duplicity, Cordelia. I should have liked to have left them further down the shore but there wasn't time. The small cove beyond the terrace was as far as I could manage. And then I entered the theatre by the arcade and checked the props with Munter. I should mention that I didn't have to worry unduly about fingerprints when I was in Clarissa's room. This is my house. The furniture and the objects, including the marble, belong to me. It was perfectly reasonable that they should bear my prints. But I did wonder about my palm print on the communicating door. That could have shown that I was the last person to touch it. That's why I took good care to open it after we found the body.'

'And the threatening quotations, you sent those too? You took over when Tolly stopped?'

'So you know about Tolly? I think I've underestimated you, Cordelia. Yes, it wasn't difficult. Poor Tolly took to religion as an opiate for grief, and I continued the good work but in a rather more artistic form. It was only then that Clarissa called the police. It wasn't a development I welcomed so I suggested a little ploy to her that effectively scotched their interest. Clarissa really was an extraordinarily stupid woman. She had instinct but absolutely no intelligence. My success depended on two things about Clarissa, her stupidity and her terror of death. So when Tolly's little notes with their remarkably apt biblical reference to millstones around necks ceased, I initiated my own brand of unpleasantness with the occasional help of Munter. ;The object was; of course, to destroy her as an actress and give me back my privacy, my peaceable island. It was only as an actress that Clarissa had any power over me. She would never return to Courcy if its theatre was the scene of her final humiliation. Once her confidence and her career were effectively and totally destroyed, I should be free. To do her justice she wasn't a common blackmailer. She didn't need to be. She first saw that newspaper cutting in 1977. Clarissa liked to pamper her ego with discreditable secrets about her friends and this was one she hugged to herself for three years before she needed to make use of it. It was my bad luck that the restoration of the theatre and the crisis in her career should coincide. Suddenly there was something she wanted of me. And she had the means to get it. I assure you, that blackmail was carried out with the greatest delicacy and discretion.'

Suddenly he leaned towards her and said:

'Look, Cordelia, it isn't going to be possible to shield him for much longer. He's beginning to drink. You must have seen it. And he's making mistakes. That gaffe which Roma noticed, for example. How could he have known what the jewel box was like if he hadn't seen or handled it? And there will be others. I like the boy and he's not without talent. I've done all I can to save him. Clarissa destroyed his father and I didn't see why she should add the son to her list of victims. But I was wrong about him. He hasn't the guts to see this through. And Grogan is no fool.'

'Where is he now?'

'I told you. In his room as far as I know.'

She looked into his face, at the smooth womanish skin burnished by the light of the fire, the eyes like black coals, the perpetually half-smiling mouth. She felt the persuasive force flowing towards her – rooting her into the comfort of her chair. And then as if the claret had mysteriously cleared her mind, she knew exactly what he was doing. The careful explanations, the wine, the almost companionable chat, the seductive comfort folded like a shawl around her tiredness, what were they but a ploy to waste time, to keep her at his side? Even the place had conspired with him against her; the cheerful domesticity of the fire, the sense of unreality induced by the long restless shadows, the windows wide to the disorientating blackness of the night and the ceaseless, sleep-inducing susurration of the sea.