'I thought that she adored him, that he was an over-indulgent, devoted papa.'
'Is that what she told you? How typical of Clarissa! She couldn't even be honest about her own childhood. No, he was a brute. I don't mean he physically ill-treated us. In some ways that would have been more endurable than sarcasm, a cold adult anger, contempt. I didn't understand him then, of course. Now I think I do. He didn't really like women. He married to get himself a son – he had the egotism that can't imagine a world in which he hasn't at least a vicarious immortality – and he found himself with a daughter, an invalid wife who'd no intention of breeding again and a job in which divorce wasn't an option. And Clarissa wasn't even pretty when she was a child. And his coolness arid her fear killed any spontaneity, any affection, even any intelligence which she might have shown. No wonder she spent the rest of her life obsessively looking for love. But then don't we all?'
Cordelia said:
'After I was told something about her, something she'd done, I thought that she was a monster. But perhaps no one is, not entirely, not when you know the truth about them-.''
'She was a monster all right. But when I think of Uncle Roderick, I can understand why. Hadn't we better be getting back? Grogan will suspect us of conspiracy. We can probably scramble down to the beach from here and walk back by the sea.'
They trudged back along the edge of the surf. Roma, her hands sunk in her jacket pockets, walked ahead, splashing through the small receding waves, seeming oblivious of the wet trouser bottoms flapping against her ankles, of her sodden shoes. The way back was longer and slower than the walk through the copse, but at last they turned the headland of a small bay and the castle was suddenly before them. They stopped and watched. A young man in bathing-trunks and carrying a rough wooden box was climbing down the fire escape from the window of Cordelia's first bedroom. He climbed carefully, hooking his arms round the rungs, being careful not to touch them with his hands. Then he glanced round, walked to the edge of the rocks and with a sudden violent gesture flung the box out to sea. Then he stood poised for a moment, arms raised, and dived. About thirty yards from the end of the terrace rocked a boat, a different boat from the police launch. A diver, sleek and glittering in his black suit, rested on the gunwale. As soon as the box hit the water he twisted his body and dropped backward out of sight. Roma said:
'So that's what the police are thinking?'
'Yes. That's what they're thinking.'
'They're after the jewel casket. And suppose they do manage to dredge it up?' Cordelia said:
'It will be bad news for someone on this island. I think that they'll find that it still holds Clarissa's jewels.' But what else might it hold? Would the notice of Clarissa's performance in The Deep Blue Sea still be in the secret drawer? The police had taken very little interest in that single square of newsprint, but suddenly it seemed to Cordelia that it must have had some significance. Wasn't there just the possibility that it had a bearing on Clarissa's death? The thought at first seemed absurd, but it persisted. She knew that she wouldn't be satisfied until she had seen a duplicate. The obvious first step was to call at the newspaper office in Speymouth and examine the archives. She knew the year, Jubilee year, 1977. It shouldn't be too difficult. And at least it would give her something positive to do.
She was aware that Roma was standing absolutely still, her eyes fixed on the lone swimmer. Her face was expressionless.
Then she shook herself and said:
'We'd better go in and face another round of what, with Chief Inspector Grogan, passes for the third degree. If he were openly impertinent, or even brutal I’d find it less offensive than his veiled masculine insolence.'
But when they passed through the hall and were drawn by the sound of voices into the library they were told by Ambrose that Grogan and Buckley had left the island. They were said to be meeting Dr Ellis-Jones at the Speymouth mortuary. There would be no more questioning until Monday morning. The rest of the day was their own to get through as best they could.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Buckley thought that Sunday afternoon was a hell of a time for an autopsy. He didn't exactly enjoy them whenever he had to attend, but Sunday, even when he was on duty, had about it a; lethargic, post-prandial calm which called for a comfortable chair in the Sergeants' Mess and a desultory reading over of reports rather than an hour spent on his feet while Doc Ellis-Jones sliced, sawed, cut, weighed and demonstrated with his gloved and bloody hands. It wasn't that Buckley felt squeamish. He didn't in the least care what indignities were practised on his own body once he was dead and he couldn't see why anyone should be more perturbed by the ritual dismemberment of a corpse than he had been as a lad watching his Uncle Charlie in that exciting shed behind his butcher's shop. Come to think of it, Doc Ellis-Jones and Uncle Charlie shared the same expertise and went about their business in much the same way. This had surprised him when, as a newly appointed constable fresh out of regional training school, he had attended his first post-mortem. He had expected that it would be more scientific, less brutal, and far less messy than it had, in fact, proved to be. It had occurred to him then that the main differences between Doc Ellis-Jones and Uncle Charlie were that Uncle Charlie worried less about infection, used a smaller variety of somewhat cruder instruments and treated his meat with more respect. But that wasn't surprising when you considered what he charged for it.
He was glad to get out at last into the fresh air. It wasn't that the PM room stank. It would have been less objectionable to him if it had. Buckley strongly disliked the smell of disinfectant which overlay rather than masked the smell of putrefaction. The smell was elusive but persistent and tended to linger in his nose.
The mortuary was a modern building on upper ground to the west of the little town, and as they made their way to their Rover they could see the lights coming on like glow-worms along the curving streets and the dark form of Courcy Island lying supine as a half-submerged and sleeping animal, far out to sea. It was odd, thought Buckley, how the island seemed to draw closer or recede depending on the light and the time of day. In the mellow autumnal sunshine it had lain in a blue haze, looking so near that he could imagine it possible to swim to that multi-coloured and tranquil shore. Now it had drawn far into the Channel, remote and sinister, an island of mystery and horror. The castle was on its southern shore and no lights beckoned. He wondered what the small company of suspects was doing at this moment, how they would face the long night ahead. It was his guess that all but one of them would sleep behind locked doors.
Grogan came up to him. Nodding towards the island he said: 'So now we know what one of them knew already, how she died. Stripped of Doc Ellis-Jones's technical chat about the mechanics of force and the local absorption of kinetic energy in injuries to the head, not to mention the interesting and characteristic pattern in which the skull disintegrates under the weight of impact, what have we? Much as we expected. She died from a depressed fracture of the front of the skull made with our old friend, a blunt instrument. She was probably lying on her back at the time, much as Miss Gray found her. The bleeding was steady but almost entirely internal and the effect of the blow was intensified by the fact that the bones of the skull are thinner than normal. Unconsciousness supervened almost immediately and she died within five to fifteen minutes. The subsequent damage was done after death, how long after he can't unfortunately say. So we have a murderer who sits and waits while his victim dies and then… what? Decides to make sure? Decides that he didn't much like the lady and may as well make that fact plain? Decides to cover up how she died by giving her more of the same thing?