'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?

You aren't going to tell me that he waited ten minutes or so before deciding to panic?' Buckley said:

'He could have spent the time searching for something and been enraged when he didn't find it. So he took out his frustration on the corpse.'

'But searching for what? We haven't found it either, unless it's still there in the room and we've missed its significance. And there's no sign of a search. If the room was searched it was done with care and by someone who knew what he was about. And if he was looking for something, my guess is that he found it.'

'There's still the lab report to come, sir. And they'll have the viscera within the hour.'

'I doubt whether they'll find anything. Doc Ellis-Jones saw no sign of poison. She may have been drugged – we mustn't theorize too far ahead of the facts – but my guess is that she was awake when she died and that she saw the face of her killer.'

It was extraordinary, thought Buckley, how cold the day became once the sun had gone. It was like moving from summer to winter in a couple of hours. He shivered and held open the car door for his Chief. They moved slowly out of the car park and turned towards the town. At first Grogan spoke only in laconic spurts:

'You've heard from the Coroner's Officer?' 'Yes, sir. The inquest's fixed for two o'clock on Tuesday.' 'And the London end? Burroughs is getting on with those inquiries?'

'He's going up first thing in the morning. And I've told the divers we'll be needing them for the rest of the week.' 'What about the bloody press conference?' 'Tomorrow afternoon, sir. Four thirty.'

Again there was silence. Changing gear to negotiate the steep and twisting hill which ran down to Speymouth, Grogan suddenly said:

'The name Commander Adam Dalgliesh mean anything to you, Sergeant?'

There was no need to ask of what force. Only the Met had Commanders. Buckley said:

'I've heard of him, sir.'

'Who hasn't? The Commissioner's blue-eyed boy, darling of the establishment. When the Met, or the Home Office come to that, want to show that the police know how to hold their forks and what bottle to order with the canard a l’orange and how to talk to a Minister on level terms with his Permanent Secretary, they wheel out Dalgliesh. If he didn't exist, the Force would have to invent him.'