The Black Tower

by P. D. James

  Julius was driving very fast even over the bumpy ground of the headland. The car stopped. Now he would be opening the boundary gate. Another few seconds of driving and the car stopped again. Now he must have met Mrs. Reynolds and was exchanging that half-minute of conversation. Now they were off again, this time with smooth road under their wheels.

  There was something else he could do. He moved his hand under his cheek and bit into his left thumb. The blood tasted warm and sweet. He smeared it across the roof of the boot and, scuffling aside the sheet, pressed his thumb into the carpet. Group AB rhesus negative. It was a rare enough group. And with any luck Julius would miss these minute telltale smears. He hoped the police searcher would be more perspicacious.

  He began to feel stifled, his head thudded. He told himself that there was plenty of air, that this pressure on his chest was no more than psychological trauma. And then the car rocked gently and he knew that Julius was driving off the road and into the hollow behind the stone wall which divided the headland from the road. It was a convenient stopping place. Even if another car passed, and this was unlikely, the Mercedes wouldn’t be visible. They had arrived. The final part of the journey was about to begin.

  There were only about one hundred and fifty yards of rock-strewn and lumpy turf to where the black tower stood squat and malignant under the menacing sky. Dalgliesh knew that Julius would prefer to make a single journey. He would want to get as quickly as possible out of all sight of the road. He would want the business over so that he could get on his way. More important, he needed to make no physical contact with either victim. Their clothes would yield nothing when their bloated bodies were finally fished from the sea; but Julius would know how difficult to eradicate, without telltale cleaning, would be the infinitesimally small traces of hair, fibre or blood on his own clothes. So far he was absolutely clean. It would be one of his strongest cards. Dalgliesh would be allowed to live at least until they reached the shelter of the tower. He felt confident enough of this to take his time in getting Philby’s body strapped into the chair. Afterwards he leaned for a moment over the handlebars breathing heavily, simulating more exhaustion than he felt. Somehow, despite the hard pushing ahead, he must conserve his strength. Julius slammed down the boot lid and said:

  “Get a move on. The storm is almost on us.”

  But he didn’t shift his fixed gaze to glance at the sky, nor had he need. They could almost smell the rain in the freshening breeze.

  Although the wheels of the chair were well oiled the going was hard. Dalgliesh’s hands slid on the rubber handgrips. Philby’s body, strapped like a recalcitrant child, jerked and rolled as the wheels struck stones or clumps of grass. Dalgliesh felt the sweat rolling into his eyes. It gave him the opportunity he needed to get rid of his jacket. When it came to the last physical struggle the man least encumbered would have an advantage. He stopped pushing and stood gasping. The feet behind him stopped too.

  It might happen now. There was nothing he could do if it did. He comforted himself with the thought that he would know nothing. One press of Julius’s finger on the trigger and his busy fearful mind would be stilled. He remembered Julius’s words. “I know what will happen to me when I die; annihilation. It would be unreasonable to fear that.” If only it were that simple! But Julius did not press. The dangerously quiet voice behind him said:

  “Well?”

  “I’m hot. May I take off my jacket?”

  “Why not? Drape it over Philby’s knees. I’ll chuck it in the sea after you. It would be torn off your body by the tide anyway.”

  Dalgliesh slid his arms from his jacket and placed it folded over Philby’s knees. Without looking round he said:

  “You’d be unwise to shoot me in the back. Philby was killed instantly. It has to look as if he shot me first but only to wound, before I wrenched the gun from him and finished him off. No fight with only one gun could reasonably result in two instantaneous killings, and one in the small of the back.”

  “I know. Unlike you, I may be inexperienced in the cruder manifestations of violence but I’m not a fool and I do understand about firearms. Get on.”

  They moved forward, carefully distanced, Dalgliesh pushing his macabre passenger and hearing behind him the soft rustle of the following feet. He found himself thinking about Peter Bonnington. It was because an unknown boy, now dead, had been moved from Toynton Grange that he, Adam Dalgliesh, was now walking across Toynton Head with a gun at his back. Father Baddeley would have discerned a pattern. But then Father Baddeley had believed that there was a great underlying pattern. Given that assurance, all human perplexities were no more than exercises in spiritual geometry. Suddenly Julius began speaking. Dalgliesh could almost imagine that he felt the need to entertain his victim on this last tedious walk, that he was making some attempt at justification.

  “I can’t be poor again. I need money as I need oxygen. Not just enough; more than enough. Much more. Poverty kills. I don’t fear death but I fear that particular slow and corrosive process of dying. You didn’t believe me, did you—that story about my parents?”

  “Not altogether. Was I expected to?”

  “Yet that at least was true. I could take you to pubs in Westminster—Christ, you probably know them—and bring you face to face with what I fear; the pathetic elderly queens managing on their pensions. Or not managing. And they, poor sods, haven’t even been used to having money. I have. I’m not ashamed of my nature. But if I’m to live at all, I have to be rich. Did you really expect me to let one sick old fool and a dying woman stand in my way?”

  Dalgliesh didn’t reply. Instead he asked:

  “I suppose you came this way when you set fire to the tower.”

  “Of course. I did as we’ve done now, drove to the hollow and came on foot. I knew when Wilfred, a creature of habit, was likely to be in the tower and I watched him walk over the headland through my binoculars. If it wasn’t that day, it would be another. There was no difficulty in helping myself to the key and a habit. I saw to that a day in advance. Anyone who knows Toynton Grange can move about it undetected. Even if I were seen, I don’t have to explain my presence there. As Wilfred says, I’m one of the family. That’s why killing Grace Willison was so easy. I was home and in bed soon after midnight and with no worse effects than cold legs and a little difficulty in getting to sleep. By the way, I ought to say, in case you harbour any doubts, that Wilfred knows nothing of the smuggling. If I were about to die and you to live instead of the other way round you could look forward to the pleasure of breaking the news. Both pieces of news. His miracle a delusion and his abode of love a staging post for death. I should give a great deal to see his face.”

  They were within feet now of the black tower. Without overtly changing direction Dalgliesh steered the wheelchair as close as he dared to the porch. The wind was gently rising in short moaning crescendos. But then, there would always be a breeze on this wind-scoured promontory of grass and rock. Suddenly he stopped. He held the chair with his left hand and half turned towards Julius, carefully balancing his weight. It was now. It had to be now.

  Julius said sharply:

  “Well, what is it?”

  Time stopped. A second was stilled into infinity. In that brief, timeless lacuna, Dalgliesh’s mind was drained free of tension and fear. It was as if he were detached from the past and the future, aware simultaneously of himself, of his adversary, of the sound, scent and colour of sky, cliff and sea. The pent up anger at Father Baddeley’s death, the frustration and indecision of the last few weeks, the controlled suspense of the past hour; all were calmed in this moment before their final release. He spoke, his voice, high and cracked, simulating terror. But, even to his own ears, the terror sounded horribly real.

  “The tower! There’s someone inside!”

  It came again as he had prayed it would, the bone ends, piercing the torn flesh, scrabbling frantically against unyielding stone. He sensed rather than heard the sharp hiss of Julius’s intake of breath
. Then time moved on, and in that second, Dalgliesh sprang.

  As they fell, Julius’s body beneath him, Dalgliesh felt the hammer blow on his right shoulder, the sudden numbness, the sticky warmth, soothing as a balm, flowing into his shirt. The shot echoed back from the black tower, and the headland came alive. A cloud of gulls rose screaming from the rock face. Sky and cliff were a tumult of wildly beating wings. And then as if the laden clouds had waited for this signal, the sky was ripped open with the sound of tearing canvas, and the rain fell.

  They fought like famished animals clawing at their prey, without skill, eyes stung and blinded by rain, locked in a rigor of hate.

  Dalgliesh, even with the weight of Julius’s body beneath him, felt his strength ebbing. It had to be now, now while he was on top. And he still had the use of his good left shoulder. He twisted Julius’s wrist into the clammy earth and pressed with all his strength on the beat of the pulse. He could feel Julius’s breath like a hot blast on his face. They lay cheek to cheek in a horrible parody of exhausted love. And still the gun did not drop from those rigid fingers. Slowly, in painful spasms, Julius bent his right arm towards Dalgliesh’s head. And then the gun went off. Dalgliesh felt the bullet pass over his hair to spend itself harmlessly in the sheeting rain.

  And now they were rolling towards the cliff edge. Dalgliesh, weakening, felt himself clutching Julius as if for support. The rain was a stinging lance on his eyeballs. His nose was pressed suffocatingly into the sodden earth. Humus. A comforting and familiar last smell. His fingers clawed impotently at the turf as he rolled. It came apart in moist clumps in his hands. And suddenly Julius was kneeling over him, hands at his throat, forcing his head back over the cliff edge. The sky, the sea and the sheeting rain were one turbulent whiteness, one immense roaring in his ears. Julius’s streaming face was out of his reach, the rigid arms pressing down the cruel encircling hands. He had to bring that face closer. Deliberately he slackened his muscles and loosened his already weakening hold on Julius’s shoulders. It worked. Julius relaxed his grasp and instinctively bent his head forward to look into Dalgliesh’s face. Then he screamed as Dalgliesh’s thumbs gouged into his eyes. Their bodies fell apart. And Dalgliesh was on his feet and scrambling up the headland to fling himself behind the wheelchair.

  He crouched behind it, heaving against the sagging canvas for support, watching Julius advance, hair streaming, eyes wild, the strong arms stretching forward, eager for that final clutch. Behind him the tower streamed black blood. The rain slashed like hail against the boulders, sending up a fine mist to mingle with his hoarse breath. Its painful rhythm tore at his chest and filled his ears like the death throes of some great animal. Suddenly he released the brakes and with his last strength hurled the chair forward. He saw his murderer’s astonished and desperate eyes. For one second he thought that Julius would fling himself against the chair. But at the last moment he leapt aside, and the chair and its dreadful burden sailed over the cliff.

  “Explain that when they fish it out!” Dalgliesh never knew whether he spoke to himself or shouted the words aloud. And then Julius was on him.

  This was the end. He wasn’t fighting now, only letting himself be rolled downwards towards death. He could hope for nothing except to carry Julius over with him. Hoarse, discordant cries were hurting his ears. The crowd were shouting for Julius. All the world was shouting. The headland was full of voices, of shapes. Suddenly the weight on his chest lifted. He was free. He heard Julius whisper “Oh, no!” Dalgliesh heard the sad despairing protest as clearly as if the voice had been his own. It wasn’t the last horrified cry of a desperate man. The words were quiet, rueful, almost amused. Then the air was darkened by a shape, black as a great bird, passing spread-eagled over his head in what seemed slow motion. Earth and sky turned slowly together. A solitary seagull screamed. The earth thudded. A white ring of amorphous blobs was bending over him. But the ground was soft, irresistibly soft. He let his consciousness bleed away into it.

  IV

  The surgical registrar came out of Dalgliesh’s room to where a group of large men were obstructing the corridor. He said:

  “He’ll be OK for questioning in about half an hour or so. We’ve extracted the bullet. I’ve handed it over to your chap. We’ve put up a drip but don’t let that worry you. He’s lost a fair amount of blood but there’s no real damage. There’s no harm now in your going in.”

  Daniel asked:

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Barely. Your chap in there says he’s been quoting King Lear. Something about Cordelia anyway. And he’s fretting because he hasn’t said thank you for the flowers.”

  Daniel said:

  “He won’t be needing flowers this time, thank God. He can thank Mrs. Reynolds’s sharp eyes and common sense for that. And the storm helped. But it was a close thing. Court would have carried him over the cliff if we hadn’t come up on them before he noticed us. Well, we may as well go in if you think it’s OK.”

  A uniformed constable appeared, helmet under his arm.

  “Well?”

  “The Chief Constable’s on his way, Sir. And they’ve pulled out Philby’s body half strapped to a wheelchair.”

  “And Court’s?”

  “Not yet, Sir. They reckon he’ll be washed in further down the coast.”

  Dalgliesh opened his eyes. His bed was ringed with black and white figures advancing and receding in a ritual dance. Nurses’ caps floated like disembodied wings above the smudged faces as if uncertain where to settle. Then the picture cleared and he saw the circle of half familiar faces. Sister was here, of course. And the consultant had got back early from his wedding. He wasn’t wearing his rose any more. The faces broke simultaneously into wary smiles. He made himself smile back. So it wasn’t acute leukaemia; it wasn’t any kind of leukaemia. He was going to get better. And once they’d removed this heavy contraption which for some reason they’d fixed to his right arm he could get out of here and back to his job. Wrong diagnosis or not, it was nice of them, he thought sleepily, looking up into the ring of smiling eyes, to look so pleased that he wasn’t going to die after all.

  TOUCHSTONE READING GROUP GUIDE

  An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

  1. Are you shocked that Cordelia decides to conceal the facts not only of Mark Callendar’s death but also of Ronald Callendar’s murder? Why does she do it? Adam Dalgliesh speculates that she is lying for the sake of justice and tells her, “Justice. A very dangerous concept, Miss Gray.” Do you agree?

  2. Cordelia Gray is an inexperienced young private detective, while James’s other frequent hero, Adam Dalgliesh, is a highly experienced professional policeman. Are they alike in some ways? How does their relationship to each other change in the course of the novel?

  The Skull Beneath the Skin

  1. At the end of the novel, Cordelia Gray says that “it was almost impossible to believe that she had first seen Courcy Castle only three days earlier. In that short span of time she seemed to have lived through long, action-packed years, to have become a different person.” In what ways does the murder investigation change Cordelia?

  2. James assigns the task of suspect interrogation to Sergeant Robert Buckley and Grogan, yet, ultimately, neither of them helps solve Clarissa’s murder. Why is Cordelia so much more successful at getting possible suspects to talk to her and at deciphering clues such as the newspaper clipping and the jewelry boxes?

  Innocent Blood

  1. When Philippa first learns that her mother was a murderess about to be released from prison, did you expect that her mother would be a threat to Philippa? Were you surprised to find her a gentle, even sympathetic character? Where does the suspense in the novel come from?

  2. How does Philippa change in the course of the novel? What does her final encounter with Norman Scase reveal about her growth? Do you accept as true that “it is only through learning to love that we find identity”?

  Cover Her Face

  1. Chapter Four gives a window
into the thoughts of each of the Martingale suspects, including the actual murderer. How does James provide a convincing glimpse of the murderer’s state of mind, without revealing the person’s guilt?

  2. How does the presence of a sleeping drug in Sally Jupp’s cocoa function as a red herring? How, too, does the bolted door? Which is more effective in leading Dalgliesh astray?

  A Mind to Murder

  1. This novel is set in a psychiatric clinic, yet none of the patients is ever seriously considered to be a suspect. Instead, it is the staff who comes under Dalgliesh’s scrutiny. Why do you think James chooses to make suspects of ordinary people rather than the mentally ill?

  2. In the end, the A.C. concludes, “It was a perfectly straightforward case. The obvious suspect, the obvious motive.” Dalgliesh responds bitterly, “Too obvious for me, apparently.” Why is Dalgliesh thrown off so long from identifying the killer? Can you blame him as much as he blames himself?

  Unnatural Causes

  1. Detective Inspector Reckless and Adam Dalgliesh are working to solve the same mystery and have access to the same evidence. Yet Dalgliesh is able to guess the method of Maurice Seton’s murder and Reckless is not. How does Dalgliesh do it? What are his particular gifts as a detective?

  2. Once the taped confession is played, Jane Dalgliesh goes to the kitchen and fills the kettle. Adam wonders, “Now that it was all over was she even interested in that tumult of hate which had destroyed and disrupted so many lives including her own? … Never before had his aunt’s uninvolvement struck him so forcibly; never before had it seemed so frightening.” Could the same word, uninvolvement, be used to describe Adam Dalgliesh? Could his strong negative reaction to Jane’s uninvolvement be related to the letter he had just received from Deborah Riscoe?