The Lighthouse

by P. D. James

  He forced his mind back to the present and, looking down, experienced the familiar illusion of an urban landscape rising up to meet them. They cushioned down gently at the Newquay heliport and, when the blades came to rest, unbuckled their seat belts in the expectation of a few minutes’ delay in which to stretch their legs. The hope was frustrated. Almost immediately Dr. Glenister emerged from the departure lounge and strode vigorously towards them, a handbag slung over her shoulder and carrying a brown Gladstone bag. She was wearing black trousers tucked into high leather boots and a closely fitted tweed jacket. As she approached and looked up, Dalgliesh saw a pale, finely lined and delicately boned face almost eclipsed by a black wide-brimmed trilby worn with a certain rakishness. She climbed aboard, refusing Benton-Smith’s attempt to stow her bags, and Dalgliesh made the introductions.

  She said to the pilot, “Spare me the regulation safety spiel. I seem to spend my life in these contraptions and confidently expect to die in one.”

  She had a remarkable voice, one of the most beautiful Dalgliesh had ever heard. It would be a potent weapon in the witness box. He had not infrequently sat in court watching the faces of juries being seduced into bemused acquiescence by the beauty of a human voice. The miscellaneous scraps of disjointed information about her which, unsought, had come his way over the years—mostly after she had featured in a particularly notorious case—had been intriguing and surprisingly detailed. She was married to a senior Civil Servant who had long since taken his retirement, solaced with the customary honour and, after a lucrative period as a non-executive director in the City, now spent his days sailing and bird-watching on the Orwell. His wife had never taken his name or used his title. Why indeed should she? But the fact that the marriage had produced four sons, all successful in their various spheres, suggested that a marriage seen as semi-detached had had its moments of intimacy.

  One thing she and Dalgliesh had in common: although her textbook on forensic pathology had been widely acclaimed, she never allowed her photograph to be used on a book-jacket, nor did she cooperate in any publicity. Neither did Dalgliesh—initially to his publishers’ chagrin. Herne & Illingworth, fair but rigorous where their authors’ contracts were concerned and notably hard-nosed in business, were in other matters disarmingly naÏve and unworldly. His response to their pressure for photographs, signing sessions, poetry readings and other public appearances had in his view been inspirational: not only would it jeopardise the confidentiality of his job at the Yard, but it could expose him to revenge from the murderers he had arrested, the most notorious of which were soon to be released on parole. His publishers had nodded in knowing compliance and no more had been said.

  They travelled in silence, spared the need to initiate conversation by the noise of the engines and the shortness of the journey. It was only minutes before they were passing over the crinkled blue of the Bristol Channel, and almost at once Combe Island lay beneath them, as unexpectedly as if it had risen from the waves, multicoloured and as sharply defined as a coloured photograph, its silver granite cliffs towering from a white boiling of foam. Dalgliesh reflected that it was impossible to view an offshore island from the air without a quickening of the spirit. Bathed in autumnal sunshine there stretched a sea-estranged other world, deceptively calm but rekindling boyhood memories of fictional mystery, excitement and danger. Every island to a child is a treasure island. Even to an adult mind Combe, like every small island, sent out a paradoxical message: the contrast between its calm isolation and the latent power of the sea, which both protected and threatened its self-contained alluring peace.

  Dalgliesh turned to Dr. Glenister. “Have you been on the island before?”

  “Never, although I know something about it. All visitors are prohibited from landing except where the visit is necessary. There is a modern, automatic lighthouse on the north-west tip, which means that Trinity House, the body responsible for lighthouses, has to come from time to time. Our visit will be among their more unwelcome necessities.”

  As they began their descent, Dalgliesh fixed the main features in his mind. If distances became important, no doubt a map would be provided, but now was the chance to fix the topography. The island lay roughly north-east to south-west, some twelve miles from the mainland, the easterly side slightly concave. There was only one large building and it dominated the south-west tip of the island. Combe, like other large houses seen from the air, had the precisely ordered perfection of an architect’s model. It was an eccentric stone-built house with two wings and a ponderous central tower, so like a battlement that the absence of turrets seemed an architectural aberration. On the seaward façade four long, curved windows glittered in the sun, and to the rear were parallel stone buildings which looked like stable blocks. Some fifty yards beyond them was the helicopter pad, marked with a cross. On a spur of rock to the west of the house stood a lighthouse, its elegant white-painted shaft topped with a red lantern.

  Dalgliesh managed to make his voice heard. “Would you make a fairly low circuit of the island before we land? I’d like to get an overall view.”

  The pilot nodded. The helicopter rose, veered away from the house and then descended to rattle over the north-east coastline. There were eight stone cottages irregularly spaced, four on the north-west cliffs and four on the south-east. The middle of the island was a multicoloured scrubland with clutches of bushes and a few copses of spindly trees crossed by tracks so faint that they looked like the spoor of animals. The island did indeed look inviolate: no beaches, no receding lace of foam. The cliffs were taller and more impressive in the north-west, where a spur of jagged rocks running out to sea like broken teeth rose from a turmoil of crashing waves. Dalgliesh saw that a low and narrower strip of cliff ran round the whole southerly part of the island, broken only by the narrow harbour mouth. Looking down at this neat toy-town inlet, he found it difficult to imagine the agonised terror of those captured slaves landing in this place of horror.

  And here for the first time was evidence of life. A stocky dark-haired man wearing sea boots and a roll-neck jersey appeared from a stone cottage on the quay. He stood shading his eyes and looking up at them for a moment before, disconcertingly dismissive of their arrival, he quickly turned to re-enter the cottage.

  They saw no other sign of life, but when the circuit was completed and they were hovering above the landing circle, three figures emerged from the house and walked towards them with the orderly precision of men on parade. The two in front were more formally suited than was surely customary for the island, their shirt collars immaculate and both wearing ties. Dalgliesh wondered if they had changed before his arrival, whether this careful conformity conveyed a subtle message: he was being officially welcomed not to a scene of crime but to a house in mourning. Apart from the three male figures there was no one else in sight. The rear of the house behind them was plain-fronted, with a wide stone courtyard between the parallel sets of coach-houses, which, from the curtained windows, looked as if they had been converted into dwellings.

  They ducked under the slowing blades of the helicopter and moved towards the waiting party. It was obvious which of the three was in charge. He stepped forward. “Commander Dalgliesh, I’m Rupert Maycroft, the secretary here. This is my colleague and resident physician, Guy Staveley, and this is Dan Padgett.” He paused as if uncertain how to classify Padgett, then said, “He’ll look after your bags.”

  Padgett was a lanky young man, his face paler than one would expect in an islander, his hair closely cropped to show the bones of a slightly domed head. He was wearing dark-blue jeans and a white tee-shirt. Despite his apparent frailty, his long arms were muscular and his hands large. He nodded but didn’t speak.

  Dalgliesh made the introductions and there was a formal shaking of hands. Professor Glenister resolutely declined to part with her bags. Dalgliesh and Kate kept their murder cases but Padgett hoisted the rest of their luggage easily onto his shoulders, picked up Benton’s holdall and strode off to a waiting buggy.
Maycroft made a gesture towards the side of the house and was obviously inviting them to follow him, but his voice was drowned by the renewed noise of the helicopter. They watched as it gently lifted, circled in what could have been a gesture of goodbye, and veered away over the sea.

  Maycroft said, “I take it you’ll want to go first to the body.”

  Dr. Glenister said, “I’d like to complete my examination before Commander Dalgliesh hears anything about the circumstances of the death. Has the body been moved?”

  “To one of our two sickrooms. I hope we didn’t do wrong. We let him down and it felt—well—inhuman to leave him alone at the foot of the tower, even covered by a sheet. It seemed natural to put him on a stretcher and bring him into the house. We’ve left the rope in the lighthouse.”

  Dalgliesh asked, “Unguarded? I mean, is the lighthouse locked?”

  “No. It can’t be, because we no longer have a key. One was provided when the lighthouse was restored—at least I’m told it was—but it’s been missing for years. It was never thought necessary to replace it. We have no children on the island and we don’t admit casual visitors, so there was no reason why the lighthouse should be kept locked. There is a bolt on the inside. The visitor who paid for the restoration, who was an enthusiast for lighthouses, used to sit on the platform beneath the lantern and know he couldn’t be disturbed. We’ve never bothered to remove the bolt, but I doubt that it’s ever used.”

  Maycroft had been leading the way, not to the rear door of the house, but round the left-hand wing and to a pillared front entrance. The central block, with its two long, curved windows on the first and second floors under the massive square tower, reared above them, more intimidatingly impressive than when seen from the air. Almost involuntarily, Dalgliesh came to a stop and looked up.

  As if taking this as an invitation to break what had become an uncomfortable silence, Maycroft said, “Remarkable, isn’t it? The architect was a pupil of Leonard Stokes and, after Stokes died, modelled it on the house he built for Lady Digby at Minterne Magna in Dorset. The main façade there is at the rear and the house is entered that way, but Holcombe wanted both the principal rooms with the long, curved windows and the front door to face the sea. Our visitors, those who know something about architecture, are fond of pointing out that design has been sacrificed to pretension and that Combe has none of the brilliant co-ordination of styles which Stokes achieved at Minterne. The substitution of four curved windows instead of two, and the design of the entrance, make the tower look too bulky. I don’t know Minterne but I expect they’re right. This house looks impressive enough for me. I suppose I’ve got used to it.”

  The front door, dark oak heavily encrusted with ironwork, stood open. They passed into a square hall with a tiled floor in a formal but intricate design. At the rear a wide staircase branched to left and right, giving access to a minstrels’ gallery dominated by a large stained-glass window showing a romanticised King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The hall was sparsely furnished in ornate oak, a style which suggested that the original owner was aiming at baronial ostentation rather than comfort. It was difficult to imagine anyone sitting in those ponderous chairs or on the long settle with its high, intricately carved back.

  Maycroft said, “We have a lift. Through this door.”

  The room they entered was obviously used partly as a business room and partly as a cloakroom and storeroom. There was a desk which showed signs of use, a row of pegs holding waterproofs and a low shelf for boots. Since their arrival, there had been no sign of life. Dalgliesh asked, “Where are they all now, the visitors and resident staff?”

  Maycroft replied, “The staff have been warned that they’ll be needed for questioning. They’re waiting in the house or in their quarters. I’ve asked them to congregate later in the library. We only have two visitors now in addition to Oliver’s daughter, Miranda, and his copy-editor, Dennis Tremlett. The other two can’t be contacted. Of course, one wouldn’t expect them to be inside on a day like this. They could be anywhere on the island, but we should be able to reach them by telephone when the light fades. Neither has booked in for dinner.”

  Dalgliesh said, “I may need to see them before then. Haven’t you some way of getting in touch?”

  “Only by sending out a search party, and I decided against it. I thought it better to keep people together in the house. It’s the custom here never to disturb or contact visitors unless absolutely necessary.”

  Dalgliesh was tempted to reply that murder imposes its own necessity, but stayed silent. The two visitors would have to be questioned, but they could wait. It was now more important to have the residents together.

  Maycroft said, “The two sickrooms are in the tower, immediately under my apartment. Perhaps not very practical, but the surgery is on that floor and it’s peaceful. We can just get a stretcher into this lift, but it’s never before been necessary. We replaced the lift three years ago. About time too.”

  Dalgliesh asked, “You found no note from Mr. Oliver in the lighthouse or elsewhere?”

  Maycroft said, “Not in the lighthouse, but we didn’t think to search. We didn’t look in his pockets, for example. Frankly, it didn’t occur to us. It would have seemed crassly inappropriate.”

  “And Miss Oliver hasn’t mentioned any note left in the cottage?”

  “No, and it’s not a question I’d have liked to ask. I’d gone to tell her that her father was dead. I was there as a friend, not as a policeman.”

  The words, although quietly spoken, held a sting, and, glancing at Maycroft, Dalgliesh saw that his face had flushed. He didn’t reply. Maycroft had been the first to see Oliver’s body; in the circumstances he was coping well.

  Surprisingly, it was Dr. Glenister who spoke. She said dryly, “Let’s hope that the rest of your colleagues appreciate the difference.”

  The lift, clad in carved wood and with a padded leather seat along the back, was commodious. Two of the walls were mirrored. Seeing the faces of Maycroft and Staveley reflected into infinity as they were borne upwards, Dalgliesh was struck by their dissimilarity. Maycroft looked younger than he had expected. Hadn’t the man come to Combe Island after retirement? Either he had retired young or the years had dealt kindly with him. And why not? The life of a country solicitor would hardly expose a man to a higher-than-usual risk of a coronary. His hair, a silky light brown, was beginning to thin but showed no sign of greying. His eyes, under level brows, were a clear grey and his skin almost unlined except for three parallel shallow clefts along the brow. But he had none of the vigour of youth. The impression Dalgliesh gained was of a conscientious man who was settling into middle age with his battles avoided rather than won—the family solicitor you could safely consult if seeking a compromise, not one suited to the rigours of a fight.

  Guy Staveley, surely the younger man, looked ten years older than his colleague. His hair was fading into a dull grey with a tonsure-like patch of baldness on the crown. He was tall, Dalgliesh judged over six feet, and he walked without confidence, his bony shoulders bent, his jaw jutting, as if ready to encounter once again the injustices of life. Dalgliesh recalled Harkness’s easy words. Staveley made a wrong diagnosis and the child died. So he’s got himself a job where the worst that can happen is someone falling off a cliff, and he can’t be blamed for that. Dalgliesh knew that there were things which happened to a man that marked him irrevocably in body and mind, things that could never be forgotten, argued away, made less painful by reason or even by remorse. He had seen on the faces of the chronically ill Staveley’s look of patient endurance unlit by hope.

  3

  * * *

  The lift stopped without a jerk and the group followed Maycroft down a corridor, cream-walled and with a tiled floor, to a door on the right.

  Maycroft took a key with a name tab from his pocket. He said, “This is the only room we can lock, and luckily we haven’t lost the key. I thought you’d want to be assured that the body hadn’t been disturbed.�
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  He stood aside to let them in, and he and Dr. Staveley stationed themselves just inside the door.

  The room was unexpectedly large, with two high windows overlooking the sea. The top of one was open, and the delicate cream curtains drawn across it fluttered erratically, like a labouring breath. The furnishings were a compromise between domestic comfort and utility. The William Morris wallpaper, two button-backed Victorian armchairs and a Regency desk set under the window were appropriate to the unthreatening informality of a guestroom, while the surgical trolley, over-bed table and the single bed with its levers and backrest held something of the bleak impersonality of a hospital suite. The bed was placed at right angles to the windows. At this height a patient would see only the sky, but presumably even such a restricted view provided a comforting reminder that there was a world outside this isolated sickroom. Despite the breeze from the open window and the constant pulse of the sea, the air seemed to Dalgliesh sour-smelling, the room as claustrophobic as a cell.

  The bed pillows had been removed and placed on one of the two easy chairs, and the corpse, covered with a sheet, lay outlined beneath it as if awaiting the attention of an undertaker. Professor Glenister placed her Gladstone bag on the over-bed table and took out a plastic coat, packaged gloves and a magnifying glass. No one spoke as she put on the coat and drew the thin latex over her long fingers. Approaching the bed, she gave a nod to Benton-Smith, who removed the sheet by meticulously folding it from top to bottom and then side to side, before carrying the square of linen, as carefully as if he were taking part in a religious ceremony, and placing it on top of the pillows. Then, unasked, he switched on the single light over the bed.