The Skull Beneath The Skin

He paused, but again there was no response. He had spoken as if Sir George were no longer with them. Cordelia saw Roma glance at Ralston, surprised, a little wary. She half opened her mouth then thought better of it. But she kept her gaze on him with a stubborn intensity rather as if she were seeing him for the first time.

Ambrose went on:

'I don't know any of the details. Someone does, I suppose, or as much of the truth as came out. There must be an official record of the incident somewhere although it was never published. All I know is what my uncle told me on one of my rare visits and that was mostly rumour.'

Clarissa permitted herself a display of nicely judged impatience. It was, thought Cordelia, as artificial as the simulated moue of distaste with which she had first regarded the shelf of skulls. Clarissa had no need of impatience; Clarissa knew exactly what was coming.

Ambrose spread plump hands and shrugged, as if resigned to a recital he would prefer to have avoided. But he could have avoided it, thought Cordelia, if he had really tried. And for the first time she wondered whether the conversation, even the visit to the crypt, had been the result of collusion.

He said:

'In March 1940 there were about fifty internees on Courcy and, among them, a hard core of dedicated Nazis most of whom were Germans trapped in Britain at the outbreak of war. They suspected one of their number, a boy of twenty-two, of having betrayed their secrets to the British authorities during interrogation. Perhaps he did. On the other hand, he may have been a British under-cover agent who had infiltrated their group. All I know are rumours, and second-hand rumours at that. What does seem beyond dispute is that the group of Nazis convened a secret court in the crypt of the Church, convicted their comrade of treason and condemned him to death. Then they gagged him, bound his arms and brought him down the passageway to this cave, the Devil's Kettle. As you can see it has a narrow opening which leads to the east cove but the cave is always flooded at high tide. They bound their victim to that iron ladder and left him to drown. He was a very tall young man. He died slowly in the darkness, and he died hard. Later one of them crept back to untie him and let the body float out to sea. When it was washed up only two days later the wrists were cut through almost to the bone. One of his fellow internees told a story of the young man's mounting depression and it was suggested that he had bound his wrists to prevent himself from swimming and had leapt into the sea. None of his judges or executioners ever spoke.'

Roma asked:

'Then how was the story ever known?'

'Someone talked eventually, I suppose, but not until after the war. Oldfield was living in Speymouth at the time and was employed here by the Army. He may have heard rumours. He doesn't admit it now, but someone on the island must have suspected. Someone may even have condoned what happened, or at least closed his eyes. After all, the Army were in charge here. Yet the gang got their hands on the keys to the crypt and the secret passage and managed to return them undetected. That suggests, well, let's say a certain degree of official carelessness on someone's part.'

Clarissa turned to her husband.

'What was he called, darling, the boy who died?'

'His name was Carl Blythe.'

Clarissa turned to the company. Her voice was as out of key as an hysteric:

'And the most extraordinary thing is that he was English – well,

his father was anyway, his mother was German – and George

was at school with him, weren't you, darling? They were both at

Melhurst. He was three years older and rather a horrid boy,

cruel really, one of those bullies who make other boys' lives a

torment to them, so he and George weren't exactly friends. In

fact George hated him. And then to find him here and at his

mercy. Wasn't it odd?'

Ivo said easily:

'Not particularly. The British public schools produced their share of Nazi sympathizers and this is where you'd expect to find them in 1940.'

Cordelia stared down at the iron ladder. The light in the passage, fierce and garish, did nothing to mitigate the horror; rather it intensified it. In the old days, the cruelty of man to man was decently shrouded in darkness; the mind dwelt on airless unfit dungeons, on light filtering through the slits of narrow windows. But the modern interrogation rooms and torture chambers were ablaze with light. The technocrats of pain needed to see what they were at. Suddenly the place became intolerable to her. The chill of the passageway intensified. She had to tauten her arms and clench her fists to prevent herself visibly shaking. In her imagination the tu

'Can't we get out of here? I feel like a voyeuse.'

Ivo said:

'And I feel cold.'

Taking her cue promptly, Clarissa shivered. Then Sir George spoke for the first time. Cordelia wondered whether it was her confused senses or the echo from the low roof which made his voice sound so different.

'If my wife has satisfied her curiosity perhaps we might go.'

Then he made a sudden jerk forward. Before they could guess what was coming he put his foot behind the open trapdoor and pushed. It crashed down. The walls seemed to crack and the passage shook under their feet. They must all have cried out, their voices thin screams in the echoing, reverberating roar. When it had faded no one spoke. Sir George had already turned on his heel and was making his way towards the entrance.

Cordelia found herself a little ahead of the others. Fear, and a deadening sense of misery which was stronger than fear and which added to her claustrophobia, urged her forward. Even the crypt with its neatly disposed ossuary was preferable to this horrible place. She stooped to pick up the neatly folded oblong of paper almost instinctively and without curiosity, without even turning it over to see if it were addressed. In the harsh light of the single bulb the neatly drawn skull and the typed quotation were starkly clear and she realized that she had known from the first what it must be.

Thy death is plotted; here's the consequence of murder.

We value not desert nor Christian breath,

When we know black deeds must be cur'd with death.

It was not, she thought, completely accurate. Surely the first word should be 'My' not 'Thy'. But the message was plain enough. She slipped it into her shirt pocket and turned to wait for the rest of the party. She tried to recall where they had all been standing when the lights went out. Surely it had been at about this spot where the tu

And then they- came into view. She stood under the light and sca