The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James Page B

arms, recently covered against September’s chills, revealing again the unlovely evidence of harsher suns? The day itself smelt of high summer, of seaweed, hot bodies and blistering paint.
    The busy little harbour was a confusion of rocking dinghiesand furled sails but the launch with
Shearwater
painted on its bow was soon identified. It was about thirty feet long with a central, low-roofed cabin and a slatted seat in the stern. One wizened seaman seemed to be in charge. He was squatting on a bollard, his thin legs clamped, wearing seaboots and a blue jumper with
Courcy Island
emblazoned across the chest. He looked so like Popeye that Cordelia suspected that the pipe, which he slowly took from his apparently toothless gums on seeing her approach, was sucked for effect rather than solace. He touched his hat and grinned when she gave her name but didn’t speak. Taking the typewriter and her bag he stowed them in the cabin, then turned to offer her his hand. But Cordelia had already jumped on board and had seated herself in the rear. He resumed his seat on the bollard and, together, they waited.
    Three minutes later a taxi drew up at the mouth of the quay and a boy and a woman got out. The woman paid the fare—not, it seemed, without some argument—while the boy stood uneasily to one side, then loitered to the edge of the quay to stare down at the water. She joined him and they moved together to the launch, he a little behind her like a reluctant child. This, thought Cordelia, must be Roma Lisle with Simon Lessing in tow, neither apparently pleased with the chance that had forced them into sharing a taxi.
    Cordelia observed her as she allowed herself to be handed aboard. Superficially, she had nothing in common with her cousin except the shape of the lower lip. She too was fair, but it was an ordinary Anglo-Saxon blandness in which the strong sun already revealed the glint of grey. Her hair was short and expensively shaped to her head. She was taller than her cousin and moved with a certain assurance. But her face, with its lines scored across the forehead and from nose to mouth, had a look of brooding discontent and there was no peace in theeyes. She was dressed in an extremely well-tailored fawn trouser suit with blue braid facing the collar and a high-necked sweater striped in fawn and pale blue, an outfit which seemed to Cordelia to combine superficial suitability for a holiday weekend with an inappropriate smartness, perhaps because she was wearing it with high-heeled shoes which made the descent into the launch less than graceful. The colour, too, was unflattering to her skin. It was impossible not to recognize that here was a woman who cared about clothes without having any clear idea what suited either her or the occasion. About the young man there was less chance to make a judgement, sartorial or otherwise. He glimpsed Cordelia in the stern, blushed and scuttled into the cabin with an alacrity which suggested that he was unlikely to add to the gaiety of the weekend. Miss Lisle seated herself in the bow while the boatman again took his seat on the bollard. They waited in silence while the launch gently rocked against the fender of old tires slung against the stones of the quay and small boats gently edged past them on the way to the open sea.
    After a few minutes Miss Lisle called out: “Oughtn’t we to be moving off? We’re expected for lunch.”
    “One more a-comin’. Mr. Whittingham.”
    “Well, he couldn’t have been on the nine thirty-three. He’d have been here by now. And I didn’t recognize him at the station. Perhaps he’s driving down and has got delayed.”
    “Mr. Ambrose said he’d be a-comin’ by train. Said to wait for him.”
    Miss Lisle frowned and gazed fixedly out to sea. Two more minutes passed. Then the boatman called out.
    “Here he be. He’s a-comin’ now. That’ll be Mr. Whittingham.” The triple assurance given he rose, and began making ready to move off. Cordelia looked up