Dalgliesh’s assignment begins with an urgent summons to New Scotland Yard on Saturday, 23 October, and an immediate sense that the meeting concerns a death beyond the reach of routine administration. As a permanent ADC to the Commissioner, he had accumulated duties difficult even for colleagues to define; this summons, however, carried the unmistakable presaging of murder. The distinction mattered: accidental death might be manageable, suicide would be embarrassing, and murder could have consequences far beyond the island.

The Assignment and Its Stakes

The meeting, in Assistant Commissioner Geoffrey Harkness’s office, brought Dalgliesh together with Alexander Conistone and Colin Reeves of MI5. Conistone explained that the Prime Minister hoped to hold a top-secret international meeting on Combe Island in early January. No date had been fixed, and the identities of the expected participants and purpose of the gathering remained undisclosed to Dalgliesh. The island had nevertheless been selected as the likely venue, and the security rating, if the meeting proceeded, would be exceptionally high. The investigation therefore began under a dual pressure: establish what had happened to Oliver and determine whether the case would imperil a politically sensitive event.

Conistone asked Dalgliesh to take the case before Dalgliesh had been adequately briefed. Dalgliesh insisted that he needed more than the identity of the dead man, the place of death, and its apparent manner. When Geoffrey Harkness pushed a map across the table, he located Combe Island off Cornwall, about twelve miles from the mainland near Pentworthy. The remote setting was not incidental; it made the investigation dependent on what could be learned on the island and heightened the significance of the security concerns surrounding it.

Building the Investigation

Geoffrey Harkness urged Dalgliesh to take as few people as possible, describing a small team as preferable to an invasion. Dalgliesh proposed bringing Inspector Kate Miskin and Sergeant Benton-Smith, while noting that he was still awaiting a replacement for Piers Tarrant. He judged that the team could initially manage without a crime-scene officer or official photographer, but that a confirmed murder would require reinforcements or a handover to the local force. He also wanted a pathologist and initially intended to contact Kynaston; Harkness instead said that Professor Edith Glenister would be used.

The limits of the original briefing made Dalgliesh’s insistence on further information consequential. He had been given the dead man’s identity and the reported circumstances, but not enough to assess the island or the case. The assignment was thus not simply to investigate a death: it required him to assemble a workable inquiry while the island’s remoteness, security arrangements, and compressed timetable constrained decisions about personnel and support.

Time of Death and the Staged Hanging

Professor Edith Glenister’s examination began to distinguish the apparent manner of death from the actual cause. She placed the time of death between 7:30 and 9:00 in the morning, probably nearer the earlier time. The ligature mark and bruising initially raised the question of hanging versus manual strangulation, but the finger-shaped bruises on the left side of Oliver’s neck pointed to an assailant’s grip. Glenister concluded that he had been strangled and hanged afterward; the rope’s patterned surface was consistent with a climbing rope.

A later autopsy report made the conclusion firmer. Oliver had died of asphyxiation caused by manual strangulation, with considerable internal damage and a fracture of the thyroid cartilage indicating force applied locally to his neck. A bruise at the back of his neck showed that his head had been driven against something hard. Glenister rejected the possibility that Oliver had inflicted the injury himself to make a suicide appear to be murder. The rope, moreover, had been wiped along its entire length, an attempt to remove evidence that made the hanging look less like a straightforward death and more like a deliberate staging.

Witnesses and Physical Evidence

Dr. Raimund Speidel supplied a precise time marker. He said he had arranged to meet Oliver in the lighthouse at eight o’clock and arrived six minutes after the hour, having walked there by the under-cliff path. He could not enter because the door was locked. Speidel also said that he had not known Oliver personally and could not speak to his state of mind. His account placed a planned meeting at the lighthouse close to Glenister’s estimated time of death, without itself explaining what had happened inside.

The appointment’s arrangements also involved a note delivered by Millie Tranter. When asked about its urgency, she maintained that the meeting was not until eight that morning; the exchange prompted her startled recognition that the timing mattered. The note and Speidel’s account therefore formed part of the developing chronology, while leaving the central question of who had reached Oliver unresolved.

The inquiry later recovered additional material during a search: beneath the butter in a tub were two foil-wrapped packages, one containing a vial of blood labeled with Oliver’s name and date, the other a tissue-wrapped hair sample. Kate Miskin and Benton-Smith photographed the items, packaged them as exhibits, and signed the label. The assignment that began with an incomplete account of a death had thus opened into a broader evidentiary investigation, connecting the lighthouse’s apparent hanging to a murder inquiry and uncovering concealed samples whose significance required further examination.