Killing a Unicorn

by Marjorie Eccles

  She knew Crouch had read it though, and could only be thankful for his surprisingly mild reply. Something seemed to happen to him whenever he spoke of Jasie. He didn’t entirely lose his abrasiveness, that was probably as much a part of him as his blue chin and his hairy hands, but he was noticeably kinder. ‘We haven’t dismissed that possibility, no. But we’ll concentrate on looking for him before we start thinking about whether he was abducted — and why.’

  ‘Well now,’ Alyssa announced into the silence the police left behind them, and with a reproachful glance at Humphrey went to see about sandwiches.

  ‘Made rather a hash of that, didn’t I?’ remarked Humphrey unhappily to her departing back. ‘Foot and mouth disease, always been my problem.’

  Fran smiled a little, as she was meant to. But it had to be said that Humphrey, with his awkward silences, like many another frequently inarticulate person, did have an unfortunate propensity for screwing things up when he finally found himself able to speak.

  ‘Poor woman’s dead, after all, what does it matter what I thought of her antics?’ he said, not noticeably improving matters.

  ‘Don’t look so upset,’ Fran consoled him. ‘You only spoke the truth. I don’t suppose it matters in the least.’

  The Judge looked heavily down from his frame above the mantel, as if he could tell them a thing or two about such half-baked attitudes, which no doubt he would if he were still alive.

  ‘I see what they meant now,’ remarked Crouch after the first dazed impact, looking round the bedroom Bibi Morgan had occupied. ‘Well, I suppose it takes all sorts!’

  The weird effect of the room was enhanced because, despite it being broad daylight outside, here the curtains had been drawn and the centre light left burning. Instructions had been given for the room not to be touched, and they’d been literally adhered to. It was just as its occupant had left it before she went out for the last time. It was on that side of the house which didn’t get the sun until late afternoon and early evening, the time when she had presumably drawn the heavy, dark blue chenille curtains against it, and then left, forgetting to switch off the light.

  It hung low from the ceiling, a pendant light-fitting with a deep fringe, directly over a table on which were several lumps of what Kate thought might be New Age crystals — rose quartz love stones, some crystal palm stones, clear quartz for energy and focus. On various chairs around the room were throws decorated with the signs of the zodiac, more zodiac signs on the velvet cushions, a mandela on the wall above the bed.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  Kate sniffed. ‘Joss sticks, incense? Scented candles?’

  Crouch rolled his eyes, then swivelled his gaze round the room, coming to rest on the narrow bed, three foot wide at the most. His eyebrows rose. ‘Can that be the matrimonial bed?’

  ‘Maybe they liked to cosy up.’

  ‘Very cosy it must have been, with a bloke Chip Calvert’s size.’ He flung open the wardrobe door and rattled a few hangers, then walked into the tiny, adjoining bathroom, where he could be heard opening and closing cabinet doors. ‘They didn’t share a room,’ he announced as he came back. ‘Nothing of his anywhere. What d’you make of that?’

  ‘There might be all sorts of explanations.’

  ‘There might. Give me one or two.’

  ‘We — ell …’

  ‘You ever come across a young couple that age — and calling themselves partners, mind — occupying separate bedrooms? I’ve yet to see it. Can’t imagine Chip Calvert tiptoeing from one room to another every time he wanted a bit of how’s-your-father, either. But maybe I’ve come across a platonic relationship for the first time in my life, who knows?’

  The bed in question was adorned with a crushed black velvet bedspread with a central embroidery in gold silk in the form of a cross with a loop at the top. ‘She was wearing a cross like that on a silver chain round her neck, wasn’t she?’ said Kate. ‘Isn’t it an ankh, supposed to symbolize eternal life?’

  ‘Like the old codger out there said, didn’t do her much good then.’ He thought for a moment, scratching behind his ear. ‘She was wearing two chains, one with some other fancy doodah on it.’

  ‘Yes.’ The other chain had had two crossed fishes threaded on to it. ‘I think that was an astrological sign — Pisces, the Fish.’ There were fish signs, all around the room. ‘Must’ve been a Pisces.’

  ‘How come you know all this stuff?’

  ‘Just interested. And I read What the Stars Foretell in the Sunday paper, so I can see what sort of week I’m likely to have, of course,’ Kate answered.

  ‘You are joking?’

  ‘What woman doesn’t? And plenty of men, too. Even you know your birth sign.’

  ‘Yeah, they tell me I’m a Virgo. But you, Kate, horoscopes …! And I thought I knew everything about you!’

  ‘That’s a dangerous thing to think about anyone, Dave.’

  Suddenly, the banter had gone.

  ‘Well, come on, let’s have a bit more light on the subject,’ he said brusquely, after an awkward moment. ‘Pull the curtains back.’ She was standing near the window and he switched off the light before she had a chance to comply. For the moment the room was in complete darkness.

  Kate pointed to the ceiling. Above them, what appeared to be a midnight sky was liberally sprinkled with constellations of luminous stars, crescent moons, shooting stars, long-tailed comets and orbiting planets, the whole panoply of the heavens filling the entire ceiling.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Crouch, taking some time to realize they were phosphorescent stickers, activated by the light to glow for a while in the dark. ‘Somebody had an interesting time putting that lot up there!’

  ‘Glow stickers. My sister’s children have them on their bedroom ceilings.’ But they, she thought, were adolescents. She drew back the curtains. The heavenly bodies faded and, turning round, she decided the room actually looked better in the dark. The daylight that now flooded in showed its accoutrements to be tawdry. The crushed black velvet bedspread was balding and slightly dusty-looking, the fringes on the lamps tatty, the throws creased. There was something out of kilter with the room. It had a claustrophobic atmosphere that felt to grip you by the throat.

  Crouch was looking at a long shelf filled with knickknacks, a pack of tarot cards and some books, almost all of them devoted to astrology, alternative lifestyles and the occult. He perked up and began to look interested, but on closer inspection, the books didn’t reveal any indications that Bibi Morgan had been into black magic, or devil-worship, or anything sinister that might have provided a different insight into her death. He leafed through them but they appeared innocent enough, if incomprehensible. No Aleister Crowley. An ephemeris. Titles such as The Goddess Pathway, Cosmic Connections, Balancing your Chakra, How to Live your Life with Astrology, Feng Shui, I Ching.

  He picked up one from the end of the row and after looking at it, handed it to Kate. Bound in suede, with thick pages, illustrations between sheets of tissue, glowing like medieval illuminations in stained glass colours, touched with gold. It was simply entitled Myths and Legends, by someone called C. de Verrender D’arcy, and appeared to have been privately printed. It looked old, and valuable, and though well used, had been taken care of.

  Leaving the books, they began a more systematic search, though they’d only know what were looking for when they found it. More of those threatening letters, perhaps — a faint hope which wasn’t realized.

  ‘But here’s a photo,’ she said later, extracting it from one of the drawers.

  They’d already been given a rather blurred snapshot of the boy which could, in the absence of any other, be used to circulate his description if necessary. Chip had promised to look for a better one, and Kate had been hoping there might have been one amongst his mother’s possessions. But the one she’d picked up now was a coloured studio portrait of Bibi herself, taken when she was younger … or maybe it was just that someone had recently done a good job with the airbr
ush and made her look about eighteen again. As if Bibi Morgan, of all people, had needed help to make her look startlingly attractive. Even in death, her face battered and scratched, it had been possible to see that she must have been an exceedingly beautiful woman in life, and this photograph confirmed it. It wasn’t conventional beauty alone that immediately caught your interest, however, but something more elusive, and even Crouch stared at it for a long time, wondering what it was.

  It was rare to see such dazzling, almost Nordic fairness. The hair, yes, anything could come from a bottle nowadays, but not that complexion. Or the intense, almost gentian-blue eyes, which saved the face from vapidity — that and a bone structure revealing high rounded cheekbones and a firm chin. She was looking upwards, from under her lids, with a glance that might have been coquettish, yet Crouch knew, without recognizing what he knew, that this would be the wrong thing to believe.

  Kate was also puzzled as she looked at the face, but this was because she knew she hadn’t yet got a handle on the murdered woman, she didn’t know what had made her tick, what her relationships were with other people. There had to be a lot more behind that lovely, blank face than met the eye. Unnaturally blank. Kate was reminded of Humphrey Oliver’s words and would have smiled, except that at the same time she was immediately convinced of something else — that this was, indeed, the face of a predestined victim.

  Chapter Eight

  Jonathan stopped playing when Jane Arrow came into the music room a couple of hours later, though she motioned him to go on. ‘It’s all right, I’ve done enough for the time being, I’m due for a break,’ he told her, pulling the spike from his cello and resting the instrument across a chair, though she knew as well as he did that he was capable of carrying on with several hours’ hard practice without even thinking of pausing. But he felt he’d been punishing himself for long enough. What was happening outside, the disruption and chaos of it all, this wound-up feeling, expecting the worst, had played hell with his concentration. He’d been too emotional to detach himself, as he normally could with ease, totally unable to relax and slip into the single-minded application that normally never failed him. The long session had been counter-productive; he’d played like a cack-handed polar bear, and gained nothing except an aching right arm.

  ‘I’ve brought you some tea.’ She set the tray down, complete with cups and saucers — no mugs for Jane — and some of his favourite chocolate chip biscuits, and began to pour.

  ‘No milk, please.’

  ‘Did you think I’d forget?’

  He finished wiping the sweat off his hands, his brow and the back of his neck with a paper towel, and smiled at her as he took the cup and began nibbling at a biscuit. No, she never forgot things like that. The reminder was automatic, because back here in England, people invariably assumed that tea meant milk.

  She sighed deeply as she took a first sip of her tea. ‘It’s wonderful to have you here, Jonathan, especially with Mark away. Chip’s not up to this sort of thing, he never was any good in a crisis.’

  ‘A fat lot of good I am at the moment, aren’t I?’ he grumbled. ‘Reduced to practising scales while the macho mob get on with looking for Jasie!’

  ‘Of course you’re a help, just being here. You do yourself an injustice, but then, you always did.’

  That was a surprise, coming from Jane, one didn’t normally think of her as a perceptive person, nor did she dish out compliments easily, though in actual fact she had him dead wrong there. He never underrated himself. Belief in what you did was an integral part of being a world-class musician, of being creative in any way, come to that. Not arrogance, but a very necessary feeling of self-worth, and knowing that what you did mattered. But perhaps that wasn’t quite what she’d meant. She looked old, he thought. Tired, and old. That was twice in the last two days he’d had that thought. First his mother, then Jane. You never thought of Jane being old although, come to that, she was probably a year or two ahead of Alyssa. She’d looked the same ever since he could remember, with her trim skirts and blouses, her neat little figure and sensible shoes, only now her hair was liberally threaded with grey, more grey than brown, he noticed, and fine lines had cracked her skin, like old porcelain. The determined set of her mouth had dragged down the corners permanently, so that when she smiled, as she did now, it was always a delightful surprise.

  He suddenly felt very sorry for her. She was a bit of a family joke, old Jane, but despite what they all thought of as her rather bossy self-righteousness, she took on so many burdens and nobody ever seemed grateful, or admitted she might have feelings of her own.

  ‘What would we do without you, Jane? You’re always so unruffled.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ She flushed with surprise, and perhaps pleasure. ‘Certainly not now, anyway. I’m all to pieces.’

  She put her teacup down with care, tidily gathered together a scatter of fallen, copper-coloured rose petals from around the pewter bowl on the polished table. ‘Jiminy Cricket, never keeps his petals long after he’s been cut.’ Suddenly she fished for a handkerchief, and dabbed her eyes, blew her nose. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said shakily, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’ll be all right, Jane.’

  ‘Yes. Please God he’ll be safe.’

  ‘He will be. He has to be.’

  She stuffed the handkerchief back into her skirt pocket, lifted her chin and stared out of the window, unseeing. ‘He reminds me so much of you at that age, Jonathan. You were such a lovely little boy.’

  ‘There are still traces, if you look hard enough!’

  He knew, of course, that he’d always been Jane’s favourite, right from a baby. He could always get what he wanted out of her, though sometimes it was a responsibility, a burden he could have done without, being so favoured, having to live up to it. But he had a lot to be grateful for: years ago, he might well have contented himself with being a talented amateur had it not been for her relentless pressure to practise and yes, encouragement to go that bit further, to stretch his talent as far as it would go. Easy-going Alyssa would never have pushed him in the same way.

  ‘Oh, why did this have to happen to us?’ she burst out suddenly, and then, no longer able to keep what she was thinking to herself: ‘What’s going to happen to Jasie now? Who’s going to look after him? Two old women like us. I’m no good with children –’ Not necessarily true, he thought, ’– and heaven knows, your mother’s wonderful, but she’s showing her age. I know she works hard in the garden, but it’s what keeps her going, all the same, despite Bibi harping on about the portents and omens being right for her to give it up. Really, what rubbish, trying to make people believe they have no control over their lives, that it’s all down to the stars! Take the garden away from Alyssa, and she’ll be finished.’

  She stopped abruptly. It had been a long and curiously incoherent speech, for Jane.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, I agree with you entirely. But it doesn’t have to be the garden at Membery, you know. She’d be happy anywhere she could put spade to soil.’

  That had been the wrong thing to say, though Jonathan was blessed if he could see why she’d suddenly closed up. Her devotion, though, had always been as much to Alyssa as to her three sons: perhaps the one followed the other. He wondered why he hadn’t appreciated this before.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to do what we must. That’s all any of us can ever hope to do. We must sort things out some way.’ She held up the teapot, and when he declined a refill, began to gather the tea things briskly together. Pausing with the pot in her hand, she traced a flower on its lid with her forefinger. ‘Odd, isn’t it, how much chance plays a part in one’s life? I never thought I’d hear myself saying that, considering what I thought of Bibi’s silliness — and I’m not saying she was right, mind, but –’

  ‘Chance, Jane?’

  ‘How one small thing can change the lives of dozens of people? There we were, last evening, nothing different from usual and then … well.’

  �
��Perhaps Saturn squared Mars or something equally diabolical.’ He’d only been attempting to cheer her up, but immediately regretted his facetiousness, surprising the look that flashed across her face.

  ‘I thought we’d heard the last of all that!’

  ‘Joke, Jane. Perhaps not in very good taste in the circumstances, but we’re none of us at our sparkling best, are we?’

  ‘What I meant was, if you’d been here on time, we should all have been having supper and Bibi wouldn’t have wandered outside and — and nothing of this would have happened.’

  ‘Oh, that makes me feel really great!’ He grinned this time to indicate the joke but it made no difference.

  She said sharply, ‘It had nothing to do with you, and it’s ridiculous to pretend it had! If it hadn’t been for an incompetent airline, is what I meant. But oh, if …’ She laid a hand on Jonathan’s arm and looked at him earnestly. ‘Well, never mind. Life never lays burdens on us, my dear, that we’re not strong enough to bear. Always remember that.’ She picked up the tray. He held the door open for her and watched her erect little figure marching down the corridor towards the kitchen.

  Now just what had all that been about? How much did she know?

  Crouch, sitting at his desk in Felsborough, preparing an initial report on the case as it had gone so far for Bob Vincent, was of the opinion that the scant information Chip Calvert had offered had posed more questions than it answered. After that revealing outburst about the letters the victim had been receiving, he had more or less shut up like a clam, and Crouch was experienced enough to know when he’d pushed a witness far enough. Let it go for now, he’d decided, come back to it when he’d been left overnight to stew, and had meanwhile sent him down into Felsborough with DC Hanson to identify the body formally. After that salutary and chastening experience, Crouch thought he might be in a sufficiently altered frame of mind to be receptive to a little more questioning.