Killing a Unicorn

by Marjorie Eccles

  The little silver clock on her bedside table sounded its discreet alarm. Five thirty, the time she normally rose, before everyone else, and started getting things done in the garden. Alyssa didn’t move. She sipped her tea and for once let the day begin without her.

  ‘Doc Logie’s instincts were right.’ Crouch, fresh from the PM, faced the people variously dispersed around the CID room at the police headquarters in Felsborough, generously attributing credit to the pathologist. His own twitching antennae had told him pretty much the same thing, but give him his due, he wasn’t gloating. He’d no need for it, confirmation of what his instincts had told him all along would be the case was enough. Now he was simply impatient to get stuck in.

  But Detective Superintendent Bob Vincent wasn’t a man to be rushed. He was here to satisfy himself that the complex wheels of a murder enquiry were being put in motion properly, that the system being set up would ensure that all aspects were covered logically and thoroughly, and that whatever resources and skills were available would be allocated efficiently. Murder, in a provincial constabulary such as this, apart from the odd domestic as a result of a family barney, wasn’t exactly a commonplace, but he intended this enquiry being conducted with no concessions to that. He hitched his backside more comfortably on to the corner of a desk, considering possibilities.

  ‘Bring us up to speed, Dave, for a start,’ he said at last, when the noise level had subsided and he was sure everyone was ready to listen, at the same time keeping a careful eye on his DI without appearing to do so. Crouch had been wished on him for political reasons, and he wasn’t yet altogether sure about him, notwithstanding the recommendations on his performances in the Met which had accompanied his transfer. Vincent felt an instinctive wariness around Crouch, a potential loose cannon if ever he’d seen one. He’d nothing to support this suspicion, barring that one lapse of Crouch’s, which was his reason for being here, and though anybody could be forgiven one, it was a hell of a long way from the dramas of the Met to this quiet corner of the Chilterns, and Crouch gave every indication of being the sort to manufacture his own excitement.

  He turned off his doubts and listened to what the inspector was saying, glad to see that the chip on his shoulder had been sloughed off, at least temporarily, allowing his professionalism to the fore. Everything about him now said here was what he was good at, his real job, and he was finally being allowed to do it. He spoke urgently and his listeners were attentive. Everybody liked him better for not having time to spare for getting up their noses. ‘She was stabbed in the abdomen,’ he was now saying, ‘and with some force, a deep upward thrust that penetrated the abdominal aorta.’

  ‘Inferring someone she knew?’ Vincent led in.

  Crouch nodded. ‘Such close contact — a knife — any stabbing — implies that, yes. The possibility of being able to get near enough to inflict such a wound … But — it was a hot day and she was wearing a thin white skirt and a top that left her midriff bare, some sort of muslin affair -’

  ‘Cheesecloth,’ murmured Kate.

  ‘OK, cheesecloth. If you say so, Sergeant.’ He gave her a glance from under his eyelids. ‘And as I was about to say, there’s a double cut in the fabric of the skirt that corresponds with the fatal cut, as if the weapon caught up a fold of fabric as it was pushed in. Logie has a theory that the attack came from behind, meaning she wouldn’t have seen her attacker. Think about it. She’s secured around the neck by the arm of someone behind her — she’d be struggling, and the skirt could easily have become rucked up by the hand wielding the knife and trying to find its target. That could also account for the fact that she was stabbed lower down than he would have expected — anyone with deliberate intent to murder invariably goes for the area higher up, around the heart, right? And from behind, in that position, it’s easier to stab upwards, rather than down.’

  ‘A man, then? Or at least someone strong enough to hold her while he reached round to push the knife in?’ queried a young PC.

  ‘Don’t underestimate the surprise factor, Hanson. And immobilized as they say she was by her lame ankle, she must have been an easy target for anyone.’

  ‘Sir.’ It was Kate, circumspectly polite after that curt reminder they were inspector and sergeant, here at the station, in case anyone thought otherwise. As if. ‘The skirt could equally have been caught up by the weapon if the attack had come from the front. And should we be looking for defence scratches on any potential suspect? She was fighting for her life, after all.’

  ‘Maybe not all that hard, Sergeant Colville.’ Equally polite, Crouch ran his finger down the autopsy report. ‘There appears to have been more than a fair amount of booze in her system, so she’d have been an easy pushover.’

  ‘Enough to make her drunk?’

  ‘No, but she’d have put up a lot less resistance.’

  Vincent transferred his gaze from Crouch to Kate, assessing them both. Sensible woman, Colville. All the same, relationships like hers and Crouch’s were nothing but a nuisance. What they did with their own lives was their own business, as far as he was concerned, though that wasn’t his official line. They’d transferred here at the same time and it suited him at the moment to let them work together, mainly because he believed that Colville, whom he liked, was a steadying influence on Crouch. Though if the truth were told, choice didn’t actually feature much in Vincent’s decision, since nobody else would have put up with Crouch’s attitude for five minutes — certainly no other woman on his strength. Vincent held on to the belief that he would remain in Felsborough only as long as it took for him to find a way back into the job he’d come from. Which would be a relief for everyone, and would possibly save Vincent a lot of bother in the future. In fact, if Crouch hadn’t proved himself such a damned good officer in the short time he’d been here, he’d already have been out of it quicker than a dose of Andrews. He only hoped Kate Colville knew what she was doing.

  ‘There was no evidence of skin tissue under her nails,’ Crouch was replying. ‘But however he did it, he dumped her in the stream, obviously hoping the water would wash away any contact traces. In my opinion, that’s a more likely reason than a deliberate attempt to misdirect the evidence from the stab wound amongst all the other cuts and grazes the body would probably suffer. Although it is true that her midriff area was unprotected and took most of the punishment from the stones in the bed of the river, so that the cut might have been missed, the killer couldn’t guarantee that. Even though the wound was very small, outwardly not much more than another scratch. There might not have been all that much external bleeding, which, ultimately, wouldn’t have mattered, because it was very evident at the PM, Logie says, that what she died of was a massive internal haemorrhage, caused by the stab wound.’

  ‘What sort of knife are we looking for?’ asked Hanson.

  ‘Tapering, narrow, double-edged, thin, very sharp. Something very like one of his own scalpels, in fact, but wider. More like this.’ He turned and drew the shape on the whiteboard fastened to the wall behind him.

  ‘Odd shape, that weapon,’ Logie had said. ‘Very narrow at the point, long enough to penetrate ten centimetres, at which point it was four and a half centimetres wide. Unless it was buried up to the hilt, it would probably have widened further towards its base. Like one of those cook’s chopping knives, but not shaped like a right-angled triangle, as they are, blunt on one side and with the handle continuous with the straight edge. Remember your geometry? An isosceles triangle — one with two sides of equal length? But in this case not quite equal. You’re looking for a weapon with that sort of blade, sharp on either side.’

  Easier said than done. Crouch could foresee problems in identifying something like that.

  ‘A pointing trowel, sir, sharpened?’ suggested Hanson brightly.

  Hanson was young and keen, he bounced up whenever the opportunity arose, often with way out ideas, but this wasn’t a bad supposition. Encouraged by a nod from Vincent, whose policy was always to let everyone hav
e their say, he took it further. ‘If he came equipped with something like that, it doesn’t look like a spur of the moment killing.’

  He was warming to the idea when a woman constable from the uniformed branch chipped in, a curvaceous little blonde, bouncy and pneumatic in her uniform shirt. She had a reputation for eating tender young officers like Hanson as hors d‘oeuvres. ’Not necessarily. She might simply have surprised someone who’d no right to be there - somebody up to no good. Some yobbo, intent on breaking in. There’s no telling what sort of weapon somebody like that might not have handy.’

  Hanson stood his ground. ‘All the same, Susie, killing her would be a pretty violent reaction.’

  ‘Panic?’

  Someone else put in, ‘The gardens were open yesterday, the perp could have hidden there when they were closed, waiting his opportunity.’

  ‘They could, but there’s no need. You can get into the private part from practically anywhere in that wood. Forget that. What I want this morning are a few hard facts, never mind speculations. We’ll begin with everyone at Membery Place, gardens and house. I’ll be talking to the Calverts myself,’ he said, as if relishing the idea. ‘Ms Morgan’s husband, or partner, the one they call Chip. I’ve already seen his mother, Mrs Alyssa Calvert, his brother Jonathan, and the sister-in-law who found her. And I’ll have another word with Miss Jane Arrow, family friend. There’s also an old boy, another friend of the family, name of Humphrey Oliver, who gives a hand, but he’s been in Cornwall for the last few days, not back yet so we needn’t bother with him for the time being. That leaves the staff at the garden centre. Get the foreman, George Froby, to round ’em all up. See if anyone noticed anything or anyone. One of them might even have a motive.’

  This last was put forward without any real belief that it would be so. He had a gut feeling that the solution to this murder lay within the Calvert family, that it was a simple domestic, backed up by statistics which said most murders were: the sort where the culprit was fairly obvious and would either give himself up or be easily tracked down. A random killing, someone unknown to the victim, he was willing to dismiss as being too way out to consider.

  He was damn sure he was right, that it was one of those Calverts, never mind that Vincent didn’t want to think it, primarily because, if it was, the Calverts being who they were around here, it would spell trouble in a big way.

  Vincent was a big, slow-moving man, with a countryman’s fresh complexion. He thought, sometimes for a long time, before he spoke. A bit of an old woman, in Crouch’s opinion, and though he’d learned that his assessment of people and situations was shrewd and generally accurate, his patient methods grated on Crouch’s more gung-ho inclinations. As did his cautious approach to anything that might disturb the status quo. He wasn’t about to let his superior know that’s what he thought, though.

  Vincent, however, had a good idea what Crouch was thinking, the heartless bastard. However, getting the facts straight without letting emotion intrude was what a murder investigation was all about, and so perhaps he might do after all.

  Chapter Six

  Fran, after a heavy, sedative-induced sleep, wakes to another wonderful day. A shining, first morning of the world sort of day, clear, cool and sharp, but promising to be yet another scorcher. Its beauty is heartbreaking, and death an obscenity. Bibi’s death has altered everything, while nature remains unchanged, uncaring.

  She closes the door behind her and begins walking across the grass. The sun has burnt the dew off by now, taking with it all traces of the footprints of fox and badger, rabbit and deer which have crossed and recrossed in the night. Long shadows lie across the clearing, the water in the pool sparkles, the foxgloves at its brink stand purple, pink and white. But summer is imperceptibly drawing to its close. Already, the phallic spadices of the lords and ladies growing on the shady banks have been replaced by spikes of scarlet berries, looking poisonous and sinister within hooded dark green spathes. Some of the beeches are wearing their first yellow leaves. The earthy scent of mushrooms is in the air.

  She leaves the police behind at the The Watersplash, swarming around the pool and the waterfall, desecrating the pristine morning with their presence and their equipment, setting up their search, they say. What search? Do they always go to such lengths when investigating an accident? And she feels again that plunging sense of disaster that has been haunting her these last few days. The worst has already happened — so what else can befall? Maybe — and despite the warmth of the air all around her, she shivers — maybe she’s been wrong to laugh at Bibi’s belief in auguries and portents.

  She clambers up towards Membery, taking the same scrubby track Jonathan used last night to come down to The Watersplash, dodging round the brambles. If this weather goes on, the blackberries will be ready for picking within a week, luscious and black, but now the red fruits, waiting for the touch of the sun to ripen them properly, look horribly like bright blood dripping from the ends of those wicked shoots. She’s promised Jasie she’ll help him to pick them when they’re ready and taking her at her word he’s already shown her a young fallen branch he’s found, conveniently angled at the end, to reach down the thorny branches.

  How can one face a child with the death of his mother? Fran’s heart fails her at the thought. It’s school holidays, but then, he’d hardly have been going today, anyway. So at least she can maybe arrange to take him out today, when she gets up to Membery. She’ll have to find something that might help to take his mind off the sheer awfulness of what has happened, and lift its black cloud, if only temporarily. Children are easily distracted, they live in the moment. Perhaps she can drive him over to Whipsnade. It seems a trite idea on the face of it, and she isn’t enamoured of zoos, but Jasie adores them, and anything will surely be better than hanging around Membery. He’s kept asking Fran if she’ll take him to see the animals again. What he’s hoping, she thinks with a smothered laugh, is that they’ll be lucky enough to see the African white rhino uninhibitedly shedding the copious gallons of water its massive body daily consumes, the sight of which doubled up Jasie and all the other delighted, giggling children the last time they’d paid the zoo a visit, but which tedious, repetitive subject Jasie has been forbidden to mention ever again.

  Up at Membery, the dreadful day had begun in earnest for Alyssa, in a way more terrible than even her worst imaginings could have conjured up. She had, in spite of herself, dropped off again after drinking the tea she’d made at dawn, sitting in the chair by the window. She’d gone deep down, as one can after a late and restless night, and to her dismay and annoyance hadn’t wakened until nearly nine, cross, stiff and cramped in her chair.

  She dressed hurriedly, dismissing the idea of her usual workday gear of trousers and shirt, choosing instead a safari-style, sludgy-coloured cotton dress which she’d worn only once before and for some reason hadn’t thrown away. Never mind that it was a big mistake (the colour made her look like putty and the bunchy style like a box), she only had black otherwise, and that, she felt, would be crass in the circumstances. She had just reached the bottom of the stairs, deciding she must make up for a bad start by having a sensible breakfast to sustain her through whatever the day might bring, no matter that she felt not at all like eating, when Jilly whistled along the passage between the main body of the house and Chip’s self-contained part, and dashed in through the connecting door.

  Jilly? Rushing? Never had Alyssa seen her do other than tread softly about the place, as if afraid that the very sound of her footsteps might disturb others. She followed. As she neared Bibi’s kitchen door, she could hear a great commotion going on behind it. Why did people always gather in kitchens in times of stress? The telephone rang, voices talked over each other. She heard sobbing. Her heart turned over. It wasn’t Jasie’s childish sobs, however. It was Rene Brooker, who came in each day from the village to help out with the chores.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Alyssa demanded, stepping through the door into a temporary silence, where Chi
p was listening on the end of the wall-mounted telephone. Everything in this bright kitchen matched, all yellows and creams and shining copper, unlike the original old kitchen she herself still used, whose inadequacies she never noticed, since she didn’t spend any more time there than she had to. But Bibi had loved to cook. Vegetarian meals, brown rice and beans and something Alyssa preferred not to know about, apparently called tofu.

  ‘Oh, oh, the poor lamb!’ Rene’s sobs, regardless of Chip’s impatient hand-shushings, were beginning all over again.

  ‘Now, now, that’s going to help no one, least of all poor little Jasie,’ Alyssa asserted, assuming Rene had just been told about the tragedy and was bewailing the little boy’s loss. She spoke briskly, admonishingly, which she’d always found to be the best course with those who went to pieces in a crisis. She didn’t want to admit that she might start weeping in sympathy if she allowed herself to dwell on Jasie’s plight.