Killing a Unicorn

by Marjorie Eccles

  But Bibi wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Apart from anything else, you haven’t seen it, it’s like Piccadilly Circus down there, especially in the mornings.’ Which may be an exaggeration, but everyone knew what she meant. Being a country school, it has a large catchment area, and the mothers, arriving with one minute to spare before school starts, dishevelled and distracted with the morning battle of getting husbands off and the children ready for the school run, park all over the place and don’t look where they’re going, jockeying for position on the village street in their 4x4s to decant their loads of children before heading home for that blessedly peaceful cup of coffee. ‘Anyway,’ she would add, making sure Jasie wasn’t listening, ‘it’s not safe for children anywhere, these days. Nobody lets their children go to school alone.’

  It made sense and, their eyes meeting, Chip had given in. But everyone else thought he also had a point, she was over-protective of the child. It doesn’t, however, seem to have done him any harm, as yet. He loves the village school, where his friends call him Jasie, instead of James, a name he’d immediately decided everyone else should adopt.

  A sudden memory comes to Fran, of walking to school with him one morning, reaching old Walter Grysdale’s house, where he and the black dog with the plumed tail live. As usual, the dog was loose, dashing out to terrify passers-by with his hysterical barking and his bared teeth, dancing around their legs and snapping at their heels. He’s all noise, but Fran has always been wary of dogs, especially those of uncertain temper, she’s never managed to get over being knocked to the ground by a large one, as a child. Pathetic, really, too sad for words. She can laugh at herself but she’s very much ashamed of the weakness and tries to pretend the black dog doesn’t scare her.

  On that particular day, Jasie must have sensed her shrinking. He took hold of her hand and said, kindly, ‘Don’t be frightened, Fran, I’ll look after you.’ At the memory of that, now, she’s in danger of becoming unravelled.

  At that moment, Chip and the police officers emerge from his study, and Chip, with a starched face, disappears, accompanied by the young constable, to undergo the ordeal of formally identifying Bibi, and what the woman sergeant presently tells them shocks Fran beyond tears.

  She says that a post-mortem has been performed on Bibi and that, without possibility of doubt, she was killed before she was put into the stream. With a sharp instrument, she says, in the jargon of their tribe, police-speak for knife, Fran supposes. She adds that in the circumstances, Jasie’s disappearance is being regarded as a cause of major concern, and there are grave fears for the little boy, but Inspector Crouch has taken over both investigations and they can rest assured no stone will be left unturned. She goes on to say that if any of them can remember anything out of the ordinary that has happened recently, or if they know of anyone with a grudge against Bibi, they should say so.

  It’s crazy, to think of anyone hating Bibi enough to kill her — hating her at all, in fact. As crazy, for that matter, as to believe that some unknown maniac has been hanging around the garden, waiting his chance to pounce on her, before turning his attentions to Jasie. Fran finds difficulty in taking such a bizarre notion on board, and stares at the policewoman in disbelief. She’s a colourless sort of person, but she’s reached the rank of sergeant, so presumably there’s more to her than meets the eye. Her name’s Kate Colville, and she has a mop of frizzy hair, which Fran thinks she really ought to wear in a less unattractive style. Her clothes are nothing to speak of, either. Perhaps she’s trying to be anonymous. If so, she’s succeeded. But she’s being kind to Alyssa, who isn’t bearing up over this as well as she normally weathers the Sturms und Drangs of life. This last blow has been especially cruel to her: she adores Jasie, encourages him to call her Grandma and spoils him as much as she is allowed. His disappearance, even more than Bibi’s death, has simply flattened her. She looks old and worn, and her weather-beaten face is devoid of its usual make-up. The whites of her brown eyes have a jaundiced look. And why is she wearing that terrible dress?

  Well, since we’re criticizing everyone else’s clothes, Fran thinks, I could have done better than these tatty shorts and this old sports shirt of Mark’s, myself — though she’d hardly noticed it was his when she snatched it from where it was folded over a chair in the bedroom, only seeing it as short-sleeved and light enough for a hot day. Wearing his clothes is maybe another of those subliminal acts, in this case a need for comfort and reassurance. She still hasn’t heard from him, and beneath the surface of all the other happenings, feelings of anxiety and fury at him for not leaving a contact number are warring inside her.

  Footsteps sound on the oak floorboards of the passage from the rear of the house, the measured steps of a man who plants his feet firmly on the ground in every sense, heavy footsteps for such a thin man. ‘Humphrey!’ declares Alyssa, springing up, quite transformed. Fran, too, feels an enormous relief.

  Outside in the grounds, a policeman gives a shout. He’s found a child’s shoe, but on closer inspection, the excitement dies down. It can’t be one Jasie had been wearing. For one thing, it’s too small, but more importantly, it has clearly been there for months, if not years. The leather is rotting and the upper parting from the sole.

  Down at the mortuary in Felsborough, a policeman draws back the sheet that covers the face of a female corpse and asks Chip Calvert if this is Bianca Morgan. He looks down at the pale, bluish white oval, and the hair, once shining gilt and now stiff and dried like straw. She looks, not asleep, but as though she’s no longer there, and she’s no longer beautiful.

  ‘Yes,’ he says and licks his lips. ‘That was her.’

  Humphrey Oliver came in through the door, and he and Alyssa met in the middle of the long hall. He muttered something unintelligible, red-faced, looking as though he would like to embrace her but wouldn’t, since there were strangers in the room and this would offend his sense of propriety, but Alyssa had no such inhibitions. He submitted to her embrace and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead from his great height. They’d had a sweet, old-fashioned romance going ever since Conrad succumbed to the bottle, but anything more than that was never openly acknowledged, especially by Humphrey, who would have felt a fool admitting such a thing at their age. He wouldn’t agree to their living together in his house at the far end of Middleton Thorpe unless they were married, and this Alyssa had so far refused to go along with, saying more or less jokingly that her experience of one marriage hadn’t led her to seek another. Nonsense, of course. Humphrey loved her with all his heart and would have put himself on the rack rather than see her harmed, or even upset, in any way.

  He’d carved himself a little niche, here at Membery, rather like Jane Arrow, in a way, except that he didn’t insist on being indispensable, as she did. All the same, he helped a good deal, in an unobtrusive way. He enjoyed outwitting the house’s ancient heating system, and also spent a lot of time in the gardens, supervising the ordering of supplies and so on, a task Alyssa found boring, but he kept himself pretty much out of the way, otherwise. He was always welcome in the house at any time, though he was rarely seen there unless invited, except on Thursdays. This was when he went along to the out-of-town hypermarket and stocked up with groceries, covering the distances around the aisles at speed with his long stride, negotiating the tots who were being a pest with their miniature shopping trolleys while their mums gossiped and blocked access to the shelves. ‘Excuse me, madam,’ he would say politely, touching the brim of his tweed hat, and they would part like the Red Sea, leaving him to consult his list and stack things in an orderly manner into his trolley, checking the prices and buying everything at best value, all in record time. ‘Nothing to it!’ he averred when he got back, unpacking tea and detergent and three boxes of cornflakes for the price of two, stowing it all away tidily into the kitchen cupboards. He’d once been a quantity surveyor, and commodities and logistics were child’s play to him.

  For such a self-effacing man, he was like the Rock of Gibraltar here
at Membery, and the oppressive gloom lifted visibly with his arrival. ‘Oh, Humph, such a tale to tell!’ cried Alyssa, her eyes brimming, leading him to the settle. Fran disappeared to make coffee for everyone and when she came back he’d been told everything.

  His rosy face was very grave. He sought for words to comfort, and finally got out, ‘Bad business. One hardly knows what to say. Not to worry, though, bound to come right in the wash.’ But he agreed, absolutely and utterly, with Fran’s assertion that Jasie would never have disappeared of his own accord. ‘Why, bless my soul, he wouldn’t do a thing like that!’ He considered. ‘Though he might just have taken it into his head to go exploring and got lost. Enterprising little feller.’ Which wasn’t quite as comforting as it should have been.

  And now the inspector was asking what they could tell him about some letters Bibi had apparently been receiving, from someone who, it seemed, had been stalking her. The glances that passed from one to the other were thunderstruck. Letters? Stalking?

  ‘What are you talking about? You must be mistaken — she never said anything about any letters!’ Alyssa declared, but then her eyes widened, as if she was remembering something. She said nothing more, however, and looked down at her shoes. Equally mystified, Fran shook her head. Humphrey’s jaw dropped.

  ‘We have it on good authority — from your son, Chip,’ said the inspector to Alyssa.

  ‘But neither of them ever breathed a word about it!’

  ‘Are you sure about that? She didn’t she confide in any of you?’ He searched Alyssa’s face, glanced at Fran. ‘Women don’t usually keep something so upsetting to themselves.’

  ‘She told Chip.’ Alyssa was annoyed equally at the generalization, and that she should be disbelieved.

  The detective said drily, ‘But apparently didn’t let him actually see them.’ He regarded them all with ill-concealed scepticism. He had big, rather well-shaped hands, with black hairs springing off the backs. Men with hairy hands always made Fran think of bears, this one more than most, perhaps because she had rarely found anyone before so entirely overpowering and unpleasant. What right did he have to assume they were all lying? Didn’t they give them any training in public relations?

  ‘You didn’t know Bibi,’ she said shortly, which had the effect of turning his interest directly on her. ‘She was inclined to keep things to herself.’ Which, had he but known it, was the ultimate understatement.

  ‘How well did you know her, Ms er — oh yes, Mrs Mark Calvert, isn’t it?’ he asked, consulting his notes as if to remind himself who this woman was, though this was ridiculous, since he knew perfectly well from last night, or should have done, since he was the one who’d spoken to her after she’d found Bibi.

  ‘Francine Calvert, Mrs if you wish,’ she said woodenly. She wasn’t going to let this man rile her. ‘Bibi and I were good friends, but she never mentioned that she’d been getting anything like that. Although …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When she rang me yesterday to arrange for us to meet, I did have the impression, looking back, that she might have something on her mind.’ Alyssa looked up quickly and gave a slight nod, as if this confirmed what she’d been thinking. ‘That was mainly why I decided to walk up here to see her.’

  ‘Despite the note you said you received, cancelling her visit?’

  ‘Despite the note I received, yes.’ With an effort, she kept her voice level.

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you that might have been because she had another appointment?’

  ‘Yes, it did, but I thought … I suppose I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to come up here … oh, I don’t know, I just wanted to see if she was all right.’

  It was the truth, but it sounded lame, even to her own ears. She thought dully, every word we speak from now on is going to have to be weighed. This, then, was what it was really like, being in the middle of a murder investigation. Feeling guilty, even if you weren’t, an associated guilt because someone you loved was so horribly dead, and you were alive. Looking sideways at even your nearest and dearest, wondering if they were telling the truth, wondering if anything you said was implicating someone else. These were depressing thoughts — it was even preferable to believe that there really was some lunatic who’d been stalking Bibi and had ended up by murdering her.

  All right, then, supposing they had? It might be credible — just — but where did Jasie come into it? Who could have wished to harm the little boy, as well as Bibi? The simple hopes of an accident or hiding himself away were fading rapidly as the police combed the grounds and came up with nothing. The waiting was growing intolerable. Fearing the worst — that some poor devil of a policeman might stumble across a small, mutilated or molested body. Hoping against hope for the best — that some communication would be received, demanding ransom in exchange for his safe return. Not even thinking of other alternatives.

  She came back to the present to hear Crouch saying disapprovingly, ‘Hmm. It’s a pity you destroyed this note she wrote, but what’s done’s done. How do you think she got it to you?’

  ‘It’s only a guess, but I think probably the boy who works in the garden may have delivered it on his way home. Gary Brooker.’

  The inspector exchanged a significant look with Sergeant Colville and there was a small silence. Distantly, the mournful sound of Jonathan on his cello floated into the room. He’d been playing the same passage, over and over again, for the last half-hour. The music room was well away and was insulated for sound, but the windows would be wide open today because of the heat. Crouch looked pained, but it wasn’t clear whether this was disapproval of the sort of noise he didn’t call music assaulting his ears or at the name of Gary Brooker, Gaz to his mates, well known to him and every other officer at Felsborough police station. ‘So the bad lad’s actually got down to working, has he? Well, well, wonders never cease. But he’s not everybody’s choice of employee,’ he warned, addressing Alyssa. ‘Keep your eye on him, ma’am, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘I make my own judgements about those I employ,’ Alyssa said frostily, drawing on the authority she could always summon up when necessary. ‘Everyone is redeemable, or so I find. Besides …’

  ‘Besides what, Mrs Calvert?’

  But Alyssa had thought better of it and closed up. It was an art, the inspector’s knack of putting people’s backs up, Fran thought. He’d offended Alyssa and now she was leaving him to draw his own conclusions. She’d almost certainly been going to say that it couldn’t have been Gary who wrote the letters, he was barely literate. Anything he attempted to write would have given away his identity immediately. Unlettered though he might be, however, Gary was anything but stupid. But the police weren’t thick, either, they’d be the first to recognize this.

  ‘I simply meant,’ Alyssa said, relenting slightly, though still in grande-dame mode, ‘it’s ridiculous to think of Gary stalking her. And anyway, if she’d thought he was the culprit, she would never have kept such a thing secret from the rest of us,’ she added, though clearly with more hope than conviction.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ put in Humphrey unexpectedly.

  ‘Kept herself to herself, didn’t she, as Fran says? That stare of hers — put you off your dinner, it would. Sometimes used to wonder if she wasn’t all there, in fact.’

  ‘Humphrey!’ Alyssa was mortified. Dear, sweet old Humphrey, for such a well-meaning man, his speech was often tactless in the extreme. Nevertheless, he’d voiced what they were all thinking, they knew what he meant, except for the two detectives, who were looking for an explanation, which no one seemed prepared to give.

  ‘Sorry, m’dear,’ answered Humphrey, ’but that way she had … looked right through you. As if you weren’t there. Unnerving, you must admit.’ He broke off. ’Oh Lord, not doing very well, am I?’

  ‘No,’ said Alyssa.

  ‘It was just a habit,’ Fran said. But she thought, Well, it wasn’t just my imagination being over-active about Bibi, then. When even Humphrey had noticed it.


  The repetitive music had stopped, leaving an oddly breathless vacuum, and Humphrey, too, almost relapsed into silence under Alyssa’s accusing look, but then, plainly needing to justify himself, he harrumphed and spoke again. ‘Blame it all on that mumbo-jumbo about looking into the future, myself. Didn’t do her a lot of good in the end, did it, all that crystal gazing?’

  Crouch looked alert. ‘Crystal gazing?’

  ‘Oh, Humph!’ What on earth had got into him? Alyssa wondered distractedly. If she didn’t stop him, he was going to say something everyone would later regret. ‘It wasn’t crystal gazing, or anything like that. She was just very interested in the stars.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Crouch. ‘Telescopes and things?’

  Fran threw him a look, knowing he’d deliberately misunderstood. ‘No, the movements of the stars and planets and how they affect our lives,’ she said shortly.

  ‘Just another habit, eh? I see,’ he replied, meeting her glance and coming back at her with her own words.

  And then he suddenly seemed inclined to leave it at that, though he managed to convey the impression that he didn’t think much of all this family solidarity, and that the matter wasn’t by any means finished with. He stood up, and the sergeant closed her notebook, in which she had been carefully writing down everything that had been said. Fran met her eyes and she smiled, and Fran thought, she’s nice, but there probably wasn’t much she missed. She decided to risk Crouch’s scorn again and voice the worrying thought that had been buzzing around in her head like a nasty little wasp: ‘You don’t suppose — you don’t suppose Jasie could have been taken away because he saw what had happened to his mother?’ Or that Bibi was murdered because she saw what happened to Jasie? But she put a hand to her mouth as if that unspoken fear might leap out without her volition.