Killing a Unicorn (3 page)

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Authors: Marjorie Eccles

BOOK: Killing a Unicorn
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So far, however, none of the birds has ever flown right into the house.
She fetches a duster and wipes the mirror clean of the eerie image, repelled by the ashy, almost greasy residue, by the faintly foetid smell, and is surprised to find her hands trembling, to see her own frightened face behind the image, pale and wide-eyed with shock, her soft, difficult to manage brown hair lank as string with the heat.
It was only an owl, she tells herself. The woods abound with them, their unnerving shrieks echo through the trees at night, it isn't unknown for one to swoop silently, intent on its prey, straight across the car windscreen when you're returning home late.
But it's still there in her mind as she showers, lathering her hair and turning up the power to concentrate the sharp needles of water on her shoulders, letting the warm water sluice over her head and body, taking away the tensions with it. Her hair still slightly damp, she combs it through, slips into a loose shift, then bundles every sweaty stitch she's worn that day into the washing machine. Feeling better, she fixes a hefty gin and tonic while she makes herself a salad in the under-used stainless steel, state-of-the-art kitchen, where you could comfortably cook for an army with every gadget known to man, most of them unused, since she rarely has the time, or need, to cook imaginatively.
But all the while she's wondering how the imprint of the owl could have been left on the mirror, when the house has
been locked up for two days. It wasn't there before she left, of that she is certain. She couldn't have failed to see it as she came down the stairs. She'd locked the doors before leaving and Mark had left before her, business in London first, then on to Brussels. And she has come into the house that night by the back door, closing it behind her.
They said owls were bad luck.
 
 
It's too hot for supper to have much appeal, but she dutifully eats as much of her salad as she can stomach, which isn't a lot. In the end, she gives up and scrapes the rest into the bin. But she finishes off the second glass of cold white burgundy she's poured, watching the early evening news while she drinks it: television, the solitary person's refuge.
The thought is outrageous, and suddenly she feels a great need for air and a release from thoughts about herself, and the need to move, the feeling she should, perhaps, go up to Membery and see if Bibi is all right.
The heat of the day is still held in the clearing, the dying sun is flickering through the trees with the effect of a shuttered camera. Honeysuckle reaches for the light through a thicket of blackthorn, breathing out its warm and heady scent, mingling with the earthy, woodsy smell under the trees. Further into the woods stinkhorn grow, but their pervasive, disgusting odour thankfully doesn't reach so far. Walking across the grass, feeling it cool against her bare toes, between the straps of her open sandals, she is conscious of unseen eyes watching her from the shadowed depths beyond the trees. She listens to the silence, broken only by the sounds of the forest beginning to settle for the evening, the cool splash of the waterfall into the pool.
It isn't much of a waterfall, to tell the truth, little more than a pretty cascade, not a straight fall, but flowing in three stages for about forty feet from a large slab of rock across the watercourse above, which originates in an
underground spring, somewhere beyond Membery. But forty feet is enough to turn the glassy water, sliding like mercury over the lip, into a creaming froth at the bottom, before it gradually disperses into the still water beyond, fringed with ferns and foxgloves. At its far end, the pool narrows again and continues through the clearing and the watersplash to the other side of the road. The water is deep just below the fall, though nowhere is it suitable for serious swimming — not without the major upheaval of removing some of the big rocks at the edges, a job Mark refuses to consider paying for.
Years ago, someone built a rustic bridge over the lip, to make it possible to return along the right-hand side of the stream after taking a stroll along its left. The bridge isn't used now, it's rotten and unsafe. There are planks missing, the railings have grown lichens and moss, just lean on them and they'd give way — but anyway the right-hand path is now invisible beneath its overgrowth of nettles, thistles and cow parsley. The one at this side is hardly any better, being used only as a short cut for the comings and goings between Membery and The Watersplash, ending in a scramble down the rocks alongside the waterfall. The rocks are steep, but hold no terrors for the younger members of the family, who have learned to negotiate them from childhood.
Fran pauses and sits there for a while, as near to the edge of the pool as she can get, on one of the boulders, most of which are green and slippery in wet weather, and even now are embedded in velvety moss. She slips off her sandals and trails her toes in the water, always deliciously cold. She sits for several minutes before she notices the white shape eddying around in the curdling foam at the foot of the waterfall.
At first she thinks, ridiculously, it's another owl, another white shadow. Until she realizes it's larger, much larger, that it has an arm, and a leg, human form.
Membery Place stood behind closed gates, marked Strictly Private, thirty yards further along the road from the gate leading to the gardens, which were open to visitors on Wednesdays to Sundays, inclusive.
It was too dark tonight to read the sign by the public entrance as they passed, but Jonathan, at least, knew its pronouncements by heart — the opening and closing times, and the entrance fee, two pounds fifty, no concessions. Do not park on the grass verges outside the gates, there is ample parking within the grounds. We regret that we cannot allow dogs (except for guide dogs), no children under five, and wheelchair access is limited, on account of the steep steps. Picnicking within the grounds is strictly forbidden.
He'd often wondered how they ever raised any visitors at all, but Alyssa's assertion that her rules didn't seem to have affected the garden's success couldn't be argued with. His mother had worked wonders, at Chip's suggestion, after their father died, changing and enlarging the gardens from what she'd created to please herself into what would attract others to look around, and spend their money in. A place where they could initially marvel at the immense Kiftsgate rose that cascaded over the great plum tree in the former stable yard, then amble between the long herbaceous borders to the spot where seats were strategically placed to take advantage of the wide view of the valley, the rolling chalk hills and the forest spread below. At this point, where the flat part of the garden ended, the more
venturesome might climb down the steeply sloping rocky bluff and then back again, admiring on the way the wonderful collection of rare and unusual rock plants — a subliminal persuasion to buy, on the way out, highly priced propagations of those same plants, raised in the nurseries. After which they could depart, well pleased, fortified by a cup of tea and a home-made scone in the Old Stables.
The taxi turned in through the gates towards the house. Asymmetrical, with long, horizontal lines, sweeping roofs and gables, tall brick chimneys, narrow bands of mullioned windows and deep bays. A great front door and beside it a tall, narrow window, awkwardly placed over two adjacent, oddly angled gables, and carried up two storeys, similar in a way to that of The Watersplash. But this house had been built long before that, on the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thought to be very advanced at the time of its erection, designed by a disciple of Voysey, in the Arts and Crafts manner, it had been built for Great-grandfather Calvert, a long dead judge of some notoriety. Its roughcast walls, though evidently in dire need of repainting at closer quarters, in this light stood out like a dazzling plaster carving against the background frieze of dark trees, the summer moon shedding a warm radiance over it.
The first thing Jonathan noticed as the taxi cruised up to the front door was that, unusually, every light in the house blazed out into the darkness. For a moment he wondered, with wild speculation, if this was a welcome home after his well-received concert in Vienna yesterday. It was the sort of gesture Alyssa used to make, though the habit had fallen off lately. She'd implied, flatteringly, that his successes were becoming so routine it was no longer necessary to mark them out specially. But she was very superstitious, nearly as much as Bibi, and he thought the more likely reason was that she was afraid of tempting fate. He scoffed at the idea, but wasn't going to argue with her — no success could be that assured. Jilly, too, had surreptitiously crossed her fingers.
As the taxi neared the front door, he noticed that, despite the lights, there was no discernible movement behind the downstairs windows, and almost simultaneously, he saw the police car parked outside.
‘What the –?' The taxi braked noisily on the gravel, and he prepared to jump out.
‘Oh, Jon,' Jilly breathed, ‘you don't think –?'
‘Of course not,' he said shortly, with a swift glance at the taxi driver. ‘The police wouldn't be bothering themselves with a missing suitcase.' She gave him a quick, odd look.
He spoke more sharply than he had intended, for Jilly had been on the verge of tears all the way from the airport and he was terrified of them starting up again, for whatever reason. He'd never seen her cry before, and had he thought about it, he might seriously have doubted if she ever could. She was so self-contained she could go all day without even speaking unless she was spoken to — not sulking, a condition unknown to Jilly, or miserable, the occasional smile in his direction indicating she was happy enough. Not that she was always so quiet, far from it! When the occasion demanded, Jilly could talk for England. And never had he had need to question her loyalty. Remembering that instantly dispersed his irritation with her. But … Bibi! Why had that casual mention of her set her off? He was still baffled by her outburst.
The taxi driver went round to the boot and Jonathan took care of his cello, shrouded in canvas over its case, and deposited it on the front steps. By the time he'd finished, the driver and Jilly had dealt with the rest of the luggage. He gave the man a large tip and slammed the taxi door decisively, sketching a salute to send him on his way and to discourage any more speculative glances towards the police car.
Jilly bent to breathe in the waves of violet-scented heliotrope coming from the giant lead urns either side of the front door, great masses of dark purple blossoms standing above a trailing froth of pink verbena. Jonathan raised his
hand to the iron knocker, shaped like a Celtic cross, but Alyssa was in the hall by then and had flung open the door. She stood, framed in the aperture, her arms stretched wide, before enveloping him in a vast hug. ‘Jonathan, my darling boy, how late you are! In all this, it had almost slipped my mind we were still waiting for you, it's all so dreadful! But thank God you are here, at last!' At once deflating him and wrapping him in her warm love. His mother, ever the same, wearing black, as she invariably did in the evenings. She was heavily made up and a lot of gold jewellery decorated her person. Over the top, as usual, but he was so used to this that it barely registered.
With slightly less enthusiasm, she planted an air kiss in the region of Jilly's pale cheek. ‘Jilly!'
‘Sorry we're so late,' Jilly said politely. ‘We've had the most appalling things happen.'
‘You, too?'
They had stepped directly into the huge hall that was carried up two storeys. Despite the long window, stretching upwards and disappearing into the darkness above, and several more horizontal ones, oddly placed and too small to be of much use other than as decorative elements, it was a dim place, even in daylight, with a great deal of stonework and wooden panelling, unpredictable corners and a huge, inglenooked fireplace at its far end. Seen from the outside, the house had presence, and inside it was replete with the fine, aesthetic ideals fashionable at the time of its building, when medieval simplicity was being extolled above the excesses of the Victorians. Untouched by ill-conceived restoration as the house and its interior were, it was sometimes visited by architectural historians.
Mementoes of Judge Calvert were everywhere, notably in a dark and forbidding portrait dominating the wall above the fireplace, with below it a Biblical quotation, writ large in Gothic lettering across the width of the wide chimney breast: ‘GOD IS A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE, STRONG AND PATIENT.' God in this case, presumably,
being His Honour, the family had long ago decided. His robes and wig were displayed in a glass case set into an alcove next to a passage that led eventually to a downstairs cloakroom, but since Conrad's death Alyssa had had the alcove screened by a heavy tapestry curtain. She said she could manage to ignore the portrait from her chair by the fire, since it was placed so high, but she didn't want to be reminded of the old tyrant every time she went to the loo. The judge's unforgiving spirit brooded over everything, so no one had ever dared to remove the portrait, and most of his original furniture remained, too — enormously heavy, plain oak tables and straight-backed, wooden bench-seats set in draughty alcoves. The windows were curtainless. Architectural gem though it might be, it wasn't a comfortable house to live in.
‘What's wrong, Ma?' asked Jonathan immediately. ‘What's going on?'
‘Oh come in, come in, it's just too terrible! I can't even bear to think of it. Jane will tell you, won't you, Jane?'
He heard what sounded suspiciously like a shake in his mother's voice and looked more carefully at her. Under the make-up, under all the bravura, he saw her suddenly as she was, an elderly woman who'd had all the stuffing knocked out of her, looking her age, rather tatty round the edges, it had to be said. There was surely more grey in her black hair than he remembered. When he'd kissed her, her skin had felt soft, powdery, yielding, like the marshmallows he'd hated as a child. Against her too-bright lipstick, her teeth appeared yellow. Her shoulders sagged, she looked as if some vital spark within her had been extinguished, and for the first time in his life he had the prescience that one day she would not be there. He touched her hand gently and, as if sensing his thoughts, she smiled shakily, and almost visibly made an effort to pull herself together. But it was Jane Arrow who spoke.
‘Well, I suppose someone will have to tell them,' she answered Alyssa in clipped tones and, with her usual
directness, came straight to the point. ‘Jonathan, it's Bibi. There's been an accident, and I'm afraid she's dead.'
She stood in Alyssa's shadow, five foot nothing, a drab little wren beside a large black crow, a diminutive figure in a Liberty print blouse and a beige cotton skirt, her straight pepper-and-salt hair drawn back unbecomingly at either side by tortoiseshell slides, showing no emotion other than to press her lips firmly together, whether in sorrow or disapproval of Bibi's unseemly act it wasn't possible to tell.
Jilly gave a huge, choking gasp, and subsided on to a window seat as if her legs wouldn't hold her. Jonathan didn't feel too good, either. Every drop of blood felt to be pumping away from his heart. He lowered himself down beside her and a long, slow look passed between them. He put his arm round her shoulder. ‘Those damn sleeping pills?' he asked his mother, slowly and with a great effort.
Bibi. Dead? It wasn't possible. Not Bibi. He felt a heavy weight of guilt, as if that stupid, pointless quarrel about her, erupting out of nowhere, had been somehow to blame. But then, beneath the guilt, something lifted.
‘No, no, not sleeping pills,' Miss Arrow said softly, ‘I'm afraid she drowned.'
‘Drowned?' This was so totally unexpected he had difficulty in taking it in. Jilly stiffened beside him. ‘How? Where?' His voice sounded as dry and gravelly as it felt.
He noticed Jane Arrow's face working. He'd always had the impression that there wasn't much love lost between her and Bibi, and he was surprised at what he took to be this belated show of emotion, until she put her finger to her lips and he realized his mistake. He saw that she was trying to tell him something. Almost before he grasped that she was attempting to warn him of the presence of someone else in the room, that someone had risen from one of the two high-backed settles by the great fireplace, the one with its back to the door, and turned to face the newcomers.
He was a big, unsmiling man with grizzled dark hair, dark-complexioned, a shave-twice-a-day man to judge by the shadow across his jaw. He came forward and extended a large hand with dark hairs springing from the back. ‘DI Crouch, I'm in charge of the investigation. And Sergeant Colville,' he added as an afterthought, in an accent that originated somewhere south of the Thames, indicating with a jerk of the head a young woman with a frizz of dark hair who had also come forward. ‘You are …?'
‘This is my youngest son, Jonathan Calvert,' Alyssa announced proudly.
The name brought no flicker of recognition. The detective merely nodded brusquely. Either he was no music lover, or he'd made the connection earlier and decided not to be impressed. ‘Forgive me for being obtuse,' said Jonathan, ‘but you did say investigation?'
‘Any unexplained death always has to be looked into.' This time it was the sergeant who answered. She was thin and sallow, wearing a dark grey trouser suit whose colour did nothing for her. But her tone was coolly sympathetic, in a detached, official way, which was more than Jonathan would have been willing to say for the other officer.
‘Even if it was an accident?'
‘We-ell -' she began.
‘Just a minute, Sergeant, let me deal with this,' the inspector interrupted officiously. ‘Ms Morgan was found in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, near your brother's house, The Watersplash,' he went on, irritating Jonathan with that euphemistic Ms so that he almost missed the implications of what had been said. A combination of last night's concert — any concert invariably wired him up so that he couldn't sleep and was left feeling drained the next day — plus a sweltering journey during which Jilly's normally efficient travelling arrangements had met with nothing but frustrations and delays, including a suitcase failing to turn up on the carousel at Heathrow, had not conspired to leave his brain at its most lucid.
‘What happened? Did she slip on those rocks, then?'
‘That's what it looks like. Seemed at first she might've fallen from that rickety bridge, but we can't detect any signs of recent damage. Very unsafe, though, something like that.'

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