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Authors: Marjorie Eccles

BOOK: Killing a Unicorn
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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 have 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.
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 Chip 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.
Though the room was full of people, Jasie himself was not in evidence. Chip, his back to her, was now speaking into the telephone, and presently hung up. She couldn't see why Jilly had been rushing: all she was doing now was staring out of the window at the rows of cabbages and peas in the kitchen garden, her hands twisted together behind her back. As Alyssa spoke, however, she turned and filled the kettle, began to slice bread. It was Jonathan who came to Alyssa and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Mother, sit down and prepare yourself for a shock. We can't find Jasie.'
‘Why don't you look in the tree house? He always rushes out there before breakfast to see if the squirrels have taken his conkers.'
He was keeping a dozen of them, still wearing their prickly green overcoats, in the private hide-out Humphrey had constructed for him in the fork of an ancient oak, hoping his secret hoard would ripen and harden before the squirrels stripped all the horse chestnuts bare.
‘No, he's not in the tree house. He doesn't seem to be anywhere.'
She looked at the clock and realized it was nearly half-past nine. Jasie was always awake before seven, ravenous for his breakfast, making enough noise for three and cheerfully talking the hind legs off a donkey. She felt the tension
in the room and sat down heavily. Her heart began to thump uncomfortably. She thought, I'm not up to all this. She wished desperately that Humphrey were here.
‘His bed doesn't seem to have been slept in.'
‘Nonsense! Bibi put him to bed herself last night before - before she went out.'
‘The duvet isn't even rumpled.' As if this wasn't conclusive — any bed that Jasie occupied for more than five minutes looked like an earthquake disaster — he added, ‘We can't find any trace of him.'
Chip sat down at the table. ‘The police say someone will be here very shortly.' He looked grey and haggard. Last night, Alyssa had been proud of him and the stoical way he'd accepted Bibi's death, but this morning his courage seemed to have deserted him. He looked utterly shattered by this second blow.
‘Police?' Her heart jerked painfully. ‘Surely there's no need -'
‘We've already looked everywhere,' Jonathan said, throwing a quizzical glance in his brother's direction. How was it that Chip had been so immediately and absolutely certain that something untoward had happened to the child, rather than naturally assuming he'd just wandered off? The grounds, if you included the gardens, were, after all, pretty extensive and offered plenty of scope for an adventurous small boy to hide himself mischievously, or perhaps to fall and hurt himself. Plenty of trees to climb and fall off, a stream to fall into …
But that had been the first place they'd all looked, Jilly as well, scouring the undergrowth along both banks, calling his name. Even, with mounting reluctance, but at Chip's insistence, following it as far as the pool and the blue and white police tape. After finding nothing there, one look at his brother's face had told Jonathan he'd given up all expectations that Jasie would be found anywhere within the grounds of Membery. But outside, there were still acres and acres of forest woodland …
Jilly brought tea things and a plate with two pieces of
freshly buttered toast over to the table where Alyssa sat. ‘You'll feel better after this,' she said quietly, pouring a cup of tea. It was thick and strong, just as Alyssa liked it.
‘How kind,' she said absently, patting Jilly's hand. ‘Hasn't Jane arrived yet?'
As if on cue, Jane Arrow walked in at the door, looking as neat and fresh as a daisy, though she hadn't cycled home until well after one, refusing offers to put her up for the night. She had on a pale blue blouse, a flowered print skirt and a beige cotton sun-hat with a deep crown, which she wore as she'd worn her school hat, and all her hats ever since, well pulled down on her head and with the brim turned up at the back. She was rather flushed. ‘I'm so sorry to be late,' she began. She made a point of always arriving by nine, as if she were a paid employee who might have her wages docked if she didn't. ‘But the police came to see me, which of course held me up. They've now gone down to The Watersplash again, for some reason. They said they'll be up here to see you, Chip, later.'
‘That was quick!' Chip said. Jane looked mystified. Her sharp, enquiring glance passed from one to the other as Chip added, ‘Impossible, in fact. I've only just finished speaking to them. They said they'd come straight away, but it'll take them at least half an hour to get here from Felsborough.'
‘But they're already here! They only left my house ten minutes since. After asking me a lot of impertinent questions - which I chose not to answer, I might say! I find that perfectly dreadful inspector person no more appealing this morning than I did last night.'
‘Why on earth did they want to see you again, Jane?' asked Alyssa, momentarily diverted.
‘Only they know why! I couldn't tell them anything more. They asked what exactly I'd been doing up here last evening, why I hadn't gone home. It wasn't any of their business, but it should have been fairly obvious that I was staying to have supper with you — and to see Jonathan, when he arrived.' She shot Jonathan a bright, meaningful
glance. Jonathan cowered. No doubt her obsessive interest in his performances was kindly meant, but it did him no favours. She herself was no mean performer on the viola, and demanded a note-by-note discussion of every piece he played. Thread to the needle, that was Jane Arrow, practically every semi-quaver to be worked over. It was even worse if his concert had been recorded on Radio 3 and she'd been listening. ‘They want to see all of you again, too,' she informed everyone.
‘I think we're talking at cross-purposes,' Jonathan said. ‘If these police are the same people who were here last night, they weren't the ones Chip's been speaking to in Felsborough.' Explanations followed.
Jane stood like a pillar of salt in the middle of the room, a miniature Olive, Lady Baden-Powell in her Girl Guide hat, shocked but doughty and unassailable, saying absolutely nothing, and thereby effectively silencing everyone else. It wasn't so much that she didn't speak, however, as her utter stillness, though Jane was rarely silent and never still. She was quick as a bird, forever pecking out staccato conversation in sharp, starling-like little bursts, in the spiked, admonitory way they were all so accustomed to that they scarcely noticed. ‘Jasie?' she said at last. ‘Jasie?' and then began demanding the how and why. Always quick on the uptake, she had no difficulty in absorbing the necessary facts, and thereafter wasted no more time in expressions of shock, or horror. Whatever she felt was hidden, though for a moment back there, it had seemed as though her tough old heart might have been breached. A course of action was already forming in her mind, everyone could see. She was an organizer by nature (possibly an inheritance from her father, the Commander) and was in her element in any sort of crisis, stemming from her time as a nurse during the war.
There was no denying that everyone in the house had been glad of this at some time or other, but now there was a concerted, hasty movement, everyone suddenly busy: Chip looked at his watch, murmuring something about
going outside to wait for the police. Jonathan said abruptly, ‘I've already seen the police once, if they want me again, they'll find me with Fran. I managed to persuade her to take the sleeping pill the doctor left with her and she was still out to the world when I came back up here this morning. No sign of her being up and about when Chip and I went down to The Watersplash looking for Jasie, either.'

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