Killing a Unicorn Read online

  Mark hadn’t been there however, only Fran. She’d had food that she’d brought with her for her supper and they’d sat by the pool, sharing a funny, impromptu meal. Peanut butter sandwiches and half an apple each. And afterwards, they’d drunk the golden Tokay he’d splashed out on in the euphoric aftermath of the concert, by then deliciously cool from being suspended in the depths of the pool. A fine, sweet wine that wasn’t as innocuous as it seemed, and had loosened their tongues, especially his, since he had learned not to make a habit of drinking too much. Previously, he and Fran had never really had the opportunity to get properly acquainted, but that evening had established an immediate rapport between them that had continued ever since, an easy comradeship that was like being with the sister he’d never had. It had been an evening very much like this had been, still glowing with the heat of the day, and they’d sat there peacefully until the sun went down and the trees cast their shadows, watching the reflections die from the water. He found it impossible to think of the place now. ‘I’ll go and fetch her, bring her back here,’ he said immediately.

  ‘She won’t come,’ Alyssa said. ‘She’s already said so and you know what Fran’s like.’

  ‘I’ll go, all the same.’

  ‘I’ve no objection,’ the inspector remarked as he jumped up, though it hadn’t even occurred to Jonathan that he might be expected to ask for permission. ‘We have all the relevant details. I don’t think I need waste any more of your time at present,’ he added, throwing open the remark to the room in general, glancing at his watch. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any point in waiting for the other Mr Calvert to arrive. I’ll see him tomorrow.’

  ‘But why do you need to see Chip at all?’ Alyssa asked. ‘He can’t tell you any more than we have done.’

  The big inspector stared at her with cold grey eyes. He spoke loudly and slowly, as if addressing someone slightly deaf. ‘He’ll be needed to make a formal identification of the body. You do realize that, I suppose? He can come down and do it tomorrow.’

  ‘Come down where? And what do you mean, identification? Fran’s already told you it’s Bibi. Anyway, why can’t he do it here, if it’s necessary?’

  ‘She’s already been taken away, Mrs Calvert.’ The young policewoman spoke gently, risking another snub from the inspector by her intervention.

  ‘Away where? We haven’t been in touch with the funeral directors yet. Oh! Oh, my dear Lord … I suppose you mean — the mortuary,’ she finished faintly. ‘But — but is that necessary?’

  ‘I’m sorry, yes, in the circumstances.’

  ‘No need to hurry over contacting the undertaker,’ said Crouch brusquely. ‘There’ll have to be an autopsy before there can be any funeral.’

  ‘A what?’ Alyssa was horrified.

  ‘An autopsy — a post-mortem. Just to make sure …’ He paused and looked round at the circle of stricken faces. ’ … that everything’s just as it should be.’ His tone was unsympathetic, just on the edge of insolence.

  He wasn’t always that odious, Kate Colville reminded herself as they drove away, just a man who couldn’t ever forget that he’d had what he thought of as a rotten deal. To be fair, most other people thought the same — most of the men in the squad, anyway. Demotion wasn’t something any man took easily, it was what they all dreaded, especially someone as macho as Dave Crouch. And today hadn’t been one of the good ones. Its ending seemed all of a piece.

  Every man and woman in the Division knew his history by now. There was a lot of ‘there but for the grace of God’ in the way they regarded him and, for the moment at any rate, they put up with his rotten attitudes, excusing him. He’d screwed up his career with the Met and got himself transferred here to lick his wounds. No one blamed him for what had happened, he was just bloody unlucky, that he’d been the one out of the two-man armed response unit to go and shoot the robber toting a gun which, it turned out, had been nothing more than a replica pistol. But hell, you didn’t stop to ask questions when you were at the wrong end of what looked like a .22 handgun in the hands of a known and dangerous villain.

  Nevertheless, somebody had to take the rap, the top brass had to go through the motions, justice had to be seen to be done. Disciplinary questions were asked, measures taken. But you couldn’t expect a man like Dave Crouch to accept the inevitable so easily. No one had reason to know that better than Kate. Apart from anything else, there was the loss of face such censure implied. He had other problems, too, of a personal nature, that he carried with him from much further back in the past.

  ‘When did Logie say he’d be doing the PM?’ she asked as the police car sped through Middleton Thorpe village. It was barely more than a hamlet, all of two minutes from the pub at the beginning to the church at the end, less if you disregarded the signs requesting the lowering of the speed limit, as Crouch had done. But he always drove too fast, a legacy from his former days, when a speedy response had been a necessity. She knew better than to remonstrate, or to complain about the way he’d treated her during the interview, either. My sergeant! she remembered, smarting. It would just give him another handle to start a row, and that was something she tried to avoid unless it became absolutely necessary.

  He seemed unaware of her tension and answered her question calmly enough. ‘He’s set it up for early tomorrow morning, first thing. He’s off on a lecture tour or some other jolly abroad, Barbados or wherever the international forensic pathologists are gathering for their fun, but he’s decided to fit it in before he goes, he’s anxious to know the result. Interested enough to change his flight reservation for a later one.’ He brooded on this for a while. ‘Whatever the result, I’ll lay money it’s going to shake the gentry up there at the Big House out of their bloody complacency.’ He spoke in sneering capitals. The chip on his shoulder — working-class boy pulled up by his own bootstraps — was almost visible.

  ‘You could’ve put it to them less brutally.’ She knew he hardly realized how boorish he was being, sometimes. ‘And we don’t know for sure, not yet, Dave.’

  ‘If Doc Anderson and Logie both think so, that’s good enough for me.’

  The sharp-eyed police doctor, Anderson, first on the scene, had voiced his doubts about whether Bibi Morgan’s death was, in fact, due to drowning, and when Logie, the pathologist, had been called in, they had together formed the opinion she must have been dead before she entered the water — although, cautious Scot that Logie was, he was not prepared to commit himself until he’d examined her under proper conditions, since there were no immediately obvious signs of deliberately applied violence to the body. The stream that ran through the grounds at Membery was swift, it ran downhill and the bed was full of sharp-cornered flints, which would have accounted for the many cuts and bruises the body had sustained and could have obscured the real cause of death. Rivers and streams, of course, were the ideal way of getting rid of forensic evidence, washing away blood and contact traces and, with luck, removing it from the actual spot where the crime had occurred. Which, if Logie’s initial opinion was proved correct, implied somebody who knew what they were doing — somebody with nous enough to appreciate that fact, or even a professional. The bonus in this case, mused Crouch, mulling it over and speaking his thoughts aloud, was that the corpse couldn’t have travelled any appreciable distance, so there was reason to believe there might still be signs of any scuffle that had taken place at the spot where she’d been tipped, or pushed, in — if, indeed, she had been. Anyone seeking to obliterate such signs completely was on to a hiding to nothing — there’d be something, trampled grass, broken plants, even damage to the bank itself.

  ‘I’ll have a team out there first light. That walking stick, for one thing — I want it, though it won’t be anywhere near the water, I’m bloody sure. No killer’s going to be stupid enough to lead us right to the spot where she was done in.’

  ‘Isn’t it more likely she did just fall into the pool and drown?’

  ‘If she did, she wouldn’t have had all those
scratches, darlin’,’ he answered witheringly. ‘She was tumbled down that stream, take it from me. And I’ll lay my pension she didn’t drown. You know me. I’ve a nose for this sort of thing. I can smell it a mile off.’

  Construct a theory and then find facts to buttress it, more like, thought Kate, and if you can’t find evidence, manufacture it. Dave Crouch’s biggest failing. He’d always walked on the windy side of what was permissible, relishing the danger, enjoying the rush of adrenalin, the buzz it gave him, and wasn’t going to change, even now. That was something she’d learned to accept, if not condone. She sighed and said, ‘Even Logie won’t commit himself a hundred per cent, yet. What makes you so certain it’s murder?’

  If it is, nothing would please you more, she thought. I know that, because I know how much it would mean to you. How much you need an important case to soothe your wounded self-esteem and raise your standing. But, remembering the bereaved people they’d just left behind — and oh God, there was a child, wasn’t there? — she knew not even Crouch would wish that. ‘You don’t half like to think of yourself as a bastard, Dave Crouch.’

  He grinned as if she’d paid him a compliment. ‘Don’t underestimate me. I don’t only think it, Katie darlin’, I am one. It’s a special gift I have.’

  She said nothing more. It was always the best way. Keep him happy if you didn’t want a row. Then he surprised her by saying, suddenly serious, ‘It stinks, Kate. Not just to me. Old Logie wouldn’t be interrupting his hols if he didn’t think there was something fishy. It was no fall, I’m sure of that. Think about it. There she is, unsteady on her feet, says she’s going out for some air, and goes to find it by walking by the side of the stream, of all places. It ain’t easy, that path, not even with two good legs and in bright sunlight. It’s narrow, and slippery, and broken away in places — and as for that so-called track down by the waterfall, it’s like the north face of the bloody Eiger. Dangerous at any time, I should think, and it’s darkish under the trees even in broad daylight. At that time, with the sun going down, it must have been pretty murky, to say the least.’

  ‘Why d’you think she did go down there, then?’

  ‘To meet someone? If she was deliberately killed, it’s a stretch to think it was mere chance that the killer just happened to be around.’

  It was frustrating, but there was nothing to be gained by mounting a search in the dark, even in the moonlight. Nor, until the post-mortem proved that she hadn’t died by accident, was there any justification for commandeering the resources necessary.

  ‘Sleep on it, that’s the only thing to do.’ He put a thick, hairy hand on her knee and gave her his special leer. ‘What’s for supper, darlin’?’

  Chapter Three

  It took all he had to drive carefully, to keep well within the speed limit, suppressing every instinct that urged him to put his foot down, roar up the motorway and to hell with the consequences. But innate caution warned Chip not to do it. The last thing he needed was to be stopped by the police, and his new, silver Lexus coupé was inclined to attract notice at the best of times. In his monkey suit, no doubt still reeking of wine and brandy fumes, he’d be fair game for any gung-ho traffic police waiting to pounce with a breathalyser. He wouldn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of getting away with it. The truth was, he shouldn’t be driving at all, though the unexpected sound of the telephone, shrilling through the empty flat as he opened the door, his mother’s voice when he answered, and the unbelievable news she’d given him, had immediately shocked him into a sense of stone-cold sobriety.

  Twenty minutes earlier, he’d been feeling mellow and expansive after a leisurely dinner at one of the City livery halls. The wine had been as good as it always was, and he’d sunk a fair amount, secure in the knowledge that he’d be taking a taxi back to the flat, where he was to stay the night. It had been an agreeable evening, one way and another. Chip was a clubbable man and happy in the company of other like-minded men, networking — or furthering his own ends — whichever mode of expression you chose. Tonight had had the added attraction of being a ladies’ evening. He’d found himself seated next to the Master’s wife, a middle-aged woman of few words, and he’d politely done his duty by her, keeping up a pleasant, platitudinous conversation when necessary and in between turning with relief to the witty and attractive woman, a financial analyst, on his other side. She’d made him laugh with some rather scandalous stories about people they both knew, and there had been more than a hint of flirtation in the exchanges. Their eyes had met over the rim of the loving cup as it was customarily passed around. Holding it by its two handles while she drank, he’d sensed a promise that this wouldn’t be their last meeting.

  The curve of the motorway, on a slight rise, stretched out in front of him, the flare path of yellow sodium lights signalled the intersection, and his turn-off ahead. A myriad insects whirled in his headlights, their mashed bodies and tiny specks of blood and body fluids blurring the windscreen. He switched on the washers and a smell of the detergent Bibi had disliked so much filled the car, mingling with the scent of soft leather and new carpets.

  She would have been here with him tonight if it hadn’t been for her broken ankle. She’d taken to accompanying him to this type of function more and more lately, encouraging him to think — why not, after all? A woman like her and a man like him — they were meant to make a go of it, she was beginning to see that, at last. Too late now, too bloody late. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel.

  Disbelief at what he’d been told had been followed by anger. What the hell had she been doing, clambering down the waterfall path, with her still-wonky ankle? If she’d wanted to visit Fran at The Watersplash, Humphrey would have driven her down with pleasure. But Humphrey, he remembered, was away, visiting his daughter in Cornwall. Even so, someone would have taken her down.

  A worm of suspicion began to burrow insidiously into his consciousness: that perhaps it hadn’t been an accident.

  No, she wouldn’t!

  He tried to believe himself, but no one knew better than he that yes, she could, thinking back to the time when it had very nearly happened. He’d been proud of himself then, how he’d risen to the occasion and coped, taking her and young Jasie away from everything that had gone on and installing them at Membery. Using patience with her, moreover, not something that came to him naturally or easily, so that gradually, she’d become a woman no longer so terrified that she’d seen suicide as the only way out. He’d persuaded himself that she’d put her past behind her. She and her child had been accepted, without question, into the bosom of his gregarious family. She’d lost her fear and rediscovered her confidence. She’d even managed to start working again, albeit in what he considered a menial capacity, a job which he’d been hoping he could soon persuade her to change for something more appropriate. They’d all rubbed along together quite happily. But now he wondered uneasily how much of that was true, how much he’d been deceiving himself.

  Chip wasn’t a deep-thinking or introspective man, he took things and people pretty much as they came, but the doubts had started, and wouldn’t go away. When he’d brought her to Membery, he’d promised her no questions would be asked, and as far as he knew, none had been. He’d warned everyone that she’d had a rotten time and couldn’t bear to talk about it, had asked that her privacy be respected. No one had bothered her, not even Alyssa, who was notorious for asking the things other people wanted to know but hadn’t the brass neck to ask. Nor had he himself probed, beyond what he already knew. He’d agreed, albeit reluctantly, to a no-strings relationship. Bloody lucky for him he had, as it turned out. If he’d had to rely on Bibi these last two years, well … Enough said.

  Together with Jasie, the three of them had occupied the several converted rooms in a wing of the house, formerly the servants’ quarters, which Chip had moved into some years before. For all its discomforts, he’d never been able to envisage living anywhere else but Membery, his family home: at the same time, he couldn’t live co
ntinually under his mother’s all-seeing eye. The set of rooms had been ideal when Bibi came to live with him. Better so. Away from prying eyes, save him embarrassment.

  Jasie. They hadn’t told him yet, Alyssa had said. Poor little sod, lying peacefully asleep, unaware of what the next day would bring. Panic gripped Chip at the thought of having to be the one to tell the child his mother was dead. Must it be him? A woman would be bound to do it better. Alyssa? On reflection, no. His mother’s brand of sympathy wasn’t the sort calculated to help in this situation. She’d overwhelm the boy with tears, terrify him with her own sorrow. Although she would certainly be a comfort later, letting him cry in her arms, she wouldn’t do at all to break the news. Jane? Stalwart Jane, to whom they’d all taken their troubles, as children, and beyond. You never got a shoulder to cry on, that was for sure, yet somehow you went away feeling better. Perhaps sympathy wasn’t always what was needed. This time, however, it was, in spades. No, then, not Jane. Which left only Fran …

  He pulled himself together. Not Fran, either. It came down to himself, no getting away from it. The lessons taught at school, never to shirk unpleasantness, to face it like a man, were deeply ingrained. He saw there wasn’t really any alternative but to tell Jasie, himself. He owed him that, at least. He was a first class little chap, he had guts. He’d bear up. Look how plucky he’d been when he’d had to have that cut in his wrist stitched, after tripping up with a lemonade bottle in his hand. Seven stitches, and never a tear. Physical courage was something Chip could recognize, understand and admire.

  And then another unwelcome thought struck him. Acting the role of father-figure to a child whose mother was always there, in the background, was a totally different concept from having to assume sole parental responsibility, from now into the future. Yet there was no one else. His heart sank. Fond as he was of Jasie, he felt bowed down with the weight of something he knew he couldn’t begin to cope with.