Killing a Unicorn Page 8

  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.’

  ‘Oh yes, do go and bring her back here!’ implored Alyssa. ‘She’ll surely come when she knows what’s happened!’ The thought of Fran was like the strong shot of brandy Alyssa would have preferred in the circumstances, even at this time in the morning, to the tea Jilly had made for her, welcome though that had been. The person Alyssa really wanted, however, was Humphrey. He’d said he wouldn’t be back until eleven at the earliest, he didn’t like to push the old girl — meaning his ancient and beloved bull-nosed Morris Minor, into which he folded his long stork’s legs like an
Anglepoise lamp, and drove sitting bolt upright with his Sherlock Holmes hat on. Alyssa always felt she ought to be wearing a motoring veil whenever she sat next to him. ‘Tell Fran I desperately want to see her, Jonathan — and when she speaks to Mark, ask her to tell him to come home immediately. I’m sure whatever it is he’s doing in Antwerp can wait. At times like this, it’s the family that counts.’

  ‘Brussels,’ corrected Jonathan. ‘OK, I’ll ask her, but he won’t just be able to drop everything, you know.’ He reached for the door handle. ‘Coming, Jilly?’ he asked, as an afterthought.

  ‘Better not. I should start doing something about that suitcase.’

  With luck, it might have turned up by now. It might, on the other hand, still be languishing in Schipol airport, a notorious place for luggage going astray; where they’d had to change flights, due to a missed connection. The time taken to try and trace the case could conceivably extend to fill the day, but she was glad to have something to occupy her that would help to span this terrible hiatus. She wouldn’t be missed, anyway, she thought wryly. They all wanted Fran, and that was of course understandable, Fran being part of the family.

  When Jonathan had rung her from The Watersplash last night and told her he’d be staying there, Jilly had reasonably agreed that it was the best thing. It wouldn’t have made any difference if she hadn’t, she supposed, though to argue wouldn’t have occurred to her, or to get herself in a twist about Fran. Not in the same way she’d once got worked up about Bibi. Fran was too wrapped up in Mark to look in other directions. In any case, Jilly shared Jonathan’s liking for her … she was the only one around here who treated her with genuine, unselfconscious friendliness. She was warm and funny and really nice — if a bit sharp on occasions — and yet with such sad eyes sometimes.

  It wasn’t, Jilly admitted with a sigh, as if she herself wasn’t welcome at Membery. Everyone was invariably polite and agreeable, but it would be nice if someone occasionally gave a second thought to throwing a little affection in her direction, too. Jilly often had the weird feeling that she was invisible to them all here, an appendage of Jonathan’s, of rather less importance than his cello. Alyssa, for instance, was never less than amiable, even if she sometimes looked surprised to find Jilly there, throwing those absent, brilliant smiles in her direction whenever she remembered, meaning to be kind, Jilly supposed.

  It was disconcerting to see how like Jonathan’s those smiles were.

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. Jilly took herself off to answer it and came back to say the police were here, and wanted to speak with Chip.

  Three people were waiting for him, a woman and two men, the younger of whom was staring round the lofty spaces of the big hall as though he’d never seen anything like it in his life before, as no doubt he hadn’t. It was a not unusual reaction from first-time visitors.

  Chip’s gaze, too, skimmed round the old familiar place, at a glance taking in what the young man was looking at, seeing it all at once through his eyes, right down to the sunlight coming through the long window in dusty motes and showing up all the grubby corners that would have been better kept hidden. However strong the will to keep it spotless, the house defeated most efforts. It had been built on the assumption that the days of hordes of available and affordable servants would go on for ever, and Rene Brooker, even when supervised by Jane Arrow, and with occasional help from one or two women in the village, didn’t have a hope. It was very obvious for instance, with the sun streaming through it, that the inside of the big window hadn’t seen the attentions of a shammy leather in recent, or even distant, times, but who was there to mount a ladder and do it? As for the outside of the window, which needed a double ladder and a man with the agility of a monkey to get to it, it hadn’t been washed in living memory. Any cleaning that was needed out there was left to the rain.

  Membery soaked up money like a thirsty drunk. A bit of new guttering here and there, a few roof-tiles replaced and chimneys pointed, it seemed like nothing — but all too often there were nasty surprises in the way of bigger, necessary repairs. Added up, on an old building of architectural interest like this, it came to a great deal. The demands were endless. Chip had so far been quite prepared to fork out when necessary, without bothering either of his brothers, because there wasn’t much doubt that ultimately Membery would be his, whatever the terms of his father’s will — but that was only as long as there was money there to spend, which might not be for much longer.

  He felt the same deep, inward plunge of despair he’d felt last night, coming home in the car. He’d never questioned his feelings for Membery, he’d simply regarded it with the fierce sense of possession of those who are born with tradition in their veins but not much imagination, and when the opportunities to make money to revamp the house and keep it going had been put before him, he’d seen it as an easy way out of his obligations. But now it was as though, his other hopes having died with Bibi, for the first time he saw his speculations for what they were. How had he ever imagined he had the nerve to be a successful gambler? He was an amateur at the game. The risks he was taking had appeared enormous to him, but, let’s face it, they were too small to make the gamble worthwhile. It was no good simply dipping a toe in the water, it had to be a plunge from the high-diving board. He saw himself facing ruin. He might even — good God! — be forced to sell the new Lexus! Bibi had been right. The house was an albatross around his neck.

  All this flashed through his mind with lightning speed, as a drowning man sees his past life, in less time than it took to walk forward and greet the police. He came back to the present to hear Inspector Crouch introducing himself and Sergeant Colville, expressing polite sorrow about Bibi. He hesitated. ‘And of course there’s the little boy, too. We had word over the radio that he can’t be found for the moment, and it seems sensible to run the two enquiries together until he turns up. What we need just now are a few more details, what he looks like, what he might be wearing and so on, before we begin the search proper. DC Hanson here will find that out from the others, while you give me a few minutes of your time, Mr Calvert, if you please.’

  ‘Leave it with me, sir. Soon have it sorted.’ Chip glanced at the blond, smooth-cheeked DC who was answering the inspector with a super-confident smile, and hoped he wasn’t over-estimating himself. He looked more like a school-leaver on work experience than a competent police officer.

  ‘This way,’ he said. He took them all through what had once been the green baize door, the demarcation line, beyond which had lain the servants’ quarters, now his own set of rooms. Once through, he decanted DC Hanson off into the kitchen to get on with questioning the rest of the family. After which he led the woman sergeant and the big, hirsute inspector with the blue chin further, into a room which still bore a decorative plaque on its door, matching the ornate door furniture: ‘Mrs Heatherfield, Housekeeper’, it still said, in Gothic letters, gold on black.

  If the kitchen had been modernized, thought Kate, who had glimpsed easy-clean working surfaces and pale painted units through the door, nothing appeared to have been done to this room since it had been appropriated for use as a study, save to install a few shelves for files and a big, modern desk to hold computer equipment. A hooded stonework chimneypiece with blue and green de Morgan tiles decorating the fire surround dominated the room, skirting boards were eighteen inches deep and there was a heavy cornice and frieze above the ‘greenery-yallery, Grosvenor gallery’ William Morris wallpaper. A big bay window with its leaded lights wide open saved the room from dreariness, however, and its outlook over a part of the garden Kate recognized as being open to the public showed perhaps why Chip Calvert had chosen it as his study. Only a few weeks ago, she’d paid her two pounds fifty for entrance and walked along that flagged path between the yew hedges, breathing in the delicious fragrance of the old roses beyond. Since moving here from London, she’d visited Membery Place Gardens along with other notable local spots, as part of a self-imposed duty, getting to know her area. Ka
te was like that, she would have done it anyway, but in this case pleasure had outweighed duty.

  ‘Please sit down,’ Chip said absently, indicating two sagging armchairs, before taking his own seat at the chair in front of the desk, swivelling it round to face them. The cruel light from the uncurtained window, the sun climbing high in the sky, fell directly on to his face, telling all too clearly the story of a man who hadn’t slept well. All the same, thought Kate. Wouldn’t mind going into the long grass with him, as a game old aunt of hers had been wont to say. A real Alpha male, and no mistake, obviously the owner of the big silver status-symbol car parked outside. Tall and athletic, craggy profile, attractive smile, roguish brown eyes, the lot. He even had a romantic scar down one side of his face, reminiscent of a duelling scar. She took a firm hold on herself. Chip Calvert, apart from all of this and despite the smile, which she began to sense was automatic, she could see was a deeply disturbed and worried man, and with every good reason, she thought, her sympathy chiming with her returning common sense. She was very much afraid he was going to be even more upset when he heard what she had to say.

  The fact of Bibi Morgan’s murder had been made all the worse by this latest happening, the child going missing just at this crucial time. Contrary to how untypically soothing his initial remarks had sounded, she knew that Crouch was worried by it. He’d immediately dismissed the idea that the boy’s disappearance was nothing to do with his mother’s murder, that he’d wandered off on some childish prank. The child hadn’t slept in his bed, they’d been told, although his mother had reportedly said she’d put him to bed before slipping outside, so clearly fears for his safety couldn’t be lightly discounted. They’d both seen too many cases of missing children not to be concerned about the possible outcome; there was every possibility that they might find the same terrible thing had happened to him as to his mother.

  At the front door, while they had been waiting to be admitted, Kate had suddenly taken the initiative. ‘Leave this to me, Dave, OK? Telling him, I mean.’