Killing a Unicorn (14 page)
Authors: Marjorie Eccles
Does he mean they suspect one of us? Fran asks herself. Surely not. But she's seen enough television, read enough crime novels, seen enough statistics in newspapers, to know that people who kill are usually known to their victims. It's not a happy thought.
Undressing before her shower, preparing for bed, she scrunches up the cotton shirt of Mark's she's been wearing all day, ready to toss into the linen basket, and hears a papery crackle. She puts her hand into the breast pocket. Smoothing open the piece of paper, relief hits her like an adrenalin shot when she sees a telephone number written on a scrap torn from the kitchen pad â thick, black, italic, very stylish, the sort of writing you'd expect from Mark. Perhaps he'd been wearing this shirt before he left, she couldn't remember â and stuffed the paper into the pocket and forgotten to give it to her, folding the shirt in his neat way over the chair back. But the realization brings a return of her exasperation with him, though she actually feels she ought to be more mad at him than she is, as she punches in the number. After all, the fact that she's not known how to get hold of him doesn't explain why
he
hasn't seen fit to contact her. He ought to have realized, when she didn't ring ⦠On the other hand, there may be all sorts of explanations: he may not know he'd forgotten to give her the number where she can reach him and could be expecting her to ring him ⦠possibly he's tried to ring while she's been up at Membery ⦠the answerphone might not be functioning properly ⦠the client he's visiting is known to be very demanding and he may not have had the chance ⦠or what if there's been an accident and he's languishing in some Belgian hospital with loss of memory �
he
hasn't seen fit to contact her. He ought to have realized, when she didn't ring ⦠On the other hand, there may be all sorts of explanations: he may not know he'd forgotten to give her the number where she can reach him and could be expecting her to ring him ⦠possibly he's tried to ring while she's been up at Membery ⦠the answerphone might not be functioning properly ⦠the client he's visiting is known to be very demanding and he may not have had the chance ⦠or what if there's been an accident and he's languishing in some Belgian hospital with loss of memory �
Pull yourself together, Fran, get real! Stop acting the fluttery, anxious little wife who can't let her husband out
of her sight for five minutes without fussing! Hold on to your stated belief that day-long proximity with someone you love isn't a necessary component of loving. When Mark is absent, he's still with her, part of her, inside her, for twenty-four hours a day. She believes he would be if he were dead, and she knows Mark feels the same. Space between them has nothing to do with it. She's never before expected him to have to worry about reassuring her as to just where he is and what he's doing every minute, when he's away conducting important business. But the more she tells herself these reassuring truths, the more the huge bubble of fear grows inside her chest, rising into her throat, making it difficult to breathe, so that she feels something near to a panic attack. The annoyance and the slight unease at his thoughtlessness is beginning to coalesce into a tight, unbearable knot of certainty that something must surely be wrong. Whatever she tells herself, never before has he left her in quite such a limbo as this.
of her sight for five minutes without fussing! Hold on to your stated belief that day-long proximity with someone you love isn't a necessary component of loving. When Mark is absent, he's still with her, part of her, inside her, for twenty-four hours a day. She believes he would be if he were dead, and she knows Mark feels the same. Space between them has nothing to do with it. She's never before expected him to have to worry about reassuring her as to just where he is and what he's doing every minute, when he's away conducting important business. But the more she tells herself these reassuring truths, the more the huge bubble of fear grows inside her chest, rising into her throat, making it difficult to breathe, so that she feels something near to a panic attack. The annoyance and the slight unease at his thoughtlessness is beginning to coalesce into a tight, unbearable knot of certainty that something must surely be wrong. Whatever she tells herself, never before has he left her in quite such a limbo as this.
She dials the code for Brussels, then the sequence of numbers. She lets it ring twenty-five times â she isn't going to give up easily, now that she's found the blessed number at last â before she has to admit defeat. It isn't a hotel she's ringing, that much at least she does know, it's a house owned by what'shisname, the client, so it must have been ringing into empty rooms.
This is absolutely not on: there has to be some way of speaking to him!
She tries desperately to remember the client's name, a Belgian reputed to be a zillionaire, but whatever name it is has been erased from her memory like computer data in a power cut. Think, think! It must be lurking somewhere in the retrieval system. He is someone, she knows, who is rich enough to have his every whim acceded to, and his latest one is to have built for him a house to his own fancy ideas, but with Art Nouveau overtones. There have been mutterings under the breath about this at The Watersplash over the last few weeks. Mark was damned if he was going to design some outlandish Disneyland fantasy, but at the
same time, he knew he'd be damned financially if he didn't pander to this potential client, who had seen in Brussels the elegant Stocklet house that Joseph Hoffmann designed, and the wonderful exuberances of Victor Horta, and had decided a combination of both, plus some of his own bizarre ideas, was what he wanted, to show off his wife's fabulous Tiffany collection. But Fran has argued with Mark that whatever his personal opinion of these extraordinary notions, he can't afford to turn down the possibility of a commission. They're thin enough on the ground as it is. It's pretentious to be so precious.
same time, he knew he'd be damned financially if he didn't pander to this potential client, who had seen in Brussels the elegant Stocklet house that Joseph Hoffmann designed, and the wonderful exuberances of Victor Horta, and had decided a combination of both, plus some of his own bizarre ideas, was what he wanted, to show off his wife's fabulous Tiffany collection. But Fran has argued with Mark that whatever his personal opinion of these extraordinary notions, he can't afford to turn down the possibility of a commission. They're thin enough on the ground as it is. It's pretentious to be so precious.
âOK, OK, no need for sarcasm â I get the point.' And he'd agreed to do it.
Fran puts the phone down and sits thinking. The situation is too silly for words, yet oddly enough, this failed attempt to reach Mark has made her see things in better perspective â it can't be beyond the wit of woman to find out where he is. Perhaps it's desperation, or the spur of the whisky, but she suddenly knows just what she's going to do.
First, however, she has her shower, blessedly cool and refreshing, then wraps herself in a cotton kimono before going into Mark's beautifully equipped studio on the mezzanine. She throws the switch that operates only the angled reading lamp, making the big desk on which it stands spring into an eerie, isolated life among the drawing boards and plan cabinets looming in the background. It's now quite dark outside and her own reflection in the black glass of the windows reminds her with a shiver of the owl imprint on the mirror, the sounds she's heard outside at night. Feeling suddenly quite dithery, she quickly presses the switch that lowers the blinds electronically, sealing herself within a silky cream box, as if in the interior of a Japanese house. That's better. Whatever might be there, real or imagined, is outside.
The room looks alien without Mark. It's very much his own room, full of his presence, his working paraphernalia, old black and white architectural drawings framed and
hung on the pale walls alongside some of his own artist's impressions for earlier projects. It's oddly disconcerting not to see Mark himself there, in shirt-sleeves or casual sweater, in front of one of his drawing boards, either perched on a stool with his legs twisted into some impossible contortions around the support, or simply leaning back, his behind perched on the seat, arms folded, considering the work he's engaged on. She has an absurd longing to feel her fingers running through his thick, dark hair, smoothing it back from his forehead where it falls into a dark comma. Shaking herself free of such thoughts, she walks over to the desk. It's large, ebonized and antique, a single, intentional anachronism amongst all the other modern, functional items of furniture. And all the drawers are locked.
hung on the pale walls alongside some of his own artist's impressions for earlier projects. It's oddly disconcerting not to see Mark himself there, in shirt-sleeves or casual sweater, in front of one of his drawing boards, either perched on a stool with his legs twisted into some impossible contortions around the support, or simply leaning back, his behind perched on the seat, arms folded, considering the work he's engaged on. She has an absurd longing to feel her fingers running through his thick, dark hair, smoothing it back from his forehead where it falls into a dark comma. Shaking herself free of such thoughts, she walks over to the desk. It's large, ebonized and antique, a single, intentional anachronism amongst all the other modern, functional items of furniture. And all the drawers are locked.
He's taken the keys with him. And why has he done that? It isn't as if she ever goes into his desk. As if he fears she might pry while he's away. Which, of course, is just what she is doing.
She takes a deep breath and while she thinks what to do next, she dials the Brussels number again, and though, as she'd expected, there's still no reply, it has become evident by the time she puts the phone down that there's only one way to get into the bottom left-hand drawer, where she knows Mark keeps his client files. All the other drawers lock automatically when the top centre one above the knee-hole is locked, so that there's only one keyhole. She only has to open that drawer and there'll be immediate access to the rest. The desk isn't, after all, intended to be burglar-proof so much as private. Except that Mark has never previously locked the desk that she knows of â or perhaps he has. She has never, after all, tried it before. At any rate, she doesn't have a clue how to start breaking open the drawer without using brute force and vandalizing the unique, expensive, two hundred and fifty-year-old black Egyptian-style desk, solid as one of the pyramids. Nail files, the stock fall-back of female private eyes in similar situations, do not immediately spring to
mind as the ideal solution. She has never had much faith in plastic credit cards either, after once having forgotten her Yale key and getting her card chewed up in the process of trying to open the lock with it.
mind as the ideal solution. She has never had much faith in plastic credit cards either, after once having forgotten her Yale key and getting her card chewed up in the process of trying to open the lock with it.
In the end the solution is much less dramatic, in the shape of the collection of junk Mark laughed at, the stuff she'd picked up at last week's church jumble sale. Inside the rusty old tin box which had once held Karamel Kreeme toffees, among the buttons and buckles, the odd ear-rings and the pinless brooches, the hairgrips, safety pins and old suspenders, are dozens of keys, ranging from a mammoth specimen capable of unlocking the Bastille, to tiny ones for long-abandoned suitcases. The seventeenth of all the keys of approximate size that she tries fits, and the top drawer slides open.
She riffles through the file-drawers with no success. He has obviously taken his client's dossier with him, along with his laptop, which she might have realized he would have done if she'd thought about it. She opens the others, just in case. Nothing, until she comes to the bottom right-hand drawer.
A current like electricity suddenly shoots up her spine and almost lifts the hair on her head as she looks at what Mark has left in there, hidden away in a locked drawer.
A mobile incident room was now parked in a farmer's field adjacent to the Membery Place Gardens, from which the search operation was being mounted. It was the usual thing when crime scenes were in out of the way places, it made sense, being more accessible than the headquarters in Felsborough, but even as a temporary centre of operations it was less than perfect. It wasn't a good place to work and conduct interviews in for one thing, and for another, its limitations of size posed problems, especially for one of Crouch's dimensions.
In the end, Alyssa had been persuaded to allocate a room in the house where Crouch himself could spread out and work in greater freedom, formerly the library but now a room of unspecified function, though it was still so called, justified by the tall, glass-fronted, solid oak bookcases lining one wall. It smelled damp and unused, with the nose-twitching, musty odour emitting from the long unopened law tomes and books of jurisprudence ranged on the shelves. It could never have been anything other than cheerless, being situated on the same side of the house as Bibi's room: like hers, it could rarely have seen the sun except for a short period in the late afternoon or early evening. No doubt that hadn't mattered when a roaring fire was kept constantly lit in a fireplace big enough to roast an ox â as it was, the room's one virtue now was that it was the coolest spot in the house.
âYou'll leave everything as you found it, I trust, when you've finished?' Miss Arrow had asked, nay threatened,
finally allowing herself to abandon her supervisory activities and eyeing with disfavour the various pieces of up-to-date technology already littering the floor.
finally allowing herself to abandon her supervisory activities and eyeing with disfavour the various pieces of up-to-date technology already littering the floor.
Bloody sight better than before we came, Crouch had muttered under his breath. And so it was, after Kate had gone round the lampshades with a duster in an attempt to gain more light, and had persuaded the technicians to fit light bulbs of somewhat higher wattage than forty to the ancient electrical fittings. Rolling their eyes, muttering at the dodgy state of the wiring, they'd all the same finally managed to set up all the necessary electronic equipment, and without, moreover, blowing the fuses for the whole house. It still felt as though they were working under the sea. Even this time in the morning, Crouch had to suffer the indignity of wearing his reading glasses in order to see his notes. Sure, there was the privacy he needed here for interviews, but he wasn't making much headway in controlling his irritability.
Chip Calvert was not at his happiest to have been summoned there either, at barely 8 a.m., hardly having finished his breakfast. âLook here,' he began, âI need to get down to my office in London for a while. I do have business to sort out there, you know, and I've already told you all I know.'
Crouch eyed him over his spectacles. âAll in good time. But let's make it clear from the start, Mr Calvert, I'm not here for my own amusement, either. I'm here to sort out this case. And it doesn't improve my temper when witnesses hamper me by not giving me the full facts.'
âI don't suppose it does, but how does that concern me?'
Crouch toyed with his pen. He sat at the foot of a mighty oak table, ten feet long, with Chip to one side of him and an empty chair waiting for Kate at the other, his papers spread over the green baize with which Miss Arrow had ostentatiously covered the polished wood. His back was to the glassed bookcase wall of great, leather-bound volumes, never opened for nearly a century and maybe not much
before then at a guess, judging by their size and weight and the off-putting titles on their well-preserved spines. He'd chosen this place to sit so that he would have the advantage of seeing the people he was talking to with what light there was on their faces, but he wasn't sure he'd picked the right spot: on the edge of his vision, he was aware of yet another portrait of Judge Calvert, hanging broodingly over the fireplace. It was the fifth of those Crouch had already counted, variously disposed around the house. That guy had really loved himself.
before then at a guess, judging by their size and weight and the off-putting titles on their well-preserved spines. He'd chosen this place to sit so that he would have the advantage of seeing the people he was talking to with what light there was on their faces, but he wasn't sure he'd picked the right spot: on the edge of his vision, he was aware of yet another portrait of Judge Calvert, hanging broodingly over the fireplace. It was the fifth of those Crouch had already counted, variously disposed around the house. That guy had really loved himself.
Chip threw down a packet. âYou said you wanted photographs. These are better than the snap I gave you.'
Crouch made no move to open it. Indeed, he seemed in no hurry to get on with the interview at all, and sat with his elbow on the baize, one hand supporting his chin, flicking through his notes with the other. Chip shifted uneasily in his seat, looking warily at him but not inclined, after that first barbed remark, to precipitate the situation by asking him what he'd meant. Eventually, Crouch opened the packet and fanned the photos out on the table in front of him, studying each one carefully. He took his time about that, too, as if he were waiting for something.
When at last Kate came in, it was obvious she'd been hurrying. Fanning her heated face, she handed Crouch a sheet of paper, giving him an almost imperceptible nod as she settled herself, and he immediately lost interest in the photos, leaving them where they were for her to gather up, while he read what she had given him.
She took the opportunity to select a very much clearer picture of the little boy than the previous one they'd been given. She saw that he was very like his mother, but with darkish brown hair, rather than blonde, that flopped in a curve over his brow. He had the promise of a firm chin, which would no doubt save him from looking in any way girlish, or like a copy of Bibi, as he grew older. By then, when his childish features had matured, with those sort of looks, he'd be all set to break a few hearts. Now he was
just a sturdily built little boy with a beaming smile that betokened a sunny nature.
just a sturdily built little boy with a beaming smile that betokened a sunny nature.
It was a long time since Kate had prayed, but she found herself doing so now. Not using words â she couldn't have found any that were adequate â but just absorbing this happy, beautiful child into her own being and willing everything she had that no harm would come to him.
The last photo she picked up was another of Bibi herself, and again as she looked at it came the thought that the future could be read in that face. Inescapable as it seemed to be, however, Kate was a practical policewoman and felt she ought to regard this rather fanciful idea with some scepticism: how could you really tell what a person was like from any photograph, however good? Wasn't she looking at it with hindsight? There hadn't been time yet for any in-depth interviews, no opportunity to find out, by talking to people and drawing conclusions from what they said, what this woman had really been like, to have formed some idea as to what had made someone hate her enough to take her life and deprive her child of his mother. She made a note to find time to talk to Francine Calvert, who seemed a sensible person and the one, apart from â or even including â Chip, who she thought had been closer to her, in age and in other respects, than anyone else.
Dave Crouch was at last talking to Chip, starting from where he'd left off. âIt would have made life a lot easier, Mr Calvert, if you'd been straight with us from the beginning.' He glanced briefly at the paper Kate had given him and tapped it. âAs it is, I think we'd better start again, hadn't we? And this time from the beginning, with the truth.'
Chip blustered. âWhat the hell's that supposed to mean?'
âI think you understand me well enough. Why didn't you tell us the real reason you brought Bibi Morgan to live here?'
âDoes it need saying? Why do people usually decide to live together?'
This sort of arrogance was not calculated to gladden
Crouch's heart. âPlease don't answer one question with another.'
Crouch's heart. âPlease don't answer one question with another.'
âWhat's happened now has nothing to do with what happened then.'
Crouch leaned forward and fixed him with a look. âLet me get this straight. You're saying you
knew
there'd been threats against her life before this, when she lived in Yorkshire â and which had very nearly succeeded â and you're expecting me to believe you thought there was no connection?'
knew
there'd been threats against her life before this, when she lived in Yorkshire â and which had very nearly succeeded â and you're expecting me to believe you thought there was no connection?'
Chip went suddenly pale under his tan, with anger, Crouch thought, gratified to see it. Anger was a channel to get through to people. It left them exposed, vulnerable, without control over themselves. âThe reason I thought there was no connection is because the man who made them is bloody well in prison!'
âWas, Mr Calvert. Graham Armstrong
was
in prison.'
was
in prison.'
There was a measurable silence. âStill is. He was sent down for seven years â and that was just over two, two and a half years ago!'
âHaven't you ever heard of remission?'
âThey don't give remission to somebody as mad as he is, when he hasn't served half his sentence!'
âOh yes, they sometimes do. Our caring society is very sympathetic to people like Armstrong,' Crouch said drily. âAt the time he was sent down, he was a very disturbed personality, but he's apparently responded well to the treatment he's had in prison, and after psychiatric assessment and showing remorse for what he did, he's been judged fit for release â under licence, of course. He's been out for nearly three months.'
Chip's face was a study. The scar stood out lividly. He looked round a little desperately, but this time there was no bottle of Dutch courage, such as he kept in his study, to help him out.
âWhy don't you begin by telling us exactly what happened, right from when you first met Bianca Morgan, and this time not just an approximation of the truth?'
Chip ignored the suggestion. âI can't believe what I'm hearing! You're saying they let that maniac loose, after he tried to kill her, her and Jasie? Don't you realize what he did? He only set fire to the bloody house, deliberately, when they were both in bed and asleep â Christ, he's a mad beast, he ought to have been locked up and the key thrown away!'
âYou weren't with her, the night this happened?'
âIf I had been, none of us would be alive to tell the tale. But I saw the smoke coming from the house, the flames behind the windows. If I hadn't come along then, it would have been all up with them.'
Crouch tapped the papers in front of him. âYou were something of a hero that night, it seems, Mr Calvert.'
âA hero? That's one way of putting it.'
His fingers went instinctively to the healed scar-tissue on his face. He hadn't felt like a hero, then or afterwards. A crass fool, more like, for not realizing what was happening and preventing what might well have been a tragedy. If he hadn't happened to go out for a walk round the village before going to bed, to cool a head that had felt like a bucket after throwing several drinks too many down his neck in order to try and make some sense out of the situation, it would have been too late. But that had been the end of it, not the beginning.
He said, his anger rising, âIf you know all this, why are you badgering
me
?'
me
?'
Crouch was still looking at him as if he were some other species, arrived from some distant planet, perhaps. âDidn't it even occur to you,' he asked slowly, âto think it
might
have been Armstrong who killed her?'
might
have been Armstrong who killed her?'
There was a long pause. âPossibly.' Chip studied the tip of his polished loafer. âBriefly. Well, yes, maybe it did,' he admitted after a while. âThen I thought no, it can't be. People don't escape from prison, just like that. They'd have let her know if he had. Never in this life did I imagine they'd just open the door and let the bastard go free â it's beyond belief.' He glared at Crouch. âWhy the hell haven't
you arrested him? He should be the one you're giving the third degree, not me!'
you arrested him? He should be the one you're giving the third degree, not me!'
âThat's all being taken care of. It would help even more if I wasn't working with one hand tied behind my back.'
âMeaning?'
âMeaning we now have the basic facts here,' Crouch said, tapping the papers on the table in front of him, âbut I need to know the background, everything that's led up to this, and only you can tell me that.'
The clock above the old coach house struck nine. The strokes sounded tinnily across the quiet morning stable yard.
âI don't see why, but all right,' Chip said eventually. âIt's a long story.'
âWe're not going anywhere. Take your time.'
For a while, Chip sat with his big frame hunched in the chair, his elbows on his knees, breathing deeply, not knowing how to tell it. He began haltingly, but then, as he spoke, it became easier, as if a boil had been lanced, and all the pain was draining away.
The start of it all had been years ago, when he'd first walked into the Ascomb Arms with a gang of his racing chums, and seen her there, behind the desk, with her silver-gilt hair gleaming against the dark panelling of the reception area, her smile of welcome lighting up her face so that you thought she was smiling for you alone. He'd fallen for her like a lovesick teenager â hook, line and sinker. So much so that he'd stayed on for several days, after the rest of the crowd had gone home. He'd taken her out, wined and dined her, charmed her, softened her up â if nothing else, that was the one thing he did know how to do. She was a very young twenty-year-old and he could see she was more than a bit dazzled by his attentions, which was flattering, and perhaps if she'd given into him as girls usually did easily enough, his infatuation would have worked itself out naturally, as that usually did, too. But she didn't. That ought to have warned him, but strangely enough, he hadn't minded; for once in his life he
was prepared to wait, to woo her, because he'd been confident that he'd win her in the end. This, he'd already decided, was the girl he was going to marry â¦
was prepared to wait, to woo her, because he'd been confident that he'd win her in the end. This, he'd already decided, was the girl he was going to marry â¦
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