Killing a Unicorn Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 …?’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Even if it was an accident?’
    â€˜We-ell -’ she began.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜What happened? Did she slip on those rocks, then?’

    â€˜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.’
    The knot in Jonathan’s guts was tightening, as though he’d eaten something bad. Ignoring the disapproval, he said, ‘So why the investigation?’
    The DI didn’t seem to feel the repeated question worthy of an answer. He had small grey eyes, opaque as clay marbles, and his hard stare deliberately gave nothing away, as if to project the image of the hard-nosed copper who’d seen it all before. Jonathan tried to dismiss this as play-acting, a need to intimidate and overwhelm, but he couldn’t help feeling that behind it all lurked the sense of a very real aggression. The inspector was, at a guess, just the wrong side of fifty, retirement looming, and making the most of the nearest thing to drama the local force could have had in years. The acme of excitement in Felsborough nick must be rounding up drunk and disorderlies. ‘As my sergeant said,’ he replied at last, ‘we have to make sure that’s how it happened. There are certain things that need to be explained.’
    â€˜Such as?’
    â€˜Well, it was a bit careless, at the least unwise, wouldn’t you say, taking a dangerous path like that one down by the waterfall, if she was going down to your brother’s house at The Watersplash, as it seems likely? She’d recently broken her ankle, hadn’t she? Couldn’t walk easily yet, not even with her walking stick?’
    â€˜That wouldn’t necessarily have stopped Bibi! Anyway, dangerous is relative. If you know the path, as she did, there’s nothing to it. It’s not Mount Everest. And with her dodgy ankle, it’s more likely the stick would’ve helped, rather than hindered.’
    â€˜Maybe so.’ He paused to look Jonathan up and down. ‘We haven’t found the stick yet, by the way, but we shall.’

    â€˜I should hope so! I said you should never have