Free Killing a Unicorn by Marjorie Eccles

round the world? To deny it would be wilful, shameful. She should talk to Jilly, Fran decided.
    â€˜Fran …’
    Here it came. They’d skirted around the main issue, the reason he was here, for long enough. No way was it possible to avoid talking about what had happened. It was going to dominate all their lives for a long time to come, the ripples of it were going to extend far beyond the present, that she could already see. But no, she still didn’t want to talk about it. Before she could head him off, however, he asked, ‘Fran, is everything all right between you and Mark?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    She’d been too quick. He was looking at her steadily, reading her mind. It was a disconcerting habit he had. ‘He needs his backside kicking.’
    â€˜Most men do, at times.’ She stood up, smiled brightly and began to stack the tray. ‘You really should be on your way, you know.’ She pushed her sleeve up. Damn, she must have left her watch at the office again. The clasp had proved faulty once before, so she’d slipped it off for safety, and then forgotten it. ‘What time is it?’
    â€˜Never mind the time, and put that tray down,’ he ordered, ‘there’s no rush. I’m not leaving you on your own tonight. I’ll doss down on the floor somewhere, save you making up a bed. Someone should be with you, after a shock like that.’
    She read into his words the implication, however unfair, that the person with her should have been Mark, but she dismissed this as paranoia, and to her relief, he dropped
the subject, having seen, perhaps, the stubbornness on her face. He held up his hands, as if in surrender, and smiled. Mark’s smile, Alyssa’s smile. And suddenly, to her shame, his kindness broke down her defences, and the tears she hadn’t allowed herself until then began to pour down her face. He let her have her cry out, not attempting to touch her, until she’d finally mopped her face with a scrabbled-up handful of tissues from the box he found for her in the bathroom. Only then did he reach out and take her hand.
    â€˜Better?’
    â€˜I suppose. But Jonathan, how bloody all this is! What could have possessed Bibi to think of climbing down that way to see me? If she’d changed her mind, I would’ve driven up for her.’
    â€˜What do you mean, changed her mind?’
    â€˜She rang me at work this afternoon and said she’d something she wanted to talk over urgently with me. I was going to drive round and pick her up. But when I got in, I found a note to say she couldn’t make it — perhaps because of her headache coming on.’ Bibi’s headaches were legendary — migraines, that prostrated her, sometimes for a couple of days.
    He thought for a moment. ‘So maybe she began to feel better, and decided to come down after all. When she rang you, did she say what it was she wanted to see you about?’
    â€˜No.’ Fran felt upset, recalling the odd, almost frantic note, in Bibi’s voice — which at the time she’d put down to her own imagination or a bad phone line. ‘I think she might have been very worried about something though, Jonathan.’
    He frowned. ‘How did she get the note to you? And why send one, anyway? Why not just ring? Or leave a message on the answerphone?’
    â€˜I expect she asked Gary Brooker to drop it in on his way home. I’d probably left the office when she decided not to come and see me, and my mobile would be switched off in
the train. Maybe she didn’t leave a message because — well, she knows I don’t always pick messages up immediately,’ she admitted. ‘Then after she’d sent the note perhaps she felt better but didn’t want to mess me about, fetching her, and thought it wouldn’t be a problem, getting down the path.’ She stopped. She was sounding garbled, even to her own ears, but she