Death of a Unicorn

‘Bless your bad eyesight. What are we going to do, Ronnie? I’d genuinely love to help, but I’ve got to get this cleared up before we go on.’

‘I will continue to put my cards on the table. Histories of weekly magazines do not command a wide sale—the larger libraries and other institutions, and a few honest citizens whose names occur in the index. The publishers would not have taken the project on in these hard times if they had not thought they could do better than that. I need hardly tell you, Mabs, that they are pinning their hopes on Amos Brierley.’

‘Typical.’

‘His death—is it painful if I talk about that?’

‘Not after all these years, but I can tell you absolutely and categorically that I know nothing about it. Nothing whatever.’

‘Has anyone ever asked you before?’

‘Not since . . . No.’

‘Does not that in itself strike you as peculiar?’

‘Not specially. There wouldn’t be any point. I don’t know anything.’

‘It strikes me as very peculiar indeed. How is anyone to know what you know? Brierley’s death, being a matter of mystery, still retains considerable interest. It is in fact two mysteries: first, why was he killed; and second why the authorities both here and in Brazil made so little effort to answer that question. Journalists have told me that investigations by them were actively discouraged. I happen to have a lead of a sort which I’ve not been able to pursue, but I now see that it might well tie in with this singular failure of anyone to ask you whether you have anything to contribute. If I’m right, then your closeness to Brierley is of definite moment.’

‘In a history of Night and Day? Really, Ronnie!’

‘This is an imperfect world, in which books need to be sold by often spurious means. My publishers expect me to devote a disproportionate amount of space to Brierley. My excuse is that though he controlled the paper for barely a year, that year was a turning-point. His reorganisation of the managerial side, which had been more than moderately chaotic, was described to me as masterly. And he brought Naylor in, of course.’

‘Well, Ronnie, for old times’ sake . . . let me put it like this: I’m prepared to talk to you, in this room, for this hour, as though I may have been what you call close to Mr B, but I must make it clear that if the slightest hint about this appears in the book I shall sue. No, let me go on. You may think you could do it in such a way that I wouldn’t have a case, but I promise you I’d sue all the same. The kind of publisher who would do a history of Night and Day is much too stuffy and timid to risk it, I promise you. I’ve won three libel cases in the last fifteen years, all settled out of court. They’d be scared stiff of me.’

Ronnie grunted, peered about the table, reached for the champagne bottle and unclipped his gadget. I put my hand over my glass.

‘I shall have to think about that,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile let’s talk about something else.’

I took my hand away and let him pour me another glass. We both did our best but the mood would not come back. There was one brief moment when I’d been explaining how I organised my life these days.

‘You take a lot on, Mabs,’ he said.

‘It has taken me. I try not to whinge, that’s all.’

He shook his head.

‘When you were on the paper you didn’t exactly leave stones unturned or avenues unexplored. You came as Dorothy’s assistant, but not a week had gone by before you had Tom’s glue-pot in your hands.’

‘Only as a defence against Bruce Fischer.’

‘Momentarily. But you had your finger in every pie, and you were writing a book. I say nothing of your extra-curricular activities.’

‘It was the best year in my life. I knew at the time I had to make the most of it. I breathed happiness all the time. Didn’t you notice anything different? I don’t mean because of me. Just in the air.’

‘Morale in any organisation has its own mysterious ups and downs. My impression is that we were near the bottom of a trough when you arrived, which we then began to climb out of. But you know, Mabs, everybody has his own personal Golden Age. One of the weaknesses of the English is that for too many of them it is located in their early childhood. Mine ended when I was sent to prep school.’

‘Is that why you became a Communist?’

‘In part, no doubt.’

‘What happened to Bruce, by the way.’

‘Naylor gave him the boot after a couple of years. Row over who controlled the art side. Drove his car into a bridge a few years later. Deliberately, it was thought.’

I tut-tutted vaguely. Bruce Fischer. Blood all over the nylon shirting. The mood died.

I had said goodbye to Ronnie and was on my way to my appointment with the man from Burroughs—less than five minutes late after all—when it struck me that I should at least have asked him who had told him about my affair with B. He had seemed quite sure of his ground. Not Jane? No, of course not. Who else had known? . . . But she couldn’t still be alive, surely.