The Cult of Unicorns (Penny White Book 2) Read online

  ‘There might have been. But, Vicar, I must say, you lost quite a bit of respect when you didn’t turn up to the fete committee meeting last week.’

  ‘It was my day off.’

  Holly sniffed. ‘Two hours. First thing in the morning. You would have been free the rest of the day. Not much for a village to ask of its vicar.’

  My iPhone vibrated, and then the Doctor Who theme rang out from my trouser pocket. ‘I’ll let it go to messages,’ I promised Holly.

  ‘Really? Don’t you want to speak to your policeman boyfriend? That’s much more important than making sure this church doesn’t fall apart around our ears.’

  ‘It’s the wall,’ I said sweetly, ‘not the church.’ Inwardly, I was praying my mantra. She’s a beloved child of God, she’s a beloved child of God, she’s a beloved child of God.

  ‘The wall is part of the churchyard, part of a holy site which has been a place of worship for over eight hundred years. It’s all important.’

  A movement in the yew tree caught my eye. Morey was perched on branch, ears drawn back and purple feathers ruffled in annoyance as he looked down at my churchwarden. Then he shifted, and I saw that he was holding something in his foreclaws. A pinecone. Was he planning to drop a pinecone on Holly’s head?

  ‘I’ll find people to repair the wall,’ I said hurriedly, placing a hand under the older woman’s arm to usher her to safety. Never mind that church repairs should be her job.

  ‘It’ll have to wait until the spring.’

  ‘Certainly. And any more problems with mice?’

  ‘No. Not since the summer.’

  Not since Morey had been supplementing his diet of blackbirds and blue tits, I amended silently.

  I managed to get away with only two more complaints about my shortcomings as a vicar. Morey swooped down to my shoulder as I walked to the car, and then hopped over the passenger seat as I slid inside. Only when the door was shut did I turn to speak to him. ‘Please don’t try to injure my churchwarden. She’s the only one I’ve got.’

  Morey snorted. ‘You’re a priest. She should show you more respect.’

  ‘Most churchwardens see it the other way around.’

  ‘Next time,’ he warned, ‘I will drop something on her head.’

  ‘She’s a beloved child of God, Morey.’

  ‘Then maybe God should get around to claiming her.’

  ‘Don’t try to live up to your name, Moriarty.’

  I pulled out my phone to listen to the message. ‘Hi Penny, Peter. Can you get over to Wootton Fields? I’ll text you the postcode. We’re on the green. There’s a young unicorn on the loose, and we need help catching her. Please let me know that you’re on your way.’

  I quickly texted an affirmative, and looked up the postcode on the iPhone map. My car was in her twelfth year, far too old to have built in navigation. The sat nav I’d bought back in October was long gone. It had been swallowed by a bugbear which had broken free from his transport cage when I was trying to drive him back to a thin place. I sometimes wondered if the device had become lodged in the creature’s stomach and every so often tried to send him up the M1.

  It was a thirty-minute drive from the village of Beckeridge to Wootton Fields. We passed housing estate after housing estate, separated only by superstores and occasional snatches of green. Two housing estates had been attached to my parish, with the hope that the people living there would be interested in coming to my church. Despite my best efforts, young families found shopping in bright and warm retail outlets a more entertaining prospect for a Sunday morning than singing old hymns in a cold and dark church. And sometimes I couldn’t blame them.

  I saw Peter’s silver Volvo parked beside the small park. There was space a bit further down, and I reversed my small Ford into it. ‘I’ll see what Taryn has to say,’ Morey told me, hopping only briefly onto my shoulder before taking off.

  Peter was standing alongside two other people. They were all in plain clothes. I could see that he’d recently had a haircut, which had reduced the amount of grey visible around the edges of his brown hair.

  His dark trench coat swirled as he turned towards me. ‘Very Tenth Doctor,’ I told him, admiring the cut. Peter had just tipped over forty years old, but he was still very trim. A bit more trim than me, to be honest.

  ‘Have you listened to Tennant’s new audio adventures from Big Finish?’ he asked, grinning down at me.

  ‘I have the CDs at home, but haven’t got round to it yet.’

  One of the nearby men coughed. ‘Inspector, about this unicorn...?’

  ‘Business before pleasure,’ Peter agreed regretfully. ‘She’s over there, we think a filly about eight months old. No sign of her mother anywhere.’

  Taryn streaked down to land on Peter’s shoulder. ‘Which is very unusual,’ the gryphon said. ‘Unicorn dams never leave their young unaccompanied, and rarely in the company of another.’

  I walked up to the short fence which surrounded the green. The young unicorn was stamping a forehoof at a man blocking her at the far end. The silver horn was short, little more than a promise on the pale white head. I studied the ribs showing through the thin coat. ‘Is she weaned, do you think?’

  ‘Should be,’ Taryn affirmed. ‘But she might not have felt it safe to graze.’

  ‘She won’t let any of us near her,’ Peter explained. ‘We’ve tried to speak to her in Welsh and in English.’

  I studied the filly, who was now prancing across sodden ground. ‘What are you hoping I can do?’

  ‘Well, you’re a mother,’ Peter said somewhat lamely. ‘I thought that might help.’

  ‘I’ve never had children.’

  ‘No, but you raised James, didn’t you, after your parents died?’

  ‘And,’ I said drily, ‘there’s so little difference between a four year old boy and an eight month old unicorn.’

  ‘I also know that you’re good with people. And animals.’ He gave me the pleading smile which always evaporated my resistance.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m going.’ I strode over to the gate and let myself onto the green.

  The filly was now on my left, once again prevented from escaping by a man waving his arms. She snorted at him, her tail flicking across her mud-splattered hindquarters. There were all sorts of things I wished I knew about unicorns. For example, at what age did they learn to speak, how did it feel to have a horn growing from your forehead, and whether they would use their hooves against a friendly vicar approaching them across a field. The unicorn might be young, but her head was at the height of my shoulder, and those silver hooves looked quite sharp. There was quite a bit of difference between a human toddler and a unicorn. James had never tried to eviscerate me.

  So, people had already tried to speak to her. I stopped ten yards away. The filly turned to face me. Her white mane was wisping around her neck and dark eyes, and I was certain that the twist in her ears indicated fear. I slid my hands into my coat pockets, and my fingers bumped against a folded copy of last Sunday’s church newsheet. I suddenly recalled that the organist had chosen a hymn not in our books, and it had been printed on the sheet. That gave me an idea. James had been a poor sleeper the first few months after our parents had died. But there was one thing which had always sent him off to sleep.

  I cleared my throat, and started to sing. My voice wasn’t a patch on Taryn’s mezzo-soprano, but I was counting on the filly not being an Eisteddfod judge. ‘“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small...”’

  Morey landed beside me and added his voice to the chorus. This time he kept to the same tune as I had chosen, ‘Royal Oak.’ ‘“All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”’

  The filly drew back her head. But her ears swivelled towards us. ‘“Each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings,”’ I continued, noting how some of the tension seemed to be leaving her neck. ‘“He made their glowing colours, he made their tiny wings.”’

 
I dared to take a step forward as I sang the chorus. The unicorn studied me under her thick black eyelashes. But she dropped her head as I came closer, and then sighed heavily through her nostrils. Twenty feet. Ten. Five. I was on the third verse, forcing my voice to remain steady, as I came to her side. I held out my hand, and she sniffed at my palm.

  Her voice was much higher pitched than I’d expected. ‘Mam?’

  ‘Careful,’ Morey warned her. ‘Last person who called Penny that ended up going home with her. Ble mae’ch mam?’

  ‘Dydw i ddim yn gwybod,’ said the unicorn. Then she added, in perfect English, ‘I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘I entrust you with my name,’ I said gravely. ‘I am Penny White, and I’d like to help you get home.’

  ‘And I am Trahaearneifion,’ Morey said, looking up at her from his position near my boots. ‘Gallwch chi ymddiried ynom ni.’

  ‘I want my mam.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ I dared to touch her soft muzzle. ‘You have the holding of our names. Please come with us, and we’ll help you to find your mother.’

  I turned, and forced myself not to look back. Morey flew up to my shoulder, his claws smearing mud over my coat. As I hoped, the filly paced behind us.

  ‘I’ve phoned for a rat,’ Peter said as we stopped at the fence. ‘The unicorns don’t use rat kings, so it’ll take awhile to get a message to their main enclave. We’ll have to work out what to do with our little miss in the meantime.’

  The unicorn had come to my side, and was now leaning against me. I draped an arm over her neck. ‘She’ll come home with me.’

  ‘Can't say I didn’t warn her,’ Morey muttered.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Peter asked. ‘We have a special arrangement with the Midlands Safari Park. A couple of their keepers have the Sight.’

  I shook my head. ‘That’ll only upset her again. Can you arrange transport to my vicarage?’

  ‘Already here.’ He nodded over to a pony trailer, parked behind a Land Rover. ‘Do you think she’ll go in?’

  ‘I’ll travel with her,’ Morey said heavily. Then his eyes came to me. ‘Just don’t end up adopting her.’

  With gentle urging, and another snatch of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful,’ we managed to convince the unicorn to walk into the trailer. A small crowd had gathered, no doubt intrigued to see otherwise sane looking adults talking to thin air. ‘Practising for a new TV series!’ Peter told them cheerfully. ‘All the CGI will come later!’

  ‘Funny you should mention that,’ I said when we’d closed the trailer gate. ‘I need to tell you about my meeting with Bishop Nigel.’

  ‘I still haven’t sampled your cooking.’

  ‘There’s a good reason for that. I don’t want to put you off.’

  ‘The only person I know who can recite Tim Latimer’s speech from The Family of Blood?’ Peter smiled, and leaned in close. ‘It’d take a lot more than a bad meal to put me off. Even if you still think that Sylvester McCoy was the best Doctor.’

  A cough from one of the other police officers made us break apart. ‘Ed wants to know who’ll meet him at the house.’

  ‘I’ll set off now--’

  Peter interrupted me. ‘Can you stay a bit longer, Penny? There’s something I’d like you to do.’

  A glint in his blue-grey eyes warned me that this was something serious. I pulled out my iPhone and sent a text message to James. ‘My brother will open the gate to the back garden.’

  The Land Rover growled into life and set off. I followed Peter back across the green. Taryn was perched on his shoulder, and I felt the lack of Morey on mine. I brushed at the mud drying on my coat, as well as to remind myself that gryphons also had their downsides.

  Police in uniform were guarding an area by a small set of trees. They nodded at Peter, and their grim faces warned me that something unpleasant lay just beyond. I took a deep breath of the cold air, steeling myself.

  Peter stopped me a few feet away from the body. I stared down at the figure. A man, I realised, although he was lying on his stomach and his head was turned away from me. Short dark hair, bare hands, body clothed in black cargo trousers and a brown leather jacket. A bright yellow notebook rested near his neck, the wording on the cover boasting it was ‘Write anywhere: All weather No. 152’. Three green leaves were engraved next to the script.

  ‘When Maddie checked him for a pulse,’ Peter told me quietly, ‘she found a cross around his neck. We can’t move him until the photographer has finished, but I thought maybe you could say a few words. You know, whatever priests say when someone’s passed.’

  I nodded. The men wearing caps removed them, and everyone bowed their heads. ‘Lord God,’ I said, sketching a cross towards the dead man, ‘we commend this child of yours into your eternal keeping. Take him into your everlasting arms, give him your peace, and wipe every tear from his eyes. May the souls of the faithful, through the love and mercy of Christ, rest in peace, and rise in glory. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ the police officers echoed.

  I decided not to push my luck and attempt the Lord’s Prayer. Most of them looked too young to be able to recite it from memory. ‘Do we know who he is?’

  Peter shook his head. ‘No wallet. No phone. No ID. Looks like he was robbed.’

  ‘While he was lying there dead?’

  ‘It happens.’

  I could sense that the police felt that my job was done. So I gave them a nod and retraced my steps. I wanted to ask all sorts of questions about likely causes of death and who had found him there, but I knew full well that I was a civilian in their eyes. Never mind that I had probably seen more people on their deathbeds than all of them put together.

  ‘Thanks for doing that,’ Peter said when we were back at my car. ‘Are you free on Thursday? That’s your day off, isn’t it? Can we get together?’

  I felt my cheeks redden. ‘Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got something else on.’

  ‘Not another man, I hope?’ he teased.

  ‘No,’ I said honestly. ‘Not another man.’

  ‘Okay. Let me know when you’re free. You still haven’t shown me that Doctor Who episode that’ll convert me to Sylvester McCoy.’

  ‘The Curse of Fenric,’ I reminded him, ‘and it will.’

  Peter leaned in close. For one heart-thumping moment I thought he was going to kiss me on the lips. But he only gave me a quick peck on the forehead before stepping back to wave me off.

  Chapter Three

  No contact from Peter before I went to bed. I looked at the weather forecast and brought the unicorn into the kitchen for the night. I explained in English, and Morey in Welsh, that we’d be grateful if she could wait until morning to relieve herself, when we would release her into the back garden. She had dipped her head in agreement. At dawn, when I stumbled downstairs for that essential first cup of coffee, the filly was waiting patiently by the back door. I undid the locks and let her out.

  James emerged a few minutes later, no doubt drawn by the allure of caffeine. ‘What next?’ he asked, staring out the kitchen window. ‘A mermaid?’

  ‘We don’t have a saltwater pool,’ I pointed out. ‘Merpeople have to stay wet for the sake of their scales.’

  He turned from the window. For the first time since Miranda’s death, I saw a smile on his face. ‘The unicorn looks happy out there. Maybe we can keep her?’

  ‘We need to find her mother.’ The unicorn was pulling enthusiastically at the overgrown grasses. ‘Though it’s nice to finally find someone who approves of the state of my back garden.’

  A chitter from the study reminded me that I hadn’t visited Clyde yet. I collected him from the terrarium, and put him down on the kitchen floor. He zoomed around happily, humming a tune to himself. I turned to pour myself a bowl of cereal, and only distantly noted the sound of the cat flap opening and shutting.

  ‘Any plans for today?’ I asked James as I added milk to my corn flakes.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  I droppe
d two slices of bread into the toaster. At least I could make sure he ate. ‘Have you heard from Anwen? Maybe Green Feather Networking would like you to start back again.’

  ‘That’s what Rhis says. He called again yesterday to see how I’m doing.’

  My respect for the vampire archdeacon climbed a notch. I tried to keep my voice casual. ‘Why don’t you go see him?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  Because you held a woman while she bled to death, I wanted to shout at him. You need to talk to someone about it. But I busied myself bringing toast and cereal to the table instead. ‘I have to go out this morning, so if anyone calls about the unicorn on the land line, can you send me a text?’

  ‘Sure.’ James stiffened. ‘Pen, where’s Clyde?’

  I suddenly recalled the sound of the cat flap. We both rushed to the kitchen window. Clyde’s mother had been busily stripping flesh from Raven’s leg when I had bashed her shell in with a shovel, and I had visions of a unicorn filly being chased around an overgrown garden by a fist sized snail shark.

  Clyde was near the bird feeders, his eye spots fixed on the unicorn. As we watched, she trod lightly over the grass, her gaze on him in return. Her delicate muzzle dropped down to his shell, then she exhaled softly over his grey skin. Then, to my amazement, she started to speak to him. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but both looked relaxed.

  Morey landed on the windowsill. ‘That’s unicorns for you. Even snail sharks aren’t immune to their charms.’

  ‘I wonder what they’re talking about,’ James said. ‘Maybe she’s asking Clyde what it’s like to live here?’

  ‘She’s going back to Lloegyr,’ I reminded him. ‘Don’t get too attached.’ But it was good to see him smiling again, and I found myself hoping that it would take another day or two to find the filly’s mother.

  Morey and I said the Morning Office without Clyde, which made the hymn choice more straightforward, though much less interesting. Morey and I went through my online diary. There was no question of him coming on my visit to my spiritual director, and so we agreed to meet up again at lunch.