Festering Lilies (9 page)

‘Algy,' she said, the regret in her voice sounding to Richard like gentleness for him. He looked up at her unseeing eyes with a yearning smile.

‘A sadist?' Willow went on. ‘It's hard to believe. He was always so charming at DOAP.'

‘To everyone?' Richard asked quietly and Willow looked down at him in ever-increasing concern.

‘Come to think of it, no, not to everyone. He was fairly hard on the slow and the stupid and the obstructive members of the department. But, Richard, you couldn't have been any of those things at school – even prep school: I think you're the most intelligent man I've ever met,' said Willow truthfully. It was, after all, Richard's formidable brains that had first attracted her.

He lay back against the curved end of the bath, smiling at her with such self-mockery in his eyes that she was reassured.

‘Thank you for that testimonial, my dear,' he said, laughing. ‘No, Endelsham always terrorised anyone who showed the slightest weakness – laughed at the homesick, derided the short-sighted who were bad at games; that sort of thing.'

‘How unspeakably horrible!' Willow exclaimed. To herself she added silently: well there's that to be said for not understanding other people's motives and emotions – at least you think more kindly of them for not knowing too much about them. ‘You must have been miserable.'

‘Everyone's miserable at their prep school. It's a fact of life – and bloody good preparation for life at that.' He gave a short snorting laugh. ‘Nothing, ever, is as bad again. And when you've learned how to cope with that at eight, you know you'll be all right for the rest of your life.'

‘And people think that private schooling is so desirable,' said Willow, who had received an excellent and humane education at the grammar school to which she walked every day from her parents'house in Newcastle. In fact it had been the maths teacher there who had provided the only easy warmth in clever, isolated Wilhelmina King's life, and even shortened her ridiculous name.

‘Oh it has its moments, Willow,' said Richard, yawning. ‘But I must get on, darling. Shall I run you a bath?'

‘Yes, please,' she said, leaning over to kiss his head again to make up for her reminding him of his childhood sorrows.

As soon as he had wandered into her bedroom to dress, she got into the bath, and they were both clean and dressing by the time Mrs Rusham arrived and started to make breakfast. Willow was horribly conscious of the dirty teapots and damp rings on the kitchen work surfaces. When she emerged from her bedroom for breakfast and greeted Mrs Rusham, the housekeeper made no mention of the mess, but a certain tightness about her lips and sharpness in her voice made it quite clear what she thought of her employer's invasion of the territory she considered her own.

Mrs Rusham had provided foaming cappuccino, cantaloupe melon, crisp bacon and wonderful fresh brioches, which she picked up from a baker on her way in to work every morning. The
Financial Times
was neatly folded by Richard's plate and
The Times
and the
Independent
by Willow's. She picked up
The Times
and turned to the letters page, but when Richard emerged, a little damp about the hairline but impeccably dressed, she refolded the newspaper and would not allow him even to glance at his. Instead she grilled him about Algy's days at prep school.

Richard, never at his best in the morning, tried to answer the questions tolerantly, but at last lost patience.

‘For heaven's sake, Willow, you can't imagine that the roots of this murder lie as far back as that! The five beastly years we all spent between eight and thirteen can hardly hold the seeds of an enmity that surfaced more than a quarter of a century later.'

‘Well no, of course not,' she answered, sipping her coffee. ‘But it all helps to give me a picture of the man… and such a different picture from the one I got working in his department. It's extraordinary, but I had no idea he was like that. In fact if it were not you who had told me, I don't think I'd believe it yet.'

‘Look: he probably wasn't,' said Richard, tucking into the bacon and looking at his watch between mouthfuls. ‘The man doubtless changed as he grew up. Just because he was a bully as a child, doesn't mean that he could not have become the sweet charmer of the gossip columns or your girlish office dreams.'

‘No,' said Willow, not even bothering to comment on his jibe. ‘But it's intriguing. Look, Richard, have you got anything on paper about your school – lists, magazines, anything like that? It would be rivetting to find out what he was really like: not through the eyes of an unhappy contemporary, but with hindsight. Have you? I know you; you like to keep everything about your life somewhere about you.'

As she said that she began to wonder why he found it necessary to surround himself with all the evidence of his past; and it was not only that. He was also an inveterate collector of things. His house was filled with ramparts of paper, books, china, antiques. Perhaps, she thought, watching his good-looking, severe face, they really were ramparts; but against what? Willow hardly even noticed that she was once more indulging in impertinent speculation as the fascination took hold of her mind.

‘As it happens, yes,' said Richard, pushing away his bacon plate and finishing his coffee. ‘I think there is a trunkful of stuff in the attic at home, and if it'll satisfy your curiosity you have my permission to search.'

‘Bless you, Richard,' said Willow as he stood up and straightened his tie. ‘Could you get someone to bring it round here today? This morning, perhaps.'

‘I'd give a lot to see those Civil Servants of yours listening to you, wheedling like that,' said Richard, and he took a certain satisfaction from the frown that creased Willow's white forehead. ‘But I'm afraid there's not a hope. I have to go to Paris this morning. I'll get you the stuff as soon as I can manage.' He looked at his slim, gold watch and gulped down the last of his coffee. ‘I must be off. Thank you, Willow, for letting me stay.'

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘And don't forget the FT.'

He picked up the newspaper and folded it under his arm. Then he kissed her briefly.

‘Thank you also for… giving me a lovely evening,' he said, ‘and a delectable breakfast.'

‘Despite the inquisition?'

‘Yes. And, Willow, you made a promise not to take risks. You will keep it, won't you?' Richard's voice was heavy with the unaccustomed emotion of the previous evening, and Willow shuddered inwardly. But she nodded.

‘All right. Have a good day. See you this evening.' He went out but put his head round the door again two minutes later to say:

‘Did you know that the bandstand on Clapham Common is a gay meeting place? Perhaps that filthy rag has been right about Endelsham's preferences after all.'

‘The
Daily Mercury
,' said Willow, looking astonished. ‘Don't tell me that you read that, Richard.'

‘Lord no, but the secretaries always have it and one manages to see most of the juicy bits. 'Bye, Willow.'

When he had really gone, she accepted a second cup of coffee from Mrs Rusham and sat brooding on what Richard had told her about Algy Endelsham. The more she thought about it, the less she could believe that the Algernon Endelsham she had known had ever been a homosexual. Richard's account of the schoolboy bully seemed to fit in much better with some of Algy's behaviour at the department, and offered a more convincing reason for his murder. The man had obviously been less crude in his attempts at controlling his fellows than the boy had been; but the impulse that had made him torment the weak at school must have been the same as the one that drove him to make fools of his officials at every possible opportunity. Willow, disliking and despising so many of them herself, had found it quite amusing at the time, but looking back she was ashamed of herself.

In her uncharacteristically introspective mood, she found herself wondering for the first time whether the minister's embarrassingly public pursuit of herself might have been a product of the same impulse. After all, he had never been able to humiliate her over her work, because she had been able to keep up with him, and indeed overtake him. That would have left him with only the weapon of his sexuality and apparently unfailing record of seduction.

It was a new and rather disturbing thought, and it made her want more than ever to talk to Mrs Gripper. If she had really loved him, then she might be able to explain him to Willow. Without a clear idea of his real character, Willow did not think that it would be possible to unravel the mystery of his death.

When Mrs Rusham returned with a tray to remove the dirty breakfast crockery, she looked surprised to see her employer still at the breakfast table, scribbling down an address with one hand while she held open the telephone book in the other.

‘Shall I clear now, Miss Woodruffe?' she asked in a tone that told Willow precisely what her housekeeper thought of women who idle around over breakfast at ten in the morning.

‘Yes, do,' she said, smiling. ‘I must tidy myself up, and then I have to go out. Don't bother about lunch; I'll have something out.'

‘Very well, Miss Woodruffe,' said the housekeeper, carrying the heavy tray out of the breakfast room.

Willow made up her face quickly and then left the flat to walk through the high, white streets towards Graham Terrace. She had decided that the only way to speak to Mrs Gripper would be to ring the front-door bell and ask for her. Any other approach would take weeks and might well fail. If the worst came to the worst and Willow was rebuffed, she would not have lost anything, and there was a chance that she might succeed.

It took only ten minutes to walk from Willow's flat to the Grippers' front door, which was not quite long enough for her to prepare her opening speech. Looking up at the house as she passed, she walked on, thinking of the various possible introductions. At the end of the street, she turned back and approached the house again just as the front door opened.

Thinking that the fates were on her side, she hurried forward and reached the steps just as a burly man in a thick, dark-blue overcoat strode down them. He saw her and scowled. His already florid face seemed to redden even more and his bright blue eye's narrowed.

‘Damn,' thought Willow, coming to a betraying halt. ‘This must be Gripper himself.' But before she could either retreat or think of anything to say to him, he had walked right up to her and stood glaring at her. He had a fat, lighted cigar in one hand and a heavy-looking umbrella in the other. Standing squarely in front of her, with the umbrella slanted out to his left, he took up almost the entire width of the pavement. Without stepping into the gutter, walking backwards, or pushing him out of the way, Willow was stuck. There was no reason for her to be afraid of him; after all, he could have no idea who she was or why she should have been in the street where he lived; and yet she was frightened. It was an unpleasant sensation to one who had once thought that she feared nothing and nobody.

Not wanting to let him see her fear, she put back her head and looked him straight in the eye. She noticed that he was quite handsome, in his heavy, rich-looking way and that, although he displayed none of the romantic-novelists'gestures of hostility, there was more naked anger in his face than she had ever seen before. Trying to look both dignified and surprised to have been stopped by a stranger, she opened her mouth to ask him to move out of her path.

‘Don't pretend it's not my home you were watching,' he said harshly in a voice that sent adrenalin pumping through her. ‘I've watched you going up and down the street with your eyes on the house. Now, I don't know who you work for, but I can find out without any trouble at all. And I can tell you this: if I ever see you on this street again, if you ever try to speak to my wife, you will be sorry you were ever born.'

Willow stood absolutely still, unable to think of anything to say, but understanding at last why Mrs Gripper should have seemed terrified: Willow felt that she too would have been scared if she had had to share a house with such a man. Wishing that he was smaller or his voice less menacing, Willow tried to tell herself that she had no reason to be frightened of a middle-aged man in daylight in one of the most respectable parts of London, but she could not do it his size, his arrogance and his threats made it almost impossible for her to think, let alone take any kind of action.

‘Cat got your tongue?' he asked, and his voice seemed to grate in her brain. ‘You're not even good at your job. Beneath contempt in fact. But I won't have you worrying my wife even so. Now get off my patch.'

Gathering her reserves, Willow moved three steps back so that she no longer had to look up into his face, and found her voice.

‘I do not know who you are,' she said, desperately hoping her voice carried conviction. ‘And I think you must have mistaken me for someone else. I should be grateful if you would get out of my way, so that I can proceed.'

‘You know bloody well who I am. And if I ever see you round here again, you'll discover that I don't make threats I can't carry out. If I read anything anywhere about my affairs, the libel writs will land on your editor's desk faster than you can telephone your lawyers. Got that?'

With her face relaxing slightly as she understood what he thought she was doing, Willow even managed to smile.

‘You really are mistaken,' she said. ‘I do not write for any publication and I have no interest in who you are or what your business is.'

Then with as much dignity as she could achieve (which was not very much) Willow brushed past him and walked back towards Eaton Square. She found that her hands were shaking, and she felt faint and rather sick. Despite the fact that he had not threatened any kind of physical violence, Willow knew that she had never been so afraid, not even the night when she had absurdly let off her pocket alarm on Clapham Common. She even found herself fantasising that Inspector Worth would materialise in front of her once again and restore her to herself, as he had on the common.