Festering Lilies (13 page)

‘Depends a bit on the work. I'll ring you in the afternoon. Will you be in the office?' she asked, knowing that the quantity of paper generated by mergers and acquisitions meant that he usually had to work on it for at least one day each weekend.

‘Probably,' he said gloomily thinking that if he couldn't be with her he might as well work.

Leaning over to kiss him briefly, Willow opened the passenger door and stepped out on to the pavement. The sudden cold bit through her thinly-stockinged legs and made her hurry into the comforting warmth of her empty flat without even waving at him. The last thing she heard as the front door banged was the engine of Richard's car revving furiously and the tires screeching as he pulled away from the kerb.

‘What on earth is the matter with him?' she asked herself, peering out of the drawing room windows as his tail lights whisked round the comer into Lowndes Place. It did not occur to her that he might be suffering from intense sexual frustration.

Turning back to admire her drawing-room, she thought how pleasant it was to have the flat to herself. Much as she liked him his presence did sometimes become oppressive. She vaguely assumed that that was because she had lived alone for so long, and accepted it without fretting. Feeling hungry in the sudden release from his devotion, she went to the kitchen to see if there were any tasty morsels left in the fridge.

Not much to her surprise, Mrs Rusham had filled it with all kinds of provisions and Willow helped herself to a picnic of smoked duck breast, Italian fruits in mustard syrup and radishes, followed by some immensely dark chocolate ice cream, all washed down with half a bottle of mineral water. Then, comfortable, at ease with herself and not in the least tired, she settled down to work on her increasingly rounded picture of Algy Endelsham.

The only motive on her list that she had not yet examined was ‘Fear', and she set about finding possible theories. There were a great many people in the department who were afraid of his impatience, his caustic tongue, his highly developed critical skills, but not – she was convinced – to the extent of killing him. The only type of person who could be both that frightened and that ruthless would be someone with a lot at stake, perhaps someone engaged in a particularly profitable bit of corruption.

If Algy had somehow stumbled on the corruption during his time at DOAP and perhaps threatened to expose it unless the perpetrators wound it up, then they might well want to get rid of him. For a moment she almost dismissed the idea, because any minister of the Crown would presumably report any such wrongdoing to the appropriate authority; and yet would Algy have taken so easy a course? Willow considered the proposition and, after a little exercise of her imagination, decided that perhaps he would not. A man so certain of himself – so powerful, so much enjoying the exercise of that power – might well try to tackle the matter himself.

Having got so far into her speculation, Willow found that her imagination had gone as sticky as her novel and she could get no further. She added the words ‘possible corruption threatened with exposure'to her columns of motives and put pad and pencil away.

Willow found herself thinking of one of Shakespeare's sonnets as she undressed and got into bed three hours later, and during the night dreamed of Algy standing in all his glorious handsomeness surrounded by fields and fields of lilies turning brown and stinking in a morass of sludgy mud and stagnant pools.

Arriving at the Café des Amis the following day, Willow was suddenly assailed by an unwonted sensation of shame as she saw the shivering figure of Emma Gnatche standing outside the restaurant clad only in a pair of jeans, a fluffy yellow sweater and a sleeveless dark-blue and turquoise Puffa and her pearls. Willow felt that she ought to have known that the child would be too shy to go into the restaurant on her own, find a table and order herself a drink. Wishing that she had not been tempted by the cold to wear her darkest and glossiest fur coat, Willow hurried up to Emma and hustled her inside the restaurant, saying:

‘You poor child, you must be solid ice by now. I'm sorry I'm so late. I was caught up by a telephone call just as I was leaving and then I couldn't get a taxi.'

‘Don't you drive?' asked Emma, her teeth clattering like the shoes of a demented tap dancer.

‘Not often in London. When I made some real money I bought myself an enormous Mercedes. It's wonderful and I love it, but it's far too big to park easily in London – and I'm too sentimental to sell it and buy a Metro or something,' answered Willow, trying to summon a waiter. As soon as one materialised, she said: ‘Please fetch a whisky and ginger wine now, and then bring us some menus.'

He responded quickly and politely. Willow was not sure whether it was the obvious need in Emma's blue-tinged face, her own imperiousness or the thickness of her mink that had wrought the miracle, but in three minutes the revivifying drink was put in front of Emma.

‘Go on, drink up,' said Willow. ‘It'll warm you. And then I can put lots of hot food into you and stop myself feeling so guilty.'

Emma blushed, shook her head and said: ‘It was my own idiotic fault. I just never remember how cold it's going to be outside the car. This tastes frightfully strong, you know.'

‘Never mind. It works. Let's choose what we're going to eat.'

When their order had been given to the waiter, Willow thought that she ought to try to set her guest at ease instead of wading in instantly with questions about Algy.

‘That was a splendid party last night,' she said and watched Emma's face with interest. The first polite smile was chased by a look of doubt and then a slight hardening beneath the sweetness. ‘Didn't you think so?'

Emma shrugged. ‘Well, actually I thought it was pretty awful to have a party so soon after… after Algy died, although I do see that Sarah's engagement is much more important to her than an old family friend like Algy…'

‘Yes,' said Willow as sympathetically as possible. ‘He wasn't actually a relation, was he?' Emma shook her head.

‘No, and of course Sarah didn't know him as well as I did. But still… And anyway, I can't stand her Charlie. He really is the pits. What Sarah thinks she sees in him, I can't imagine.' Emma stopped, as though relieved to see their waiter bringing a basket of bread and some butter. She took some and then looked sideways at Willow, who smiled encouragement.

‘In fact he's awfully like Anthony – and you'd have thought even Sarah would know that it wasn't a very good idea…' Emma broke off in obvious confusion and Willow, highly amused and liking her more for her family loyalty, decided to prompt her.

‘Your brother? He's much older than both you and Sarah, isn't he?'

Emma pushed her black velvet hair band right back with both hands and then brought it a little forward so that it raised a small halo of hair above her unlined forehead.

‘Yes; he's a half brother, you see. And when Daddy died, four years ago, Anthony sort of took over.'

‘And you don't like him much?' suggested Willow. Emma blushed again, but she was game and so despite her embarrassment she said:

‘Not very much. I know it's an awful thing to say, but he's so different from Daddy, you see – and he's so horribly thick. He can't help that, but … well, it makes him lose his temper so often, which I hate. I'm terribly surprised that Sarah thinks she can live with someone so like him for the rest of her life. I always thought she ought to have married Richard.'

‘I'm not sure I agree that stupidity is a concomitant of loss of temper,' said Willow drily, not wanting to go into the subject of Richard's old passion for Emma's elder sister.

‘Oh, yes, it is,' said Emma earnestly. ‘Algy explained it to me once. He told me that when people are as stupid and inarticulate as Anthony they find it very hard to talk rationally about anything that has upset them, and so they lose their temper and sometimes get violent.'

‘You don't mean that your step-brother has ever hit you?' said Willow, horrified to think that anyone could have beaten the gentle girl at her side.

‘No,' Emma assured her quickly, ‘he's never been physically violent to either of us, but he does rage about a lot, which I've always found rather frightening. And that particular evening it was horribly embarrassing as well. He was so kind.'

‘Anthony?' said Willow, thoroughly at sea. Emma's face looked quite shocked. She shook her head.

‘Goodness no. Algy,' she said. ‘He was always sweet to me, but that evening when Anthony had been so beastly, Algy really saved my life.' The unfortunate choice of words seemed to strike her, for her big blue eyes filled with tears again. Willow felt cruel to be reminding the child of her hero's death, but the opportunity of finding out about Algy and his enemies was too good to throw away.

‘Tell me about Algy,' she said as gently as she could. ‘That is unless you mind talking about him.'

‘No. It would be rather a relief,' said Emma. ‘I've been longing to talk to someone about him, but haven't been able to say anything about him at home since that ghastly evening when Anthony decided that… that I'd fallen in love with Algy. I mean; it was so embarrassing for us both.'

‘What happened?' asked Willow, pouring them each a glass of wine.

‘Well,' said Emma, looking speculatively at Willow. Whatever she saw in Willow's face seemed to reassure her, for in the end she told her story.

‘You know I told you yesterday that I worked for Algy in the summer?' Willow nodded.

‘Because we live in the constituency, he often used to drive me home on Friday nights, and he'd tell me things in the car, sometimes things that worried him. And I used to try to help.' Emma came to a halt there, drank a little wine and gazed across the table with an expression of such sadness on her face that Willow's conscience pricked again.

‘I'm sure you did help him, Emma,' she said. The girl looked up and tried to smile.

‘He used to say that I did,' she agreed. ‘That was when it happened. We'd got back home by then and I'd thanked him for the lift and he just put his arm round my shoulders and told me that I'd been kind to him and helped a lot. Then he kissed me – just in a friendly way. That was all. But Anthony happened to see and he went mad: he came storming down the steps, wrenched open Algy's door and started yelling at him.'

‘What did Algy do?' Willow asked, suppressing a smile. The minister, she felt sure, would have been well accustomed to dealing with the angry menfolk of his string of inamoratas.

‘He just told me not to worry about it and to go on into the house. Naturally I did as he said and I left them yelling at each other. At least Anthony was yelling, but Algy was quite quiet about it. I was so embarrassed that I thought I'd never be able to go back to the office. But I had to of course, and Algy was absolutely sweet. He told me that he'd known Anthony far too long to take him seriously and explained all about stupid people getting so angry.'

The waiter reappeared just then with their fish soup, and Willow was rather relieved to have a few moments in which to gather her rambling thoughts and decide which of the innumerable questions in her mind to put into words. The soup was delicious and kept them both quiet for a few minutes. At last Willow laid down her spoon and said carefully:

‘I'm not sure you should blame your brother too much, Emma. He was probably trying to protect you; after all, Algy did have a rather dreadful reputation with women. It was pretty irresponsible of him.'

Emma's gentle face took on a much harder expression and Willow waited in considerable interest to hear her reaction.

‘He only did that sort of thing because he was so unhappy. And anyway he was only being kind to me. He'd never have dreamt of trying to seduce me; I know he wouldn't,' she said, surprising Willow once again. She had a sudden vision of Algy leaving the irritations and burdens of office and shutting himself up in a car with this trustful child and reconstructing his picture of himself through the reflection he saw in her eyes. No wonder he was kind to her, thought Willow, since she more than anyone else would have been able to feed his need for uncoerced admiration.

‘You must have known him very well,' she said. ‘I've never heard anyone else describe him as unhappy.' Emma managed to look both modest and rather pleased.

‘He did tell me things,' she acknowledged and picked up her soup spoon again. Before she could drink any soup there was a shriek of ‘Emms'from a girl who was threading her way through the restaurant to a table on the far side. Emma let her spoon drop back into the soup and waved.

‘It's a friend of mine from school,' she said to Willow and then in a louder voice: ‘Hello Grania! How
are
you?'

‘Brill actually,' said the newcomer, sitting cheerfully down on the extra chair at their table. ‘I've been to poor Simon's new exhibition. He's hardly sold any – but they're quite nice paintings and I told him I'd get Mummy to come in when she‘s next in London. Golly I'm hungry,' she said, reaching for a roll.

Willow sat up at the mention of paintings, because she was always on the lookout for new artists, and the movement attracted Emma's attention.

‘Gosh, Cressida,' she said, conscience-stricken again. ‘I'm so sorry. This is Grania Ballater. We were at school together. Grania, this is Cressida Woodruffe.'

‘No!' said the girl. ‘Fantastic. I say, I love your books.'

‘Thank you,' said Willow. ‘Who is Simon? Is the exhibition near here?'

‘Yah, the other side of Covent Garden,' said Grania. ‘He's the elder brother of one of our muckers.' Willow decoded the sentence with some difficulty and then asked for the address of the exhibition. Grania dictated it and then, perhaps remembering her impatient escort, said she really ought to go. She got up, scattering crumbs all over the table, and said good bye to Emma.