Festering Lilies (11 page)

Various useful inferences might be drawn from those two facts, but none that was irrefutable. Gripper's attitude might be said to give him a motive to do away with the man who had cuckolded him.

As though the word ‘motive'had galvanised part of her brain, Willow stopped thinking over her frustrating morning and got out of her astonishingly comfortable chair to find a large, white notebook and a fibre-tipped pen. Returning to the chair, she listed on the first sheet of paper all the possible motives that might have led to Algy's murder: love; hate; revenge; money; fear. After a few moments' silent contemplation of the little list, she added ‘other', and then tried to fill out each category.

Richard might be right that a case could never be solved by analysis of motive alone, but at least the isolation of a possible motive – or motives – would give Willow a useful starting point for more productive investigation. After all, she could not simply drift about London aimlessly asking questions and putting herself at risk of violence.

Love, or its less affectionate approximations, still seemed to Willow to have been the most likely cause of the killing. She grimaced as she remembered that most of her colleagues at the department seemed to have thought so too and that she had been their chosen murderess. Despite their views, it really did not seem likely to her that Algy's killer could have been a woman.

The least sexist of people, Willow had no sentimental feelings about her own sex and was quite certain that women could kill just as effectively or viciously as men; but it did not seem possible that any woman could have overpowered a healthy man, six foot four inches tall, broad of shoulder and muscular of build. Roger had definitely told her that the minister had been ‘beaten up – his head smashed in'; to Willow that did not sound like a woman's killing.

It would follow, therefore, that if the motive had been love it would have had to be someone like Gripper, whose beloved had been seduced by the usually irresistible minister. Willow appended a note under the relevant heading to remind herself to find out who else had succumbed to Algy in the recent past, and another to find out more about Gripper, not least where he had been on the evening in question.

‘Hate'would overlap with the previous possibilities, but ought to include more, she thought. She rather agreed with Richard, that it would be absurd to look for the roots of a man's murder in his brutalities at prep school and so she directed her mind to Algy's more recent victims. There were probably plenty at the department, from his private office staff all the way up to the permanent secretary, but Willow's mind boggled at the thought of any of them taking such desperate action to rid themselves of a bully who would in the natural course of political events be shuffled out of DOAP before too long.

Algy had had enemies in the House, too, and Willow had several times witnessed his cruelly brilliant destruction of opponents' speeches. But there again, it was hard to imagine a Member of Parliament being so deranged by professional humiliation that he lured his tormentor on to the dark South-London common and beat him until he was dead. Clearly the police thought that the answer to the mystery lay within the confines of the department, and Willow was inclined to agree with them; unless, of course, someone like Gripper had carried off an effective bluff. Might not the killing have been done elsewhere, and the body taken to the common by car and dumped?

‘No,' said Willow aloud. ‘That doesn't fit, either. Algy was last seen by someone in the department at a quarter to six. He spoke to his chauffeur on the telephone five minutes later to instruct him to wait on the far side of the common. He was not seen again until the chauffeur, alarmed by his long wait returned to the office and telephoned the police at nine o'clock.'

The door of Willow's writing room opened and Mrs Rusham's grey head appeared round it.

‘Did you call, Miss Woodruffe?' Willow, remembering that she had been talking to herself again, nearly blushed.

‘No, in fact I didn't, Mrs Rusham. But since you are here, do you think you could get me a cup of tea? And perhaps a sandwich? I didn't have time for lunch in the end.'

‘Certainly, Miss Woodruffe,' she said and retreated.

If only the chauffeur had not been seen by innumerable homing commuters as he sat under the arc lights, Willow thought. Albert, tall and built like a boxer, was just the physical type to be able to batter a man like Algy to death. Disliking Albert's truculence and ill-temper as much as she did, Willow had little difficulty in persuading herself that he was capable of such a murder. Chiding herself for leaving the subject of motive and being trapped into speculation about personalities and timing, Willow thought that it was extraordinary how much she had lost of the discipline so carefully inculcated in her by her parents. In the old days, she would have been able to compel her mind to concentrate on the dullest subject. Now, it seemed to roam in any direction it pleased.

Doing her best to corral her imagination, Willow looked back to her list to find that money was the next topic. Algy had obviously had quite a lot; he had always been superlatively well dressed and in private life drove a thoroughly expensive BMW, besides having that indefinably confident swagger that comes from a hefty bank balance. Willow realised that she would have to find out who his heirs were and, unable to continue to sit still while there were so many questions to be asked, got up to rifle through an old address book she kept in one of her filing cabinets.

During her early years in London, her parents had often asked her to be kind to students who had left their care and arrived in the capital to start their careers. Such requests were almost the only contact Willow had had with her parents once she had left home. One of their protégés, Willow remembered, had deserted science for the law and ended up working at Somerset House. If she could only remember his name, she could ask him how to go about securing a copy of Algy's will.

She had given the young man supper in Abbeville Road not long before her father's death, and had even, she thought, helped him to find somewhere to live. He had quite liked her and even invited her out to restaurants once he had become settled. Willow had accepted the first time, but had disliked both the dinner and her host's amorous advances and had categorically refused all subsequent invitations. William Gaskarth! That was his name.

Willow walked across to the big mahogany desk that carried her word processor, reference books, stationery and telephone, looked up the number of Somerset House, dialled it and asked to speak to Mr Gaskarth. She was ludicrously insulted to be told that he no longer worked there and only slightly mollified to be asked whether anyone else could help.

‘Well, I don't know; yes, perhaps,' she said with unusual indecision. ‘I need to consult a will, and I understand that they are kept at Somerset House.'

The woman who had answered the telephone said that she would put Willow through to a suitable department and a moment later, she was talking to a younger, but still female, voice.

‘Can you tell me,' said Willow, who had regained most of her self-possession, ‘how I would go about consulting a will?'

‘It is perfectly simple, madam: you simply present yourself at the desk here and bespeak a copy,' said the helpful voice.

‘I see,' said Willow. ‘And how long would it take for the copy to be produced?'

‘It rather depends. When was probate of the will granted?'

‘I don't think it has been,' said Willow. ‘Does that matter?'

‘Possibly not when was probate applied for?' The voice had begun to irritate Willow and her own voice sounded positively snappish as she said:

‘It hasn't. There hasn't been time yet.'

‘In that case,' said the voice, ‘we cannot help you. We do not hold wills that have not been the subject of a grant.'

‘Oh.… So how can I find out the terms of a will? I thought they were public documents,' said Willow thoroughly annoyed.

‘You could apply to the solicitors, but unless there is some very good reason for you to see the will, I cannot imagine that they would allow it.'

‘I see,' said Willow, and then, belatedly remembering her manners, added: ‘Thank you for your help. Good bye.' She replaced the receiver just as Mrs Rusham returned with a tray of tea and sandwiches. There was an enticing selection: some seemed to be crab and mayonnaise; some watercress; and the remainder cheese and cucumber. Willow thanked her and then poured a cup of tea, trying unsuccessfully to remove from her mind a wholly unjustified resentment at the powers and freedom of Inspector Worth.

He, no doubt, had already seen a copy of Algy's will and if he found any obvious suspects among the beneficiaries he would simply go and interrogate them, whereas Willow was stuck with no help except her own brains and imagination. So incensed was she at the police's unfair advantages in her self-imposed competition with them that she decided to leave the investigation for the moment and go out and buy herself something.

Despite the riches that Cressida Woodruffe had brought her, Willow did not often allow herself the extreme delight of unnecessary, impulse spending, but when she did she generally found the exercise therapeutic. That particular day seemed a suitable one on which to seek solace and so she ate her sandwiches, drank the tea and took herself to Fortnum and Mason, where she spent a happy half hour browsing through various departments. Toying with the thought of buying a dinner service of charmingly decorated Italian porcelain, she decided instead to have a quick look upstairs at the clothes and completed her cure with the trying on of a deceptively simple, short black-velvet dress. Both the style and colour of the dress suited her, and she felt at ease in it, and so she told the sales assistant that she would take it. Murmuring mockingly to herself ‘I spend therefore I am', she signed the credit card slip and took the parcel home to Chesham Place.

Hardly had she unpacked it than she heard the front-door bell buzz and then Mrs Rusham's voice, speaking in a far more friendly tone than any she used to her employer:

‘Please come on up, Mr Lawrence-Crescent.'

Willow, glad that she had exorcised most of her various tensions, went out into the hall to greet him. One quick look at his face told her that he was still suffering from his own troubles. Before she could think of anything soothing to say, he said, in a voice raw with irritation:

‘Don't say it, Willow. I've had an infuriating day in Paris and a bloody awful flight back.'

Willow shook her head.

‘You look terrible, Richard. I wasn't going to say a word, except to invite you to come and have a bath.'

‘What?' he demanded, looking at her as though she were a recalcitrant foreign client who had perpetrated some frightful banking solecism.

‘Come on, dear Richard, and have a bath with me,' said Willow, infinitely relieved to find that the sickly emotion of the previous evening had been overtaken by one much easier for her to deal with and accept. A reluctant smile slightly relaxed his tight lips, but there was still a look in his hazel eyes that said, ‘Don't think that you can take my bad temper away so easily; I want a bit longer to get the maximum enjoyment out of it.'

Willow knew the feeling herself too well to try to talk him out of it and instead went straight to the bathroom to run plenty of hot water into the huge white bath. There was ample room in it for two normal-sized adults, and she had forced the plumber to put the taps at the side so that both of them could lean comfortably against the smoothly curved enamel without the brass taps getting in the way. In deference to Richard's sensibilities she avoided the Chanel No. 19 bath oil and instead added a splash of quite gentlemanly cologne-scented foam.

By the time Richard condescended to join her, she was already soaking in the aromatic, bubbling water, her hair tied up like a child's on top of her head out of the way. As though the sight of her, with whisps of red hair clinging damply around her face and drops of water sparkling on her shoulders, had galvanised him, he grinned a little self-consciously, undressed and joined her.

They proceeded to shed their tensions with some exceedingly childish romping, during which Richard's hair was quite soaked and Willow's painted toenails were reverently kissed one after the other in a parody of devotion. Richard had just reached the little toe of the second foot when he sat up with a rush, sending a tidal wave of scented water over the back of the bath on to the floor.

‘Oh God, Willow,' he said through a mouthful of foaming bathwater, ‘isn't tonight the night of Sarah Gnatche's engagement party?'

Willow, rubbing the stinging water out of her eyes and shaking it out of her ears, looked blearily at him.

‘Friday! Oh, lord, yes you're right. You did tell me about it, but I'd completely forgotten. We needn't go, need we?' said Willow, who was often bored by cocktail parties, particularly when she knew none of the other guests.

‘Well I must,' said Richard, ‘and you did promise to come with me, Willow.' The slightly injured tone in his voice aroused considerable resistance within Willow.

‘Didn't you say it was being held in the House of Lords? You know I never go to the Palace of Westminster as Cressida,' she said crossly.

‘No one's going to recognise you. Who could be there on a Friday evening who might have had dealings with Willow King in the House of Commons? Do come, Willow. After all, we always do spend Friday evenings together and I thought we could look in there and then go on and have dinner somewhere,' said Richard, unfolding his long legs and getting out of the bath. ‘Besides,' he went on, a slightly cunning look distorting his conventionally handsome features, ‘the Gnatches live in Algy Endelsham's constituency.'

‘So what?' asked Willow rudely, still lying back amid the bubbles.

‘And they're old family friends of his. I'm sure you'd find someone there to give you some helpful hints about him. You never know, you might even find a suspect or two.'