Poison Flowers

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

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  Contents

  Natasha Cooper

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Natasha Cooper

  Poison Flowers

  Natasha Cooper

  To follow!!!!!!!

  Dedication

  For Octavia, Roland and Claudia, and for the slug, without which this book would never have been written.

  Epigraph

  And most of all I would flee from the cruel madness of

  love –

  The honey of poison-flowers, and all the measureless ill.

  Maud

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Chapter One

  ‘A cereal killer,’ repeated Willow as she sat opposite Tom Worth in the restaurant in Pimlico. Her green eyes had an uncharacteristic expression of doubtful amusement in them and her normally controlled voice quivered slightly. If Tom had not seemed so serious she might have allowed some of the laughter out. ‘What, poison in the muesli?’

  Worth’s dark eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. The pale-yellow candlelight lit the engaging bump of his broken nose and the lines of his well-shaped mouth, which usually smiled but was now tucked into a frown. For once the power of his character was undisguised. He looked almost dangerous.

  ‘My God! You are chilling sometimes, Willow. How did you know?’

  About to say that she could not think of any other way to kill someone with cereal short of stuffing their mouths and nostrils with it and so suffocating them, Willow suddenly realised what Worth had actually said. Altering her expression from amused doubt to carefully understated confidence, she shrugged and smiled.

  ‘Just a guess, Tom,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a serial murderer who used poison.’

  ‘There have been one or two; but it’s true that most serial killers use more directly violent means. That’s one of the reasons why my superiors take such a dim view of my hypothesis that these deaths are in any way connected,’ said Tom, absent-mindedly pouring himself another glass of wine. He put the bottle back on the table and looked across the candle flame to Willow’s shadowed face.

  ‘But I’m sure that they are and that we must stop him, whoever he is.’

  ‘What makes you think it’s a “he”?’ asked Willow, reaching for the bottle and pouring some claret into her glass. She was amused to find part of her mind surprised that Tom Worth had ignored her empty glass when refilling his own. The other man in her life, Richard Lawrence-Crescent, would no more have done that than he would have stripped naked and turned cartwheels in Piccadilly.

  ‘Manner of speaking, really,’ said Tom. ‘But apart from two isolated American cases, the only genuine serial killers I’ve ever heard of have been men.’

  Willow watched him as he spoke and realised that he was really troubled. Suppressing her lingering amusement over the original misunderstanding, she asked him what made him think that the killings were connected.

  Tom looked past her as though she did not exist, as though she were a figment of her own imagination, which in a way she was.

  Born the only child of middle-aged, academic parents, Willow had been brought up to be clever, efficient, prudent and perfectly self-sufficient. They had suppressed every sign of emotional dependence in their unexpected child only out of a desire to protect her from crippling distress if they should die before she reached safe adulthood, but they had been so successful that her self-containment became a kind of mental and emotional straight jacket.

  For many years she lived reasonably contented in it, having no idea of what she was really like and hardly noticing her own inability to achieve intimacy with anyone. In her early thirties the chilly self-sufficient personality had threatened to extinguish her altogether, and some dormant sense of identity had forced her to take drastic action.

  Exchanging her successful full-time Civil Service career for a part-time version, Willow had started to write romantic novels under a pseudonym. In the novels and in the luxurious part-time life they ultimately financed for her, she let all her hitherto suppressed fantasies run free. But even in that life she had still not conquered her fear of letting anyone come close to her.

  ‘Apart from the fact that they’re all poisonings?’ said Tom, still looking past Willow into the distance. ‘It’s the way they were done, I think. Listen …’

  ‘Start at the beginning,’ said Willow, her mind beginning to operate at its professional rather than its social level. They had spent a pleasant couple of hours in the small, informal restaurant, eating an undistinguished but decently cooked meal and chatting inconsequentially of books and films and holiday plans. She was touched – and surprised – that Tom had repressed what was obviously an urgent anxiety in order to entertain her.

  ‘How many murders are you talking about, where did they happen, what are the connecting links, what is the evidence, what …?’

  ‘Stop!’ Tom said, interrupting her as she had interrupted him. ‘I’ll give you a brief resumé of what I know. I was called to the scene of a double death in Fulham earlier this year.’

  ‘When? Why haven’t you said anything before?’

  Tom Worth merely raised his straight, dark eyebrows. Willow came closer to blushing than usual. They had met a few months earlier when he was in charge of an investigation into the murder of the Minister of her department, and an extraordinary moment of passion had flared between them. After the case had ended they had managed to become friends, dining together at about fortnightly intervals, but there was nothing in their relationship to give her any right to expect confidences from him.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said, fighting the small constraint, ‘you never discuss your cases. It’s just that “earlier this year” sounded as though it must have happened very soon after we first met.’

  ‘Yes, it was a couple of weeks after that,’ said Tom, respecting her wish to avoid talking about the murder that had introduced them.

  ‘But there was no reason to tell you anything about it,’ he went on. ‘The two Fulham victims were an architect called Simon Titchmell and his girlfriend, Annabel Wilna. You may have read about it in the newspapers.’

  ‘I do remember something,’ said Willow, frowning in an attempt to reconstruct the newspaper reports, ‘but few details. Didn’t they think it was suicide?’

  ‘That is the most widely accepted conclusion, although the case hasn’t been closed yet. The two of them died after eating muesli that had been contaminated with aconite,’ said Tom.

  ‘What, those little yello
w flowers?’ said Willow, just as the young waiter came to clear away their plates. He asked whether their food had been ‘all right’and Worth assured him that it had and ordered coffee.

  ‘I like this place,’ said Willow as they waited for it. She looked with approval at the pale beech tables, the plain candle holders, the dark-red felt walls and the unpretentious pictures that hung against them. There were eight other tables, but only two of them in use.

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Tom simply, ignoring what he had been about to say when the waiter interrupted them. ‘It’s nothing particularly special, but I have always felt comfortable here.’

  ‘It was kind of you to bring me,’ said Willow. Then, as though determined to make up for her earlier ignorance of his problems, she repeated: ‘Aconite. Those little yellow flowers?’

  ‘That, my dear Miss King, is a remark worthy of your idiotic alter ego,’ said Worth caustically. ‘I had been going to let it go, but since you’ve repeated it …’ Willow’s elegantly dressed red head had lifted at his first words and before he could finish what he had been going to say, she delivered her protest.

  ‘There’s absolutely nothing idiotic about “Cressida Woodruffe”,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive. ‘You may not be a consumer of romantic fiction, but there’s no need to sneer at it. It gives a great many people a lot of innocent pleasure.’

  There were very few people in the world who knew that the austere Willow King, the Assistant Secretary (Finance) of the Department of Old Age Pensions, was the same woman as the glamorous, sybaritic Cressida Woodruffe, but Chief Inspector Worth was one of the few. He had hardly ever spoken about her novels and Willow, who both liked and respected him, did not enjoy having to defend them against his criticism. The fact that she half despised them herself did not give him the right to judge her.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Tom at once. His smile was mocking, but she had the comforting feeling that it was himself he mocked. ‘I’ve never read any Cressida Woodruffes and it is unfair of me to prejudge them. But, to revert to what we are really discussing, the poisonous aconite has nothing whatever to do with those little yellow flowers. It’s astonishing how many educated people get that wrong.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Willow with illusory meekness. ‘I never did any biology or botany even at school. But never mind now – tell me more about the murders.’

  ‘My superiors have taken the view that the aconite root, which had been carefully dried and powdered before being added to the cereal, was not properly understood by Titchmell or the girl and was deliberately put into the muesli by one or other of them.’

  ‘Why?’ said Willow. ‘Why should anyone go to the trouble of drying and grinding up wild flower roots to improve their breakfast?’

  ‘In much smaller doses aconite has been used as a traditional narcotic,’ said Tom. ‘And it is assumed that they took it as a home-made substitute for marijuana or cocaine.’

  ‘But that’s ludicrous!’ protested Willow. Tom shrugged. For the first time that evening he looked tired as well as anxious.

  Before Willow could say any more or comment on Worth’s weariness, the waiter brought their coffee and a plate of hand-made chocolates. When he had gone, Willow picked up a chocolate-coated cherry, ate it and then looked at Worth. Her eyes seemed to be a deeper green than usual in the flickering candlelight.

  ‘Was it a weekday?’ she asked. ‘Presumably they were on their way to work. No one would take a narcotic before working. Cocaine, perhaps, but not something to make them sleep.’

  Worth said nothing, but there was a light in his eyes and a faint smile on his lips that suggested that he appreciated her point.

  ‘Were the other cases as eccentric as that?’ she went on. Worth half shrugged his powerful shoulders under the civilised disguise of his well-cut but slightly shabby dark suit.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All the deaths were caused by plant poisons taken in food or drink. An elderly spinster died at the end of February after drinking a small quantity of sloe gin every day. Her routine was to have a small glass of the stuff (which she made herself each year when the sloes were ripe) after her evening meal. Unfortunately the bottle she used just before she died had been adulterated with a high concentration of digitalis, from very finely powdered foxglove leaves.’

  ‘I can see precisely why you think the cases are linked,’ said Willow. ‘How bizarre and utterly horrible! Did she have a bad heart?’

  Worth took her slim hand in one of his and gripped it for a moment. The anxious look in his dark eyes was transformed for a moment into an expression of relaxation and amused affection. Whether he was amused at her or at himself Willow was not sure. After a moment she withdrew her hand. Tom drained his coffee and then made a face.

  ‘Too sweet!’ he said. ‘My fault for putting so much sugar in it. Willow, you cannot imagine how good it is to find someone who is prepared to believe that these murders may be connected. My colleagues and superiors think I’m making a fuss about nothing.’ He laughed shortly and there was no amusement in the sound at all. ‘They’ve started talking about “female intuition” and asking whether I’m cracking up.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Willow, outraged on his behalf. The amusement crept back into his eyes at her tone.

  ‘Because apart from the type of poison and the fact that it was introduced into food or drink, there is no other connecting link between the deaths. The victims are as unlike each other as they could possibly be and have no apparent connection with each other. Because they live in opposite parts of the country …’

  ‘Then how do you know about it? Surely the government hasn’t sneaked a national police force into operation without legislation,’ said Willow.

  Tom laughed again.

  ‘No. Though there are plenty of people who think a national force is the only way forward,’ he said. Willow got the impression that he was covering something up.

  ‘Then how do you know?’ she asked again, determined to find out.

  ‘There’s a system for circulating details of unsolved major crimes among the different forces,’ he said a little reluctantly. ‘You don’t need to know any more about it: just accept that it exists.’ He turned to signal to the waiter, who seemed to understand his peculiar gestures and quickly brought the bill.

  ‘Tom,’ said Willow, deliberately deciding to leave the subject of the inter-force reporting for the time being, ‘may I contribute to this?’ She was conscious that she must earn at least ten times his salary from her novels.

  ‘Certainly not,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘I invited you out to dinner to celebrate my promotion and your finishing the latest book. This bill is mine. You can invite me and pay for our dinner whenever you like, but I won’t have unseemly squabbling now.’ He put a plastic credit card on top of the folded bill.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Willow, accepting his rule with ease and considerable pleasure.

  He drove her home to Belgravia in his elderly but superbly maintained Saab and parked carefully in a space just a little way from her front door. As Willow King she inhabited a small, dampish flat in Oapham, but Cressida Woodruffe’s royalties had bought, decorated and furnished five large and elegant rooms in Chesham Place. Tom did not switch off the engine. Willow looked sideways at him in the mixture of moon- and street-light, liking his eccentric courtesy. She knew quite well that his leaving the engine running was intended to show that he wanted her to be absolutely free to invite him in to her flat or not as she chose.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked, making her voice noncommittal so that he would be as unconstrained in his decision whether to accept her invitation.

  ‘That would be nice,’ he said, putting the car in neutral and switching off the engine. ‘Thank you.’

  When he had locked the car they walked up the broad staircase to her flat side by side. As she unlocked the door and hurried to switch off the beeping burglar alarm, she thought how much she liked him and trusted him.


  ‘Come into the drawing room,’ she said, returning to the small hall. ‘It’s still a bit bleak, but quite habitable.’

  The last time he had been in the Belgravia flat had been after the investigation they had shared into the murder of the Minister of DOAP, when the flat had been broken into, ransacked and vandalised by a man whose successful corruption was threatened by Willow’s questions. On that occasion she had been reduced to uncharacteristic tears of rage and fear by the sight of her furniture scored and slashed by a sharp knife, her pictures reduced to heaps of crumpled paper and tom canvas and the whole room covered in feathers from the ruined sofa cushions.

  Worth looked around the room, noticing the gaps where pictures had once hung and pieces of furniture had stood.

  ‘Have you heard from the insurance company yet?’ he asked as she switched on the lights and removed a guard from in front of the fire that her housekeeper must have lit earlier in the evening.

  ‘Yes. They sent a loss adjustor – a charming man – and if his estimate of the time proves correct, I ought to be getting a cheque from them soon. But now that the book is finished I’ll start replacing the stuff in any case. I just hadn’t the time to do anything until I’d got it off to my agent. Mrs Rusham tidied everything up and found these temporary sofa cushions and covers. They’re fairly ghastly, but I can bear them for a bit. Whisky?’

  ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘I’ve drunk enough tonight. Have you any mineral water?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Willow. ‘Mrs Rusham keeps me well supplied.’

  ‘I must say that whatever I may think of a woman like you bothering to write romantic novels for your living, I envy you your housekeeper.’

  Willow handed him a heavy tumbler filled with Vichy water and laughed.

  ‘She’s my most indefensible luxury, and yet the one I would be most reluctant to lose,’ she said. ‘Come and sit down. The sofas aren’t as comfortable as they were before that thug dug his knife into them, but it’s better than standing up.’