Poison Flowers Read online

  Sighing in relief and delight, Willow stripped off her clothes and, wrapped in a pale-yellow towelling dressing gown two sizes too big for her, went to fetch a glass of sherry. Returning to the bathroom, she put the glass down on the table with the books, shed her dressing gown and sank into the bath. Lying there, sipping her sherry and feeling the water gradually heating up her long, thin body, she looked around the pretty room and wondered whether it would be too absurdly extravagant to have the old chimney opened up again so that she could have a proper fire in the bathroom. She was never cold in it because there was a huge radiator as well as the heated towel rail, but there was something about actual flames in a good grate under a well carved white marble chimneypiece that added the final touch to any room.

  Half an hour later, so relaxed that she had forgotten her sherry and had not even picked up either of the books, she heard the front door bell buzz. Reaching out with her left hand, she found the button of the intercom and pushed it.

  ‘Willow? It’s Richard.’

  ‘Heavens I’m late,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Richard, come on up.’ Having pressed the button that would release the electronic lock of the front door, Willow heaved herself out of the bath, wrapped herself up in the yellow dressing gown again and went out into the hall. She noticed that she was leaving foamy damp marks on the bathroom carpet and the hall parquet, but knew that Mrs Rusham would do whatever had to be done to get the marks out in due course and refused to worry about them.

  ‘Richard,’ she said opening the door to his knock. ‘So sorry to be like this. I was held up at DOAP. Come in.’ He leaned down towards her and she, thinking it unnecessarily churlish to spurn his gesture, reached upwards so that their cheeks touched.

  He was a good six inches taller than she, but something about him, some inner disengagement perhaps, made his size far less obtrusive than Tom Worth’s. Richard gave no impression of physical power, despite his reputed prowess on the squash court and cricket pitch. As always he was well dressed in an impeccably cut, conventional dark-grey worsted suit, a shirt of widely spaced claret stripes on white, an Hermes silk tie and a pair of heavy gold cufflinks.

  His eyes were an indeterminate, very English mixture of green and grey and blue, and his thick hair was the dull brown of a sparrow’s breast. His long face was clean shaven and usually held an expression of vague amiability that disguised his formidable intelligence. Willow had known him look tender, ecstatic, occasionally sulky and sometimes wildly amused, but it was when he was half smiling that he looked most familiar to her. All in all, he looked what he was: a kind, clever, successful, not particularly forceful or imaginative child of a conventional southern English family with a profitable job in the City.

  ‘You look glorious,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you in that colour before. It suits you – yellow.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’ she said, looking down at the dressing gown in some surprise. ‘Yes, my dressing gowns always used to be white. I suppose Mrs Rusham must have bought this one to match the bathroom wallpaper. Never mind. Will you help yourself to a drink while I go and dress?’

  Richard obediently walked in the opposite direction from her bedroom. Willow was relieved by his docility and annoyed with herself for the unfair provocation of opening the door to him clad only in a dressing gown. She went quickly to put on a very unrevealing, though quite flattering, dark-blue silk dress. A little makeup on her face anchored the pinkness produced by the hot bathwater and plenty of mascara gave her eyes their Cressida-like allure instead of Willow’s discomforting pallor. The finishing touch was provided by an antique diamond brooch that she pinned at the apex of her modest neckline.

  ‘My God but you’re glamorous,’ said Richard when she went into the drawing room. ‘Sorry. I’d just forgotten the extent of it. New brooch? Have I been supplanted?’

  Her glossy lips tightening a little at his assumptions, Willow poured herself another small glass of sherry.

  ‘Yes, it is a new brooch. I bought it in the Burlington Arcade as a present to myself when I finished Simon’s Simples and the American publisher doubled the last advance,’ she said, ignoring his last question.

  ‘Have I been supplanted?’ Richard repeated obviously, determined not to let her get away with it.

  ‘No, Richard,’ she said, looking frankly at him. ‘There is another man whom I see sometimes, but he and I do not have the same relationship that you and I had. No one else has that. Must we do this? Can’t we be civilised? You like overt emotion as little as I, even when it’s your own,’ she added.

  Too intelligent to dismiss that reminder as malicious, Richard shrugged, but when he next spoke, his voice and his yearning eyes were under control again.

  ‘I’ve booked the table for nine o’clock. Is that all right for you, or would you rather have a bit more time?’

  ‘No, thank you, Richard. That’s fine,’ she said. ‘Shall we go?’

  They were greeted in the dark cosy restaurant with slightly nauseating cries of welcome, recognition and relief and shown to the ‘table you always used to have’. When the elaborate menus were presented, Willow made up her mind to choose something she had never eaten before in order to stop the nostalgia before it choked her, and before it reinforced Richard’s obvious determination to retrieve their old relationship. Eventually she chose sorrel soup and grilled lobster.

  When Richard had ordered their food and chosen the wine, without any reference to Willow, he turned back to face her.

  ‘If I’m not to talk about the past or ask you questions about the present, what about your asking me about Titchmell?’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Richard,’ said Willow, once more accepting the sense of his words rather than his tone. ‘I suppose I want to know everything about him. Why don’t you just talk and if I have a specific question, I’ll interrupt you.’

  ‘As you perfectly well know, I hate being interrupted,’ he said, with the first gleam of real humour he had shown that evening. ‘But I’ll do my best to put up with it.’ He picked up a handful of the almost unbelievably delicious, warm, salted nuts that had been put between them in a small glass dish.

  ‘The family is middlingly well-off and based in Sussex, Waltrincham, I think. Papa was in the wine trade – but at the rather smart end of it. Simon qualified as an architect some time ago and started out, I think, to work in one of the big practices doing mainly local government work. He went solo about five years ago, since when he’d forsaken tower blocks for slightly precious restorations of derelict country houses. The property disaster and mortgage-interest rises cast a bit of a damper on his practice, but most of his clients were rich enough not to mind too much.’

  ‘Quite successful, then?’ suggested Willow.

  ‘Oh yes. Caroline always talks – or rather talked – of him as her “rich big brother”.’

  ‘And what is she?’ asked Willow, picking three nuts for herself.

  ‘Patent agent. Probably going to be a lot richer than most architects in the end, but it takes a bit of time,’ said Richard, smiling. Something in his smile made Willow wonder whether Caroline could have supplanted her in Richard’s life, but she could hardly ask directly.

  ‘How do you know them?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Oh, I met her around. As one does. I can’t actually remember where. It was several years ago. I like her.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I think you would, too. She’s very down-to-earth, and doesn’t let anyone get away with anything. A bit like you, now I come to think of it.’ Richard looked across the crisp white damask cloth to where Willow was picking some more nuts from the dish.

  ‘You haven’t painted your nails,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘No. I just couldn’t get away from the office in time to get them done and I’m incapable of doing it myself,’ said Willow, looking up at him. ‘The sister sounds interesting,’ she added, suddenly seeing a way to useful information. ‘I’d love to meet her. Why don’t you have a dinner party, Richard? You must owe lots of peo
ple: you’re always dining out.’

  ‘Dinner party? I don’t give dinner parties,’ he protested. ‘Come on, Willow, I have neither the time nor the talents for that sort of thing. And I don’t owe anyone. I always pay my debts.’

  His emphasis on the pronoun made Willow smile before it occurred to her that he might mean that she still owed him a debt.

  The sommelier appeared and went through his ritual of presenting the corked bottle to Richard for his inspection of the label, opening it, cleaning some invisible residue from the neck and pouring an inch into Richard’s glass. Richard, grasping the glass by its foot, held it up to the light for a moment, swirled the wine round, sniffed and eventually took a sip. After a moment’s judicious thought, as he moved the wine around his mouth like mouthwash, he nodded at the wine waiter, who sighed as though in relief and poured a glassful for Willow.

  Sometimes the mutually-massaging performance amused her; sometimes she thought it entirely idiotic. If there had been something wrong with the wine, the smell alone would have given it away to all three of them as soon as any had been poured and she very much doubted whether Richard knew the taste of the wine he had chosen well enough to detect any fraud. Even if he had, she could not believe that he would be able to conquer his disinclination to complain.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting you were being mean, Richard,’ she said when the sommelier had left them again. ‘But do think about it. I’d like to meet her. I’d lend you Mrs Rusham, Richard. She’s been pining for you these last four months, and she’d do all the shopping, cooking, flowers. Come on. It would be good for you. I’ll even pay for the dinner and then there won’t be any debts between us.’

  As she said that Richard’s pleasant face changed until he looked really angry.

  ‘Why are you so obsessed with money at the moment?’ he demanded, showing her a side of his character she had never encountered before.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, making certain that she did not sound defensive. ‘But you’ve been so emphatic about paying your debts: I didn’t want to be any less punctilious.’

  Richard fiddled with the salt cellar for a moment and then looked up at her with accusing eyes.

  ‘There are other debts, though, Willow: more important than monetary ones.’

  Willow smiled in order to relax her facial muscles and so prevent her voice from coming out harsh.

  ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘It was recognising it that told me I had to stop what I was doing to you. Don’t let’s talk about all that now. What about having a dinner party?’

  ‘Well I suppose …’ Richard was beginning when their first courses arrived. Willow watched him slurping up the first of his oysters and put her spoon into the frothy green soup she had chosen to draw a line between all the dinners they had shared in the past. It was quite pleasant, if a little sharper than she would have liked.

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Richard, enthusiastically licking his fingers. ‘These are wonderful and we’re not likely to get many more until the autumn.’

  ‘What about it? I’m sure Mrs Rusham could get you oysters just as good as those,’ said Willow cajolingly.

  ‘I’ve never been able to resist you when you were determined on anything,’ said Richard, picking up another of the thick grey shells, squeezing lemon juice on to the quivering blob it contained and tipping it into his mouth. ‘I might as well give in gracefully. When am I to have this dinner party?’

  ‘As soon as possible,’ said Willow. ‘Next week? Thursday or Friday, perhaps?’

  ‘All right,’ said Richard amenable at last, ‘but in return I want you to tell me what this is all about.’ He sucked up another oyster and drained the liquid its shell contained straight into his mouth.

  When he had dropped the shell on his plate, he looked at her. She was relieved to see that there was a smile back in his greyish eyes.

  ‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid,’ said Willow, deciding that she had eaten enough soup to last her for some time. She put down her spoon.

  ‘You’re not playing your old game, are you? Racing that policeman to the solution of some mystery? Presumably he can’t work out who caused Titchmell’s death and you …’ He paused, but Willow was far too experienced to be rushed into speech by someone else’s silence. She only smiled, wondering whether her mouth looked as much like the Mona Lisa’s as it felt.

  ‘Well in that case, I can see that I shall just have to help you out,’ said Richard with a self-satisfied smile. ‘You wouldn’t have got anywhere last time without me.’

  Remembering that she had said something very similar to Tom Worth, Willow decided to allow Richard his triumph and laughed with him.

  Chapter Four

  Eating one of Mrs Rusham’s best breakfasts the following morning, Willow ran through her list of questions to ask about the four victims and thought about the people who might be able to answer some of them. She decided that if she were to telephone them to put in her various requests for information, she could then reasonably ignore the investigation for the rest of the day and go shopping. There was to be a sale of fine English furniture at Christie’s the following week and she would be able to view the lots any time that day.

  She had just finished eating when Mrs Rusham came in with the newspapers and a second cup of coffee.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rusham,’ said Willow, looking up. ‘That was perfect. You really are a splendid cook.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so, Miss Woodruffe,’ said Mrs Rusham. For some reason Willow had never understood, her housekeeper had always treated her with cool formality although she had shown Richard an almost confiding devotion, and her severe features lightened into a real smile as Willow told her about Richard’s plans for a dinner party.

  ‘And since he has very little time and not a lot of expertise, he wondered whether you would be prepared to help him out,’ said Willow at last.

  ‘Well of course, Miss Woodruffe,’ said Mrs Rusham happily. ‘It’s always a pleasure to do anything for Mr Lawrence-Crescent.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said Willow, wondering what Richard had ever actually done to arouse the affection she could see shining in her employee’s usually dull brown eyes. ‘Why don’t you ring him up at his office – here’s the number – some time this morning and sort it all out with him?’

  Willow would not have been surprised if pressure of work had made Richard quite forget his promise to entice the patent agent to dinner, and a little gentle reminder from the besotted Mrs Rusham would do no harm. The housekeeper agreed and asked whether Willow would be lunching at the flat.

  ‘Yes, I think I probably will,’ she said. ‘But don’t do anything very elaborate. I ate enormously with Mr Crescent last night.’

  ‘Very good, Miss Woodruffe,’ said Mrs Rusham formally and departed for her immaculate kitchen, carrying the egg-smeared Minton plate with her.

  Willow leaned back in her chair, picking up her coffee cup in one hand and The Times in the other. When she had read the home news, the letters and the ‘Friday page’, she put the newspaper down and instead leafed through the Daily Mercury. Sensational, badly written and smudgily printed, it was not a newspaper she had ever read until she had met one of the journalists who worked on its diary section during the course of her investigation into the murder of the Minister. Willow had felt rather bad about having cheated information out of Jane Cleverholme, the journalist, and as a sop to her conscience had taken the paper ever since. Willow rarely read much of it, but was occasionally entertained by the different ways it reported the same items she had read in The Times.

  That Friday the Daily Mercury had its usual complement of death, disaster, failure, petty malice and sex. Willow dropped it fastidiously into the wastepaper basket, as she usually did, and thought of an excuse to telephone Jane Cleverholme.

  When she answered, Willow announced herself, adding:

  ‘I’ve just been reading the Mercury and wondering all over again why on earth you …’


  ‘Don’t say it,’ said Jane bitterly. ‘I know; but it pays well and I still haven’t had the break I need to get out. Never mind that now. How are you, Cressida? Still planning to write your romance-among-the-tabloids book?’

  ‘Well actually,’ said Willow slowly and feeling guilty, ‘I’m not sure that it’s going to work. My agent is a bit doubtful about it and the more I think about it, the more worried I get. I imagine that there’d be even more elephant traps than usual.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Jane briskly.

  ‘Elephant traps,’ Willow repeated in an obliging voice. ‘Oh, you know, Jane, ghastly opportunities for wholly unconscious libel and that sort of thing. And newspapers are so used to being charged enormous sums when they libel people that they might be a bit vindictive. I’m an appalling coward about libel, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So what can I do for you?’

  ‘How shaming that you think I’d only ring you if I wanted something!’ said Willow. ‘But in fact you are right; I wondered whether you knew anything at all about an actress called Claire Ullathorne? She died just over a month ago: suicide, I think.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of her,’ said Jane. ‘Why d’you want to know? A backstage romance?’

  ‘That sort of thing,’ lied Willow calmly. ‘The strains and stresses of that life. You see, I’ve heard that she was reasonably well-off and attractive, and so it seems that she must have killed herself just because of a part she didn’t get. Where could I find out about her?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Jane. ‘I could look through our clippings library if you like; but you’d probably get as much information from the reference books, although they wouldn’t have our inimitable style and gloss.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Willow foreseeing that her self-indulgent day was going to be more taken up with the investigation than she had planned. ‘But what are they? I don’t suppose she’d have made Who’s Who.’