‘Certainly, Miss Woodruffe,’ said Mrs Rusham, not even sounding surprised. Willow whisked herself out of the flat, into a taxi and round to St James’s Square. She asked the taxi to wait while she went into the library to collect her book, and then made him drive her home.
Mrs Rusham told her that the only telephone call had been from her editor. Willow thanked her and then went to telephone her publishers. Having dealt with a few small questions on the typescript, the editor then asked Willow how her new book was going.
‘I’ve hardly done anything yet,’ said Willow. ‘I need to let it come to me rather than try to force it.’
‘Good idea,’ said Susan Walker. ‘You probably need a bit of a rest, too. What about a holiday?’
‘I don’t much like them,’ said Willow with a smile in her voice. Having no ‘Cressida Woodruffe’ passport, she could hardly go abroad with any of the luxury she could have afforded and so preferred to stay in England. ‘But I’ve been going out and about a bit,’ she said, anxious not to let Susan feel sorry for her. ‘I met a delightful writer the other day: Ben Jonson. Do you know him?’
There was a short silence at the other end of the line and then Susan said:
‘No, but I’ve heard that he can be difficult.’
Remembering Ben’s own account of his anger with an intrusive and insensitive editor, Willow said:
‘No need to find a man’s valet for a true character assessment – just ask his editor.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Susan with a rueful laugh. ‘The nicest people turn out to be dragons in defence of their writing. Anthony Williams has just joined us from Manx and Herman; and he was regaling us with some of the habits of the literati the other day. He used to work with Ben Jonson and had quite a rough time.’
‘How odd. He seemed so gentle,’ said Willow. ‘What are the books like?’
‘Never read them,’ said Susan. ‘But they’re said to be very well written. Anthony was full of admiration for the books. Look, Cressida, I’ve got to go. We’ve got that wretched weekly meeting. Let’s have lunch soon. May I ring you?’
‘Please do,’ said Willow and then settled down to read her account of the plant poisons of the world. The book she had just collected was very different from the learned if old-fashioned tome she had already pored over, although it dealt with most of the same poisons. The modern author appeared to have tried small doses of many of them and could describe his symptoms in graphic and often horrifying detail. He also added one or two intriguing snippets of information, such as the fact that various species were immune to poisons that could kill a human: rabbits, snails, slugs, blackbirds and monkeys, for example, could eat quantities of deadly nightshade without ill effects and there was even one beetle, Halca atropa, that lived solely on its leaves.
By the time Andrew Salcott did telephone Willow, she was deep in the mysteries of poisons, having learned among other wierdly fascinating things that carrot is fatal to white mice, but as soon as he gave her his name, her mind switched straight back to what she needed to know.
‘I’m doing some research for my next book,’ she said, blessing that all-embracing cover story, ‘and I wondered whether I could possibly buy you a drink or a meal and pick your medical brains.’
‘What a splendid idea!’ he said. ‘My wife’s about to take the children back to school and going on to stay with a … a friend for a week in Shropshire. Why don’t we have dinner one night next week?’
‘How very nice,’ said Willow. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘For nothing,’ said Salcott. ‘You were so good to me on that train I’d planned to ring you up anyway. You just got in ahead of me. We’ll have a splendid dinner and you can ask me anything you want.’
‘You are kind,’ she said with a coo in her voice. ‘Might I ask you something now that hasn’t anything to do with my book? It’s a rather odd question.’ There was a moment’s thoughtful pause before Salcott answered:
‘You can certainly ask. Whether I can tell or not is another matter.’
‘Thank you. It’s nothing medical or confidential. Do you remember a scandal at Hampshire Place? I suspect that it may have happened while you were at Michaelson’s.’
‘When one of the girls got pregnant?’ said Salcott, with a laugh in his rollicking voice. ‘Of course I remember, but why on earth do you want to know about that?’
‘It’s a rather private matter,’ said Willow feebly. ‘I’m afraid of making unintentional mischief with a … a friend of mine through ignorance. I’m awfully anxious to know who the father was.’
‘Ummm,’ he said, stalling as she had feared he might.
‘I gathered, you see,’ said Willow as carefully as she could, ‘that it was either poor Dr Bruterley or … well, someone else, if you see what I mean.’ There was such a long silence that she eventually added, ‘are you still there?’
‘I don’t see what you mean at all,’ he said, sounding almost angry. ‘Are you pumping me for information to feed to those disgusting newspapers? I really do think that poor Miranda has had enough to put up with, without ancient scandals …’
‘Good heavens no!’ said Willow loudly enough to stop the flow. ‘Can you really think that of me?’ She put a lot of injury into her voice.
‘No. I’m sorry,’ said Salcott abruptly. ‘If it’ll stop any kind of mischief I suppose I ought to agree that it might have been Jim. Probably was, in fact. Does it matter?’
‘Not if it was him,’ said Willow reassuringly. ‘I’d heard … well, that … never mind. If it was Bruterley then I can forget it. Who was the girl?’
‘Sarah something,’ said Andrew Salcott so readily and with such a kindly note in his deep voice that Willow thought he must have interpreted her incoherent, meaningless words as uncertainty about some man in whom she was romantically interested.
‘Not Caroline Titchmell?’ she said, just to make sure. There was a gale of laughter at the other end of the telephone.
‘Spotty Little Titch? Good heavens, no!’ said Salcott, obviously quite happy now that he was no longer worried about a scandal involving his old friend. ‘I’d have remembered that. And if it had been her the father certainly wouldn’t have been old Jim. He could have had his pick of them all – and probably did – and he wasn’t the least interested in Titchmell. He always liked them tall and thin. No, this was a leggy creature with wild blond hair called Sarah. I honestly can’t remember her surname. What’s Titchmell doing now? I haven’t thought of her or heard her name for years.’
‘I have no idea,’ said Willow, lying without compunction. ‘So, she never had any kind of fling with Dr Bruterley.’
‘Absolutely not! I say, I must go now. But let’s make a date for next week. Monday? It’s my first night of freedom.’
‘Monday would be fine,’ said Willow. They agreed to meet at a restaurant in Chelsea, where she had never eaten. She said goodbye and put down the telephone, feeling happier than she had for some days. Her investigation had progressed to the extent that she could banish her unrealistic suspicions of Caroline Titchmell. With a source of information about Bruterley all ready to talk to her, Willow had plenty to do.
She went back to her synopsis, determined to polish it off before she talked to Andrew Salcott, so that she could free her mind for her inquisition. She had completed the notes for two chapters before she thought of the woman who had been thought to be blackmailing Dr Bruterley. Had her name been Sarah? Willow could not remember whether the Daily Mercury had gone so far as to put a name to the ‘disturbed’patient, but into her novelist’s brain flashed a complete synopsis for a novel – or a crime.
If leggy, blond Sarah had been made pregnant at school by Bruterley, she would presumably have come under the untender care of the matron who had been so unsympathetic to Caroline Titchmell. That matron was Miss Fernside. An unsympathetic, unimaginative matron of the old school – probably a virgin herself – might well have caused a pregnant schoolgirl terrible unh
appiness. And perhaps, terrified of having the child and ruining her life, she had in the holidays gone to see an old girl of the school, known to have had an abortion. That could have been the actress Claire Ullathorne, who might have recommended an abortionist.
Working back, using the known ages of the people involved, Willow decided that the pregnancy scandal must have happened some time between 1972 and 1977. She grinned at herself suddenly, having forgotten how old she was; her imagination had been suggesting some pre-Abortion Act, backstreet practitioner. Nevertheless, it was possible that something had gone wrong with Sarah’s operation for which she had blamed the matron, the actress and the father of her unborn child. Perhaps she had buried the hurt and anger at the time and they had resurfaced only when Bruterley once again led her into a sexual relationship and rejected her.
The only trouble with that unhappy but forensically promising scenario was that Willow could not imagine how Simon Titchmell and his girlfriend might have played parts in it.
After lunch she accepted a cup of espresso coffee from her housekeeper and said:
‘By the way, Mrs Rusham, what happens to the newspapers I leave on the breakfast table?’
‘I take them to the recycling bins near my home on Monday evenings,’ answered the housekeeper, looking rather affronted. ‘Have you some objection?’
‘Good heavens no!’ said Willow. ‘I’m impressed by your concern for ecology. I’d just hoped that last Thursday’s Mercury might still be readable.’
‘I’m afraid not. If you wish me to keep the papers in future …’
‘No. No, thank you, Mrs Rusham,’ said Willow with a polite smile. She carried her coffee into the drawing room, silently cursing the housekeeper’s efficiency. In her small irritation, the bleakness of the room annoyed her and, forgetting both coffee and investigation for the moment, she opened one of the drawers in the Pembroke table that carried the telephone and took out her paint and fabric samples.
Having held them up against the walls and squinted at them through ninety-per-cent closed eyelids, she confirmed the tentative choice she had made the week before and telephoned the interior decorator who had organised the original decoration of the flat.
He sounded delighted to take on the chore of finding decorators and upholsterers to tackle the work, and asked whether ‘Cressida’ wanted him to select paintings and furniture to substitute for the irreplaceable things she had lost.
‘No, don’t worry about that, Martin,’ Willow said. ‘I’ll gradually find them myself. Of course, if you happen to see anything nice you could let me know about it … but I rather enjoy the final choosing and buying myself.’
‘That’s understandable,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to live surrounded by furniture chosen by someone else, but you’d be amazed by how many people do.’
‘Perhaps your other clients are lazier than I,’ said Willow, amused as she always was by the foibles and absurdities of the very rich and thinking ‘good copy’.
‘Actually, my dear,’ said Martin, exaggerating his languid voice, ‘I think a lot of them are just rather unsure about their taste.’
‘Oh, bitchy, bitchy, Martin,’ said Willow, even more amused. ‘Well, I like mine and so I’ve chosen the colours and the fabrics. Would you like me to send them?’
‘Why don’t I come round and pick them up. It would be lovely to see you, and …’
‘And you could just check on my taste and send me a big bill for your professional time?’ said Willow, sounding to her slight dismay more like the Civil Servant than the rich novelist.
‘Bitchy yourself,’ said Martin, but he was laughing. ‘All right, send them. I’ve got all the old measurements on file and so I can put in the orders without coming to measure up. But the cutters will have to cut the covers on site, you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Willow. ‘But you could fix that with Mrs Rusham for any time on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday,’ she went on. ‘I’m out all those days and so it won’t hurt me.’
‘And the decorating? Do you expect me to have that done within three days?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, sounding like Lady Bracknell. ‘And don’t tell me it’s not possible. The panelling is in very good condition, so all they’ll have to do is wash it down and then apply three coats of paint.’
‘There’s always the ceiling and the woodwork, dear,’ said Martin. ‘But I suppose I could arrange it so that they work three days one week and three days the next if you insist.’
‘You are a little treasure,’ Willow informed him. ‘And I’ll pay your bill with exemplary promptitude. It should be quite nice for you, because the chintz I’ve chosen is ludicrously expensive. Your thirty-three per cent – or however big the commission is nowadays – will come to quite a lot. Let Mrs Rusham know when you need access to the flat.’
‘I will. Thank you for the order; I may say, in spite of your rather – shall we say acerbic? – attitude, you are one of my easier clients,’ said Martin. ‘Goodbye.’
Feeling refreshed by the interchange, Willow drank her cold coffee, shuddering from the strength of it, and then dialled the number of the Daily Mercury.
‘Jane Cleverholme, please,’ she said, and then a moment later: ‘Jane? Good. Cressida Woodruffe here. Thank you for those cuttings. I’m afraid that I need to pick your brains again.’
‘I think I still owe you, Cressida, for your discretion last year after I’d spilled the beans about my boss’s wife,’ said Jane. ‘What can I do for you?’ Willow could hear the millions of cigarettes she must have smoked in the huskiness of her voice.
‘Mrs Rusham has thrown out my last week’s Mercuries,’ she said, ‘and I’ve forgotten the details of the disgruntled mistress of the glamorous murdered doctor. D’you remember the piece?’
‘Cheltenham, wasn’t it? Yes I remember. But why do you want to know?’ The suspicion was even clearer in Jane’s voice than the cigarettes.
‘You’ve never quite dropped the idea that I might be freelancing for a rival gossip column, have you?’ Willow said. ‘But I promise that I am not. Did you read anything anywhere after our last discussion? No, you did not. I just need to know, and I’m too discreet to tell you why.’
‘Will you promise that when discretion is no longer necessary you’ll tell me all?’ Jane asked. ‘And give me the story a micro-second before everyone else?’
‘Yes, I promise that,’ said Willow when she had had time to think it over. Then she spelled out her promise: ‘When discretion is no longer needed, I’ll tell you before any other journalist has had a chance.’
‘Good. I’ll go and look up the story. Do you want to hang on or shall I ring you back?’
‘I’ll hang on,’ said Willow, who was long past the stage of minding how high her telephone bill was in Chesham Place. Her Abbeville Road telephone was quite another matter, of course, and if it rose above her budgeted maximum she was seriously displeased.
‘It’s not surprising you didn’t remember much,’ said Jane. ‘We hardly printed any of it. Damned lawyers, you know. All we said was that she was blond, a former mental patient, beautiful and unhappy.’
‘Leaving your charming readers to fill in the gaps: ex-mental patient equals mad equals homicidal; blond and beautiful equals promiscuous and so on. Tell me what you didn’t put in the article.’
‘Come on, Cressida,’ said Jane crossly. ‘That’s more than my job’s worth. Haven’t you heard of slander? It’s just as bad as libel …’
‘But less easy to prove. Don’t tell me your telephone calls are all taped?’ said Willow.
‘I wouldn’t put it past my paranoid chief, the famous Gripper-the-pig. Oh Lord! Well, if he’s listening to all our conversations, he’ll have known long ago that we all loathe him. Got that?’ she called in a different voice. Reverting to her normal tones, she went on: ‘You could always ask specific questions and I’ll see whether I can answer them.’
Willow felt once again the bitter envy the amateur feel
s of her professional counterpart. Unlike the police, Willow would never be in a position to subpoena anyone or demand their files or make them give her a signed statement.
‘Is her name Sarah?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is her surname?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Blast!’ said Willow with un-Cressida-like primness. ‘Has she ever had an abortion?’
‘No record here.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Cheltenham,’ said Jane, sounding happy to be able to give her friend something.
‘I know that, you idiot. Where in Cheltenham?’
‘Honestly, Cressida, I cannot tell you things like that.’
‘All right. Is there anything you can tell me?’ asked Willow, burying her irritation because she thought she could hear real sympathy in Jane’s smokey voice.
‘Nothing else, I’m afraid. Sorry. Oh well, perhaps it would be OK to let you know that we can’t find her. She seems to have done a bunk. The police are probably looking for her and we certainly are. But that really is all.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll get it somewhere else. Thanks, Jane. I’ll see you soon, I hope,’ said Willow. They said goodbye to each other and Willow was left with an ever-growing bundle of loose ideas in her mind and a sense of horrible frustration. She decided to walk it off and went to change out of her soft black suede shoes into something more suitable for out of doors.
It was a short walk through Lowndes Square and across Knightsbridge into Hyde Park, and Willow was soon picking her way across the grass towards the Serpentine. The grass was almost dry, but still freshly green, and the trees were much further advanced than she had realised from her forays among London’s streets. The horse-chestnuts already had their soft cones of white flowers out among the leaves, but other trees showed only a fuzz of greenness among their still-sharp black branches.
As she circled the ornamental lake, Willow was surprised to see that there were still uniformed nannies pushing waist-high, swan-necked, prams in glossy dark-blue or black. One passed her and she noticed a pristine broderie anglaise canopy attached to the pram to shield the baby from the sun. The whole equipage looked as archaic as those house-party photographs from the Indian summer before the First World War. Willow looked away and was relieved to see a far more familiar group of children on bicycles and skate-boards, shepherded along by two nannies of the new school, who were dressed in skin-tight leggings and sweatshirts and had pink flashes dyed into their spikey hair and heavy black makeup around their eyes.
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