Bloody Roses

by Natasha Cooper

  Richard nodded and his hands went to his collar as though to straighten his tie, but he wasn’t wearing one. Willow remembered all the newspaper accounts she had read of men hanging themselves in prison.

  ‘You must keep yourself together while we search out what really happened that night,’ she said urgently. ‘Emma and Roylandson and I are all working on it. We will get there, but it’s taking time.’

  ‘How is little Emma?’ he asked, his eyes and his voice softening.

  ‘Desperately anxious for you. She’d send her love if she dared.’

  ‘Will you send mine to her?’

  ‘Yes. But will you answer me one more question?’

  Richard straightened his shoulders and controlled his mouth. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what everyone’s told me about Sarah and there seems to be a discrepancy. Her husband suggested that she worked the same sort of appalling hours that you’ve always worked, and yet Jeremy said that one of the reasons why Sarah wasn’t one of the boys was because she refused to work so hard. Could she have had a lover outside the bank, d’you suppose?’

  Richard’s expression sharpened. He looked interested, alert and suddenly hopeful.

  ‘I suppose it’s possible and it’s certainly true that she used to knock off pretty early some evenings. If it is true it could widen the field a bit, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I think it could.’

  ‘She could have asked him to meet her at the bank, knowing that everyone else would be at the dance,’ said Richard. ‘I suppose if she were really besotted, she might even have given him the number of the doors. Willow, you’re brilliant.’

  ‘Don’t get too excited, Richard. It’s only a guess, but I’ll look into it. Now, just one more thing: when you first saw Sarah’s body, where were the roses?’

  ‘Roses? God knows. Why?’

  ‘I know that you were concentrating on her body,’ said Willow, ignoring his question, ‘but it is important.’

  Richard’s eyelids closed and after a while he shook his head.

  ‘I can’t be absolutely certain. I can see them in my mind’s eye all mashed and bloody all over the floor, but whether that was then or while the police were milling about accusing me of things, I don’t know.’

  Willow smiled. ‘So it is just possible that they might have been knocked over while you were wrestling with her body?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’ he said, ‘but I can’t be sure.’ His eyes suddenly sharpened. ‘You mean that if I knocked them over then it could have been their water that got into the keyboard and not the blood at all.’

  ‘Exactly. Obviously some blood got in – everyone could see it – but the damage could have been done by the water.’ There was both triumph and relief in Willow’s smile. ‘And it is only the damage to the computer that gave the police their supposedly accurate time of death.’

  ‘But the difficulty is,’ said Richard sadly, ‘that I can’t swear to spilling the bloody roses.’

  ‘Pity. But if you do remember, will you tell Roylandson?’

  Richard promised and they both stood up. He gripped her hands when she kissed him goodbye and she felt almost like the mother of an eight-year-old prep-school boy leaving him alone at the beginning of his first term.

  ‘Richard, I …’ she began and then stopped.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You want to take me out of here. But I know that you’re doing all anyone could and, believe me, I’m grateful.’

  ‘Good. You will –’

  ‘I’ll keep myself together,’ he said, ‘and now you’d better whizz off while my upper lip is still reasonably stiff. Be careful, won’t you? I mean, be careful of Beeking.’

  Willow nodded and went to knock on the heavy door. The warder let her out and, mindful of the upper lip, she left without looking back at Richard again.

  She felt too worn out to tackle Beeking then, so she took a taxi straight back to her flat and salved her conscience by fetching the sheaf of horrible photographs of Sarah’s corpse. Taking a powerful magnifying glass, Willow studied each one in an attempt to find something that would help. The minuteness of her search took some of her attention away from the horror, but more than enough remained to make her feel as though her mind and her stomach were being forced through some disgusting churning process.

  Eventually, when she could not bear it any longer, she went to the kitchen to report to Mrs Rusham that Richard was delighted with the hampers she was sending to the prison.

  To her astonishment, there were tears in the housekeeper’s fierce eyes. Willow decided to forgive her for her alliance with Emma Gnatche.

  ‘How is he?’ asked the housekeeper.

  ‘Not too bad considering his anxieties and the fact that he’s in prison. He’s stopped panicking and he looks quite healthy again.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Mrs Rusham murmured and then added with remarkable viciousness: ‘I’d like to flog whoever’s done this to him.’

  ‘What about some tea?’ asked Willow, unable to cope with the power of her housekeeper’s emotions.

  Mrs Rusham recovered herself and promised to bring a tray to the drawing room. ‘I’ve put your post in there already.’

  Willow went to slip out of her shoes and lie full-length along one of the sofas with the pile of letters beside her. There was one from Eve Greville saving that Cressida’s various publishers had all expressed modified rapture about the dressmaker’s romance, though the Americans had pleaded for the heroic young doctor to be doing some kind of relief work in Central or South America. The letter ended:

  It is really important that you deliver on time: not simply for contractual reasons but so that the book does not miss the Christmas market next year. You’ve built up your success steadily and part of the reason has been your steadfast production of a book a year. If your publishers don’t think they are going to get next year’s book in time they’ll be reluctant to give you the full treatment this autumn. Their plans for Simon’s Simples are lavish and there are only six weeks until publication. Don’t risk it!

  Willow shrugged and tossed the letter on to the floor as the first in the heap for filing. She knew that Eve was right, and she would be furious if her publishers did not market her new book properly, but until Richard was free she could not concentrate on anything else. The next letter she picked up was from her accountant and it brought her off the sofa at once.

  Cursing herself for forgetting to pursue the few facts she had of Sarah Allfarthing’s last few weeks. Willow was about to telephone her accountant to ask him about the fraud story Sarah had told Richard’s American clients with such disastrous consequences when Mrs Rusham brought in the tea tray. Postponing her enquiries for a while, Willow returned to her sofa for tea and crustless tomato-and-basil sandwiches. As she ate and drank, she opened the rest of her post.

  None of it was particularly interesting – a mixture of bills, requests for details of her life and work for various international directories of writers, and a few fan letters – but the sandwiches were wonderful. At the bottom of the pile of letters was a plastic-wrapped catalogue of ingenious machines and bits and pieces. She had once ordered a tiny vacuum cleaner for the keyboard of her word processor from one such catalogue and ever since had been bombarded with them.

  They had lost their early charm for her but even so she flicked through the pages while she drank her second cup of tea, wondering whether she could possibly need sixty paintbrushes or even a karaoke set. Deciding that she did not, she turned the page and came upon the description of a mackintosh made of thin plastic that could be wrapped up into a packet six inches by four. Staring down at it, she thought to herself: so that is how a shortish man or woman could prevent the spurting blood from Sarah’s cut throat from marking his or her clothes. If one of the men from Stedington’s meeting had had such a mackintosh then he might have been able to leave the meeting, kill her and return with no sign of blood about him.

  Rememb
ering her promise to give Emma Gnatche something useful to do. Willow finished her tea and went to sit at the mahogany Pembroke table in the window. She telephoned her accountant first and after some persuasion made him agree to investigate Sarah Allfarthing’s fraud story and discover whether it had any factual basis at all. When he had made her agree in turn to check her annual accounts and return them quickly, Willow rang off and tapped in the number of Emma Gnatche’s small Kensington house.

  Emma sounded delighted to be asked to do anything and at once agreed to get hold of one of the foldable mackintoshes so that they could experiment with it.

  ‘I’ll bring it round as soon as I’ve got it,’ she said. ‘How was Richard when you saw him? Mrs R. said you’d be going this afternoon.’

  ‘He was much better,’ said Willow, adding: ‘And he asked me to send you his love. I’ll tell you all the news when we meet. Goodbye.’

  ‘Bye, Cressida. Thank you.’

  Willow replaced the receiver and got up, but the thought of Tom kept her standing with one hand on the telephone. She did not like interrupting him at work unless she had no choice, but at last the memory of the agonized night she had spent alone in the flat sapped her willpower and she tapped in the number of his office. She soon discovered that he was not at his desk and when she tried to ring his flat she heard only his recorded voice.

  ‘Well,’ said Willow, staring at the unresponsive telephone, ‘I suppose he’s left me with my pride intact.’

  It was cold comfort.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Willow had a better night’s sleep, disturbed by nothing worse than anxiety dreams, and woke soon after six o’clock to mull over her long talk with Richard. It was clear that she ought to tackle William Beeking as soon as possible. Knowing from Tracy that he usually ate his breakfast in the bank’s canteen, Willow decided to join him there. She did not want to be alone with him in case Richard’s reluctant suspicions were correct, but the canteen seemed likely to be safe.

  She left a note for Mrs Rusham, left the flat at five past seven and made her way to the bank. Even at that early hour the underground was full and as stuffy as an unventilated basement laundry. Eventually the train stopped at Monument and she got out with hordes of others.

  Bert greeted her at the door of the bank with a cheery wave that made her feel almost at home there. She took the lift up to the canteen on the fourteenth floor and was agreeably surprised to find a civilized dining room with the same spectacular views down to the river that she had seen from the chief executive’s office. The word ‘canteen’ had always conjured up a picture of rickety card tables set up in a village hall, but the bank’s was different.

  White-clothed tables for four were ranged around the three glass walls, while bigger round tables stood in the middle of the room. There was a tactful amount of space between each of the tables and plenty of evergreen plants to break up the room and provide a sensation of privacy. A long serving counter filled the fourth wall, and waitresses bustled among the tables removing debris and replacing the tablecloths and napkins.

  Willow collected a tray and chose a modest breakfast of fruit, coffee and rolls from the wide selection, paid and turned with the tray in her hands to see if there were any sign of Mr Beeking. She found him quite quickly, reading his Financial Times and tucking into bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and kidneys. She walked slowly over to his table and said:

  ‘Would you mind awfully if I joined you? I hate eating alone or with complete strangers.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, politely folding up his newspaper.

  Willow set down her tray and murmured: ‘Do please go on with the paper. I never meant to disturb you.’

  Beeking smiled. He had a pleasantly tanned face with a rounded chin and grey-green eyes. His blond hair was thick and lay in fat waves over his head. She had accepted the general view that Sarah had disliked his attentions, but it occurred to Willow as she watched him rearranging his crockery to accommodate hers that he did have charm. It was even possible that Sarah might have enjoyed his company: unlikely but possible.

  ‘Actually,’ said Beeking, ‘I’m rather glad of the opportunity of having a discreet word with you out of the department.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I don’t know how much weight your report is going to carry, but I do think that one of the most crucial areas of training is that of the support staff.’

  ‘Oh, I quite agree,’ said Willow, smiling encouragingly at him as she began to spoon up her grapefruit. His voice did not quite fit the boyishness of his looks. There was a slightly resentful edge to it that grated on Willow’s ear.

  ‘Our secretaries – even the relatively efficient ones like Maggie Blake – are poor at managing their time and distinguishing between the relative urgency of the tasks in front of them.’

  ‘I see,’ said Willow a little coldly. ‘I thought you meant training them so that they could take on more of an executive role.’

  ‘What? Heavens above! That sort of thing doesn’t happen in banking. They wouldn’t want it in any case. They’re Essex girls, after all.’ He plunged his fork into a plump kidney at the edge of his plate and the blood from its pink interior spurted up through the holes he had made and out on to the glistening yolk of his fried egg. Suddenly queasy, Willow looked away.

  ‘I gather that Tracy is leaving,’ she said in order to keep the conversation open.

  ‘Ah, yes. But that’s because … that was engineered.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘She used to do most of her work for a colleague … er, Sarah Allfarthing.’ He looked across the table to Willow with a questioning expression.

  She thought of looking surprised but realized in time that ignorance would not be at all convincing. Beeking must have known that his colleagues would have been passing on gossip about the dead woman and, besides, there had been reports of Sarah’s death in all the newspapers.

  ‘Yes, I have heard what happened to her,’ said Willow. ‘I understand that you and she were particularly close friends. I’m so sorry.’

  His blond head drooped over his breakfast for a moment but then he looked up with what seemed to be a consciously brave smile.

  ‘I tried to shield her a bit; that’s all. Whatever you may have heard.’

  ‘Shield her?’ Willow put down her spoon and pushed aside the empty grapefruit skin. It was interesting that all the men who were reputed to have loved Sarah Allfarthing were trying to play down their feelings. ‘Shield her from what?’

  ‘I don’t know how much you’ve heard about the way she was treated here,’ Beeking began. Willow wished that she had a portable and concealable lie detector so that she could distinguish between the contradictory stories to which she had to listen each day.

  ‘I’ve heard that she was much liked – and successful.’

  ‘But at a terrible cost to herself,’ said Beeking. He pushed his fork into the yolk of the egg and it collapsed to mingle with the spilled blood from the kidney. As Willow watched him, she saw the corners of his mouth turn down. He swallowed, looked away and signalled to one of the waitresses.

  ‘Could you take this away?’ he asked when she arrived.

  ‘Yes, of course. Aren’t you well, Mr Beeking?’ she asked in a soft Southern Irish accent. ‘Or was there something wrong with your breakfast?’

  ‘I’m fine, Maeve,’ he said with another brave smile. ‘Just not very hungry today.’

  When she had gone he turned back to Willow.

  ‘She’s very sweet but a little oppressive in her concern. She monitors my eating habits and tells me when I look tired. Touching though it is, it can become wearing.’

  ‘She seems to know you well.’

  He shrugged. ‘I come in here for breakfast most days.’

  ‘You were telling me about Mrs Allfarthing,’ said Willow as she noticed that he had been distracted by the kindly waitress. He stopped staring after her and turned back to Willow. ‘You said that he
r success was achieved only with difficulty.’

  ‘Well, she was a woman in a man’s world. She had to suppress all her natural inclinations towards gentleness and quietness – and she hated it.’

  There were few things that made Willow angrier than the assumption that women were born patient and gentle and self-denying. She wanted to give Beeking a short lecture on gender and sexism, but since it was important to keep him on her side she confined herself to a simple question.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘You could see it,’ he said with a pitying smile. ‘Watching her in meetings and around the office, I could always see when she was trying to screw herself up to be tough. She found all direct confrontation difficult and would much rather use her wits to avoid it. I used to see her sometimes literally shaking after she’d had to talk to difficult clients on the telephone. The others never noticed. They were completely taken in by her patina of confidence.’

  ‘You clearly knew her well.’ Willow poured herself a cup of coffee and buttered one of her rolls.

  ‘Yes,’ said Beeking quietly. ‘I think I knew her better than anyone else here.’

  ‘That sounds almost as though you must know who killed her,’ said Willow without thinking.

  Beeking looked at her as though she were demented. ‘Everyone knows. The man has been arrested.’

  Willow shrugged and managed to look disinterested. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’d heard that one or two people don’t believe he could have done it.’

  ‘You shouldn’t listen to uninformed gossip. I’m perfectly certain that he did. If only …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If only I’d waited for her that night,’ he said. For the first time since they had been talking he looked genuinely distressed. ‘I’d asked her if I couldn’t take her to the dance as soon as I could get out of a meeting I had to attend, but she said she had something important to ask Richard and would wait for him.’

  Shocked, Willow just stared at Beeking. He seemed puzzled, but after a moment his eyes cleared.