Sour Grapes

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Idiot yourself,’ said Jane sharply enough to arouse all Willow’s old fury at being criticised.

  ‘Come on, Jane, think!’ she said quite sharply. ‘She was the only person other than Andrew who had keys to the car. Didn’t you say that there was no damage to any of the locks or the alarm system when it was found?’

  ‘Well, yes I suppose I did, although—’

  ‘There you are then,’ said Willow, who had had several long briefing telephone calls from Jane about the case after Emma had decided to look into it. ‘And you told me that she said she knew her husband was innocent. The only way she could possibly know that would be if she’d been there when the car crashed.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Come on, Jane, admit it,’ said Willow in a quite different tone. When there was no answer, she added provocatively, ‘You know perfectly well that no one calls me an idiot and gets away alive.’

  ‘I suppose I might be prepared to apologise,’ said Jane through her teeth, ‘and admit that I hadn’t thought it through, but I still don’t believe it. And I don’t think you would if you’d met Jemima Lutterworth and heard her talk. In any case she lives in Berkshire, miles away from both the crash and the place where he’d left the car. Why would she have gone anywhere near it?’

  ‘I can think of several reasons.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, the most obvious would be that she felt neglected.’ Noticing that Jane was no longer anxious to get off the telephone, Willow assumed that it had been her reluctance to talk about Hal Marstall rather than any particularly urgent piece of work that had been making her agitated.

  ‘Look, Jane, if Andrew Lutterworth made a habit of working as late as you said he did every night, don’t you think his wife might have lost her temper and decided to get her own back in some way?’

  ‘By stealing his car? Willow, this is just a novelist’s fantasy. I think you ought to meet her before you get yourself any further down such a blind alley. If you’d ever met her, you’d understand why your suggestion is so unlikely.’

  ‘Perhaps I would. But it’s amazing what even the most apparently sensible people will do when they’re pushed over the edge. I’d have thought a pretty good revenge for a neglected wife would be to take her husband’s cherished car—and I suspect he did cherish it; most men seem to—and trash it. I don’t suppose she planned to kill anyone, but she might well have meant to write off the car.’

  ‘I think it’s pretty far-fetched,’ said Jane. ‘In any case, the police must have checked her out and dismissed her as a suspect.’

  ‘How can you be so sure? Did anyone ever ask them?’

  ‘I don’t know, but she couldn’t have done it, Willow. She’s just not that sort of woman. Take my word for it.’

  Willow laughed. After a moment Jane joined in.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Jane said. ‘I know you’d never take anyone’s word for anything. You’re far too stubborn. Go and see her for yourself, and then you can apologise for doubting my intelligence.’

  ‘Perhaps I should,’ said Willow, thinking what a relief it would be to escape her novel for a while. ‘I must say I should be intrigued to find out what she’s like. And it could be useful to Emma, too; it might even make up for my poor welcome last night. What excuse could I say? May I say I’ve come from your paper?’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t try that. I told you: she hates us, and by extension all other journalists, so don’t pretend to be from any of our rivals either.’

  ‘Pity. So how d’you think I could get in to talk to her without letting her know what we’re up to?’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’ After a moment Jane seemed to think she might have been a little too unhelpful for she added, ‘Although I suppose you might be a student of architecture. You are a bit old for that, of course.’

  ‘Why architecture?’ Willow ignored the comment about her age. Jane was two years older, even though she often pretended otherwise.

  ‘The Lutterworths commissioned a house from an exotic young architect in the early eighties. It’s said to be magnificent, if you like that sort of thing, and it’s figured in lots of mags. Not just the Architectural Review, but lots of general glossies as well. I suspect they get quite a lot of students wanting to see it. Willow, I really do have to go now. They’re banging on my door.’

  ‘OK, Jane. Thanks. I’ll take it from here.’

  ‘And report anything interesting?’

  ‘Sure. ’Bye.’

  Feeling the old tingling excitement at the thought of being on someone’s trail again, Willow left her sticky novel untouched, kissed her sticky daughter goodbye, and told Mrs Rusham that she would be back for lunch at one o’clock. Taking a taxi to an architectural library she had used once or twice in the past she looked up the Lutterworths’house and read everything she could find about it and them.

  The house looked quite as interesting as Jane had suggested, and Willow thought she would enjoy seeing it for itself, as well as for the chance of interviewing its owner. She paid for photocopies of some of the most detailed articles and took them back in time to have shepherd’s pie in the kitchen with Mrs Rusham and Lucinda. When she had put Lucinda in her cot for her afternoon sleep, Willow tried to find the Lutterworths’ number. They were ex-directory.

  ‘Not very surprising,’ muttered Willow and risked Jane’s wrath by ringing her again.

  Her secretary said that she would be incommunicado in meetings for the rest of the day and so Willow had to exercise a mixture of charm and authority to get the secretary, whom she did not know and who seemed never to have heard of her, to rifle Jane’s Rolodex and hand over the Lutterworths’number. After a great deal of exhausting cajolery from Willow, the secretary gave in and produced the number. By then, Willow was feeling some of the impatient rage she thought she had long outgrown and made a serious effort to relax.

  When the Lutterworths’telephone was answered, a cool female voice, which sounded both authoritative and guarded, recited the number.

  ‘Might I speak to Mrs Lutterworth?’ said Willow.

  ‘I am not sure that she’s in. Who is it who wants her?’

  ‘My name is Woodruffe, Cressida Woodruffe. I’m a writer and I’m doing some research for a novel about an architect I’ve been looking up houses that have been commissioned from young architects over the past decade or so and I wondered whether I could speak to Mrs Lutterworth about hers.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And have you found many such houses?’ asked the voice. It sounded slightly less cool and considerably more irritable than before.

  ‘Very few, Mrs Lutterworth,’ said Willow, taking a minute risk. ‘Which is why I should very much like to talk to you.’

  ‘I won’t embarrass you by asking how you got my number, but please don’t think I’m naïve enough to be taken in by this ploy. Goodbye.’

  ‘Please…’ said Willow, but the link between the telephones had been severed. ‘Damn.’

  She swivelled her chair, switched on her word processor and began to rough out ideas for a novel about an architect. It struck her as she was doing it that she was going to an inordinate amount of trouble for something that was none of her business. Emma would probably prove quite capable of finding out anything she needed to know for her thesis, and she was far too generous to demand any kind of reparation for the poor welcome she had got from Willow the previous evening.

  On the other hand, as Willow admitted to herself, she enjoyed investigating crimes just as much as she hated the thought of getting down to serious and frustrating work on her book. She also liked composing synopses. The novels themselves were different. They were hard work and caused innumerable problems as well as a certain amount of anguish, but weaving a brief story around a few, half-sketched characters was one of her greatest pleasures.

  When she was satisfied with what she had done she rang her agent, Evangeline Greville, to brief her, and then wrote to Mrs Lutterworth, reiterating her wish to talk abou
t young architects, enclosing the very short outline and giving Eve’s telephone number.

  There being nothing else she could do, Willow filed the documents and called up her first, pathetic attempt at the work she ought to have been doing all along. She became so absorbed in it that Mrs Rusham had to bang on the door to remind her that it was time for Lucinda’s bath at half past six.

  The following morning Willow’s telephone rang just after eleven. She picked up the receiver, gave her number and heard a familiar cool female voice.

  ‘Ms Woodruffe? This is Jemima Lutterworth. I feel that I ought to apologise for my brusquerie yesterday.’

  ‘Not at all. I was quite able to understand why you might have felt disinclined to believe me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I hadn’t made the connection before, but after we spoke I made some enquiries to find out why you might have been so resistant and I discovered why your name had seemed familiar.’

  ‘I see. What a pity! Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable. I’ve spoken to your agent, who assures me that you genuinely are Cressida Woodruffe, which explains how you got my telephone number, and I wanted to say I was sorry for my bitchy comment about that, too.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Willow suppressing her real surprise. She could not think what the woman could be talking about.

  ‘I was in two minds when I wrote to you all those years ago. I wasn’t sure someone like you would ever read fan mail. And even after I got your charming answer, it never struck me that you’d keep my letter for so long. It must be five years or more. I’m really very touched, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I hang on to all the letters I particularly like,’ said Willow, which was true. ‘Yours was…great.’

  ‘You are kind. As I said then, I’ve loved all your books. I suppose that’s why it seemed so unlikely that you could possibly be ringing me up. D’you still want to see the house?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘When would you like to come?’

  ‘Whenever it would suit you. I’m mobile. I have someone to babysit. I could come straight away or tomorrow or whenever.’

  ‘Then why not come now? I’ve nothing on today. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour and a half at this time of day.’

  ‘That’s very kind. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ Willow replaced the receiver, delighted with the amazing coincidence of having an admirer as her only suspect. She went to look for the letter Mrs Lutterworth said she had once written.

  The few fan letters Willow had received after her first novel came out had been so unexpected and such a pleasure to read that she had kept them all. Since then more people had written with each book that was published, and she did not have enough space to keep them all, but those she did decide she wanted were neatly filed in alphabetical order. It was the work of only a moment to find out whether she still had Jemima’s. She had. At the top of the single sheet of paper was printed the address and telephone number she had spent so long trying to get out of Jane’s secretary.

  Mrs Lutterworth’s letter was very attractive, which explained why Willow must have decided to keep it, and it asked for nothing except to express her admiration of a novel she had read and liked. She had seen in the book some of the things that Willow knew had escaped many of the other people who had read it, and she had taken the trouble to mention them. Willow had not kept a copy of her reply, merely scribbled on the back of the letter, ‘answer sent 3.2.90’, but she was glad that it had been well received. She fetched a copy of her latest novel, which was to be published in three weeks’time, signed it and added Jemima’s name and the date.

  Mrs Rusham said that she was happy to stay with Lucinda until Willow returned, even if that was much later than the usual seven o’clock deadline.

  ‘And if my husband rings, would you say that I’m out but will call him as soon as I get in if he’s going to be in the hotel? If not, could you find out when I can ring him back?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I hope you have a good meeting.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m sure I will. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  Mrs Rusham’s face relaxed infinitesimally. Willow nodded to her and, as she turned to go, happened to see her housekeeper lean forward to take Lucinda out of her high chair. The smile that Mrs Rusham bestowed on the child was quite different from anything she had ever offered Willow: warm, trusting and amused.

  Willow left them together in perfect confidence and drove through the pouring rain towards the M4. The weather cleared as she reached the Wantage exit and she left the motorway to drive towards the Vale of the White Horse. It took her some time to find the Lutterworths’house because the signpost to the nearest village was missing the crucial arm. But she got there in the end and followed a gravelled drive between dense hedges of escalonia, which was just beginning to show the first hint of red in its buds. As she reached the end of the hedges her foot pressed down on the brake pedal before she was even aware that she wanted to stop.

  Having seen all the magazine photographs of the house, Willow ought to have been ready for what faced her, and yet the real thing was so startling that she realised she was not prepared at all. Ahead of her was a building which at first sight looked like a child’s drawing of a horse, but a child who was not quite sure what windows were or where a door should be. The façade consisted of a white rectangle, exactly half as high as it was wide. There was an enormous window off centre, taking up at least half of the ground floor. It had red shutters, which were partly closed. A thick stone staircase led up to a heavy green-stained wooden door just under where the roof should have been visible but was not. There were two other asymmetrically positioned windows, one of which was of clear glass, the other Bristol blue. No drainpipes could be seen and no roof.

  Willow was astonished—and impressed—that the local Planning Committee had given the Lutterworths permission for such an extraordinary building. It was true that it could not be seen from the road, but even so it was a most unlikely house to find in the Berkshire countryside.

  She edged the car into a suitable space at the side of the gravel square in front of the house, collected her bag from the back seat and climbed the vertiginous staircase to the front door. There was a bell there, green-stained like the door itself and almost invisible. She rang it.

  Jemima Lutterworth proved to be much more conventionallooking than her house when she eventually came to the door. About five foot six and probably size fourteen, she was dressed in old jeans, a lavender polo-necked sweater and a very desirable jacket of soft tweed woven in a mixture of blues, greys and beiges. She had a pleasant but by no means startling face and her greying hair was cut in a long bob with a half-fringe. At the sight of Willow, she held out her hand, saying, ‘Do come in. You’ve made good time.’

  Willow went through the heavy green door into the hall, which formed a lightwell for the whole house. Roofed in glass set below the front wall’s parapet, it was floored with pale-grey polished stone, and had matching spiral staircases at each end, reaching down from the gallery where the two women stood. Climbing plants twined up the pillars that supported the gallery and large fruiting trees grew in enormous glazed tubs that were randomly positioned about the hall. The rainwater that had been collected in gutters at the recessed edge of the roof was channelled down special grooves in the walls to fountain down into a series of pools let into the grey floor. The air felt as dizzyingly fresh as that of a flower shop.

  Jemima led the way along the gallery to the further staircase, preceded Willow down it, and opened the door into an almost conventional drawing room, which looked out over the riotous garden beyond it.

  ‘Coffee or a drink or something?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Willow, ‘but please don’t let me stop you.’

  Jemima shook her head and stood waiting for her guest to begin.

  ‘It is the most extraordinary house,’ she said truthfully.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is. I’m so used to it n
ow that it seems quite normal.’

  Willow took a pad and pen out of her bag, leaving the signed book until later.

  ‘Do all the staircases ever get to you?’ she asked. ‘Some of the people I’ve talked to about their architects are full of praise for the look of the buildings they’ve produced but hate the various physical inconveniences.’

  Jemima looked surprised. ‘Do they? How odd. I mean, we saw all the preliminary sketches and discussed everything with Jacob before he even did the final drawings, let alone wrote the spec. or put the job out to tender. We knew there’d be lots of stairs. Of course we don’t use them all the time. When it’s just us, we tend to use the back door, which means that most of the time we’re on one floor and only go upstairs to bed like everyone else. I let you in at the front because I thought you’d like to see the house as Jacob envisaged it.’

  ‘You were right. And I think it’s glorious. What’s behind the blue window at the front?’

  ‘Andrew’s bathroom.’ Jemima did not flinch as she said his name and added casually, ‘Jacob always said that it was essential for marital harmony that husbands and wives had separate bathrooms.’

  ‘And bedrooms?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘And is Jacob married? Or was he when he built the house?’ asked Willow.

  ‘Not then. I believe he is now, but I don’t know whether he shares his bedroom or not.’ With a return of coldness Jemima added, ‘It would be an impertinence to ask.’

  ‘Of course it would,’ agreed Willow quickly.

  She thought she could understand why Jane had been so shaken by her encounter with Jemima. As Jane had said, Jemima was obviously intelligent and quite unhysterical. There was a dignity about her that made curiosity seem vulgarly intrusive but there were other things as well: an air of honesty and a vulnerability, both of which made Willow see exactly why Jane had been so contemptuous of the suggestion that Jemima might have been the guilty driver. Looking at her, listening to her, Willow could not believe it either.