Bitter Herbs

by Natasha Cooper

  Her face had grown animated as she talked and she had begun to look alert and intelligent.

  ‘Did you suffer from that over Gloria’s books?’ Willow asked.

  ‘Not exactly. Everyone knew how much I hated them. But I did try to duck her telephone calls – with disastrous results.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I could never get any work done with her ringing up to complain twice a day or ask for the latest sales figures, but she soon wised up to what I was doing and demanded that I give her my home number.’

  ‘You didn’t, surely, do that?’ said Willow.

  ‘Well, she asked me point-blank if I was refusing to give it to her, and I simply couldn’t say “yes”. I thought of lying and giving her someone else’s, but I realised it would just get worse and worse, so I did.’

  ‘And did she ring you often at home?’

  Just then the waitress came to take away their salad plates and return with the lobster, succulent pink-and-white slices lying in a pool of orange-yellow sauce, like a particularly luscious sunrise.

  ‘God yes!’ Victoria seemed unaware of the sensory delights of the food that had just been put in front of her. ‘She sometimes rang at half-past six in the morning, because I’d got into the habit of leaving the phone ringing while I had breakfast, knowing it was probably her. She just took to ringing earlier and earlier each time.’

  ‘That must have been difficult,’ said Willow, looking at the other woman with both sympathy and a wild surmise. She mocked herself out of it at once. No one would commit a murder merely to stop early-morning nuisance calls. ‘Couldn’t you have stood up to her?’

  Victoria looked at her with a horrible mixture of shame and resentment in her grey eyes. After a while she shook her head.

  ‘No, it seems I couldn’t. And I got so tired.’

  ‘I can imagine, but at least you can sleep in peace now.’ Willow ate the first bite of her lobster and sat for a moment with all thought suspended, simply tasting and feeling.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll probably lose my job,’ said Victoria with what Willow knew to be unwarranted pessimism.

  She took a mouthful of food and quickly swallowed it without apparently chewing or tasting any of it. Willow thought that she might just as well have been Eeyore miserably eating thistles, and had to suppress a smile.

  ‘Why’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘The only reason I was ever promoted was because Gloria insisted on having a senior commissioning editor in charge of her books. Ann and the others still treat me as a line editor. They’ve been longing to keep me out of the editorial meetings ever since I started going to them. None of the other editors share my taste in novels and Ann never lets me commission the non-fiction titles I want. They can’t demote me, so they’ll probably sack me. And it’s impossible to get publishing jobs these days. There are literally hundreds of experienced editors out of work.’

  Beginning to feel impatient with such a deluge of gloom, Willow had to admit to herself that Victoria was both intelligent and quite realistic about her position and abilities. Ann was right: her judgement was clearly sound despite her lack of confidence. Willow quickly ate some of the vegetables from a plate at her side and tried to help her towards a little optimism.

  ‘Well, perhaps you’ll suddenly find a wonderful new author who will save the firm in the way that Gloria once did,’ she said.

  For once Victoria looked positively superior and completely sure of herself.

  ‘You must be joking! For one thing no important agent is going to send me any decent stuff, because they all want Ann to handle it. Obviously her authors get bigger advances and bigger publicity budgets than any of ours, and so I only get offered dross that’s been turned down by everyone else in London.’

  ‘Perhaps if you cultivated some of the agents a bit, they’d send you better things. What about mine?’

  ‘Eve Greville wouldn’t send me anything she thought remotely publishable. And she’s right, because if she ever did send me something, when I came to present it to the editorial meeting the others would all spit on it just because it is mine.’

  Remembering Ann’s saying that Victoria could never defend her own judgement, Willow tried once more to encourage her.

  ‘Couldn’t you persuade them? Explain to them why you’re so keen on the book? In the civil service I quickly discovered that having the right ideas is less than half the battle: persuading colleagues to accept them is far more important.’

  ‘All my colleagues despise my judgement, even though I’m usually proved right in the end. Then I remind them. But they hardly ever admit it.’

  ‘But don’t you try to persuade them in the beginning?’

  After a moment’s thought, Victoria said, sounding a little surprised:

  ‘I don’t suppose I do. I tell them what the book’s about and why I think it’s good and then if they’re stupid enough not to see why we ought to buy it, it’s their fault Not that it happens often. Most of the books I get offered are such utter crap that I know why everyone else has turned them down.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s easier blaming your colleagues’poor judgement than fighting for your own?’ suggested Willow, seeing why Ann found her subordinate so difficult to like. The long face tightened. Victoria finished her lobster and sat in obstructive silence.

  ‘But none of that is really what I need to know,’ said Willow with a smile, still wanting to show Victoria that she was contributing to her own miserable position in the pecking order and to offer her a way of improving it. ‘Tell me about Gloria – not about her impossibleness, but about her character and her life. Do you know anything about her past?’

  ‘Not much, but there was a story she used to tell to writers’ groups and sales conferences and things, which went as follows: life at home was very bleak; no one understood her; her only pleasures were found in imaginary friendships with fictional characters in books she read; they were often unsatisfactory in one way or another and so she set about creating her own. It does make sense of a sort. First within the books and then in the life they bought for her she could be queen of all she surveyed.’

  Willow nodded.

  ‘Yes, that does make sense. I see that Ann is right about your good judgement.’

  A doubting smile improved Victoria’s face.

  ‘Did she really say that? Ann Slinter? About me?’

  ‘Yes. You see, Victoria, people do have more esteem for you than you seem to have for yourself. I think you need to work on that for a bit.’

  There was silence as Victoria obviously battled with her dislike even of such tactful, well-meant criticism. Willow, who had her own similar loathing, felt profoundly grateful that her imagination had saved her from wallowing in a morass of pessimism and resentment like Victoria’s.

  As they left the restaurant, Willow said:

  ‘Have you far to go? Would you like to share a taxi?’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I get the train from Euston. I can easily take the tube there from Leicester Square.’

  ‘That’s quite a hike from here. I’ll take you in my cab.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I like to walk.’

  ‘Even in the dark with all the muggers around?’ Willow was surprised; physical courage did not seem to fit in with her picture of Victoria.

  ‘I’ll be all right, really,’ she said with one of her best smiles. ‘I don’t think that muggers frequent my route and no one’s ever molested me yet and I do have one of those shrieky alarms and …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And apparently they frighten both two-and four-legged predators. It’s the dogs that make me most afraid.’

  ‘I don’t altogether blame you,’ said Willow, watching an unleashed bull terrier walking demurely at the side of its owner.

  ‘Don’t they look cuddly?’ said Victoria, shuddering.

  ‘Not to me.’

  Victoria thanked Willow for the dinner, adding:

  ‘You’ve been very kin
d to me. I’d really love to work on one of your books, but I don’t suppose Ann would ever let me.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with her,’ promised Willow, thinking that Victoria would probably find something to dislike about her and her books pretty quickly. ‘Perhaps you could edit the memoir.’

  Chapter Seven

  When Willow got home that evening, depressed and irritable, she saw that there were four messages on her answering machine. Dropping her coat on one of the cream sofas, she pressed the replay button and listened.

  ‘Willow? This is Eve. What’s this Ann’s just told me about your altering the length of the Gloria piece? We need to talk. Ring me first thing in the morning.’

  Feeling rebellious, Willow made a note and then listened to a more hesitant voice:

  ‘Oh, er, hello. This is Marilyn Posselthwate. We met when you came to talk to me about my aunt. I’ve been wondering … That is, would you like to come to her funeral? Her executor is back and has phoned me to explain all the things we’ve got to do for it. There’s so much to be arranged that we can’t have it until Friday.’

  The contrast between that voice and the next was enough to bring a slight smile to Willow’s tight face as she listened to Tom.

  ‘Will, me here. Sorry for behaving like a bear. We still haven’t enough for an arrest and I’ll be working late tonight. But do ring me if you feel like it. Only if you want of course. I should be home by tenish.’

  The last message made her smile widen.

  ‘Willow? It’s Richard Crescent. I haven’t seen you for ages. What about dinner? Or that lovely play everyone talks about with a woman musing about her past in a convent? Or a nice violent film? Whatever. It would be great to see you.’

  Ignoring Eve, because of the time, and the two men, Willow rang Marilyn Posselthwate.

  ‘It’s really kind of you to invite me to the funeral,’ Willow said after she had introduced herself, ‘but are you sure you want a stranger?’

  ‘You’re hardly that. After all Aunt Ethel’s publishers want you to write about her and so it seems like a good idea. I’ve been phoning quite a lot of people to sort of make it worth doing all the things Aunt Ethel wanted. Quite a few have said they’ll come, even Samantha Hooper.’

  Willow smiled at the awe in Marilyn’s voice.

  ‘I’d heard she once worked for your aunt. I gather you like her books.’

  ‘I think they’re wonderful. They’ve got so much page-turn, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’ve only read two,’ said Willow, amused by Marilyn’s bit of publishing jargon, ‘but I agree: they did keep me hooked from the first page to the last.’

  ‘Well, will you come to the funeral?’

  ‘I shall if I possibly can. What time will the service be and where?’

  ‘Friday at three-thirty. Before that there’s the official time for what the undertakers call viewing in the chapel of rest.’ Marilyn’s voice became much less hesitant as it sharpened into complaint. ‘Apparently she insisted that she’s to lie in state for two full days surrounded by about a million pounds’worth of hothouse flowers.’

  ‘Goodness,’ was all Willow could think of to say.

  ‘The funeral will be in the church on the green here and she’s to be buried at Mortlake,’ said Marilyn more calmly. ‘That bit’s for family only. There’ll be a formal tea here for everyone else while she’s being actually buried and then champagne later.’

  ‘It all sounds quite elaborate,’ said Willow tentatively.

  ‘I know. It’s typical of Aunt Ethel to go over the top like this. And it’s frightfully inconvenient for everyone.’

  ‘She is dead, you know, Marilyn,’ said Willow before she could stop herself.

  ‘We wouldn’t be being put through all this if she wasn’t. But at least that’ll be it. After Friday, she can’t impose on any of us ever again.’

  Listening to the satisfaction in Marilyn’s voice, Willow wondered again if she could possibly be speaking to Gloria’s murderer. There was absolutely no doubt that Marilyn was glad to be rid of her aunt, but was there any more to it than that?

  ‘She always did want more than other people have,’ Marilyn went on angrily. ‘Two days in the chapel of rest, surrounded by a hundred lilies and even more roses. Special singers and musicians at the funeral. You’d have thought she was born royal or something, instead of working class.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Willow, interested in Marilyn’s contempt. ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you about her childhood. Did she talk about it much?’

  ‘No.’ Marilyn was either wholly uninterested or frustrated at having her complaints cut short.

  ‘How odd.’ Willow allowed her voice to drift upwards, making a question of her two words. The idea of cycles of abuse filtered into her mind again.

  ‘Not really. She despised her whole family. I suppose that’s why she hated me so much. She tried to forget she ever came from a two-up two-down in Reading. I wish I’d had the power to fix the funeral. I’d have had her buried back there quick as a flash.’

  ‘I see,’ said Willow, feeling her sympathies for Gloria returning fast. She herself would never return to Newcastle if she could help it and well understood Gloria’s desire to leave her past behind. ‘I’m getting some idea of how to pitch my memoir of her, but I did wonder if I could come and talk to her secretary some time soon.’

  ‘Well, yes, if you like.’ It was odd how pleasant Marilyn’s voice could sound when she was not talking about her aunt. ‘Come any time. Patty and Susan will both be here again tomorrow, because Susan is still handing over all the things she did while Patty was ill.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m not quite sure when I’ll be able to get to Kew, but if you don’t mind the uncertainty, we could leave it that I’ll be with you some time tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s fine. Goodnight.’

  ‘Oh, by the way?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What is the name of the executor who rang you up?’

  ‘Gerald Plimpton.’

  ‘Aha. I see. Thank you, Marilyn. The other thing I was going to ask is whether you think your father would be prepared to talk to me about your aunt’s childhood.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he’d mind,’ said Marilyn still sounding quite pleasant. ‘But he has no phone. He will be at the funeral tea on Friday so you could talk to him then. Okay?’

  ‘Fine. Thank you. Good bye.’

  Willow thought that at last she might be able to get some useful information. Ann Slinter had told her that Gerald Plimpton cared about Gloria, and, as her executor, he would be in a position to disclose all sorts of useful facts about her estate and her heirs.

  Knowing that it would be useless to ring Ann’s office at that time of night and determined not to be the kind of unbearable author who telephoned her publisher at home. Willow put down the receiver and wandered into her writing room, thinking about Gloria Grainger and her household.

  ‘From Reading Slum to Kew Green’seemed a possible title for the memoir, but when she had written it down, Willow frowned in distaste.

  ‘Dull and clumsy,’ she said aloud.

  After several other attempts she came up with ‘Beauty and the Beast’, which had just the kind of ambiguity she liked. It summed up not only the basic plot of Gloria’s novels but also played with the paradox of the beautiful house and the misery that her tyranny seemed to have created in it.

  Smiling once more, Willow removed the plastic covers from her computer, switched it on, and opened a new file under that title. Blinking at the black-and-white screen, she tapped in private headings for the four sections into which she was planning to divide her piece: The Climb; The Pinnacle; The Descent; The Accusation.

  The cursor flickered under the last letter and she wished that she could remember more about the fairy tale. There must be more relevant headings to be drawn from it, she thought. Planning to pick up a collection of folk tales next time she was in a large bookshop, Willow shrugged and filed the
insignificant document.

  When the screen was blank once again, she typed the headings for another document, which was beginning to interest her far more than the memoir: Suspects, Motives, Opportunities, Means, Alibis.

  Having thought about the headings for a moment, Willow entered the names of Marilyn and Posy with their possible motives. They might both seem unlikely killers, but the possibility that Gloria had been murdered by someone was coming to seem more and more likely. Too many people had been glad to hear of her death. Too many of them had benefitted by it.

  It was frustrating not to be able discuss the case with Tom, Willow thought, as she stared at her empty columns, and even more frustrating not to be able to interrogate her suspects openly. Eventually she filed her embryonic report of the case and, remembering that she had not told Mrs Rusham that she would be out for dinner, went to see what she had left in the Aga.

  Having discovered an interesting variation on the traditional shepherd’s pie in the bottom oven, Willow rescued it. Seeing how shrivelled and black it had become, she scraped it into the kitchen bin and put the encrusted dish into the sink to soak. When she had finished, she made herself a cup of mint tea.

  She took it into the drawing room and tried to ring Tom as he had asked her to do. His machine answered her call.

  ‘“Tenish” seems to have been an underestimate,’ she said into it as nicely as possible. ‘I hope that means you’ve got your confession. I’m after one, too. I’m perfectly certain now that I was right. It is quite possible that Gloria Grainger was deliberately killed.’ Willow thought for a few seconds as the tape wound silently on and then added crisply: ‘It’ll be like old times to swap notes of our successful interrogations. See you soon. ’Bye.’

  She cut the connection and then telephoned Richard Crescent. He answered in person.

  ‘Richard, it’s Willow.’

  ‘My dear, how nice! How are you?’

  ‘Not bad at all even though I’ve let Elsie Trouville talk me into doing a job for her at the Home Office when I ought to have freed myself from all that by now.’