Bloody Roses

by Natasha Cooper

  She spent ten minutes filling in various forms at the reception desk before she was allowed through to the ladies’changing room, which was luxuriously appointed with thick carpet, pale-wood lockers and benches and well-upholstered chairs in front of a row of expensive hair dryers. There were heaps of vivid green towels and towelling dressing gowns, baskets of individual-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and a kind of annexe full of massage tables and all sorts of machines. A wet area beyond the carpet proved to contain saunas, steam rooms, tanning beds and a whirlpool bath as well as the entrance to the swimming pool.

  Changed into her shirt and shorts, with her street clothes and money locked away, Willow went to the gym, where she spent a humiliating and useless half-hour trying to use the gleaming white and silver machines. Eventually a sinewy young instructor took pity on her, adjusted the one on which she was sitting, removed several of the weights and showed her how to use it to develop the muscles in her upper arms and chest. That was followed by others designed to tauten bits of her legs, her glutea maxima, and her stomach.

  Eventually, aching and covered in sweat, she gave up the machines in favour of the swimming pool. There, having removed all her smudged make-up, she swam with a stately breaststroke up and down the pool, watching for anyone who might have been able to talk to her about Sarah Allfarthing.

  There were two youngish men who appeared to be competing with each other to make the greatest splash as they thundered up and down the pool, using their arms like flails. Several slender, tanned women with gold chains around their necks followed Willow’s example, but she could not find an opportunity to break into their conversations.

  At last, thinking that she might sink from exhaustion if she swam another yard. Willow emerged from the pool, found a towel and retreated to the whirlpool. There she had better luck. Two women with tired, lined faces and the smooth bodies of pubescent girls followed her.

  Embarrassed to be wearing a bathing costume while they were naked, Willow moved a little to give them more room.

  ‘Thanks,’ said one with a slight smile. ‘Ouf, it’s hot tonight.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Willow, smiling back, ‘but I assumed it was always like this.’

  The third woman, whose hair was gathered into a bunch of curls on top of her head, explained that the temperature tended to rise towards the end of the week and start off again cool the following Monday.

  ‘Sarah never told me about that,’ said Willow in a clumsy attempt to turn the talk to her advantage. ‘Isn’t it awful what happened to her?’

  ‘Sarah Allfarthing? Was she a friend of yours?’

  ‘Well, not exactly a friend,’ said Willow accurately before she had to lie, ‘but we met only a short while before… well, before it happened, and she gave me a guest ticket to come here. I was away and when I came back to London she was dead. My name’s Woodruffe, by the way, Cressida Woodruffe.’

  ‘The writer? How do you do. I’m Sally Smith and this is Angela Elliott. She’s with BJP and I’m at Lowelton.’ Neither the initials nor the name meant anything to Willow, but she smiled as though they did.

  ‘It was ghastly,’ said Angela, carefully moving her bottom so that the fierce jets of the whirlpool caught precisely the right muscles. ‘I hardly knew Sarah, but she seemed a thoroughly good egg. I can’t really bear even to think about what happened to her.’ There was a pause before she added in patent honesty: ‘It’s made us all pretty nervous about working late alone.’

  ‘She was great,’ said Sally, turning round to face the jets. ‘She and I were the first women who joined here and we used to have a lot of laughs at the beginning.’

  ‘I’d noticed that there didn’t seem to be too many women around,’ said Willow.

  ‘Well, there aren’t all that many of us who are willing or able to pay nine hundred pounds a year and a five-hundred-pound joining fee in this bit of London, and not many of the men have put their wives on the list. But Sarah was really chuffed when it opened. She always said she needed a lot of exercise – those enviably long legs, I suppose.’

  ‘Did she come here every night?’

  ‘Not always and never on a Friday. I think it depended on her work and how her husband was. She was terrifically conscientious, don’t you think, Ange?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. It was perfectly clear that she was successful and that that got up the noses of quite a lot of the boys at the bank, but we never got on to intimacies like the trials of our marriages. People don’t confide in me as they do in you, Sal.’ Angela laughed and Sally joined her, obviously happy with her reputation.

  ‘Did Sarah confide much?’ Willow asked. ‘She struck me as being rather reserved.’

  ‘She was.’ Sally wrinkled up her nose and swung round again with her back to the jets. ‘We used to talk a bit about how to cope with flirtatious partners and that led on to other things. I talked more than she did, actually.’

  Angela laughed. ‘I can believe that.’

  ‘I gather she had quite a lot of trouble with flirtatious colleagues,’ said Willow.

  ‘Well, she would, wouldn’t she, Cressida? Looking like her in a place like that bank where they’ve only ever had women as secretaries and tea ladies. The chaps were gobsmacked by her, and not many of them could resist having a go. Trouble was Sarah wasn’t keen.’

  ‘Not at all?’ said Willow.

  ‘Not really. I think she gave her poor old husband his conjugal rights from time to time, but no one else was going to get a look-in. Let’s face it, sex does get pretty boring after a bit. And we’re all so damned tired all the time. God, isn’t it awful to talk like this when she’s…?’

  ‘It’s hardly going to hurt her now,’ said Angela robustly.

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘D’you think they’ve got the right man?’ said Willow as casually as she could.

  Angela looked at Sally, who shrugged.

  ‘It sounds like it from all I’ve heard. I don’t see how it could have been anyone else.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Willow after an uncomfortable pause.

  ‘I’m getting too hot. I’m off for a shower and then a quick steam. Coming, Ange?’

  ‘Fine. Good to meet you, Cressida. Will you join the club yourself? Perhaps we’ll see more of you.’

  Willow smiled and shook her head. ‘I’m not in the City often enough to make it worth it,’ she said. ‘But it seemed something that I ought to do once she’d given me a ticket. Silly, really.’

  The others smiled at her as they stood, pleased with their perfect bodies, on the edge of the whirlpool. Their breasts were tiny and pointed, their pubic hair had been waxed away at the edges and their buttocks looked almost nonexistent. Their exhausted, intelligent faces looked decades older than their bodies. Watching them retreat, Willow thought about the basis of a society that decrees the acme of feminine beauty to be that achieved naturally at about the age of thirteen.

  After the two women had left the showers and proceeded chatting towards the steam room, Willow, too, heaved herself out of the bubbling, chlorinated hot water and cooled off.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning Willow woke, aching from the unaccustomed exercise, and saw that the previous day’s sun had been followed by thick cloud. She lay for a few moments trying to pin down a peculiar sensation of happiness. Richard was still in prison and she had no evidence to support her shaky faith in his innocence. There was nothing to explain the euphoria except for her growing determination to leave the civil service at the end of her sabbatical and that did not seem to be enough.

  She had got out of bed and was lying in the bath, feeling the hot water lapping over her breasts, before she traced the happiness to its source. Then she sat up quickly and washed her face in cold water. It was one thing to acknowledge her growing affection for Tom Worth but quite another to let the prospect of seeing him control her moods.

  Getting out of the bath and rubbing herself vigorously with a towel,
Willow decided to dress in an old and baggy pair of black corduroy trousers. She made a concession towards elegance by choosing a loose multicoloured cashmere tunic from the Burlington Arcade to wear with them and put her narrow feet into a pair of black suede Gucci shoes. With her face made up with even more than usual care, she went to tell Mrs Rusham she was ready for breakfast.

  ‘You do look more yourself, Miss Woodruffe,’ said the housekeeper as she brought a tray into the rosy dining room a few minutes later. ‘Have you had some good news about Mr Lawrence-Crescent’s case?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said, noticing the signs of strain in the normally imperturbable Mrs Rusham. ‘But I have discovered that the dead woman stirred up a lot of emotions in people she worked with, and that suggests that the story may not be as simple as the police believe.’

  Mrs Rusham picked up a hot plate and carefully laid it down before Willow, removing the domed white china cover to reveal the eggs Benedict she had cooked.

  ‘They look wonderful. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve heard that remand prisoners are permitted to have food sent in to them in prison,’ Mrs Rusham began, twisting her hands in her overall in a way Willow had never seen before. ‘And I was wondering whether you would mind if I were to…’

  ‘Cook for Richard? What a wonderful idea! I wonder if it’s true. I’ll check with Inspector Worth when he comes and let you know. Well done, Mrs Rusham.’

  With an approving smile, the housekeeper nodded her head and then disappeared into the kitchen, leaving her employer to pick up the newspaper. Before she had finished the first article or eaten more than half her eggs, she heard the telephone ring. Deciding to let Mrs Rusham answer it, Willow went on eating.

  The door from the kitchen opened and the housekeeper emerged, her face back in its customary expressionless formality.

  ‘Chief Inspector Jane Moreby is on the telephone. I told her that you were at breakfast, but –’

  Willow had already dropped her napkin and stood up.

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ she said, running to the drawing room. ‘Cressida Woodruffe here,’ she said into the receiver.

  ‘This is Jane Moreby.’ It was a crisp voice with a slight northern accent, which took Willow straight back to her bleak childhood and her demanding but unknowable academic parents.

  ‘Tom Worth gave me your number. There are one or two questions I’d like to ask you. May I come and see you this morning?’

  ‘This morning I’m rather busy,’ said Willow, instinctively stalling as she tried to ignore the difficult memories of her past.

  ‘It won’t take long. No more than half an hour.’

  ‘Very well. I can make time if you’ll be here at half past ten. Did he give you the address as well?’

  ‘I’ll be there. Goodbye.’ The chief inspector rang off cleanly and Willow walked slowly back to her breakfast.

  When she had finished she carried the dishes through to Mrs Rusham and told her what had happened.

  ‘You can’t allow that woman in here,’ said Mrs Rusham, two bright red patches flaring in her cheeks. She gasped. ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon! I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘I feel rather like that, too, but who knows? It might help Richard if I talk to her. If Miss Gnatche arrives while she’s here, will you entertain her for me?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Willow considered changing out of her trousers into something that might impress Chief Inspector Moreby, but decided to keep them. It seemed important to remind both of them that she was on her own territory and could behave as she chose.

  While she waited, Willow was tempted to ring Tom, but since she had been so sharp with him when he asked to see her, she felt it was only fair to wait until he appeared. Instead she telephoned the number on Amanda Hopecastle’s card and made an appointment for late on Monday afternoon, hoping that she could engineer a casual meeting with Mrs Biggleigh-Clart while she was there.

  There seemed to be nothing else she could do in the half-hour she had to wait for Chief Inspector Moreby except to clean her teeth again and wash her hands. When she had done that she thought it might be useful to have a record of anything that the chief inspector said, so she went into her writing room to find a dictating machine she had once bought but never managed to use for her books.

  Taking it back to the drawing room, she thought that the room provided a background that was quite suitable for a successful novelist but seemed incongruous for a discussion about a man in prison on a charge of murder. The golden furniture and paintings, the thickly cushioned sofas, even the seductive mixture of rich creams and yellows of the walls and curtains with the coppery flowers and cushions all suggested peace and luxury and, Willow had to admit, self-satisfaction. It was the room of someone who knew just what she wanted of life and had found a way to get it. Richard’s torment, like the pain and terror Sarah Allfarthing must have felt as she saw her murderer pick up the knife, had no place there. The ugliness and reality of them made the room seem fantastically inappropriate.

  Chief Inspector Moreby accorded it no more than a raised eyebrow when Mrs Rusham ushered her in a few minutes later. Willow rose from her chair and held out her hand.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Woodruffe,’ said the policewoman in an easy voice.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said Willow, gesturing to the sofa nearest the door while she took the opposite one. ‘You said you had some questions to ask me?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  Jane Moreby sat down and crossed her legs. They were shapely, if not particularly long, and the simple beige pumps she was wearing suited them. Willow waited, oddly nervous. To distract herself she examined the other woman’s plain clothes – a pale-beige linen skirt overchecked in black, a thin black jacket and a white shirt – and noticed the wedding ring on her left hand. With her neat, short, mouse-coloured hair, she looked composed, efficient and at ease with herself. Willow was reluctantly impressed.

  ‘How long have you known Richard Crescent?’

  ‘Six years,’ said Willow, ‘but I don’t see how that can possibly be relevant to your investigation.’

  Jane Moreby looked at her very directly. ‘This is not altogether an official visit,’ she said, adding reluctantly: ‘I have a great respect for Tom Worth.’

  ‘I see. Then, as it’s not official, would you like a cup of coffee?’ asked Willow, determined to regain control of the meeting and to ignore the message implicit in the policewoman’s remarks.

  When Mrs Moreby shook her head, Willow tried again.

  ‘Tom has told you, I take it, that I do not believe that Richard could have killed that woman?’

  ‘Yes. I oughtn’t to be here, but in the circumstances I’m willing to listen to anything you have to say. The papers are with the CPS – that is the Crown Prosecution Service.’

  ‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ said Willow coldly. Jane Moreby smiled slightly.

  ‘He has been committed for trial at the Old Bailey. Nothing you can say will change that, but, as I said, I am willing to listen.’

  Willow was disconcerted by the other woman’s directness. Her visit seemed astonishing and could only have been made out of a serious respect for Tom’s opinions. Willow felt both outrage and fear. It was a nauseating mixture. She got out of her chair, almost enjoying the shriek of her stretched muscles, and rugged the expensive cashmere tunic down over her thighs. Walking to the window, she stared down at the big, glossy cars in the street. She saw a plain red Fiesta that must belong to the woman who was sitting so easily behind her.

  ‘I haven’t anything much to tell you except that I know him well and I know that he couldn’t have killed her.’

  ‘Very few friends of killers see that side of them, and very few can be easily convinced – even by a confession.’

  Willow turned back to face the policewoman.

  ‘But you can’t possibly have had a confession in this case. Listen: there is no violence in Richard. None. I slept with him on and
off for three years and I know. Sex is after all a fairly violent activity. I provoked him often, too, and he was never more than sulky.’

  ‘Perhaps the provocation you offered was not the sort that triggered his anger. Did you know that he was adopted as a child?’

  ‘What?’ Willow felt as though someone had hit her hard in the solar plexus. For three years Richard had been the only person in the world who knew her as both Willow King and Cressida Woodruffe. She had trusted him. The thought that he might have kept to himself something so fundamental astonished her.

  When she had assured herself that his secrecy could not convince her that he was a murderer, she said: ‘He can’t have known that. How did you find out?’

  ‘He told me.’

  Willow was distressed to see pity in the other woman’s grey eyes. It began to look as though she had come not to listen but to warn. Willow could not help imagining what Tom Worth might have said about her.

  ‘Who were his parents?’ Willow asked, hanging on to what she knew of Richard and trying to get rid of the sense of injury – and insult – that the information had produced in her.

  ‘That we don’t know. He has never exercised his right to have them identified, and only he can do it.’

  ‘But you are suggesting,’ said Willow, taking refuge in chilliness, ‘that he might have inherited a tendency to violence?’

  Jane Moreby shook her neat head again. ‘No. What I’m suggesting is that there may be things about him that you do not know. Such as his hot temper. He had quite a reputation for violence at school and university, although he seemed to have conquered it until just recently.’

  Willow sat, leaning heavily on the arm of the sofa as she went down in some pain. She had a sudden vision of herself in old age.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s perfectly true. He was once gated for a term when he was at Oxford for injuring another man. Did you know that?’