Bloody Roses

by Natasha Cooper

  Willow watched him run up the shallow steps, his powerful thighs pumping inside the well-cut trousers of his suit. She followed more slowly, thinking of Tracy, and was glad to see her at her desk, looking as bored as usual, when Maggie opened the locked doors.

  ‘Thanks, Maggie. Busy?’

  ‘Fairly. But if you need something I could squeeze a few minutes.’

  She looked so desperate that Willow shook her head.

  As she passed the workstation she said pleasantly to Tracy:

  ‘I’ve just met your new boss. He seems a nice fellow.’

  ‘James Certes? Was he here today? He usually calls me up when he’s coming. He must have been very busy today.’ Tracy looked rather put out.

  ‘When do you join him?’

  ‘End of the week,’ said Tracy, her expression changing to one of almost seraphic delight. Cynically, Willow wondered how long that pleasure would last. She also wondered why someone as reputedly clever, slippery and creative as the lawyer would want to employ a secretary like Tracy.

  ‘I must go and do some work,’ said Willow before she disappeared round the screen to sit once more in Sarah Allfarthing’s place. For two hours she worked on her tentative training suggestions, typing carefully on the replacement keyboard and ignoring the thought of Sarah’s blood spurting out of her severed neck.

  At four o’clock Willow filed her work, turned off the screen and collected her belongings.

  She waved goodbye to the two secretaries and took the lift downstairs. By the front door she found herself standing next to James Certes, who was standing with a light mackintosh hanging over his arm talking to one of the lawyers representing Mrs Zelland’s opponent.

  ‘Your meeting went on a long time,’ Willow said by way of greeting. The two lawyers turned, irritation showing on both their faces until they recognized her. Then they both smiled politely.

  ‘A lot of dull details to sort out,’ said Certes. ‘Was the meeting instructive from your point of view?’

  ‘Not enormously,’ said Willow, grabbing the opportunity he offered. ‘I’d hoped to get some clue to why there was such a disgraceful scene the other day and so help to construct a stress-management course that might help prevent another. But you were all so calm and well-behaved.’

  ‘I’ve heard about that scene,’ said the opposition’s lawyer. ‘I gather it had a disastrous sequel, too.’ He shook himself violently. ‘I’d better be on my way. Get those papers over to us tomorrow, James, and I’ll do my best to get a signature.’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Tom.’ The lawyer turned to Willow.

  ‘I’m afraid I must go, too, Miss King, but it’s been a pleasure meeting you.’ He held out his hand. When Willow took it she expected a limp grip and was pleased by its firmness.

  ‘You probably have some pretty strong views about the way the bank’s employees carry on their business,’ she said, still holding his hand. ‘Perhaps we could talk some time.’

  ‘Give me a call. I’ll buy you a drink,’ he said, ‘and share my frustrations with you.’

  Not certain whether he was trying to make a joke, Willow smiled and instead suggested taking him out to lunch. He agreed, looking a trifle surprised, and they made a firm appointment.

  ‘I can’t think why the bank didn’t ask us our views direct,’ he said as they emerged on to the front steps. He squinted up at the sky. ‘It looks pretty clear still, but there’s thunder in the air. Any of us could tell them what their employees need in the way of training.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to hearing your views,’ said Willow, holding out her hand once again. Certes shook it and set off back to his office.

  Willow saw the encouraging yellow light on the front of a cruising taxi and ran down the steps to grab it before the rain came. She gave the driver the address of Amanda Hopecastle’s Fulham house and tried to think that she was getting closer to something that would prove Richard’s innocence.

  Everything she had heard seemed to taunt her subconscious into doubting him again, although most of the time she could manage to make her rational mind reject the doubts. If Jeremy Stedington could live with his much-loved wife and not know that she was unfaithful, perhaps it was possible for Willow to have made love with Richard and not known him to be violent after all. If Mrs Zelland could look sweet and behave gently and yet ran a ruthlessly successful multimillion-pound operation that extended from eastern Europe to the United States, then Richard might be capable of killing. And if Richard were so different from the man she thought she had known, then Tom, too, might be a stranger.

  Chapter Twelve

  The main part of Amanda Hopecastle’s house gave no indication of what Willow discovered when she was escorted up the carpeted stairs to the converted attic. The hall and staircase were decorated with sprigged prints, scrubbed pine and ruched Austrian blinds, but the loft was white, airy and almost harshly lit.

  There was a long cutting table, marked out in metric squares, an industrial sewing machine and an over-locker. A worktop under the windows supported a professional steam press and a variety of irons, while a group of adjustable sewing forms stood nearby. A large cork board was covered with sketches, swatches and photographs of finished clothes, all neatly attached with matching red or white round-headed pins. Under it ran a shelf, from which hung brown-paper blocks of all kinds. To either side of the board were large racks holding polythene-covered rolls of fabric. It was the room of an amateur, but an efficient and hard-working one.

  Amanda Hopecastle herself looked rather as Willow had expected. She had her father’s height, but not his bulk, and a lot of dark hair which she kept away from her face with a piece of twisted brocade. The gilded lavishness of the material contrasted agreeably with the fraying ends that peeked above the knot on the crown of her head. Her skirt was quite straight and very short, showing off her long legs clad in matt black tights.

  She led Willow to a pair of chairs to the left of the cutting table.

  ‘Now, what can we do for you?’

  ‘Well, I need a long dress,’ said Willow, lying, ‘for a charity ball I’ve got to go to.’ She grimaced as though she dreaded the occasion.

  ‘They are dull, aren’t they?’ said Amanda sympathetically. ‘Some of my clients actually seem to enjoy them and they’re a great source of income for the likes of me, but what a waste of time!’

  ‘I think we’re going to get on,’ said Willow, agreeably surprised by the dressmaker’s down-to-earth manner.

  ‘Can you show me some of the things you’ve done?’

  Amanda waved towards the cork board. ‘It’s all there.’

  ‘I’m not very good at judging two-dimensional stuff.

  Have you anything nearly ready here?’

  There were no obvious signs of reluctance as Amanda got out of her chair and threw open the double doors of a cupboard that ran the whole width of the house. In it were several garments in different stages of construction. After some thought she abstracted two, took them out of their linen bags and slung them over the dummies.

  ‘There,’ she said as she finished hooking up the second dress.

  Willow looked carefully from a distance and was genuinely impressed. The first dress was a mass of ivory silk ruffles with large baroque pearls hanging here and there, and the other a slim column of very dark violet-coloured velvet that hung from the dress form in sophisticated simplicity.

  ‘I like the contrast,’ she said, with her eyebrows raised. She walked closer to the dresses and Amanda obligingly picked up the hem of the frilled one and showed Willow the inner structure.

  ‘The hem is finished with horsehair braid. None of the more modern equivalents seems to give such effective stiffness without weight,’ said Amanda. ‘And we always bind the seams with a Hong Kong finish.’

  ‘How did you learn it all?’ asked Willow.

  It occurred to her that if she really were going to write a synopsis for Eve Greville, she ought to take the opportunity of sucking as much
information out of Amanda Hopecastle as possible. It also occurred to her that she might be able to put the cost of the dress she was going to have to order against her expenses for tax purposes. Determined to ask her accountant’s advice, she watched Amanda and was amused to see her looking self-conscious.

  ‘I’ve found a wonderful tailor,’ she said, ‘who was trained years ago in Vienna and then worked in New York. She’s taught me and the girls who sew for me. She also found us a marvellous cutter. I’m told she’s very old-fashioned, but the difference she’s made to my stuff is incredible. I can’t afford either her or the girls for more than mornings yet, though.’

  ‘She’s done you well. I must say that the velvet seems more me than the frills, but I’d be interested to know what you suggest. I don’t really want quite such nakedness over the shoulders.’

  ‘No, I see,’ said Amanda leading the way back to the two chairs. ‘Might you need to wear the dress at a formal dinner?’

  ‘I might well,’ said Willow, with a brief ludicrous fantasy of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. She laughed at herself and Amanda smiled sympathetically.

  ‘We could always make you a sleeveless dress with a little jacket.’

  ‘I’m not really happy in sleeveless things. Is that a terrible bore?’

  ‘No. Just a challenge. Look, I think the best thing would be for me to take your measurements and make a few notes about the colours you wear and think about it all. Then, when I’ve a few sketches, I can ring you up and we’ll see how it goes. Does that suit you?’

  ‘It sounds excellent,’ said Willow, wondering how she was going to be able to spin out the taking of measurements until the arrival of Mrs Biggleigh-Clart.

  Just as Willow was putting on her clothes again after the measuring, which she had interrupted with as many questions as she could invent, there was a discreet buzz on the intercom. Amanda answered it. Willow put her head round the edge of the screen and called out:

  ‘I’ll be a minute or two, Amanda; don’t wait.’

  With almost audible surprise, Amanda clumped down the stairs. Willow tidied herself up, combed her hair again and was re-blackening her eyelashes when Amanda returned with her next client.

  She was just as tidy as her husband, although in her the finish was less immediately obvious than her smallness. She could not have been much more than five foot tall and her bones looked birdlike. Her fine dark hair was brushed plainly back over her impeccably shaped head and tucked into a ruched black velvet bow at the nape of her neck. Her face was lightly made up above the smoothness of her simple wrap dress of black linen and there was a string of fat pearls just covering her collarbone.

  ‘This is Cressida Woodruffe, you know, the writer,’ said Amanda, looking slightly put out.

  ‘How do you do?’ Mrs Biggleigh-Clart approached Willow with her hand held out. ‘I do so love your books.’

  So effective was the woman’s social technique that Willow had no idea whether she had even heard of Cressida Woodruffe until that moment. The two of them shook hands and Willow managed a flashing smile.

  ‘It’s Clara Biggleigh-Clart, isn’t it? Didn’t we meet at that big Save the Children lunch last year?’

  A moment’s doubt flickered in the dark eyes, but the smile never wavered. ‘That must have been it. I knew that we’d met somewhere. Have you had much made by Amanda?’

  ‘Nothing yet, but I’ve been so impressed by the evening clothes I’ve seen that I’m about to commission a long dress.’ Willow moved a little way from the elegantly dressed dummies and Clara gave a tiny scream.

  ‘Amanda, darling! They’ve come out so well. I love the pearls, don’t you, Cressida?’

  ‘I think they’re stunning,’ said Willow frankly. ‘I hadn’t realized these dresses were yours. I must say I’d love to see them on.’

  There was a short pause, but Willow was confident that anyone as professionally charming as Clara would find it difficult to be direct enough to snub her.

  ‘Why not? Unless Amanda minds?’

  ‘Well, no; not if –’

  ‘Splendid!’ said Willow. ‘Even a dummy doesn’t really show how these things move, does it?’

  She settled herself back in one of the two chairs while Clara and Amanda disappeared round the back of the painted screen. They kept up a flow of charming banter, complimenting each other and chatting as Clara’s dress was delicately laid over the top of the screen. Willow hoped that it had been well dusted. Then Amanda appeared to remove the frilly dress from its dummy.

  A few minutes later Clara emerged, looking rich, beautiful and surprisingly young, her shoulders rising out of the pearly foam. An immense, ripping crash echoed and boomed across the sky and made Amanda jump. When it was followed by the sound of deluging rain, Willow smiled in satisfaction.

  Attempting to join in the cosy talk about the dress’s merits, she thought of ways to ensure that Clara realized she had come to the dressmaker’s house on foot.

  As the other two watched their reflection in the three long mirrors, Willow began to feel uncomfortable with their unconfined and narcissistic femininity. Eventually both client and dressmaker pronounced themselves satisfied with the dresses. Amanda proceeded to lay each one on the cutting table and fold it around layers and layers of tissue paper until it would fit into the firm dress box that had her name stamped diagonally across it in flowing scarlet lettering.

  ‘Shall I send you the account?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, darling. Do please do that.’ Clara peered out at the rain that cascaded down the windows in silklike festoons.

  ‘Do you have a car, Cressida?’

  Willow, who had been ignoring all Amanda’s hints and glances for the past hour, got to her feet.

  ‘No, I haven’t. But never mind. I’m sure I can pick up a taxi.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The reprimand was offered in the full cosiness of Clara’s easy charm. ‘My driver is waiting downstairs. We can easily drop you. Where do you live?’

  ‘Chesham Place, actually,’ said Willow, successfully imitating Emma Gnatche once more.

  ‘But that’s so easy! It’s only round the corner from us.

  Come along.’

  After what she hoped was a gracefully insincere refusal, Willow allowed herself to be persuaded. When the two of them had left Amanda Hopecastle and were sitting in the back of the midnight-blue Daimler, protected alike from the rain and from the chauffeur’s hearing, Willow decided to abandon finesse.

  ‘I particularly wanted to meet you,’ she said, ‘and I’m afraid I have forced myself on you.’

  The smile that Clara bestowed on her passenger was different from the earlier version, sharper, more intelligent and much more critical.

  ‘I did wonder what it was that you thought I could do for you,’ she said, sounding crisper too.

  ‘I’m an old friend of Richard Crescent,’ said Willow, ‘and I’m trying to find something – anything – to help him. It has been suggested to me that Sarah Allfarthing might have committed suicide and I just wondered whether you had any views. I’m trying to talk to everyone who might have known her.’

  ‘I see. What makes you think that I might have any views at all?’

  Willow looked out through the translucent grey sheets of rain to the blurred buildings of the King’s Road.

  ‘Because I know that Jeremy Stedington has an immensely high opinion of you; because I’ve been told that you are extremely intelligent; and because I cannot believe that you never heard any of the gossip about Mrs Allfarthing and your husband.’

  ‘That’s frank.’

  ‘It seems to me that just now frankness is my only resource,’ said Willow, letting her voice wobble slightly.

  ‘To wrap it all up would take for ever, besides being patronizing.’

  The big car slowed for some red traffic lights and a bus drew up beside it, blocking Willow’s view of the shops. She turned to look at Clara, whose face was just as beautiful without its c
onscious gaiety.

  ‘You’re probably right. If frankness is to be the order of the day, I should tell you that I disliked her intensely.’

  Willow hoped that she did not look as surprised as she felt.

  ‘My husband was obliged to find her an asset since he had fought so hard for her appointment, and I resented the way in which she traded on that.’

  ‘Resented it on his behalf?’

  ‘On his behalf?’ There was an edge to Clara’s voice that intrigued Willow. It suggested that she was a stronger character than she allowed herself to seem. ‘Perhaps partly. But more on behalf of all the women who don’t push as she did, and who would probably have done a better job. She was extremely pushy, you know.’

  ‘How did you meet her?’ asked Willow, watching the traffic lights turn green. The car purred smoothly across the intersection. Clara moved her lips slightly in a minute but eloquent gesture of distaste.

  ‘Once she persuaded Robert to invite her and her husband to dinner. It was the only time they ever came and luckily I’d refused to have anyone else with them. He – Allfarthing, I mean – was both embarrassed by her and determined not to show it. I thought he was a decent man if a little suburban. She spent the evening trying to show me that her influence over my husband was greater than my own. At least that’s what her antics seemed to be about.’

  ‘How curious! Didn’t your husband mind?’

  There was a delicate laugh from the woman at Willow’s side.

  ‘He said that he had not noticed anything and that I was imagining it.’ She leaned forward to look out of her window at the rain. ‘But as I told you, his pride would not let him admit that he had made a mistake over her.’

  ‘Was that why you decided not to go to the bank’s summer dance?’ Willow spoke as quietly as she could and with as little urgency.

  ‘Partly. I never wanted to go at all and then when …’

  ‘When?’ Willow asked when Clara said no more.

  After a long pause she turned and put one tiny hand on Willow’s wrist. In the poor light Willow thought that she looked sympathetic.