Bitter Herbs

by Natasha Cooper

  Shouldn’t good manners and gratitude at least have made some of them come? Willow asked herself.

  ‘I’m glad someone’s come for her. All those flowers! Would you like me to stay with you? Some of our guests find it a difficult experience.’

  ‘I shall be fine,’ said Willow calmly, having no idea whether or not the sight of a dead body would upset her. She could not imagine why it should, but she had never seen one.

  Both her parents had always insisted that there was to be neither sentiment nor ceremony after their deaths and, when it fell to her to arrange the burial of her mother, Willow had obeyed. She had not reached Newcastle until after the body had been removed from the house for unceremonious cremation.

  Willow had not mourned much in any case, since her parents had taken immense care to ensure that she would never feel the need to do so. Although she had long ago understood that their emotional austerity had made it hard for her to give affection to anyone, she was only just beginning to realise that accepting it was even more difficult for her.

  ‘This is a ceremonial visit rather than a desperate farewell,’ she went on, hoping that none of her feelings showed.

  ‘Ah,’ said the woman, hardening a little. ‘In that case I’ll leave you. If you want anything, just ring this bell here.’ She gestured to a heavily tasselled blue bell-pull and Willow nodded.

  As soon as she was alone, Willow looked around the chapel. It was discreetly decorated in shades of grey and there was a rudimentary altar opposite the door. Two vast and lavish arrangements of white lilies and cream-coloured roses towered on either side of the table. There was nothing else except the coffin, resting on a pair of velvet-covered trestles. From where she was standing all she could see was the thick, purple velvet pall that covered most of the coffin and a shock of pale-grey hair.

  Reluctantly moving forwards, Willow found herself face to face with the corpse of the woman about whom she had heard so much. Gloria’s face looked remarkably peaceful and very like Marilyn’s, despite the greyness of her thick, straight hair. There were a few strong dark bristles on her chin, which made Willow grimace in a mixture of pity and disgust as she remembered reading that beards continue to grow after death. The cheeks seemed unnaturally full given that the flesh under the chin was slack and fell against the crêpey neck. The body was dressed in a cream-coloured satin shroud that matched the ruched lining of the coffin.

  Willow was glad that she felt no horror of the body and yet she found it hard to reach out to touch the coffin. Reminding herself of what she had to discover, she quickly folded back the velvet pall to reveal a kind of lace-edged satin sheet, which matched the shroud. She folded the sheet back, too, silently cursing as it slithered away and dropped to the floor.

  With shaking, sweating fingers, looking over her sore shoulder every few seconds, Willow lifted the shroud from the feet to pull it upwards and almost gagged as the whole thing seemed to come away in her hands. Then she realised that it was not a complete garment, merely a pair of sleeves attached to a kind of apron that had been tucked around the body.

  Willow looked down at the corpse, her mind full not of the horror she had feared but of terror that she would be interrupted. A police siren wailed in the distance and made her jump. The dead flesh was almost white, although the face had been pinker, presumably she told herself, made up with cosmetics. Just as Andrew Salcott had warned, Gloria’s breasts hung slackly over her ribcage.

  Willow’s own skin began to feel very cold indeed. The body seemed to have two navels. After a moment’s instinctive disgust, she realised that one was a kind of plastic stopper. She took a deep breath and put out a hand to touch the body.

  Unable to prevent herself feeling as though she were committing gross sacrilege and probably blasphemy too, Willow slid her fingers under the left breast and lifted it, surprised not only by the coldness but by the weight and by the scaly feel of the skin.

  Trying to detach her mind from everything but her search, she looked down at what she had revealed. There, unmistakable, was the outline of a faint yellowish bruise and in the centre a small red pinprick, just as Andrew Salcott had described.

  More astonished to have found real proof of her suspicions than she would have admitted to anyone at all, Willow almost shouted aloud in triumph.

  There was still plenty to be worked out, of course, not least how on earth someone had stuck a hypodermic syringe or some other kind of spike in Gloria’s heart without her noticing, but the fact of her murder was irrefutable at last. Secure in that knowledge, Willow also knew that she could go forward, solve the rest and even convince her doubting Thomas of the truth.

  The sound of another siren shrieked apparently just behind Willow and she dropped the flaccid breast and spun round. She was still entirely alone in the quiet dimness of the chapel, The scent of the two tall vases of roses and lilies made her feel sick, but she could not possibly waste the only opportunity she would have before the body was buried to record the evidence of what must have happened.

  Desperately anxious that none of Gloria’s so-called friends or her staff or relations should conquer their dislike of her enough to visit her body just then, Willow dug into her bag for the camera. Her hands seemed even clumsier than usual as she checked the film, the flash and the lens. Then, pushing the apron-shroud out of the way and lifting the breast with her left hand. Willow leaned forward. With the camera held in her right hand alone, she took three photographs in quick succession.

  Knowing that her hand had shaken, she looked round for something with which to prop up the sagging breast that had felt so heavy and flakey between her fingers. There was nothing. Sighing, Willow turned so that she was standing at the right of the coffin with her back to Gloria’s head. She leaned diagonally across, hooked the left breast back with her own left elbow and with both hands on the camera took six exposures. She had to lean quite close to the dead body and was surprised that it smelled of absolutely nothing, despite having been in the undertakers’hands for six days.

  At last the significance of the plastic stopper in Gloria’s belly became clear. She must have been drained of all her bodily fluids and refilled with some kind of preservative.

  ‘Ugh,’ said Willow before she could stop herself. She let the breast fall back and retreated to the foot of the coffin, from where she took more shots of the entire body and the face until she had used up the film.

  She thrust the camera back into her bag, which had dropped to the floor by her feet, and picked up the sheet that lay in a small, shiny heap beside it. Breathing heavily, wondering if the scent of the flowers and her own dislike of what she had done might make her actually vomit, she pulled the shroud back down over the big white, hairy body, tucking it in at the sides and rearranging the sheet. The purple velvet was still in her hands as she heard the sound of a discreet cough behind her. Deliberately not turning to find out who was standing there, she leaned even closer, gagging at her own hypocrisy and kissed the cold, rough face.

  As she straightened up, she took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her own face, shuddering.

  ‘Are you all right, Miss?’ asked a male voice.

  Willow turned and saw a fair-haired, stocky young man in a grey suit standing beside the chapel door.

  ‘We don’t usually disturb relatives, but you’ve been so long, we were beginning to wonder if you’d fainted.’

  ‘Have I?’ said Willow, feeling very faint indeed, but with relief that what she had come to do was done and that she had not apparently been discovered with her hands on the naked corpse. ‘It’s hard to judge time when you’re so …’ She let her voice tremble and die.

  ‘I understand,’ said the undertaker in an obviously artificial voice, soothing and yet somehow disapproving. ‘I’ll leave you alone.’

  He left the room, walking silently on his rubber-soled shoes. The closing of the door behind him made no sound, and Willow realised that if she had not been looking at him, she would not have known
exactly when he had left the chapel. The thought that he might have been standing watching her as she robbed the body of its dignity made her shudder and she fled.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first thing Willow did when she returned to Chesham Place was to ask Mrs Rusham to remove all the hyacinths from the house and substitute some flower or foliage that had no scent. Then, when the offending objects had been taken out of her bathroom and the windows opened to let in the wet, cold air, she ran a hot bath. Eschewing the Chanel bath oil she usually used, she got into the unscented water and proceeded to scrub herself all over with a stiff loofah, which she had never used before but had kept because she liked the weird stiff look of it.

  When at last she was sure that she had scrubbed off not only the sickly scent of the undertakers’flowers, but also her incorrigible shame at what she had just done, she stood up in the bath, let out the hot water and, in the full blast of cold air from the windows, rinsed herself all over with the shower attachment she had never used before.

  Clean at last, and cold and uncomfortable enough to feel that she had done some kind of penance, she got out and dried herself. Throwing the suit she had been wearing on to a chair in the knowledge that Mrs Rusham would take it to the cleaners, she put the rest of the morning’s clothes into the laundry basket. In their place she chose a pair of comfortable black trousers and a long polo-necked violet cashmere tunic, which clashed agreeably with her hair, and added a loose black jacket.

  Smiling as she recognised her defensive retreat into thinking of nothing but her clothes, she telephoned Tom. When she was told that he was not available and that no one knew where he was, she felt that she was being fobbed off and banged down her receiver in renewed irritation.

  ‘Your lunch is ready,’ said Mrs Rusham from behind her.

  ‘Oh thank you, Mrs Rusham,’ answered Willow. ‘Do you know, I really don’t feel very hungry.’

  ‘It’s quite light, just a little chicken in a grape sauce. You ought to eat. You’re looking rather faint, if I may say so.’

  ‘That’s only because I’ve washed off all my makeup,’ said Willow briskly. ‘All right, I’ll do my best with the chicken.’

  She found it hard to eat even though there was nothing wrong with the chicken. Nothing that Mrs Rusham had ever cooked had been anything but delicious. But the grape sauce tasted richly of cream and armagnac and each time Willow pushed a piece of chicken on to her fork she thought of Gloria’s body and the heavy, sickly smell of the lilies. She managed to eat about half the chicken, declined pudding, and welcomed the cup of strong coffee that Mrs Rusham brought her.

  She carried it into the drawing room where she sat down at the mahogany pembroke table in the window and once more tried to ring Tom Worth. Yet again she was unlucky.

  Knowing that it was essential to persuade him to organise an official investigation into the murder before Gloria’s body was buried the following day, Willow decided to write to him. He could hardly refuse to read an urgent, hand-delivered letter, even if he were ducking her telephone calls for some reason.

  First she took her film to the nearest large chemist that promised prints within an hour. Having returned to the flat, she switched on her computer and proceeded to draft a concise report of what she had done that morning. She carefully described her discovery of the wound under Gloria Grainger’s left breast and added a short account of her conversation with Dr Andrew Salcott.

  Considering that she had produced quite enough hard evidence to persuade Tom and his colleagues of what had happened to Gloria, Willow went on to list the people who had – or might have had – the opportunity to cause it. Their motives for wishing Gloria dead came last, as befitted what Tom had suggested was the least important part of any murder investigation.

  Much of what Willow wrote was a repetition of the things she had told him the previous evening, but it seemed crucial to put it all into the report. Tom could then pass it on to whoever else needed the information without having to add anything himself or betray the fact that he had ignored an unofficially reported case of murder.

  While the machine was printing her statement, Willow returned to the chemist to collect the photographs. It was only as she reached the counter that she asked herself whether the person who had processed her film would have realised what they signified.

  Feeling defensive and therefore sounding angry, she asked whether her prints were ready, thrusting her receipt at the assistant behind the counter. The young man looked at it and turned to fumble through the heap of paper folders in a basket behind him. He obviously could not find hers for he pulled open one drawer after another. Willow bit her lips, wishing she had simply included the whole film in her letter to Tom. Even as she let herself think that, she knew it was not true. To have given away the film would have been to lose control of it, and she could not have done that.

  ‘Here we are,’ said the young man, pushing a folder towards her and not meeting her eyes. ‘Eight pounds forty, please. You ordered two sets of prints, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Willow, handing him the money and leaving the shop without waiting for a receipt. Only when she was outside did she open the folder and check that they were indeed her photographs. Seeing the accuracy and clarity of the prints and the unmistakable fact that they were of a body in a coffin, she could not understand why she had been asked no questions by the chemist.

  When she got back to the flat, she put one set of the prints into a separate envelope, which she clipped to her report, and then added a handwritten note:

  Dear Tom,

  I now know that Gloria Grainger was murdered. Since I haven’t

  managed to get you on the telephone at all today, despite

  several attempts, I’ve put everything I’ve got so far on paper

  and given you photographic evidence. We must talk. She is to

  be buried tomorrow and someone properly qualified ought to

  see the body before it goes underground.

  I don’t know whether she comes under your jurisdiction, but

  at least you’ll know whom to alert.

  There are still a lot of gaps in what I’ve discovered, and too

  many suspects, but I’ll go on trying to whittle them down to

  a certainty while I wait to hear from you.

  Yours, W.

  She drove to Kingston, could not find a space in which to park, cursed her fellow-Londoners for their inability to go anywhere except in their own cars and drove out and round the block again, searching. Eventually she saw the indicator of a large BMW start to flash and she drew into the space behind it as it left. She parked carefully, locked the car and walked through the narrow street to Tom’s office.

  Having been told again that he was not available, she addressed the envelope to him, adding the words ‘personal’, ‘urgent’, and ‘private and confidential’, before handing it to the desk sergeant.

  ‘It is really urgent that he gets it,’ she said as he took it from her. ‘I haven’t managed to speak to him but I know that he needs it. Can you make sure it goes up to him at once?’

  ‘I’ll see he gets it,’ said the man soothingly. Willow suppressed a smile as she thought of his possible description of her lunatic determination to get the package into Tom’s hands.

  ‘It is confidential,’ she said, suddenly aware of the possibility that someone other than Tom might open the package and then castigate him for the dilatoriness and inattention that had made her so angry during the last week. She had no wish to damage him.

  ‘I can see that, Miss,’ said the policeman.

  Willow thanked him and returned to the car. It was only as she was unlocking the door that she realised it was already ten past three and that she was due to be at Ann Slinter’s office in twenty minutes.

  Her mind must still have been on the report because she almost ran into the back of a stationary bus half-way to the A3. Telling herself that if she could not see something that size and that c
olour in front of her she ought not to be in charge of a car at all, Willow drove with all the slow, terrified care of a learner until she was half-way round Trafalgar Square. There all the usual frustration with other drivers changing lanes without signalling, jumping red traffic lights, stopping abruptly for no obvious reason and hooting fruitlessly forced her back into her usual decisiveness and she drove across the top of the square and out into the Charing Cross Road without the slightest hestitation.

  Almost as though taking control again had prejudiced the fates in her favour, she found a free parking meter right outside the door of Weston & Brown and discovered that she had enough of the right coins to give herself two hours’peace of mind.

  The receptionist smiled at her with recognition and said that Ann was expecting her.

  ‘Yes, I know. And I’m a bit late, but I wanted to ask you first whether you had any dealings with Gloria Grainger.’

  The young woman rolled her eyes and dragged down the corners of her mouth like a sad-faced clown.

  ‘All too often. She used to accuse me of not answering the phone quickly enough and losing calls and generally being useless and awful. I once got Mrs Slinter to beat her up for me – verbally, I mean.’

  ‘How sensible!’ said Willow. ‘Can you remember the last time she rang here?’

  ‘Oh yes. It was a couple of days before she died. She wanted Vicky Taffle and although I tried to head her off she insisted. It was after half-past five and I was on my way out but I saw the light flashing on the switchboard and so I answered. I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘Oh?’ Willow smiled encouragingly. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘She only wanted to pour the usual diatribe over poor Vicky. I listened a bit and I did wonder if I ought to just cut them off. I sometimes did that, you know, to give Vicky a break.’