Poison Flowers (32 page)

Willow smiled, relieved that she was not deceiving someone who would have been personally distressed by Edith Fernside's death.

‘I just wondered how she was, and whether my cousins visited her and … well, really just that. I hate to think of her being alone when she was ill.'

‘Well she wasn't exactly ill, you see,' said Mrs Browning, her faded blue eyes sharpening with interest. ‘It was terrible when she died, and ever so sudden. But she didn't have many visitors. There was a lady, who she said had been at a school she once worked in, and there was one young man who was here a few times in the winter just before she died, but she never said he was a relation.'

‘I wonder if he could have been my cousin Andrew,' said Willow, fishing in her briefcase. When she had put the photographs away after showing them to the warden, she had stuffed them inadvertently between the pages of her book and so she pulled out the whole book, put it face down on the highly polished coffee table and spread out the prints. ‘Do you recognise him?' she asked, holding up the photograph of Andrew Salcott.

Mrs Browning looked at it for a long time, but at last she shook her grey head.

‘No, dear. I don't think I've ever seen him before; and he's got a striking face, hasn't he? I think the young man I saw was thinner somehow … not so strong-looking.'

‘I see,' said Willow. ‘What about the others? Do any of them look familiar?'

Mrs Browning went through the pile of photographs and then looked doubtfully up at Willow's face.

‘I didn't see him at all clearly, dear. Just through my nets while he was waiting at Edith's door or when she was saying goodbye to him,' she said. ‘And my eyesight isn't very good. Perhaps I ought to get my spectacles.'

After an anxious search, she found them under a cushion in the chair in which Willow was sitting and put them on. Then she went carefully over all the photographs.

‘I'm sure I've seen her before,' she said, picking out the one of Miranda Bruterley, ‘and he looks quite familiar,' she added holding another print close to her eyes. Willow put out her hand and was surprised when Mrs Browning put into it the photograph of Mark Tothill. Despite what she had said to Tom Worth she had no real reason to suspect him and had asked the picture agency for a photograph of him just to complete her set.

‘Oh, and him, too,' said Mrs Browning. Willow put down the photograph of Mark and saw that the old lady had picked up her book and was staring at the dramatically lit photograph of Ben Jonson on the back. ‘He's ever so handsome, isn't he? I'm perfectly certain I've seen him.'

‘When did you see him, Mrs Browning?' asked. Willow gently, thinking that her impression of Ben Jonson in the flesh was that he was far from handsome.

‘D'you know, dear, I'm not really sure,' said Mrs Browning. She looked so worried that Willow felt reluctant to press her. Then the old lady's face cleared. ‘Perhaps it was on a library book,' she said. ‘I always look at their faces before I choose a book. I was in the library only last week.'

Since that explanation seemed all too likely. Willow straightened the photographs on the shiny table and asked again whether any of the others looked familiar at all. Mrs Browning shook her head.

‘I'm sorry, dear, but my memory is not what it was. Now she looks nice,' she said, looking at Caroline Titchmell's face. ‘I wonder? Perhaps … No, I don't think so. And I'm not sure about him, after all,' she said, staring at the portrait of Mark Tothill again.

‘Never mind,' said Willow. ‘You've been very helpful, and I'm glad Aunt Edith had a neighbour like you.' She put the book and all the photographs away in her briefcase.

Mrs Browning came to the door with Willow and indicated a shortcut out of the little estate, which would take her quickly back to the bus stop. Willow was delighted that she would be able to get out without passing the warden's cottage, but she wanted to talk to Miss Fernside's other neighbour first.

There was no answer to her knock on the front door of number 38 and when she looked round she saw that Mrs Browning was peering at her through the net curtains of her front room. Willow waved and smiled, and was just about to knock on the door of the next house when she caught sight of the warden appearing through the brick archway. Afraid that he might have telephoned whoever had wound up Miss Fernside's estate to check her story, Willow made her escape.

Her direct action had had only disappointing results, but she decided to pursue Mrs Browning's vague identifications a little further. It was more than likely that her recognition of the publisher's artificially glamorous photograph of Ben Jonson had come from another book, but Willow thought that she should at least find out whether he had been in Newcastle just before the date of Edith Fernside's death.

Remembering that he taught a class of creative writing in South London, she decided that her first source of information should be the university. After some frustrating misconnections and delays, she spoke to a man in charge of arranging summer schools and casual vacation courses.

‘Hello,' she said, ‘my name is Cressida Woodruffe. You won't have heard of my books, but …'

‘But of course I have, Miss Woodruffe,' said the slightly nasal voice at the other end of the telephone. ‘How can we help you here?'

There was a touch of sarcasm in that question, which annoyed Willow enough to make her ignore the cover story she had invented, and so she came straight out with the question she had planned to disguise.

‘I want to know whether Ben Jonson ever teaches at your creative writing courses,' she said. There was a slight laugh.

‘Yes, he does indeed. But I ought to warn you that his style is not really compatible with yours.'

‘I know that perfectly well,' said Willow, wishing that she had used her other name after all, despite her reluctance to let any old family acquaintances at the university know of her presence in Newcastle. ‘All I want to find out is whether he was here last winter – in, say, February?'

‘Let me see, I don't think so. Just a moment.' There was the sound of riffling paper. ‘No. He was last here in the Christmas vacation. He teaches in London during term time. He will be flattered to hear of your interest.'

‘Thank you,' said Willow. She did not like to think of the contemptuous amusement she had just caused. She cut the connection, thinking that if Edith Fernside had died in late February, the Christmas vacation seemed a bit too early for the poisoning of her sloe gin.

Willow then dialled directory enquiries to ask for the number of Miranda Bruterley's mother, who was said to live in Northumberland. Northcote was an unusual name and although Willow could give neither initials nor address she was lucky. The operator had only two possible numbers listed. Willow took them both down, tried the first and quickly discovered that it was wrong. At the second attempt she was successful, asked to speak to Miranda and managed to elicit the fact that she had been staying with her mother for the first two weeks of the previous February. That sounded much more useful.

Willow wanted to ring Tom Worth at once to tell him, but was told by a woman in his office that he was unavailable. Unable to think of a way of disguising her message that would still tell him all he needed to know, Willow said she would ring again later and refused even to leave her name. Then she took a taxi back to the railway station and found that she had just missed a train to London. There was another one due in two hours and so she went and bought the day's newspapers and took them to read over some sandwiches and coffee at the station buffet.

Two hours later, settled in a window seat in a first-class compartment. Willow took out of her bag the novel Ben Jonson had given her, which she had still not read, and applied herself to it. It was called
Fair Cecilia
and she expected it to be a clever pastiche of one of his namesake's works.

By the time the train pulled out of York station, she had read almost a third and realised that the title provided the only allusion to his seventeenth-century namesake. She also saw exactly what her editor had meant about Ben's writing. He had obviously been impressed by the fashion for exploring the reactions of inadequate people to the cruelties of fate, and had produced a novel that Willow found almost unbearable to read. Ben's undoubted skill and style rendered his characters'misery so effectively that she felt personally depressed by it. The book was very clever, but Willow understood why it had not been popular and wondered why Ben spent his real talent on a literary genre that was horrible to read and that seemed so unsuited to him.

There was a sudden shriek of brakes and the train slid to a halt. Willow looked up from the book in surprise. There was no sign of any station. The other people in her compartment rustled their newspapers in irritation and one or two asked futile questions. The loudspeaker crackled and after a moment a voice became clear.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your guard speaking. There has been an incident further down the line involving the collision of two trains. There has been no loss of life or injury, but I am sorry to say that there will be a considerable delay before the line can be cleared.'

Five hours later the train arrived in London. Willow and all the other passengers were in a state of acute boredom seasoned with violent frustration. They streamed towards the taxi queue like thirsty wildebeeste scenting water after migrating across a vast riverless plain. Willow was not quite angry enough to get to the head of the queue and so it was half-past eight before she was actually standing in Chesham Place, on the pavement opposite her flat, paying the driver.

As he drove off she picked up her briefcase and parachute bag and looked quickly up to her own windows before crossing the road. There was a light shining where no light ought to be and she stopped moving, staring upwards in appalled surprise. Mrs Rusham would have been long gone and no one else had keys to the flat.

Willow's mind went inexorably back to the last invasion of her home and she could hardly bring herself to step off the kerb. There was no one else in the street. Not even a cat moved. At last, recognising that not knowing what had happened to her flat was perhaps even worse than seeing the damage, she walked out into the road.

The stillness of the warm night was broken by the sound of a roaring engine and squealing tyres. Willow looked quickly to her right to see a large dark-blue car tearing down the street towards her. For a moment she was distracted by the driver's face as the car drove under a streetlight. By the time she realised the danger she was in, the car was almost on her. She backed, slipped on something slimy in the gutter and fell awkwardly backwards.

There was a ferocious blow against her legs as they shot out from under her, and she felt the bite of metal on her flesh and the heat of an engine. Her head struck the hardness of a lamppost and as she ricocheted sideways, her face scraped against the damp, rough tarmac of the road. The last absurd thought in her mind as she lost consciousness in a whirling fury of agony, terror and belated understanding was a memory of her headmistress's one piece of worldly wisdom:

‘Always wear clean knickers, girls, in case you're run over in the street and have to be taken to hospital.'

When Willow regained consciousness she was lying flat on her back surrounded by whiteness. She knew with part of her brain that she had been awake and talking – or at the very least groaning – for some time, but she could remember very little. There was a furious pain in her head as well as in her legs. She put up a trembling hand to her forehead, only to feel the fibrous softness of bandages. Bringing her hand back in front of her eyes, she saw that it was covered in scratches and grazes, already beginning to turn crusty. Her eyes focused on two monstrous white shapes suspended in front of her and gradually worked out that they must be her legs. For a while she could not think what had happened to her.

Ambulance men came back to her memory, and she thought they had rescued her after the bad oyster, but that did not seem quite right. She closed her eyes. Slowly some memory began to return.

There was a picture in her mind of herself swearing at a nurse who was standing by while someone did something extremely painful to her legs, and she thought that there had been someone she knew, a man she knew, who had said something worrying. Then she remembered the huge, dark-blue car.

Willow raised a hand to push the hair off her forehead as though that might help her to think, already forgetting the bandages. All she could make her mind concentrate on were the extraordinarily unpleasant sensations in different parts of her body, the idiotic sight of her long legs hoisted up in front of her eyes, the feel of the weights dragging on them, and the hospital smell all around her. It was not particularly unpleasant, just a mixture of disinfectant, polish, over-hot recycled air and too many flowers in stale water.

‘Hello there,' said a voice that seemed vaguely familiar. Willow raised her weighted eyelids and swivelled her sore head in the direction of the voice. Through the pain-killing vapours in her mind she knew that she should recognise his face. She smiled feebly.

‘Hello,' she said, wondering why the sight of him should send such shivers of warning through her. He was wearing a white coat and there was a stethoscope hanging around his neck. There was also a blue plastic label on his left breast pocket. Willow narrowed her eyes, trying to read it, but it was too small. Something was plucking at her memory.

‘I made a bit of an ass of myself,' said the doctor cheerfully, dragging up a chair. ‘I thought I recognised you as a woman I'd recently met at a memorial service for a friend. She looked awfully like you, but she was called Cressida Woodruffe. When we opened your bag we found you were quite different. You probably don't remember much of our conversation.'