Festering Lilies (23 page)

‘I'm concerned about you, You haven't made so many typing mistakes for a very long time. Correct them, will you? And then bring the letters back. I've marked the mistakes in pencil. Thank you.'

Roger picked up the two piles of letters and left the office with a gesture that was almost a flounce. Willow shook her head at his departing back and then stretched her cramped neck and shoulder muscles before picking up her tea cup.

It was true, she thought after taking a sip, that Roger did make exceptionally good tea. Even so, it was hard to imagine the highly sophisticated, arrogant minister consoling himself with a cup of it at the price of Roger's chat and a wasted fifteen minutes.

That thought led inexorably back to what Algy might have been doing on the common or who could have lured him there and with what excuse. Willow wished that she could have interviewed Albert, the driver. She knew that she was being both snobbish and unkind, but given that she hardly knew the man, and disliked what she did know, she would have much preferred him to be the murderer than any other suspect except Gripper, whom she knew even less and had a more positive reason to dislike. But as she had no excuse to approach Albert and could only draw attention to herself by doing so, she decided that she could no longer put off talking to Michael Englewood. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the telephone and instead of the car pool dialled the number of his room.

‘Ah, Valerie,' she said when the telephone was answered. ‘Willow King here. Is the under secretary in his office?'

‘Yes, Miss King; he's just got back from sitting in on Inspector Worth's question-sessions. Hold on a moment.'

Willow could hear a muffled conversation and then Valerie's comforting, almost motherly voice saying: ‘I'll put you through.'

‘Willow,' said Mr Englewood. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘I'm sorry to disturb you,' she answered, much against her principles, which precluded apology for anything except a real and planned misdemeanour on her part. ‘But I simply wanted to thank you for your support this morning. It made an otherwise daunting experience into something quite bearable.'

‘I'm glad,' he said, his voice much warmer. ‘I hope that you have not been too much troubled over this unhappy business.'

‘Well obviously it has been very upsetting. I imagine that we must have all been rather upset – I mean all those of us who had any real contact with the minister. Look, I wonder.… I know this is short notice, but if you are not busy this evening I wonder if I might buy you a glass of wine or something? It would be such a relief to talk to someone who can be trusted not to indulge in prurient speculation or coy
double entendre.
'

‘I could safely promise you that,' came the reply, ‘and I should be delighted to have a drink with you. Six o'clock, perhaps?'

‘Yes. Splendid. I'll meet you by the front desk. Thank you.' Willow put down her receiver and promised herself that she would get back to Clapham Junction to interview the tramp again on the following day. She turned back to work for the last hour and a half of the day, but she was interrupted by first one and then another of her junior staff with problems that had to be solved. It was almost half-past five before she had a chance to look at her own work. There seemed little point in starting anything new and so instead she sat, a scribbling pad in front of her, trying to see her way through the maze of suspicions, counter-suspicions and wild speculation that would lead eventually to Algy's murderer. But before she reached any conclusions it was time to lock away her confidential papers and proceed to the surreptitious interrogation of the under secretary (estabs).

The lift she was in seemed to her to be impregnated with the smell she now associated with the searching of her rooms. Was it, she wondered in sudden hope, merely one of the normal smells of the department, which she had never particularly noticed before she allowed herself to become so wrapped up in the investigation? If so, then she could have transferred it to Chesham Place herself.

Smiling a little in relief at that comforting hypothesis, Willow ignored the usual jerky inefficiency of the lift until it eventually stopped at the ground floor. As she stepped out, she looked across the cold lobby to the conference room where Inspector Worth had his temporary office. Instead of the tall, frighteningly attractive figure of the policeman, she saw Albert walking across the hall, his uniform cap dangling casually from his left hand and a crumpled newspaper jammed under his right arm. Thinking that she really ought to ask him what he had been doing in her office while her staff were absent, she was about to call out to him when she saw the door of the room that the police had commandeered open. She stood still by the lift doors, waiting and watching.

Inspector Tom Worth stood in the doorway and it was he who accosted the driver. Albert walked over and stood to attention in front of him. The inspector said something and Albert answered, but they were just too far away for Willow to catch anything either of them said.

‘Ah, Willow,' said the establishments officer loudly from the other side of the hall. ‘Have I kept you waiting long? I am sorry.'

Willow looked towards him and smiled, but before moving from her vantage point by the lifts she looked back at Albert and the inspector. She was only a little surprised to find herself under his scrutiny. With what Cressida would have described as a gracious inclination of her head, she moved off to join Mr Englewood and together they left the building.

‘Where would you like to go?' he asked as they both shivered in the bitter cold.

‘What about Selina's in Abbeville Road,' suggested Willow. ‘They do mulled wine there and on a night like tonight, I'd have thought that was our best bet.'

‘Selina's it shall be. But you'll have to show me the way,' he said. ‘I'm not a great one for after-office socialising and I've never been there.'

‘No, of course not,' said Willow suddenly remembering the piece of information that had eluded her earlier in the day. Didn't you tell me that you've taken the six-fifteen from Waterloo every night for years?' Then in case he read any kind of sneer – or suspicion – into that, she added: ‘I really admire such self-discipline. One can waste such an astonishing amount of time fiddling around in the office after hours and never get enough done to justify the incursion into one's own time.'

‘I've always admired the amount of work you manage to get through yourself, Willow,' he said, making no reference to his own habits. ‘Ah, this must be your place.' He held open the door for her and together they sat down at a small table in front of the gas log fire.

Willow ordered a large jug of mulled wine without even thinking about it; after all, it had been she who had invited Mr Englewood to have a drink with her. But as the waitress took her order, she was aware of a coldness and quickly tracked it to its source.

‘How silly of me,' she said, smiling frankly at him. ‘I get so used to organising things in the office that I forget the old courtesies of social intercourse.'

‘Please,' he protested. ‘Pay no attention to me. It's a great many years since I had the opportunity of entertaining a woman, and I know that customs have changed immeasurably in the interim. Since my wife left – I'm certain that the office will have regaled you with every detail – I don't think I have been alone with a woman outside the DOAP tower. You must forgive my pre-women's-liberation gaucherie.'

Willow laughed, quite kindly, finding it increasingly difficult to believe in her own suspicions of this man. As she laughed, she realised that she was at last free of the disturbing smell. Michael Englewood smelled of tweed, the department's soap and ink.

‘You're the first man I've met who would apologise – or phrase an apology so charmingly,' she said, so relieved that her voice was light and friendly. ‘Yes, the office has regaled me with a little of your history, but don't let's talk about it, unless you particularly want to.'

‘God forbid!' said Englewood with much greater emphasis than she had ever heard him use before. ‘I think we have both suffered from the effects of office tittle-tattle. One small comfort of living alone as I have had to is that at least the office can't be exciting itself with details of my existence. Although,' he added consideringly, ‘knowing some of the worst gossip-merchants, they have probably invented some appallingly lurid stories about me.'

Willow shook her head.

‘Even I should probably have heard if they had done. But all I've been told is that you live alone; that your chief interest is chess. Oh yes, I've heard that you play it on a computer you take everywhere with you. I'd love to see it,' said Willow, trying to put him at his ease. But something she had said obviously had the reverse effect and he twitched visibly and began to flush. She decided to cover her unfortunate request.

‘They also say that you like detective stories and that you spend your holidays fishing. There's nothing there to make you sweat and blush in the night,' she said to him kindly.

‘Was that what happened to you when they were all chattering about the minister's glaringly public attempted seduction?' Englewood asked in a tone of such bitterness that Willow could not help staring at him.

‘Sometimes, I must admit. It has recently dawned on me that I absolutely hated being humiliated in public like that,' she said, hoping to elicit some confidences. ‘Although at the time I just thought I was irritated.'

‘Yes, humiliation was always one of his specialities,' said Englewood. ‘Ah, here's the wine. Might I pour it out? Just to bolster my failing masculinity?' There was more than a hint of charm in that smiling request. Willow merely smiled and nodded, leaving her probing for a minute or two. She sipped the hot, fragrant drink and sighed in satisfaction.

‘There is one thing to be said for mulled wine apart from its warmth on a night like this,' she said. ‘Despite the horrible quality of some “house” wines, once it's been hotted up and sugared and spiced it really is quite drinkable.'

‘It's very good,' he said, ‘but it does taste rather strong. Would you mind if I ordered something to eat with it? Some
pâté
or something? Will you join me?'

‘That's very kind,' she said, mentally cursing him for his caution. ‘In fact they do a wonderful if eccentric hot
pâté en croûte.
We might have that.' But as soon as he had given the waitress his order, Willow returned to the attack.

‘You sound as though you knew the minister rather well.'

‘Not particularly,' answered Englewood, sounding tired. ‘But what I did know I disliked. He seemed to take such pleasure in making other people look foolish.'

‘For example?'

‘Well apart from you, there was the PUS – I can't be breaking any confidences because you must have seen it happening in meetings: how Algy would lead him on by apparently guileless questions until the poor man had made more and more of an ass of himself; and nearly everyone else who came within Endelsham's orbit had a taste of it.'

‘It sounds rather as though he did it to you, too,' said Willow and then added hastily as she saw his face beginning to redden, ‘not that I ever witnessed it, but you sound so angry that I can't help feeling that there is something more personal in your dislike than what he did to the PUS.'

‘You're right, of course. Ah, here's the
pâté.
You know,' he said turning to face her for a moment, ‘this really is rather a treat. At home I live on the dullest food – usually something cold on a piece of bread. It is a long, long time since I did something like this. You could say it was my fault – and you'd be right – but it is hard to pick yourself up again after…' He broke off, took a deep swig of the warm wine and then said: ‘But I don't know why I'm boring you with my maunderings: I get the impression that you are just as lonely as I, except for your old aunt, and she can't be much of a friend for someone like you.'

‘I get by well enough,' said Willow shortly, very much disliking the idea that Mr Englewood thought himself at all similar to her. ‘But never mind. Tell me something: what will happen to Albert now? Will he be assigned to the next minister or will he have to go back to the pool?'

‘Albert? What makes you ask about him?' The question came out as a kind of bark. Willow could not decide whether she thought Englewood was trying to protect a fellow conspirator or was simply surprised at her curiosity.

‘Curiosity, I suppose,' answered Willow with a deceptively frank smile. ‘I saw him in the hall while I was waiting for you and I wondered what makes a man choose to drive for a government department and whether it's thought to be better to drive a minister exclusively or be at the beck and call of all the pool-users.'

‘I see. Albert used to be a private chauffeur and so it was thought that he might perhaps have more polish than some of the men who've spent their entire careers at DOAP. …'

‘Polish!' repeated Willow with a squawk in her voice. ‘I'd have said that he was the most gauche, most unhelpful employee in the entire department. Sorry, Michael. I shouldn't have interrupted. Do carry on.'

‘Well yes,' he said. ‘He didn't turn out to be quite what we'd expected, but the minister was always quite amused by him and he was a more than competent driver, so we kept him on. I expect he'll be assigned to the minister's successor.'

Englewood took a deep swallow of the wine and Willow began to hope that despite the
pâté
he might drink enough to loosen his tongue. To keep him unsuspicious of her motives, she asked another question about the driver as she refilled Englewood's glass.

‘What would make a private chauffeur switch to the public sector? Presumably the pay is much worse,' she said.