Festering Lilies Read Online Free PDF Page B

the place where Algy had actually died. She was not silly enough to expect to find any physical clues that the police might have missed, but she did think that following the steps of aggressor and victim might give her some useful ideas.
    Collecting her grey mackintosh from the curly bentwood coatstand by the door, Willow left her office. As usual she was among the last to go, apart from the few young high-flyers who believed that the field-marshal’s batons they carried in their knapsacks would be more obvious to their superiors the longer they spent in the office. But just as she reached the front door, she encountered the establishments officer buttoning up his reversible coat with the mackintosh side outwards.
    â€˜Evening, Willow,’ he said, looking slightly startled at the sight of her. He tucked the ends of a thick scarf into the neck of his coat. ‘Bitterly cold, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Good evening, Michael. Yes, isn’t it foul? You’re leaving rather late, aren’t you?’
    â€˜It’ll be the first time for ages that I haven’t caught the six-fifteen from Waterloo,’ he agreed, adding in what she thought quite unnecessary detail, ‘I’ve taken that train every evening for nearly twenty years. But I’ve been sitting in with the inspector, listening to apparently irrelevant alibis all day. He’s an impressive worker, I can tell you – and incredibly patient.’
    â€˜Poor you,’ said Willow. ‘But why patient?’
    Englewood’s face twisted into a curious self-deprecating grimace.
    â€˜He never even sounded sharp, let alone lost his temper, despite having to listen to hours of the most idiotic, giggly excuses, alibis and coy questions,’ he said with an impatience she had never heard from him before.
    â€˜Goodness, Michael,’ said Willow, rather entertained to hear him sounding quite different from the weary, kindly man she had always thought him, ‘you sound positively vitriolic.’
    To her surprise, his face reddened once more and his hard-looking moustache quivered. With a visible effort, he controlled himself and spoke in a voice that was almost as mild as usual:
    â€˜Oh, but surely you’ve heard of my appalling temper.’
    â€˜Certainly not,’ said Willow, shivering a little in the bitter cold, but too interested to cut the encounter short. ‘But as you know, I never encourage my staff to gossip to me.’
    â€˜I know, and that’s one of the many things I’ve always admired in you, my dear Willow,’ he said, sounding quite normal again. ‘But I have very little tolerance for the kind of giggling stupidity and malicious tittle tattle in which the department‘s typists seem to specialise. But never mind that: as I was saying, Inspector Worth put up with it all admirably. Although,’ he added with a sly smile, ‘I could see how much he appreciated your incisiveness and good sense.’
    â€˜I noticed that it was abominably stuffy in that room even when I was there this morning; you must have the most frightful headache as well as your cold,’ said Willow, changing the subject. For some reason she did not want to talk about the policeman’s possible reaction to her and her alibi, and she was beginning to find Michael Englewood’s unprecedented compliments rather repellent.
    He smiled ruefully: ‘In fact, I have; but you’re the first person to have noticed, Willow. You are an extraordinarily perceptive woman.’
    â€˜Well I dare say the walk to the tube will clear it,’ she answered hastily. Algy’s death seemed to have plunged her into more personal contact than she had ever allowed before. She did not like it at all and had no intention of letting herself get on to intimate – or even personal – terms with Michael Englewood.
    â€˜Are you going that way, too?’ asked Englewood.
    â€˜No, I have to go to Peter Jones