Free Festering Lilies by Natasha Cooper Page B

smile as she said:
    â€˜Richard, my dear, don’t worry so much. I shan’t get hurt. Come on; get up and come to bed.’
    He tipped back his head and she bent to kiss him.

Chapter Four
    Willow woke early the following morning to the depressing sound of heavy November rain beating against the windows of her bedroom. Hearing the soft snuffle of Richard’s breathing, she twisted her head to the right to look at her illuminated clock. Six o’clock: there was an hour and a half to go before Mrs Rusham would arrive and make breakfast. Willow hated lying awake in bed with nothing to do, but she was loth to wake Richard by turning on the light to read. Instead, she slid carefully out of bed, wrapped herself in her thick velvet dressing gown and padded silently out to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea and think.
    The kitchen was a wonderful room, designed to fit all Willow’s fantasies in the days before she had even envisaged having a housekeeper who would keep her out of it. In the centre of the long wall was a white four-door Aga, far too big for any single woman’s flat, let alone one who was away for half of every week. But it was supremely cosy on a grey morning, and Willow loved feeling the warmth of it against her thighs as she leaned forward to lift the heavy lid of the fast ring.
    While she waited for the kettle to boil, she took a pad of paper and a pencil to the cushioned rocking chair in the corner and sat down, tucking her feet up under her, to list the few things she knew about Algy Endelsham’s life before DOAP. That done, she looked contentedly around the kitchen, noting the almost aseptic cleanliness of it all, and hoping that Mrs Rusham shared some of her delight in the soft redness of the quarry tiles and the silky gleam of the copper pans and bowls that hung on the wall opposite the Aga above the thick beech work tops. Whenever the housekeeper was in the flat she made it quite clear that she wanted her employer to stay out of the kitchen and she always greeted any sullying of its impeccable tidiness with a frigid politeness that was expressive of extreme disapproval. Willow put up with it not only because Mrs Rusham was an excellent cook and organiser, but also because she had never betrayed the slightest hint of curiosity about her employer’s private life or unexplained absences. Willow prized that restraint even more than she prized her glorious kitchen.
    The hiss of the kettle brought her approving reverie to an end; she made a pot of Earl Grey tea and poured some out into a fine bone-china mug, which she took back-to the rocking chair. There she sat, nursing the warm mug and rocking herself gently as she turned over and over in her mind all the possible reasons why a man like Algy Endelsham might have been killed.
    When she had first heard about the murder, she had assumed that it must have been his womanising that had angered someone so much that he or she (or even they) had killed him, and Gino’s titillating hints had tended to reinforce the assumption. But there was still the frightful possibility that Algy had merely been the victim of mindless violence, or perhaps somebody’s spite or even lunacy. What Willow had to decide was how to proceed with her investigation with so few facts.
    She was nowhere near any kind of solution when, nearly an hour later, she heard the sounds of Richard getting out of bed.
    â€˜Tea, darling?’ she called from the kitchen, and then smiled as he came in, his thick hair standing on end from a vigorous scratching and his long body clad in the heavy silk dressing gown she had bought for him. Navy blue with claret-coloured piping, it was, she considered, very suitable for a successful banker.
    â€˜Um,’ he said, ‘tea would be lovely, if it’s not too much trouble.’
    â€˜I’ll make a new pot – this is hours old. Go and run a bath and I’ll bring you a cup there.’
    Richard looked a