Festering Lilies by Natasha Cooper

you would tell all your other customers that she was in a state,’ said Willow drily and closed her eyes. ‘Who was killed, and how do you know she had anything to do with him?’ She knew that she had caught Gino on the raw, because she heard the snap as he put down the dryer.
    Opening her eyes, she saw him riffling through a heap of dog-eared magazines. At last he found the one he was looking for, and brought it to her. Laying it open in front of her, he picked up the dryer again.
    â€˜There!’ he said, dramatically as he pushed up the switch and the machine roared again. ‘It’s unmistakable,’ he went on above the noise.
    Willow looked at the row of four-inch-square photographs, searching for the pretty blonde. But it was Algy who caught her eye first, resplendent in white tie and tails. Suppressing a sigh of regret for the loss of such rare masculine beauty and talent, Willow looked at his companion. Sure enough, there was the pretty, slightly fragile-looking blonde who usually occupied the chair two down from Willow’s. ‘Mrs Eustace Gripper’, as the caption called her, was wearing an off-the-shoulder ball dress and looked enchanting as she stood confidingly close to her tall escort.
    â€˜What makes you think that there was anything between them?’ said Willow, as soon as Gino switched off the dryer. ‘It would be madly indiscreet of them to be seen together like that if there had been.’
    Gino shrugged and looked ineffably knowing.
    â€˜You can’t mean that she told you,’ said Willow, really surprised. ‘Or was it someone else? Some terribly good friend of hers, who just couldn’t keep her mouth shut?’ She watched the Italian closely, but he was far too experienced to blush or wince. He merely laughed.
    â€˜That would be telling, wouldn’t it, Miss Woodruffe,’ he said, reaching for the hairs pray to glue Willow’s hair in place.
    â€˜Yes,’ she said crisply. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’
    â€˜People tell me a lot of things,’ he said quietly. ‘And I never repeat them. Never!’
    Remembering a song from HMS Pinafore , Willow smiled to herself and then said aloud:
    â€˜You just hint, don’t you, Gino? My goodness, you must have fun with us all. I’m glad I’ve no secrets.’
    â€˜Everybody has things to hide, Miss Woodruffe,’ he said, smoothing her newly curled hair. ‘There, how do you like it?’
    â€˜Very much,’ she answered, hoping devoutly that he knew nothing of her secrets.
    As she examined her reflection, she thought with affectionate nostalgia of her first physical transformation from Willow King to ‘Cressida Woodruffe’. It had taken place on the morning of her first meeting with Eve Greville, who was to become her literary agent.
    Willow had sent Eve the typescript of her first, unpublishable, novel and Eve had suggested that they meet to discuss ‘Cressida’s’ next attempt. Unwilling to present herself as a severe-looking Civil Servant, Willow had gambled some of her limited resources on an expensive, clinging black jersey dress to wear instead of one of her loose, ill-fitting, neutral suits, and had booked an appointment at a famous hair-and-beauty salon.
    There she had given the staff a free hand and watched in amusement and some admiration as they recreated her. Excited by the length, thickness and good condition of her dark-red hair, the hairdresser had released it from its savagely controlling pins and washed and curled it into an artfully tousled mane. So framed, her white face lost its severity and took on a curiously convincing attraction. The cheekbones that seemed almost painfully sharp when her hair was dragged away from them looked dramatic in contrast to the luxuriance of her new curls; her nose seemed much less prominent and as she smiled her lips lost their pinched look.
    Later, with subtly graded olive and