Rotten Apples (16 page)

‘I suppose you'll just have to dump some cases,' said Willow, thinking about her report.

Kate shrugged. ‘We can't do that. Not possibly. But reconstructing the information we'd already got is going to be difficult, and in some cases, you see, we'd made them handover all their papers to us, so they won't be able to help even if they wanted to.' She frowned again and shook her head as though to free her mind of everything in it.

‘But you don't need to listen to all this. There's not really much more for you to do here, is there? You'd read the Fydgett files before they were burned, and you've talked to everyone who dealt with her. I assume you'll just write up your report and go.' Kate's voice suggested that Willow's departure would be the only encouraging event in a disastrous week.

‘That sort of thing,' said Willow, determined to preserve her entrée into the tax office and wishing she had insisted on seeing the missing Fydgett papers before the fire. ‘But there are still plenty of investigation files I hadn't had time to read, which are presumably still in the presses and must be all right. I've seen none of Jason's, for instance.'

‘Well, they're hardly relevant. He'd done no work on Fydgett's affairs for years. My predecessor made him hand the file over to Len as soon as she disputed the assessment of profits on her picture dealing. She claimed that they were Capital Gains while Jason's view was that they were part of her business and should be taxed as income. But that aspect of her affairs was sorted out long ago. Nothing he may have done then can possibly matter now.'

That's what you think, matey, said Willow to herself, feeling tougher. She was about to ask for more details of why Len had asked Fiona Fydgett for details of all her recent picture sales when there was a knock on the door and Cara Saks looked round it.

‘Yes, what is it?' asked Kate, sounding brisk again.

Cara flinched. ‘You asked me to find out what's happening about Len and the funeral and everything…' She paused.

Willow wondered how often Cara was asked to take on tasks that ought to have been carried out by a secretary, and why she agreed to do it.

‘Well?' Kate's voice was sharp once more.

‘Apparently the police can't release, you know, it—the body—until they've solved all sorts of problems, and Mrs Scoffer doesn't want to wait, and so she's having a sort of service at their local church on Thursday afternoon. She's invited us all to tea at her house afterwards. Are we going?'

‘Yes: to the service at least. Anyone who worked closely with Len, and anyone else who wants to go. Tell them all, will you, Cara?'

‘Which church, and what time?' asked Willow. ‘I'd like to go.'

‘You?' said Kate, astonished. ‘You loathed him.'

‘I hardly knew him, but I feel responsible for his death.'

Both the others gaped at her.

‘If I'd thought…I mean, I ought to have found out if there was anyone else in the building before just getting out like that. If I'd been more aware of what was happening, I'd have realised he…'

‘I don't think you should blame yourself.' Kate shook her head again and pushed her fingers through her usually glossy dark hair, tangling it. ‘I had no idea he was there either, or I'd have chased him out long before. I can't think what on earth he was doing in the office so late. It's one of the things that's been bothering me so much. Why?'

‘I can't imagine,' said Willow, reminded of her own interests. ‘Look, I oughtn't to be holding you up like this. I'll get out of your way. Where's my office?'

‘I'm afraid we haven't got any room for you at all,' said Kate quickly. ‘We're horribly pushed for space here. Must you be in the same building as us to write up your report? Surely not.'

‘Perhaps not.' Willow, realising that she was not going to get anywhere by antagonising Kate, pulled forward a piece of rough paper from the pile on the desk and scribbled a row of numbers on it. ‘I'll do what I can at home and then arrange to come back at a time that suits you. Here's my number in case you need me.

I've put the fax number as well. I'll ring you when I need to talk. Okay? Goodbye.'

Kate merely nodded and Cara said nothing. As Willow left them, she caught sight of Jason, leaning back in a chair and gazing up at the ceiling with an extraordinarily, satisfied expression on his face. She stopped beside his desk, wondering whether it was only her antipathy that made her think it might have been he who had torched the building. Regretfully she decided that it was. No one who had just caused so much damage, let alone killed a colleague, would be fool enough to look so obviously pleased with himself. On the other hand, he was quite clever enough to know that, and undoubtedly subtle enough to try a double-bluff if he thought he could get away with it.

‘Morning, Willow,' he said, looking her up and down. ‘That was an impressive piece of PR, wasn't it? On the front pages of most of the broadsheets and all of the tabloids. Who'd have thought a bestselling novelist could possibly be concealed behind the serious “Miss King” we'd all learned to know and… What a tasty story!' He laughed and waited for a comment, but Willow was still enough in control of herself to avoid giving him any satisfaction. She waited to see what he would do next, although she was not sanguine enough to believe he would betray himself.

‘It's lucky for you that Len died, isn't it?' said Jason, trying a bit too hard to get a rise out of her. ‘The story wouldn't have run on beyond the first day if it hadn't been for his barbecued corpse.'

‘It must take a peculiar set of values to find humour in a death like his,' said Willow, hoping to see him squirm. She was disappointed. He looked at her as blankly as though they were playing poker. ‘I gather that you used to handle Fiona Fydgett's case until the picture-dealing conflict came up. I'd like to talk to you about it and her.'

He looked surprised, but before he could say anything there was a shout from the far end of the building.

‘Jason! I need you.'

Both he and Willow looked round to see Kate beckoning.

‘Hurry up.'

He looked at Willow, smiled provocatively, and said: ‘When the boss lady calls, all must obey. I'm going to be all tied up for the rest of today and tomorrow; then there's Len's service, but I could see you the day after that, if you like.'

‘We'll see,' said Willow, unable to believe he could be that busy, but determined not to join in his games by arguing with him. She had plenty of other people to see and things to do. He could wait. And the more background information she had before she questioned him seriously, the more effective she was likely to be.

Leaving the building, she decided to visit Tom while she was on the right side of the river. When she got to his room, she saw a nurse by his bed, changing the bag attached to his catheter. The nurse looked up and smiled before hooking the bag on to its frame at the side of his bed.

‘I'll leave you to it. He's doing all right, you know.'

‘Thank you,' said Willow.

When she was alone with Tom, she leaned forward until her forehead was lying on his arm. At the touch of his skin on hers all the old mess of feelings swirled around in her: all the love, longing, anxiety, anger and resentment.

The resentment made her so ashamed that she tried to persuade herself that it did not exist.

After a while she sat up, remembering something Tom had said to her one wet afternoon soon after their marriage.

‘If I've learned one thing, Will,' he had announced after an unhappy misunderstanding that had taken them days to sort out, ‘it's that pretending not to feel doesn't work. If you push all your uncomfortable emotions down below the surface they'll only start to rot everything else. I think you need to recognise them for what they are, get them into perspective and
then
forget about them.'

She thought about it for a long time, almost hearing his voice again.

‘All right,' she said at last, watching his still face, ‘I will admit to all the vile feelings if you really want, and I'll stop trying to push them down, but I'm going to need help.'

He did not answer, of course, just lay there with the machines breathing for him and dripping some fluids into him and pulling others out.

She could not help thinking of their last breakfast together, when it had seemed as though there was almost perfect communication between them. At that moment she had felt remarkably safe: with him, with herself and with all the feelings that she had resisted for so long. Looking at him now, it struck her that Tom might not have shared that safety. He had said be was superstitious and she had taken that to mean that he did not want to tempt fate with too much complacency about their emotional life. But what if there had been something else worrying him? For the first time it struck her that he might have been afraid of violence or even death.

Could he, she asked herself, have known something about the work he was planning to do that day that had frightened him? Had he had some kind of premonition of what would happen?

Theoretically she had always known that he, like every other police officer in London, was at risk. But she had never thought much about it. In her experience, it was officers on the beat or responding to incidents who were in serious danger. Senior detectives like Tom were much less likely to come face to face with violent thugs carrying guns.

Her insensitivity to his possible fear seemed monstrous and she longed for him to wake so that she could put things right. Suddenly that seemed much more important than any of her own needs.

‘Serena Fydgett rang,' said Mrs Rusham as soon as Willow looked into the kitchen on her return. There was a delectable, sharp smell of herbs and shallots being cooked in a reduction of wine vinegar.

‘She sounded upset,' Mrs Rusham went on. ‘I told her that you were at the office, but she said she'd rung there and they didn't know where you were.'

‘I went to the hospital.' Willow's mind was too full of Tom to think about anything else just then. ‘He's still hanging on, Mrs Rusham. There is still hope. Really there is.'

Mrs Rusham said nothing, but the sympathy in her dark eyes was enough to reactivate all Willow's private fears. She turned away, leaving Mrs Rusham to her pots and pans.

Later, when she was calmer, Willow remembered the message from Serena Fydgett and telephoned her.

‘What the hell have you been saying?' said Serena Fydgett as soon as Willow had announced who she was. ‘Your job was to look into how the tax people dealt with my sister's affairs, not to start slandering the rest of us.'

‘I don't understand,' said Willow, who had been about to thank Serena for the flowers she had sent after the fire. Adjusting as quickly as she could to the aggression in the other woman's voice—and her own suspicions, which suddenly seemed less extravagantly wild—Willow added: ‘Who do you think I've been talking to?'

‘The police.'

‘Don't be absurd.' Willow grabbed her fringe with one bandaged hand and held it above her head. ‘I mean I answered everything they asked me last week, but the only thing that was remotely” relevant to you was my explanation of the work I was doing for the minister.'

‘But you must have told them that I blamed Scoffer for Fiona's death. No one else can have done it.'

‘Except the minister, or perhaps her MP. Your name wasn't even mentioned. Are you telling me they've…' Letting her hair fly loose again, Willow stopped. It would be pretty insulting to ask whether Harness had charged Serena with arson and murder.

‘Not only did they bang on my door at six-thirty this morning to question me about whether I had tried to kill Leonard Scoffer,' Serena went on furiously, ‘but I've just found out that they've been harassing my nephew, too.'

‘What?' said Willow, and then quickly followed it with a better response. ‘That's absurd. They can't possibly suspect a schoolboy.'

‘It seems—unfortunately—that they do. One or perhaps both of us. Even more unfortunate is the fact that Rob's headmaster believed he had the right to advise co-operation with the police. They had been grilling him over three hours before. I got him out, with no more protection than that idiot headmaster. He hadn't even the wit to get a solicitor there. Though come to think of some of the ones who—'

‘I'm appalled,' said Willow, interrupting without stopping to think. Her voice seemed to carry real conviction, for when Serena spoke again she sounded a little less angry.

‘That's a relief.'

‘And I can assure you that none of that can have been the result of anything I said,' Willow went on. ‘Neither your name nor your nephew's was mentioned at any time during my session with the police, and I haven't even seen them since the day after the fire.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Serena, sounding as though she were beginning to relax. ‘It's only that I couldn't think why they'd have come up with anything so ludicrous unless you'd put them up to it.'

‘I can promise you it wasn't me.' Willow thought of all the things she wanted to ask Serena about Fiona's death, the earlier suicide attempts (which only she had mentioned) and exactly what Fiona had done to make Serena angry with her. ‘But they must have had some information from somewhere to make them take such a dramatic step. I mean… Look, wouldn't you rather talk face to face about all this? You could come and have some lunch.'

‘Why?'

‘Oh because of lots of reasons, really.' Willow tried to produce a convincing excuse. ‘One is wholly selfish,' she said. ‘I am so angry with the criminal fool who put me through hell in that fire that I want him prosecuted as fast as possible. It sounds as though the police are barking up completely the wrong tree. If you and I pool our information, we'll get there much quicker than they can with all this bumbling about asking irrelevant questions of innocent people.'