Rotten Apples (31 page)

‘Look, you'd better come in,' said Mrs Hallten, perhaps reassured by Willow's obvious approval of the baby. ‘I must put a nappy on her.'

‘Yes, of course. I'll shut the door.'

‘Go on into the lounge, will you?' said Mrs Hallten over her daughter's head. ‘I won't be long.'

Silently blessing the child for her excellent intervention, Willow went into the room and sat down on a tightly upholstered bucket chair in the bay window, from where she could watch the street. No one approached the front door and the only figures she could see were a languorous postman, slowly stuffing letters through a few front doors and an angry young woman in jeans and high heels dragging two crying children along the pavement, shouting at them.

Mrs Hallten came back ten minutes later. The baby in her arms had not only had a nappy put on but also a pretty red and white gingham dress with bright blue smocking across the front. Mrs Hallten had also changed her own dress.

‘I hope you didn't put clothes on her just because I'm here,' said Willow, smiling at them both. ‘It's so hot.'

‘I know. Isn't it awful? I can't wait for it to rain again.' Mrs Hallten pushed her hair away from her damp face. ‘What did you say you wanted to know? I'm so tired at the moment that I keep forgetting everything.'

‘It's all right. You haven't forgotten anything today. Tammy intervened before we got that far.'

‘That's all right then. You said your name was King, I think.'

‘Yes. Willow King. I'm a civil servant, working at the moment for the Minister for Rights and Charters.'

‘Oh yes?' Mrs Hallten was clearly puzzled but too tired to ask questions. Willow felt such sympathy for her that she decided to be a little franker than she had planned.

‘He's been worried about the way that a man called Leonard Scoffer…'

Before Willow could get any further, Mrs Hallten's face changed. She dumped her baby in the netted playpen in the centre of the room and went to stand in front of Willow. ‘Who are you and what do you want?' she said, sounding quite different from the gentle, worried mother of a few moments earlier. The baby heard the difference too and started to howl. Mrs Hallten went over to pat her head, but it did not stop the cries. ‘I don't like that man's name mentioned in my house. He is… oh, I don't want to go into it all again now.'

‘As I was saying,' said Willow, noticing that the other woman had used the present tense, ‘the minister is worried about the way Scoffer has been conducting some of his investigations. Your husband's file is one of the ones I have been reviewing and I wanted to talk to you to find out whether my instincts are correct.'

‘Oh, yes? And what are your instincts, then?'

‘That Scoffer crossed the line between reasonable and unreasonable behaviour in the way he dealt with taxpayers. But I need some facts to support my instinct. I hoped that you could give me examples of unreasonable behaviour.'

‘Ah.' Mrs Hallten's tight shoulders relaxed and she started to breathe again. ‘Look, what about a cup of tea? We could go into the kitchen and talk. Tammy'll be all right in her pen for a bit, and it'll be easier not to worry about sounding angry. She'll calm down in a minute.'

‘Fine.' said Willow, not wanting to drink anything hot but more than willing to go anywhere to hear the information she needed. ‘Look, I can't call you Mrs Hallten. My name's Willow. What's yours?'

‘Sally. It's this way.'

She led her guest down a passage exactly like the Scoffers'towards the kitchen. As they passed the cupboard under the stairs, Willow grimaced.

‘Is tea all right for you, or would you like something cold?'

‘Oh, I would. Thank you.'

‘There's lime or Tammy's Ribena, oh, and some Diet Coke, I think.'

‘Lime would be great.'

When they were sitting either side of the pine table, Willow drank some of the iced cordial she had been given. ‘Well?' she said.

‘I don't know where to begin. Scoffer's done his best to ruin our lives.'

‘Just tell me anything that comes into your head then. Start with how your husband is at the moment.' Willow took her black notebook out of the bag and unscrewed her pen.

Tears welled up in Sally Hallten's warm brown eyes and she shook her curly head. ‘It's awful. He's upset and broke and bad tempered all the time now. It's even worse than when he started giving up smoking to save money. And Tammy cries all night so he can't sleep, and he doesn't know how we're going to pay the rent and we'll never get another mortgage. So it'll be bed and breakfasts as soon as we get evicted. And now lie's so worried that even when she's not crying he can't sleep. He was tossing and turning all night and when I tried to help, he just yelled at me. Our own house went, you see, months ago.'

‘This one doesn't seem too bad,' said Willow, looking round the kitchen, which was infinitely more up to date than the Scoffers' had been.

‘I know. It's okay and we're really lucky to have it. But we won't have it for long if we can't keep up with the rent. I just don't know what we're going to do.' She started to cry, pulling a ragged handkerchief from the pocket of her dress.

‘You had an Individual Voluntary Agreement with your creditors, didn't you?' said Willow when Sally Hallten had begun to get herself under control.

‘That's right.' She sniffed and smiled bravely. ‘And we thought it would be all right then. If everything had gone on as it was, we'd have been able to pay the four hundred a month, just. It would've been a squeeze, but we'd have done it.' She sobbed loudly and then got up to turn her back on Willow while she blew her nose.

‘But now we've had another huge tax bill, and we've discovered that the old tax doesn't seem to be part of the agreement. Scoffer's told us that they've got a charge against our future profits, which I didn't know and I don't think Dan could have understood at the time.'

There was another pause, during which she took out the handkerchief again, rejected it and found a roll of lavatory paper, from which she tore off sheets to blot her tears. There was a surprising dignity about her, in spite of her misery.

‘It all seems obvious now. But you see everything was agreed at thirty-five pence in the pound, so we thought the tax would be too. When we got the next big tax bill—assessment they call it—we thought that would be part of the agreement too. It wasn't till later that we realised none of it was. And then the van broke down. That cost a fortune to mend, though less of course. Much less.' She mopped her eyes again. ‘And then we got the real horror.'

‘What was that?' asked Willow as the other woman relapsed into silence.

Sally coughed to clear her throat and blew her nose, before stuffing the paper handkerchief into the pocket of her dress. ‘Danny got this huge job, which was going to salvage everything. We worked out the estimate really carefully together. Everything seemed to be all right. He was talking to me again about work and money, and I typed up the estimate for him after I'd checked his sums and he'd checked mine and we were happy again. And the profit was going to clear a lot of the new tax bill and give us a bit of breathing space.'

‘It sounds perfect.'

Sally's eyes filled again and she shook her head. ‘He got some of the money up front. He always does, you know, for materials and things. But it wasn't very much this time; not nearly enough to pay for all the materials he needed. He bought the stuff as he needed it and did the work. It half killed him there was such a lot but it was going really well. He fitted in with the other subcontractors, even when it meant working far longer than usual, even at night. Tammy and I hardly saw him. And then the developer went bust, owing us a fortune. We're not going to get anything, not even thirty-five pence in the pound like our creditors get. But we've still got to pay all the tax we owe. It's so unfair, it's just broken his spirit'

‘Oh dear.'

‘I sometimes think if it had happened before he could have coped, but once he'd relaxed and got hopeful again after the IVA, it was just too much.'

‘What happened?' asked Willow, not feeling as triumphant as she might have done. It was pretty clear to her that Hallten must be the man she had been looking for, but all she could feel was pity for them both—and for the child howling in its playpen in the front room.

‘We wrote to the insolvency people, suggesting a lower repayment over a longer time so that we could try to pay the extra tax bill, but they wouldn't accept it. And we're already four months behind. And now there's yet another lot of tax to pay.' She looked at Willow in horror. ‘Scoffer's said that they'll bankrupt us, and we'll lose everything.'

Willow drank some more of the lime cordial, bumping her nose on a piece of ice. ‘But that's not so bad, is it? All the debts will be wiped out and you can start again. Your husband will be able to go on working. He just can't be a director, but I don't suppose you're a limited company, are you, so that's hardly an issue?'

‘You don't understand.' Sally blew her nose loudly and took the lump of paper tissue to the kitchen bin. With her back to Willow, she added: ‘It's not just the shame, although he feels that dreadfully. It's … he was a bit of a fool when he was young, you see, but he went straight ever after, and we got married and got the house and had Tammy, and now … And then there's the lack of credit. If he's bankrupted he'll never get it again, so he'll always have to have far more money up front, and that means he just won't get the work. There's not enough around at the moment anyway for everyone who's qualified. And no one will choose him in favour of people who … who can get credit And no one will ever employ him because of his record.'

‘I can see it's the most awful worry for you.'

Sally looked round, her flooded eyes swollen and her lips trembling. ‘What's frightening us both so much, only he won't even talk about it, is that he won't be able to stop himself going back to thieving again. Oh, I shouldn't ever have said that. You'll forget it, won't you?' She started to cry again and then burst out: ‘My nan always said, “once a tealeaf, always a tealeaf”. It's being able to talk to someone that's making me like this.' She tried to wipe her eyes but they kept filling with tears. ‘I haven't said a word to anyone except Tammy and I've been going mad with it all.'

Willow watched her struggle to stop crying. Then they both heard the sound of heavy feet in the street walking towards the front door.

‘That's Dan,' said his wife, looking shocked. ‘Look, I don't want him upset all over again, before he understands that you're on our side against Scoffer. Will you wait in here while I explain to him? Please?'

Willow had no chance to say anything before Sally left the kitchen, closing the door behind her. Sitting at the kitchen table, Willow could hear whispering placatory on Sally's part, aggressively questioning on her husband's, and then the kitchen door opened with a crash. Willow turned to face the newcomer just as his hands reached for her.

She dodged but merely hit the wall as his tattooed hands closed about her neck. Opening her mouth, she tried to talk and felt her throat squeezing against his hands. Over his shoulder, she could see Sally looking desperate as she pulled at his arms and yelled out protests.

‘Leave me alone,' he shouted as his fingers squeezed tighter and tighter around Willow's neck. ‘Why can't you bastards leave me alone? I've done my best I can't take it any more. Damn you, damn you to hell.'

‘Stop!' Willow gasped, reaching for his eyes. The bandages around her hands made it impossible for her to do him any damage that might make him stop throttling her. She felt her head swim. Panic overwhelmed her. Dimly she heard Sally's voice.

‘Dan, don't Please, Dan. For God's sake. She's here to help. Dan. Dan.'

The unseen baby's cries rose to a single, sustained shriek. Willow felt her head banging against the wall as Hallten pulled her towards him and flung her back again, all the time squeezing her throat choking her.

‘Stop him,' Willow tried to say, but no sound came out of her mouth. In desperation she forced her burned hands up between his arms and tried to push them apart, but he was far too strong for her.

Sally loomed out of the mist that was all Willow could see, holding something large and brown between her hands. She brought it down heavily on her husband's right arm. All of them could hear the bone snap. Dan screamed as his wife gasped and dropped the heavy pottery bread crock. It smashed on the floor.

Letting Willow's throat go, Dan Hallten cradled his broken arm with his other hand, muttering, ‘You stupid, stupid bitch.'

Willow, backing away from him with both her hands over her throat, said hoarsely, ‘Not stupid. Listen to her. Tell him.'

Hardly any sound came out of her mouth. Sally pushed a chair towards her, saying, ‘Sit down. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Are you all right?'

‘It's not her you ought to bloody worry about. It's me,' said Dan Hallten as Willow nodded, painfully swallowing saliva. Standing between them, Sally turned to face her husband and put her hands on his good arm.

‘You've broken my fucking arm.'

‘Dan, sit down and don't make it worse than it already is.'

‘Stop talking and get me a bloody doctor.'

‘I will, but you must listen first.'

‘Later. It's agony. Get me a doctor, damn you.'

Sally turned to look at Willow, who was still standing on the other side of the table.

‘There's not a lot he can do to me with a broken right arm,' Willow said, relieved to find that she could speak almost normally again. The damage to her throat must have been much more superficial than it seemed. ‘You go on and telephone.'