Rotten Apples

by Natasha Cooper

  But could she have engineered the fire in the Vauxhall Bridge Road? She was one of the few people who would have known if he had really intended to stay late. But it seemed an unlikely way for a downtrodden, sixtyish woman to kill an unpleasant husband, however clever it might seem to make sure he died miles away from her. It was a pity that her son had such a strong alibi.

  By the time people started coming out of the church, Willow felt ill. She was leaning against the car with her jacket laid on the roof, conscious of very little but her pounding head and a nausea that made her think she might actually be going to be sick.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Willow opened her eyes and saw Kate peering at her.

  ‘Just hot,’ said Willow. ‘I couldn’t face the flog down to the railway station after all and so I came back here. Sorry.’

  ‘Not at all. I ought to have left you with the keys so that you could at least sit down. Come on, get in, and I’ll drive you back.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Willow sat back in the boiling car and closed her eyes.

  Kate drove in silence until they were back in the middle of London. ‘Will you be all right?’

  Willow opened her eyes. ‘I’ll be fine. So sorry about that It’s partly my suit. You were much more sensible coming in that dress. How was the service?’

  ‘Pretty grim, in fact. The address was a masterpiece of tolerant understatement, but the hymns were the most turgidly gloomy I’ve ever heard and the whole atmosphere was somehow unpleasant.’ Kate paused for a moment and then added: ‘From the few indiscreet comments I overheard, I got the impression that poor Len was as difficult at home as he was in the office.’

  ‘I know he was,’ said Willow and then closed her eyes again, silently cursing herself.

  ‘Really? How?’

  ‘Perhaps to say “know” was pushing it a bit. I mean, I assumed he was. No one could be quite as ferocious… Oh, you know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I do.’

  Willow did not comment Instead she asked what Mrs Scoffer was like.

  ‘A poor sad little thing,’ said Kate. ‘As short as me and with terrible arthritis in her hands.’

  Well that settles that, thought Willow. If Mrs Scoffer’s small and arthritic she’s most unlikely to have broken in to mess about with the electrics in the office.

  Each absorbed in her own thoughts, they sat in silence for most of the rest of the way, until Kate said, ‘Isn’t your house somewhere along here?’

  ‘If you take the second turning on the right, it’s the first on the left, and there we are. Thanks, Kate. It was really good of you to drive me.’

  ‘Not at all. Look, are you going to need to talk to any of us any more? I really should like to get all this wound up so that the department can get properly back to work. Morale hasn’t been good in any case and you’re hardly helping, poking about and upsetting everyone with the thought that they’re being judged.’

  ‘I want to get the job finished just as much as you,’ said Willow with feeling. ‘It oughtn’t to be much longer. I’ve got one or two more people to talk to, but I’ve already roughed out the report.’

  ‘May I ask what your conclusions are likely to be?’

  Kate’s co-operation and offer of a lift began to seem less disinterestedly kind than Willow had assumed. The ulterior motive was hardly surprising, but she felt disappointed; she had liked what she had discovered of Kate during the afternoon.

  ‘I’d rather complete the report before I tell you that. But I can say that I appreciate the difficulties you had containing Scoffer.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. I’d appreciate a copy of what you send the minister.’

  ‘That’s up to him, I’m afraid.’ Willow smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll get one in due course. Thanks for the lift.’

  She opened the car door, longing for the day when her hands would heal properly and she could use them as unthinkingly as she had once done. Slamming the door with her hip, she waved at Kate and went to ring her own front door bell.

  ‘Sorry to get you out of the kitchen,’ she said to Mrs Rusham when the door opened, ‘but I couldn’t bear to squash my fingers down into my bag again.’

  ‘That’s perfectly all right. You look worn out. Shall I run you a cool bath?’

  ‘Thank you. That would be heaven. But I must ring the hospital first.’

  She went quickly into the drawing room, relieved that both Serena and Rob appeared to be out, and dialled the number of Dowting’s switchboard.

  ‘Mrs Worth, I’m glad you rang,’ said the ward clerk in the Intensive Care Unit. ‘Mr Richardson would like a word with you. Can you hang on while I bleep him?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Willow suddenly remembered that she had been supposed to see the consultant the day after the fire. As soon as he came on the line she apologised.

  ‘Please don’t bother, Mrs Worth,’ he said, sounding much more friendly than when they had first spoken. ‘I could see from the newspapers what had happened to you. I wanted to talk to you because your husband’s prognosis is looking better.’

  Willow sat down heavily on the chair behind her.

  ‘Are you there, Mrs Worth?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here. D’you mean he’s come round?’

  ‘Not yet, but the signs are encouraging us to believe that he will.’

  Released from her visions of Tom being kept mindlessly alive for years, perhaps retaining just enough brain power to make him long to be allowed to die and yet be unable to tell anyone, Willow could hardly speak. With a huge effort, she said, ‘When?’

  ‘We can’t put any kind of time limit on it, but I thought you ought to know. Also, the latest scan is thoroughly encouraging. It looks as though there will be no permanent brain damage after all. Although, having said that, I must—’

  ‘I know,’ said Willow quickly. ‘You can’t promise anything. I understand. Thank you for telling me. I’ll be round as soon as I can.’

  ‘There’s no hurry. I don’t want to raise your hopes too steeply.’

  ‘No. I see. Thank you, Mr Richardson.’

  Willow sat in the chair with the receiver in her bandaged hand, her eyes closed, letting herself feel the beginnings of freedom from fear. She reminded herself that there were still no guarantees that Tom would make it, but even that could not stop her spirits rising. Eventually she opened her eyes to See Mrs Rusham standing in the doorway.

  ‘They say that the signs are better. There’s a chance that he’ll come round soon, and they don’t think there’s been any serious brain damage.’

  Mrs Rusham’s dark face relaxed and she even smiled. ‘I’m glad. Your bath’s ready. Would you like something cold to drink?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Willow. She knew that the gladness was real and she was grateful all over again that Mrs Rusham did not expose her own emotions. She seemed to have recovered from the vulnerability into which Rob Fydgett’s unhappiness had plunged her.

  ‘Oh, by the way, could you possibly ring the gas leak emergency number for me?’

  ‘Certainly, but there are no leaks here, you know.’ Mrs Rusham peered forward, as though looking for signs of lunacy in her employer’s face.

  ‘No, no, I know that. But I’d like you to report a possible leak at number twenty-seven, Churchgate Row, Croydon. Don’t give your own name or mine, will you?’

  ‘Very well.’

  It was not until Willow went into her ivy-green bathroom and started painfully to undress that she realised why both Mrs Rusham and Kate Moughette had been so surprised by her appearance. Not only was her face very white and rather dirty, but her pearl-grey silk shirt was stained with sweat under the anus and across the back, there were cobwebs in her hair and a large hole in her black tights. But the bandages on her hands were dry. It really did look as though the blisters must be healing. She unwrapped the gauze and then wished that she had not. The skin of her palms was still raw looking, and exposing it to the air seemed to make i
t hurt more.

  Taking two new sterile dressings from the pile the hospital had given her when she last went to the clinic, she attempted to rebandage the hands herself and got into such a mess that she had to go in search of Mrs Rusham.

  Five minutes later, her hands neatly dressed, Willow was lying back in perfectly judged tepid water, sipping cold fruit juice through a straw.

  It was only then that one of the worst ironies of the whole tragedy struck her. As Kate had pointed out, if Fiona Fydgett had responded to Len Scoffer’s peremptory and possibly punitive demand for all her accounts, bank statements and related papers, he would have had all the proof he needed that her bank had given him wrong information about the interest she had earned. Equally, if he had answered her request for precise details of whichever figure in her accounts or tax return it was that he doubted, she would have been able to satisfy him at once. If Scoffer had been less aggressively mistrustful or Fiona less obstinate, there would never have been war between them.

  Whether or not the depression that had made Fiona kill herself had been triggered by her battle with Scoffer, the battle’s end might well have saved her.

  Willow began to hope, with a fervour that made her breathless, that she would be able to prove Rob had had nothing to do with the fire. If it turned out that he had tried to burn down the tax office out of revenge for what Scoffer had done to his mother, that would turn irony into something much worse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the following Sunday there was still no sign of Tom’s regaining consciousness. Willow had been so convinced by Mr Richardson’s announcement of the improved prognosis that she had spent most of her time at the hospital, watching and waiting.

  On sunday morning she got up soon after eight, having slept badly again. She knew that she should never have allowed herself to hope for any improvement in Tom’s condition until it actually happened, and decided that only work—lots of it—would save her sanity. There was not much she could do on a Sunday, but what there was would have to be done.

  Rob Fydgett slopped into the kitchen just as she was making herself a cup of coffee to take back to bed. He was wearing baggy black tracksuit trousers and a vast white T-shirt with a slogan on it announcing the imminent death of the planet. Regretting her invitation to both Fydgetts and instantly ashamed of herself, Willow tightened the belt of her yellow silk kimono and offered him a cup of coffee.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ he said gracelessly as he pulled open the fridge door. He did not look at her. ‘Evelyn said I could always have a shake.’

  Without another word, he took a large carton of semiskimmed milk out of the fridge and a carton of orange juice from the freezer beside it and tucked them into the crook of his left elbow. Helping himself to two bananas from a large blue pottery bowl on the kitchen table with his right hand, he took his booty to the worktop where Mrs Rusham kept the blender.

  Willow, wondering whether she had ever known that her housekeeper’s first name was Evelyn, watched her young guest rip open the little drum of frozen juice and scoop half of it into the blender. He followed that with the two bananas, roughly chopped, and then topped up the blender with milk. Switching it on at the maximum speed, he kept one large floppy-looking hand on the lid to stop it flying off. Still without speaking or meeting Willow’s eyes, he turned off the machine, reached across her for a tall glass and poured out a stream of thick, pale-yellow gloop.

  There was, thought Willow in revulsion, no other word that would describe the viscous mixture.

  ‘Ah,’ said the boy, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Yeah, great. Er, thanks. You know.’

  Willow smiled. ‘Let’s sit down.’

  The boy looked longingly towards the door, but when he had refilled his glass he pulled out a chair with one bare foot and sat down, tipping the chair on to its back legs and shaking his head once to clear the long fringe out of his eyes. Willow reminded herself how tricky his life had been, what a difficult age he had reached, how uncertain and miserable he must be, and that it behoved her to be both charitable and understanding as she interrogated him.

  ‘You know, Rob, I’m really grateful that you’ve managed to get on such good terms with Evelyn,’ she said eventually. ‘I often think that she must be a bit lonely working here all day on her own.’

  ‘She likes it,’ said Rob with all the authority of one who knows. He looked directly at Willow for the first time. ‘She doesn’t like people much.’

  ‘You don’t either, do you?’

  The boy shrugged and looked away again. The chair tilted dangerously backwards. Willow only just stopped herself reaching out a hand to steady him.

  ‘Rob, will you tell me something?’

  He shrugged again and lifted his milk shake to hide his face from her. His hair flopped forwards.

  ‘We were talking once before about the last time you climbed out of school, and then the water tank exploded and so you never had time to answer. I know that the police were wrong when they tried to prove you’d been out of school on the night of the fire, but it would really help us all if you could tell me when it was.’

  The boy muttered something into his drink.

  ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’

  ‘Don’t see why. It’s got nothing to do with the fire.’

  ‘No, I know it hasn’t, Rob. But I’m as anxious as they are to find out everything about everyone involved. I’m sure you can understand that.’

  ‘’Course. But I’m not involved. I wasn’t there. It wasn’t anything to do with me, whatever the filth think.’ He stared down at the remains of his milk shake.

  His statement was longer than anything else Willow had yet heard from him, and it made enough sense to give her confidence.

  ‘No, you’re absolutely right. But I’ve got a problem with it.’ She looked at him and as he glanced up at her for an instant she thought she saw understanding in his dark eyes.

  ‘When we were talking before, you looked guilty. I don’t think that you had anything to do with the fire, but I have to be sure. If you could tell me what made you feel ashamed when we were talking, I’d be in a better position to get everything cleared up. D’you see what I mean?’

  His spots almost disappeared as his face reddened painfully. He scratched the patchy stubble on his chin.

  ‘Yeah, I see all right.’

  ‘Lots of us often feel guilty about things that are not our fault at all. For instance, your aunt told me that she feels guilty about what happened to your mother, and I suspect that you do, too. I think everyone does when someone they’re close to dies, especially like that If that’s what it is, I wish you’d tell me.’ Willow smiled at him. ‘It might help you, too, to talk about it.’

  A slight look of shock in his eyes was followed by a sulky glare. Whatever Rob was feeling was well under control and the sullen mask did not shift again. Willow thought that she could understand the frustration that the police must have felt when they interviewed him, and the difficulties the boy’s teachers had with him; and probably his mother, too.

  The chair shuddered as Rob let it clunk back on to all four legs. Something in his dully angry face gave Willow a clue.

  ‘Was it the day she died that you climbed out of school?’

  Tears appeared under Rob’s eyelids and he pushed them away with the back of his sticky hand and then licked it.

  ‘Did you go to see her?’

  He shook his head. Willow could not see much of his face as he sat staring down at the half-empty glass he was gripping in his lap. His black fringe hung right down in front of his face.

  ‘Can’t you tell me about it, Rob?’ she said with all the gentleness at her command.

  He swung round in his chair to put the glass down on the table, leaned his elbows on it and, twisted though he was, buried his face in his hands. Willow waited.

  ‘I thought she was just asleep.’ His voice was muffled by his hands, but
enough of it reached Willow to let her make out his words.

  She got up from her chair and went to stand beside the hulking, weeping child. She did not try to stop him, perhaps remembering her own howls by the fridge on the day Tom was shot; she laid one hand on his shuddering back. When he had finished for the moment, she fetched a roll of kitchen paper and silently offered it to him.

  He ripped off two sheets and blew his nose, then took two more sheets and mopped his eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, his voice even deeper than usual.

  ‘Don’t be sorry, Rob. What happened? Did you go home?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, staring at the table. ‘I needed my old squash racket for a match. It was in the attic at home. I had to get it’

  ‘But how did you get in? Your aunt said that the front door was bolted on the inside.’

  He looked up for a second and Willow flinched at the misery in his dark eyes.

  ‘It was. So I went round the back and got into the garden over the wall. I always had a key to the back door as well as the front—Aunt Serena has, too—and I just let myself in.’

  Willow thought that she was beginning to understand a little more, but there was still a lot of uncertainty. ‘Did you see her?’ she asked gently.

  Rob shook his head, but he would not look at her, and something about his face made her think that he might be lying.

  ‘Her curtains were shut. I thought she was asleep. I found the letter, but I didn’t read it then and I didn’t go in because I thought she was asleep. I didn’t want to disturb her, see. I didn’t read it then. I took it back to school and I didn’t look at it till the next day.’

  ‘What was the letter you found, Rob?’ asked Willow very gently.

  He sat still.

  ‘I know it’s probably the most private thing you have, but…’

  He looked at her with a kind of miserable resignation that, made her feel almost unbearably guilty for making him face his awful memories. At last he put his hand into the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms to take out a crumpled, grubby sheet of paper, and handed it to her.