Rotten Apples Page 2

  Willow asked herself uneasily how the minister had come to know of her detective skills. The few investigations she had tackled over the past few years had been made on a strictly amateur basis, and she had hoped that no one connected with her professional life had heard anything about them.

  She saw that her silence was making Profett uncomfortable, but that did not worry her. Like most civil servants, she believed that a certain degree of mental discomfort was necessary for any minister. Without a reasonable amount of fear of their officials, elected politicians tended to make all sorts of precipitate decisions that could take their departments months to unravel.

  ‘Are you at all interested?’ he asked when the silence became unbearable.

  ‘Could you give me a bit more information about the job before I decide?’

  ‘The case is that of a woman called Fiona Fydgett—Doctor Fydgett in fact, the art historian. You’ve probably heard of her.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I have,’ said Willow, adding, in an attempt to console him for her ignorance, ‘but then I don’t move in that world.’

  ‘Ah. Well, she took an overdose a short while ago. The Inland Revenue had been investigating her financial affairs, and there’s been a suggestion that it was their activities that drove her to suicide.’

  He paused, obviously waiting for Willow to comment. She raised her darkened eyebrows. The minister took off his tortoiseshell spectacles and rubbed his eyes. He looked very tired. Willow thought that he was probably worn out with the effort of switching from opposition to government. It must have been a huge shock for all the members of the party to find themselves in charge after an election that no one had ever expected them to win.

  ‘If the Revenue investigation was the cause of Doctor Fydgett’s death,’ Profett said, screwing up his myopic eyes so that he could still see her, ‘it is crucial for us to establish whether or not it was carried out properly.’

  ‘I can see that, but didn’t the inquest establish the reason why she killed herself?’ asked Willow.

  ‘No,’ he said with a determined smile that she thought was supposed to express complete frankness and which in itself made her suspicious. ‘That surprised me, too. Never having had anything to do with either sudden death or the law, I hadn’t realised that coroners are there only to decide the immediate cause of death, not to investigate motives or impute blame to anyone. If a crime has been committed, so I’m told, then it’s up to the police to investigate and the courts to apportion guilt.’

  ‘And no crime was suspected in this case?’ said Willow, wanting to be absolutely clear about what she was supposed to be investigating.

  ‘None. Which means that Fiona Fydgett’s death is of no more official interest.’

  ‘Except to you.’

  ‘Except to my department. In the circumstances we can’t just let it go. I have to be certain that no members of the Inland Revenue exceeded their brief or misused their powers.’

  ‘I see,’ said Willow. ‘I don’t want to raise unnecessary objections—it sounds like an intriguing assignment—but I thought taxpayers’ complaints were ultimately the responsibility of the Treasury. Besides, haven’t the Revenue themselves got some kind of investigative machinery? I’d have thought they’d be far more suitable than me, and they’d know at once what they were looking for, which no outsider could.’

  ‘They have, of course. There’s the Board Investigation Office. And there’s the Revenue Adjudicator, who’s been doing such a good job for aggrieved taxpayers, but this is a rather different enquiry. As it has to do with citizens’rights, I’m handling it rather than one of the Chancellor’s team. And in some ways it’s your very lack of experience that makes you what I want.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. I want to know all about the way they think and work and

  deal with people. I want an assessment of the feel of the office and

  what the staff think about what they’re doing. The ideal would be

  for me to see it all for myself, and, since I can’t do that, I think

  I’m more likely to get the kind of whole picture I want from an

  observer like you than from an insider. It’s possible… Look here,

  are you going to take the job on?’ He smiled suddenly, displaying

  an unexpected charm.

  Willow, her interest tickled as much by the man himself as by the job he had described, nodded. ‘Yes, I think I am.’

  ‘In that case, to be absolutely frank, what I want is to be certain that this death isn’t the result of some kind of canteen culture within the Inland Revenue. Will you find out for me?’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, succumbing to the charm.

  Chapter Two

  The Inland Revenue building was a large, ugly, flat-fronted, red-brick edifice with grimy windows and a generally unwelcoming air. Giving her name to the man in the glass-fronted cubicle by the door, Willow was admitted. Apparently scowling, he told her to go to the third floor, waved her towards a door marked ‘Private’ and reached for the telephone on his desk.

  Wondering whether the taxpayer’s charter would ever manage to change such surliness, and whether that kind of thing should figure in her report, Willow took a creaky lift up to the third floor and stepped out into a semi-open-plan office furnished with grey-metal desks and an astonishing assortment of chairs. Looking from side to side as she tried to decide which way to go, she saw a short, dark-haired woman rushing towards her from an open door at the far end of the room.

  ‘Willow King?’

  ‘Yes. Are you Kate Moughette?’

  ‘That’s right. Come along and meet Len Scoffer. He handled the Fydgett case and can give you everything you need.’ Kate’s speech was so fast that Willow found it hard to sort the hurried syllables into comprehensible words. ‘One of the other FT Inspectors, Jason Tillter, used to work on Fydgett’s affairs a few years ago, before—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Willow, breaking into the torrent of sounds, ‘but could you just stop for a moment and explain FT?’

  Kate turned her head briefly, looking astonished. ‘It merely stands for “fully trained”,’ she said, no more slowly than before. ‘If you need to talk to Jason, he’ll be back in the office later this morning. I can’t give you much time myself, I’m afraid. I’m very pushed at the moment. But then I had little to do with the Fydgett files and so that ought not to present any problems.’

  Walking behind her, trying to adjust to Kate’s speed of talking, Willow remembered the few things that the minister had said about her. ‘She’s shaping up to be a bit of a heroine in the Revenue, apparently. She’s still not particularly senior—only the equivalent of a principal—but she’s increased the tax take enormously in her local office, and in a year or two they’ll promote her and give her a bigger district. If she manages that as well as the current one, they’ll push her on towards the very top at Somerset House. They call her “Little Miss Muffett”, but from what I’ve heard she’d see off a tarantula any day, let alone any British spider.’

  Yes, thought Willow, following her down the long room and ignoring the curious stares of the junior tax staff, I bet she would. She looks quite powerful in spite of being so short.

  Like many people who had been teased for their height in childhood, Willow had an instinctive contempt for those who did not share her inches. The habit was so ingrained that sometimes she did not even notice what she was thinking. On that occasion she did and set about making amends. For some time she had been conducting a private campaign to control her tendency to mockery and disdain.

  She decided that Kate Moughette’s suit was admirably designed for her height and well tailored, too. It was made of wool, but so light and fine that it must have been cool enough even for that hot June day. The colour was a particularly appealing shade of pale greyish lavender, which set off her glossy black hair to advantage.

  Noticing the dust in the corners of the big room and the indelibly grimed p
aintwork, Willow thought that Kate must spend a fortune on dry cleaning and wondered how she could afford it on the salary most principals earned. There was a premium paid to those who served in the Inland Revenue rather than the ordinary civil service, but Willow did not think it could be much.

  Kate stopped in the doorway of an office, effectively blocking Willow’s view into it. ‘Len, this is Willow King. I told you about her last week. She’s here for the merk.’

  ‘”Merk”?’ said Willow instinctively. Kate turned, looking impatiently at the newcomer.

  ‘MRC. It’s what we call the Minister for Rights and Charters here.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I thought it must be a contraction of “merkin”, and I couldn’t imagine what the context might be.’

  Kate’s lips tightened and her little eyes narrowed, which told Willow both that she was aware of some of the odder parts of the English language and that her sense of humour was slight Anyone who did not automatically smile, or at least grimace, at the idea of a pubic wig would have to be treated with caution.

  ‘This is Len Scoffer,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ll leave him to tell you anything you need to know.’

  Kate darted off without waiting for either of them to say anything. Willow smiled politely at the owner of the office and took stock of him.

  He was in his early sixties, broad but at the same time stringy looking. He had a crumpled face and very short, stiff, grey hair that stuck up all over his head. The jacket of his greeny-brown suit was hanging over the back of his chair and he had things like steel springs clasped around his biceps, bunching up the overlong sleeves of his sharply ironed white poly-cotton shirt. His string vest was clearly visible through it. He made no move to smile or stand up to greet the new-comer.

  Willow could not prevent a sinking feeling, having come across plenty of men like him before. They were intelligent, sometimes chippy, often pigheaded, nearly always completely honest and usually intolerant of anyone who did not share their own bleak outlook on life.

  ‘Is she always as rushed as that or is there a crisis on?’ Willow asked, smiling in an attempt to enlist his sympathy.

  ‘She doesn’t believe in wasting taxpayers’ money. Nor do I.’ Scoffer had a rasping voice that made it clear his sympathy was not on offer. ‘Politicians do that much too easily. I can’t think what they want you to look into the Fydgett case for. It was all perfectly simple.’

  ‘Nevertheless, that’s what I’ve been sent to do,’ said Willow with another uncharacteristically ingratiating smile. ‘And I’ll need your help if I’m to do the job properly.’

  ‘The woman’s suicide had nothing to do with us. But if you must have the files, those for the last three years are on the press there.’

  ‘On that what?’ asked Willow, flummoxed.

  Scoffer’s thin lips twisted into a sneer. He pointed to a battered dark-green filing cabinet opposite his desk on which were balanced a pile of cardboard folders.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Willow, feeling the full blast of his antagonism. She assumed that Scoffer, like most people she had ever dealt with, used aggression as his first means of defence. The prospect of being blamed for someone’s death was enough to make anyone feel defensive.

  ‘Do you think that there’s somewhere I could sit and read the files?’ she asked, politely enough. Watching his unyielding expression, she gave in to temptation: ‘Or would that be a waste of taxpayers’money?’

  ‘Cara!’ yelled Scoffer. Willow took an involuntary step backwards. ‘Cara! Come in here, will you?’

  A moment later a scared-looking, brown-haired young woman dressed in a full blue skirt and well-washed black T-shirt looked around the door.

  ‘Yes, Len? What have I done?’

  ‘Nothing for once, unless it hasn’t come to my attention yet. This is Willow King, sent by the Merk to investigate the Fydgett case. Those are the files. Take them and her to Mrs Patel’s old office and tell her anything she needs to know.’ He looked down again at the file on his desk, making it quite clear that in his opinion he had done all he needed to satisfy the minister.

  ‘Would you like to come this way, Ms King?’ said Cara politely.

  Relieved to be treated as a human being, Willow smiled at her and followed her out into the big general office. There was amusement and mockery on the faces of several of the people sitting there, who must have heard everything that Len Scoffer had said. Once Willow would have felt humiliated by their amusement and therefore angry, but she had grown out of all that—or most of it.

  Cara opened the door to an office about half the size of Scoffer’s. It looked out over the busy main road.

  ‘Will this be all right for you, Ms King?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Willow, noticing that the metal desk itself was clean enough and that there was a telephone and a relatively stable-looking chair. It was covered in a surprising flowered nylon material that looked positively revolting above the orange carpet, but she thought that she could probably suppress her aesthetic faculties for a week or so. She opened the window to clear the air and recoiled from the noise and the smell of car exhaust from the road outside.

  ‘And do please call me Willow,’ she said when she had shut the window again. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Caroline Saks, but I’m always called Cara.’

  ‘And what are you?’

  ‘A TO(HG), that is—’

  ‘I know: a Tax Officer (Higher Grade),’ said Willow, calculating that Cara’s rank was the equivalent of an Executive Officer in the ordinary civil service. ‘Did you have anything to do with Fiona Fydgett’s case?’

  ‘I do most of my work for Len, so yes, I did do some things. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Perhaps later when you’re having one anyway. I’m perfectly certain that it’s not your job to be making coffee for stray visitors.’

  ‘Oh, no. We’ve got a machine out there. You know, a slot machine thing. Do call me if you need anything, and please don’t take Len’s…um, too seriously. His bark really is worse than his bite.’

  ‘I see,’ said Willow, thinking that Cara looked too frightened to reassure anyone about anything. ‘Thank you.’

  Cara backed out of the door and Willow sat down to read her way through the case of Fiona Fydgett, art historian, suicide, and possible tax dodger.

  By the end of the morning Willow thought that she had come to understand a lot about Fiona Fydgett’s career and income, but nothing at all about her character. The files gave a confusing impression of that. From some of the letters she had written in her flamboyant black script, she seemed to be both casual and arrogant, but there were other letters, too, occasionally written in the same hand but more often typed, which read as though they had been composed by a woman as fearfull as Cara Saks.

  Fydgett’s income had been made up of publishers’advances and royalties, fees from an elitist travel agent, whose art tours to Italian cities she sometimes escorted, fees for advising several art galleries on the attribution of paintings, a salary from a famous institute of art history, and once or twice profits from the sale of paintings she had picked up cheap and sold very well.

  It must have been a pleasant existence, Willow thought until Len Scoffer’s increasingly aggressive letters had started to spoil it Fiona Fydgett had clearly spent her life in the company of like-minded people, moving between the scholarly and commercial art worlds in London, Paris, Geneva and New York, and being paid to travel to some of the most beautiful places in Italy. To have earned the sums neatly typed at the bottom of her annual accounts, she must have been successful; she had obviously worked hard.

  Her salary from the academic job was taxed under the PAYE rules, and the profits from the sale of paintings were treated as Capital Gains, but all the rest formed the profits of self-employment and were taxed under Schedule D.

  From the file, it appeared that Len Scoffer believed that she owed just under five thousand pounds of extra tax. Willow had
not managed to work out how he had arrived at that figure, but she could not help wondering why a woman like Fiona Fydgett would have felt she had to kill herself over it. It did not seem to be enough for anyone to die for, and Doctor Fydgett’s net income for the preceding year had been well over fifty thousand pounds. Surely if Scoffer’s investigation had been upsetting her, she could just have paid the tax and disputed the amount later.

  Rereading the file in search of clues, Willow was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was immediately followed by a light, sarcastic, male voice, saying: ‘You must be the important Willow King. How delightful to meet you! Jason Tillter.’

  Willow looked up and saw a tall, thin, brown-haired man, who looked a little younger than Kate, standing by the door. Although he was smiling, there was a sneer in his expression; and, although he was holding out his hand with all the patronising graciousness of a visiting dignitary, he was standing too far away for Willow to take it without getting up and crossing the office. She had always disliked people who played the sort of games Jason seemed to be attempting and so she ignored his hand and merely said: ‘How do you do?’

  ‘Oh, aren’t we superior?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Who rattled your cage this morning?’

  Astonished by his quite unprovoked impudence, Willow looked at him with her jaw dropping until she realised that she must be looking gormless and shut her mouth with a snap.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came,’ said Jason with a return to his earlier regal manner.

  ‘There’s no reason why you should have been,’ said Willow. ‘I understand that you had an urgent meeting.’

  Jason swung into the dingy office, rearranging the knotted silk cufflinks in his striped shirt, and sat down opposite her. He crossed his legs and leaned back. ‘Now, what can I tell you?’