Rotten Apples Read online

  She looked into the kitchen and saw that Sally Hallten was cradling her husband’s head against her breast while Tammy knelt at her feet, clinging to her leg. Willow went out of the house to sit on the edge of the low wall that edged the Halltens’ front garden. There was a large hawthorn in the next door garden, and it threw enough shade to make the midday heat bearable.

  Willow heard the sirens from streets away. Two crested white cars stopped, double parked just beyond her perch and Harness came rushing out of the second one.

  ‘Where is he?’

  She gestured towards the open door of the house and stayed sitting in the shade, waiting.

  It was not long before Harness reappeared, followed by Dan Hallten, still holding his broken arm with the other hand, and two uniformed officers. Sally Hallten, looking grey-white and sick, followed with their baby in her arms. She caught sight of Willow.

  ‘Is this why you came here?’ she demanded, coming to stand a foot or so away.

  Harness moved to stand at Willow’s side as his constables helped Hallten into the back seat of one of the cars. Willow did not answer.

  ‘Why couldn’t you have left us alone?’

  ‘Look, Mrs Hallten,’ said Harness, ushering her away, ‘why don’t you find a neighbour to take care of the baby and then come with me to the station. Mrs Worth can hardly—’

  ‘She said her name was King.’ Sally Hallten no longer looked at all harassed or pathetic. She was angry and deeply suspicious.

  ‘My maiden name is King, my married one Worth,’ said Willow, knowing perfectly well that Mrs Hallten did not really want to know. ‘All I can say is that I’m sorry, and I’m very grateful that you saved my life.’

  Sally Hallten shuddered as violently as though someone had poured a deluge of icy water over her.

  ‘I must go,’ Willow said.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ asked Harness urgently. ‘Do you want a lift?’

  Willow looked at him in surprise and shook her head. ‘He didn’t do me any real damage. I’ll be fine. I’ve got the car here and I’m going to the hospital.’

  ‘Good idea. Get them to check you over. I’ll be in touch, but I have to go now and get this sorted.’

  Willow nodded at him again. She could not bear to say anything more to Sally Hallten and so she left without looking back. Knowing that they must both be watching her, she found it almost impossible to get her car out of the tight space and bumped both the car in front and the one behind. When she had at last driven out into the road again, she had to wait for Harness’s constable to move his car forward to the end of the street to let her past.

  She did not want to think about what had just happened, or what might have happened to her if Sally Hallten had not intervened. It was not until she got to the hospital that she started to shake and found that she could not even make herself get out of her car.

  Nineteen

  Thank Heavens they got hold of you!’ cried Willow’s favourite nurse as she appeared at the doors of the Intensive Care Unit nearly half an hour later.

  Willow had stopped shaking and had regained enough self-control to remember her bruised neck and want to disguise it Fortunately she kept a thin, printed silk scarf in the glove box. She had wound it loosely about her neck and tucked the ends into the collar of her shirt. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ she asked, grasping the other woman’s arm. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He came round. Didn’t you know?’

  Dizziness swept through Willow’s head, making her whole body sway. Waves of heat passed through her, followed by chilling cold. The nurse’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  ‘Sit down. Put your head between your knees. Come on.’

  Willow could feel the pressure of a firm hand on the nape of her neck, pushing her head towards the floor.

  ‘Fainted, did she?’ said a deep male voice. ‘Well, not surprising I suppose. Ah, here she comes.’

  Willow raised her head, feeling that it must be twice as heavy as usual.

  ‘Mr Richardson?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s asleep again now but he was conscious and talking not half an hour ago. It’s looking good.’

  ‘Thank God! can I see him?’

  ‘Certainly, but you’d do better to have some tea first.’

  ‘Can’t I do both?’

  He smiled and looked at the nurse, who nodded.

  ‘I’ll get her some.’

  ‘Good. Come along then, Mrs Worth.’ He offered her his arm and, clinging to it, she got up and went with him to Tom’s bedside.

  At the sight of him, lying exactly as he had been the previous day, Willow felt her knees sagging again. She could understand exactly what Sally Hallten had meant about the devastating effect of reawakened anxiety after hope had been given back. Richardson pushed forward a chair and helped Willow into it.

  ‘He really is going to be all right,’ he said. ‘I must go, but I’ll see you later.’

  Willow, who had hardly heard him, said nothing. All she could think of was the possibility that she might have missed her last opportunity of talking to Tom. She stared at his clay-coloured face, much thinner than the first day she had sat beside the bed, and waited.

  A different nurse, whose name she did not know, brought her a cup of tea and sat with her while she drank it.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Willow at last. ‘It’s hard to know that he was back and not … Sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right I know what waiting does to people. Here are some tissues.’

  As Willow was mopping her face dry, she heard a movement from the bed.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said the nurse, backing away on slightly squeaking shoes.

  Willow, not quite sure what was happening, leaned forward and saw Tom’s eyelids flutter and then open fully. His lips parted.

  ‘Will?’ His voice was no more than a whisper.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ She put her right hand over his left one. ‘Oh, Tom.’

  He smiled, with an obvious effort and his eyes closed again.

  ‘Perhaps things do come right,’ said Willow aloud.

  Tom slept on through the afternoon. She left his side once to go to the lavatory and then a second time to telephone Mrs Rusham.

  ‘I know,’ she said when Willow had given her the news. ‘They told me when they rang this morning, trying to find you. I couldn’t tell them where you were. They’d tried the tax office and the minister’s staff.’

  ‘Yes, I had to go and see someone else. I never thought to leave the address. Stupid of me.’

  ‘Well, hardly matters now. You’re with him. I’m so glad that he’s all right.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rusham. You’ve been a real stalwart through all this. And I—’

  ‘I know,’ she said choking off whatever expressions of gratitude or affection Willow was about to make. ‘Now, there have been several calls this morning; the most important seem to be Mr Gaskarth and the minister. He sounded very anxious to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. Well, I suppose I’d better ring him. I’ll be here for a while yet. Will you explain to Serena and ask her to eat whenever she’s ready, without waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes. Certainly. Goodbye.’

  Willow smiled, hoping that she might one day be able to tell Mrs Rusham how much she had done during the crisis and thank her for it properly. Pushing a new Phonecard in the slot, she called the minister’s office. She had the usual difficulty getting through to the man himself but eventually she heard his voice, colder than usual and sounding angry.

  ‘Thank you for calling back. I want to see you.’

  ‘Well, of course, but need it be immediately?’ she said, surprised by the peremptory tone. ‘My husband has just come round. I’m at a payphone in the hospital. I can’t leave him.’

  ‘I see. Well, I suppose I can say what I have to say over the telephone.’

  Whatever’s coming now? Willow asked herself.

  ‘It took me a while to find out
that it was you behind the questions about Miss Salderton. I should like first to know exactly what you thought you were doing and second to get from you an undertaking that you will never mention her name again or ask any more questions.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’re so upset,’ said Willow. ‘That was never my intention. All I was trying to do was…’ She broke off, hardly able to say that she had wanted to find out whether he had any scandalous secrets that might have led him to want Leonard Scoffer dead—or at least discredited.

  ‘Yes? Explain to me just exactly what it was that you’ve been trying to do.’

  ‘Find out as much as I could about everyone concerned with the enquiry,’ said Willow, her own voice growing cold as she thought of the past few days. ‘Quite frankly, neither of your explanations as to why you wanted me in that office convinced me. I was merely trying to find out whether there could be anything else behind your interest in Scoffer’s activities.’

  ‘I see. Well I am not going to satisfy your curiosity about Miss Salderton and I will reiterate what I told you: I wanted to find out what was going on in Scoffer’s office because I am exceedingly concerned by the possible misuse of power by any employee of the state. Now, that having been said yet again when may I expect your report?’

  ‘Within forty-eight hours,’ said Willow crisply. ‘Goodbye, Minister.’

  She pressed the follow-on button, and dialled Brian Gaskarth’s number to find out what had been happening. He was both frustrated and illuminating.

  ‘The minister,’ he explained, sounding coldly angry, ‘has taken it upon himself to threaten to have me prosecuted under some provision of the data protection legislation.’

  ‘Has he, though? What is it he’s hiding?’

  ‘Ah, well, Miss Salderton is an alias.’

  ‘As we suspected.’

  ‘Yes, but for quite a good reason. I’m reluctant to say anything more on the telephone.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Willow, suddenly scared. ‘You can’t think this one is tapped?’

  ‘No, but I suspect mine is.’

  ‘Because of the enquiries you’ve made for me?’

  ‘Good God, no! It started long before that. There have been a few signs over the past year or so. I may be paranoid.’

  ‘But it’s extremely difficult to get a Home Office warrant for phone-tapping.’

  There was a superior-sounding laugh down the telephone. ‘If you genuinely believe that only legal tapping goes on. I’m afraid that your ideals have got the better of your common sense.’

  ‘Have they indeed? When shall we meet?’

  ‘I could drop in on my way to a meeting this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m not at home, in fact I’m with my husband at Dowting’s. I don’t terribly want to leave, since he’s…’

  ‘Well, it’s hardly urgent. Why not call me when you’re free?’

  ‘Fine. Thank you. Just tell me how old she is, if you know that.’

  ‘I do indeed. She’s forty.’

  Well, she’s clearly not his daughter, thought Willow as she was left holding the receiver and trying to contain her curiosity. Slowly she walked back into the Intensive Care Unit and down the long vinyl-floored passage to Tom’s room. She was not even looking at him when she opened the door and his voice took her by surprise.

  ‘Will, I thought you’d gone.’

  She looked at him then, her face softer than he had ever seen it ‘You must have known I wouldn’t do that. Not now.’

  He held out his hand, still tied to the bags and bottles. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Me? I’m fine.’ She stood at his side, gazing at him and then suddenly remembering the last time she had looked at herself in a mirror. ‘Although I know I must look like the wrath of God.’

  His lips widened into the smile that she had almost forgotten. ‘Not wrath,’ he said in his faint voice. ‘Just irritation.’

  For a minute or so she could not think what he was talking about and then remembered their last breakfast before the shooting. It felt as though it had happened years before. She sank down on to her knees beside the bed and laid her forehead against the back of his hand. With some difficulty he reached his other hand across his body so that he could stroke her head.

  MUCH LATER, when she was back in her chair and had drunk yet another cup of hospital tea, he said, ‘What have you been doing while I’ve been dead to the world?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear anything? I used to chat to you sometimes when I visited.’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t hear anything. As far as I knew last night was the night I was shot. But from the look of you, Will, I’d have said you’d been up to something.’

  ‘You could put it like that’She wondered how strong he was feeling and whether he was up to hearing an account of her activities.

  ‘How are the tax gatherers?’ he asked when he realised that she was not going to tell him.

  Inexpressibly touched that he should remember what she had been doing when he was shot, she smiled a little. ‘A pretty peculiar bunch, but you were quite right that I’d find them interesting.’

  Before she could get any further the door of Tom’s room opened and they both looked round. Superintendent Blackled strode forward and put his hand on Tom’s left shoulder.

  ‘They told me you’d come round. How’re you feeling?’

  ‘Not too bad at all, sir. Good of you to come. Do you know my wife. Willow King?’

  Black Jack turned and winked at her. ‘Of course I know her. Hasn’t she told you how she’s our latest heroine?’

  ‘What?’ Tom squinted down at his bandaged chest. ‘Because of all this?’

  ‘Not exactly, but if she hasn’t told you, I won’t. It’s her story.’

  ‘Will?’

  ‘It’s all a bit melodramatic, Tom. I’m not sure you want to hear it quite yet.’

  He closed his eyes and said: ‘Have you been going after the people who shot me?’

  ‘No. I haven’t done anything about that at all. There wasn’t anything I could do.’

  ‘We’ll get them, Tom. Now you can give us a statement and identify the little toerags, I don’t suppose we’ll have any more trouble with the CPS,’ said the superintendent ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, my boy.’

  Tom opened his eyes and looked up. ‘I wasn’t worrying about that, sir, just about what my wife has been up to. If not my attempted assassins, then who? What’s under those bandages and behind that scarf, Will?’

  It was obvious that he was not amused any more and seemed to be trying to struggle up.

  A nurse came running into the room. ‘Now, now, calm down,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Willow.

  ‘I suspect my heart monitor’s going bananas,’ said Tom grimly. I’m fine, but I want to know what’s been happening. Someone’s been strangling you, haven’t they?’

  The nurse looked horrified. Black Jack told her that there was nothing to worry about and after checking Tom’s various drips, she stood back away from the bed.

  ‘Will? Has someone been strangling you?’

  ‘Not very effectively,’ she said, upset that they could not have kept the news from him until he was stronger. ‘It’s too early for you to bother about it. When you’re stronger, I’ll tell you the full story.’

  ‘No. Tell me now. I’ll have a relapse worrying if I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you fret yourself, Tom. Your little woman here is the toughest thing since Pocahontas.’

  ‘Pocahontas died of cold, sir. Will, what the hell’s been going on?’

  ‘I think you should tell him whatever it is he wants to know,’ said the nurse. ‘He’ll rest more easily.’

  ‘Thank God someone’s got some sense.’

  ‘All right,’ said Willow. ‘As your superintendent has so tactfully raised the subject, I’ll tell you. Someone set fire to the tax building. I escaped without too much difficulty, guided down the wall by a passing
mountaineer.’ Seeing her husband’s glinting smile, she smiled too. ‘Perfectly true, in fact. You’ll probably meet him.’

  ‘But you didn’t get bruises round your throat from that I can see them now that scarf thing’s slipped.’

  ‘No. They were from the arsonist. I’ll tell you all…’ Willow broke off as she saw tears seeping out from beneath Tom’s closed eyelids. She turned to Blackled and jerked her head to send him out of the room. He grasped the nurse by her wrist and took her with him out of the room.

  When they were alone again, Willow took a tissue from the box on Tom’s bedside table and clumsily wiped his eyes. ‘It’s all right, Tom. It just happened. But I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s all over. A nice chap called Stephen Harness, who seems to know you, has the bloke in custody. He’s confessed. The bloke, I mean, not Harness. It’s all over.’

  Tom lifted his eyelids. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do these things,’ he said, sounding unutterably weary. ‘I’m sorry if it makes me seem like a caveman, but I wish you could remember… You take such dreadful risks, and you go on doing it and on and on and on.’

  Willow, hurting for him and longing to apologise, to swear never to step outside the house without permission, kept a firm grip on reality. By then she had learned the better way, and knew enough of herself to understand how much she would come to resent any of the things she wanted to promise. She stood beside him, smiling down.

  ‘For a man who’s been lying in a coma for a week or more, that’s pretty rich, I must say.’

  To her immense relief he grinned weakly, sniffed, and then said: ‘Give me one of those tissues, damn you, and tell me the whole story.’

  She did, censoring some bits, telling him every minute detail of others. She scored her greatest success with a description of the walk through the royal parks when she had been caught talking to herself. At that Tom laughed until his breath gave out, and told her she was wonderful.

  Epilogue

  Much Later, when Tom had been out of hospital for about ten days and felt up to receiving visitors again, Stephen Harness was allowed to visit him. Tom was lying along one of the silver-grey sofas in the drawing room, dozing over a new book recommended by Eve Greville. Willow was stretched out on the other sofa, writing letters to the last of the many people who had sent them both flowers, and keeping an eye on Tom to make sure he was not in too much pain.