Rotten Apples (4 page)

‘I wonder,' said Willow aloud. She turned back to the beginning of the file to reread all the letters Scoffer had ever written to Fiona Fydgett.

His first enquiry in the campaign that led to the demand for £4786.00 had been couched in vague terms, and merely asked whether Doctor Fydgett was sure that she had included all her sources of income on her latest tax return.

Her accountant had answered that letter, confirming that all her fees, commissions, royalties and salary had been included, together with the income from her few shares, the tax-free income from some National Savings Certificates, which he had not included on the form, and interest from a building society account and two separate accounts at her bank.

Scoffer's next letter, dated three months later, was more accusatory in tone and reiterated the suggestion that Doctor Fydgett was concealing a further source of income from the Inland Revenue. It was again answered by her accountant.

Some time later she had written in her own hand, angrily refuting the suggestion that she was doing anything dishonest, and accusing Scoffer in turn of misusing his power, even using the emotive term ‘abuse of process'.

He had obviously been infuriated by that for he had written back only a few weeks later with a cold, peremptory demand that she should submit copies of all her cash books, invoices, remittance advices, bank statements, and building society passbooks for the previous six years for him to check, together with details of all the travelling she had done and the cost of subsistence in the countries she had visited. He also asked for details of all the paintings she had bought and sold in the four years since the commissioners had ruled in her favour.

Doctor Fydgett had informed Scoffer that she was reluctant to provide so much information unless he gave her some reason for his mistrust of her accountant's figures. She wrote several times to tell him that she would be delighted to give him evidence of whichever figure it was that he disputed, but that he would have to tell her which it was before she could help him.

All he ever told her was that the Inland Revenue had received information that suggested she was concealing income and that it was her duty to provide whatever evidence he demanded.

Willow could not find anything in the file to show what the information was that Scoffer had received, or why he had believed that the tax Doctor Fydgett owed was £4786.00 rather than any other figure. Willow pushed the file away from her and got up to put her head round the door.

‘Do you know where Jason Tillter is?' she asked the nearest person, a bored-looking young woman who was riffling through a pile of tax returns.

‘Over there,' said the young woman, pointing with her chin across the room.

Willow nodded at her, unsmiling, and walked between the rows of desks to the far wall, where Jason was arguing with another woman, who was trying to give him a file with a large yellow and white tag on it.

‘But it requires immediate action,' she was saying plaintively. ‘I'm only doing my job. It's not my fault someone gave it a tiger tag.'

‘Don't be so ballsachingly boring, Moira. Give it to Len,' said Jason.

‘I can't. It's your file. If you won't take it, I'll just put it on your desk with all the red tagged ones for this week. You can't get away from it.'

Catching sight of Willow, Jason shrugged and grabbed the file without a word.

‘Yes?' he said to Willow, turning his back on the furious clerk. ‘Can I give you some help after all?'

‘I think you probably can if you still have time.' She smiled insincerely at him.

‘Shoot,' he said, leading the way into his office. It was larger than the one she had been given and the desk had a square of grey ‘leather-look'plastic glued to the top. Jason dropped the disputed file on it and sat down, putting his hands behind his head and stretching.

‘I have one main question,' Willow said as she took the spare chair. ‘Why are initial enquiries to taxpayers suspected of cheating made in such very vague terms?'

Jason's smile expanded to show his excellent teeth. He brought his hands down to the desk and leaned forward to say confidingly: ‘Because it shakes the tree.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘It's common practice to ask general questions if we think we've discovered one anomaly because it tends to frighten a bent taxpayer into telling us about all sorts of other little fiddles we knew nothing about. It nearly always pays off.'

‘I see. And do you, I mean you plural as in you officers of the Inland Revenue rather than you personally, ever get tax assessments wrong?'

‘But of course we do,' he said, looking both astonished and superior, as though that were something self-evident that she ought to have known. She did, of course, having had some wrong-assessments herself and having read of plenty of others in the newspapers.

‘Why?'

‘Do you want the party line or one of the others?' Jason sat up straight again.

Willow tried to suppress her growing amusement behind a chill exterior. ‘Try me with both sorts.'

‘Okay. The official explanation is that if taxpayers all gave us full and accurate information on time there would be no mistakes.'

‘And the others?'

‘The politer explanation is that mistakes occur because of inadequate training in the new provisions of the Finance Act each year.' Jason looked at her across the desk, clearly enjoying himself. ‘And of course the real one is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys and monkeys produce a lot of crap.'

‘Yes, I see,' said Willow, struggling even harder to maintain her mask of severity until she remembered Fiona Fydgett and what had happened to her. At that all amusement vanished. ‘Why are your errors considered to be different from those made by taxpayers who receive no training at all in the provisions of the Finance Act or anything else?'

‘Because we're honest even if some of us are stupid,' said Jason easily. ‘Taxpayers are all dishonest.'

Willow blinked. ‘All of them?'

He laughed. ‘You don't need to look so surprised. When you've worked for the Revenue for as long as I have you get pretty cynical about taxpayers'so-called honesty.'

‘Do they ever pay more than they owe?' asked Willow, mentally filing his chilling—and wrong—opinion for her report.

‘Occasionally, but it's a rare one who actually does that. Quite a lot don't claim back what they're entitled to, but that's slightly different.'

‘But what happens if you've overestimated an assessment and they pay it?'

‘When it becomes clear that's what happened we pay them a refund.'

‘With interest?'

‘If we've kept their money for more than twelve months.' Jason put up his dark eyebrows. ‘Why do you ask?'

‘And yet they have to pay interest from the instant any tax is overdue. Do you think that's fair?'

‘My dear girl, it's hardly for me to answer a question like that,' he said. Willow, who thought that he must have been at least ten years her junior, did not give him the satisfaction of reacting to his calculated insult. ‘If you don't like the law, write to your MP.'

‘Doesn't it even surprise you?' she asked.

‘Nope.'

‘I see; thank you.' Getting up, Willow wanted to lay a hand on the top of her head to make sure it did not fly off, pushed up by the force of her rage on behalf of her fellow-taxpayers. Such unequal treatment seemed worse than merely unjust. At the door of Jason's office, she caught sight of Cara Saks.

‘Did you hear any of that?' Willow asked as she left Jason's room.

Cara nodded, still looking scared.

‘Well, what do you think?'

‘I think it's outrageous actually,' she whispered, ‘but it doesn't do to say so where Len can hear. He wants a word with you.'

‘Fine,' said Willow, looking down at her watch. ‘Tell him that I'm going out for lunch now and that I'll be back at my desk in an hour's time. I can see him whenever he wants to come after that. I'll be here probably for the rest of the day.'

‘Actually,' said Cara, screwing up her face so that it was no longer at all pretty, ‘I think he expects you to go to him.'

‘Tough,' said Willow robustly.

For some time she had been waging war on any bullies she encountered in any area of her life, and she was beginning to think that Scoffer might be one of the worst. She retreated into her own office, beckoning. Cara followed, looking nervous. Willow shut the door and said quietly: ‘You owe it to yourself to stand up to anyone who tries to tyrannise over you. Even if they are senior to you, you mustn't let them do it.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Cara at once, hanging her head.

‘No, you're not. You're just trying to stop me criticising you by agreeing-with me, but I'm not criticising you: I'm only giving you a bit of friendly advice. If you give in to bullies or apologise in the hope that they'll stop tormenting you, they just get worse. Now, nip along and tell Mr Scoffer to come here after two. He can't kill you, and words may be horrible, but they don't actually do you any harm unless you let them. Okay?'

‘All right,' said Cara, backing towards the door and looking even more scared.

As soon as Cara had gone, shutting the door behind her, Willow decided that she had had enough of tax inspectors for the moment. She wanted to find out something about the real Fiona Fydgett rather than the confusing paper version of the files and rang the number that the minister had given her for the dead woman's sister.

‘Five Plough Court,' said a heavy male voice.

‘Oh,' said Willow, feeling stumped. ‘Urn, I was trying to get in touch with Ms Serena Fydgett. Have I got the wrong number?'

‘No. I'll put you through.'

A moment later Willow was speaking to Fiona's next of kin.

‘And so,' she finished her explanation of who she was and what she was doing, ‘I wondered if I could come and talk to you about it all.'

‘Yes, all right,' said Ms Fydgett, sounding both less surprised and more co-operative than Willow had expected. ‘I've got a string of conferences this afternoon, and I'm in court tomorrow, but I could see you here in chambers afterwards, say at five, if that's any good to you.'

‘That's fine,' said Willow, at last realising what Five Plough Court must be.

She could not think why the minister had not told her that Serena Fydgett was a barrister. He seemed to have been remarkably economical with useful details about the people she was likely to encounter during her investigation. A charitable interpretation of that could be that he had not wanted to influence any of her judgments, but there were other, rather more sinister, possibilities. They made her uneasy.

‘I'll see you then,' she said, betraying none of her thoughts. ‘Five Plough Court. Is that in the Temple?'

‘That's right. I'll expect you at five. Goodbye.'

Willow put down the telephone, collected her handbag and left the building. She was not at all hungry, but she was restless and thought that some fresh air would probably help.

It was not until she was striding up the Vauxhall Bridge Road towards Victoria that she realised what she really wanted was to go to Tom's office in Kingston and persuade him to have lunch with her. She had an extraordinarily strong impulse to talk to him.

Smiling at her own absurdity, she dismissed the idea. Both of them had always managed to give the other space and time in which to work undistracted, even in the days before they had decided to marry. She consoled herself with the thought of a late dinner together when she would tell him about her day and hear about his.

Back in the office an hour later, her feet aching but her mood better, Willow returned to her files. Only a few minutes after she sat down, the office door opened with a bang. She took her time before looking up and then deliberately closed the file and moved it to one side.

‘Yes, do come in and sit down, Len,' she said calmly. ‘What was it you wanted to see me about?'

He shut the door and came to stand in front of her. His feet were well spread apart and his hands were clenched.

‘I do not appreciate being sent impertinent messages by the junior staff,' he said at last.

Willow raised her eyebrows. ‘I find it hard to believe that Cara Saks was impertinent. I have found her to be very polite, if a little over-retiring.'

Scoffer grunted.

‘She told me that you wanted to see me,' said Willow.

‘That's correct, and it would have been more courteous of you to—'

‘Mr Scoffer,' said Willow quietly, ‘don't let's get into an argument about manners. If you have something to tell or ask me, please do so. Otherwise, I still have plenty to read. And do sit down. You look absurd, looming over me like that.'

With surprise overtaking the aggression in his face, he said nothing. Willow waited, also in silence, wanting to pressure him into speaking first. Eventually he pulled up a chair and sat down.

‘There are things you need to know about the Fydgett woman before you draw any conclusions from the files.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. She was unstable as well as dishonest.'

Willow watched him, wondering why he had not given her that piece of information during their first encounter.

‘As far as I can see, you have no evidence of dishonesty at all,' she said. ‘In fact I cannot see from the figures here why you should have asked her for any of the extra tax. Are there some more data that have not yet found their way to the file?'

‘There's plenty there.'

‘Where?'

‘Pass me the file and I'll show you.'

Disliking his peremptory tone, Willow nevertheless did as he asked. He turned the pages, tearing one letter as it pulled against a pin. It seemed extraordinary to her that the Revenue used pins rather than paperclips. She had already pricked her fingers twice and left beads of blood on some of Fiona Fydgett's letters.