"You know, Nancy, I think I've been very foolish," said the older man then. "I thought my enemies were closer to home… but I wonder if you're right… I wonder if it's these people who've been mutilating Ailsa's foxes-such unbelievable cruelty. It's a sickness-muzzles smashed and brushes lopped off while the poor things are still al-"
For no reason that he understood, Wolfie's world suddenly exploded in a flurry of movement. Hands clapped against his ears, deafening him, before he was whisked upside down and thrown over Fox's shoulder. Disorientated, weeping with fear, he was run through the wood and thrown to the ground in front of the fire. Fox's mouth, pressed up against his face, grated words that he could only partially hear.
"Have… been watching? That woman… when… she get there?… heard what they say? Who's Nancy?"
Wolfie had no idea why Fox was so angry, but his eyes widened when he saw him reach for the razor in his pocket.
"What the hell are you doing?" demanded Bella angrily, barging Fox away and kneeling beside the terrified child. "He's a kid, for Christ's sake. Look at him, he's scared out of his wits."
"I caught him sneaking down to the Manor."
"So?"
"I don't want him queering our pitch."
"Jesus wept!" she growled. "And you think frightening the life out of him is the way to do it. Come here, darlin'," she said taking Wolfie in her arms and standing up. "He's skin and bone," she accused Fox. "You ain't feeding him right."
"Blame his mother for abandoning him," said Fox indifferently, taking a twenty-pound note from his pocket. "You feed him. I don't have time. That should keep him going for a while." He stuffed the money between her arm and Wolfie's body.
Bella eyed him suspiciously. "How come you're so flush all of a sudden?"
"None of your fucking business. As for you," he said, jabbing a finger under Wolfie's nose, "if I catch you round that place again, you'll wish you'd never been born."
"I didn't mean no harm," the child wailed. "I was only looking for Mum and li'l Cub. They's gotta be somewhere, Fox. They's gotta be somewhere…"
Bella hushed her own three children to silence as she put plates of spaghetti bolognese in front of them. "I want to talk to Wolfie," she said, sitting beside him and encouraging him to tuck in. Her children, all girls, eyed the stranger solemnly before bending obediently to their food. One looked older than Wolfie, but the other two were about his age, and it made him shy to be among them because he was acutely aware of how dirty he was.
"What happened to your mum?" asked Bella.
"Dunno," he muttered, staring at his plate.
She picked up his spoon and fork and put them in his hands. "Come on, eat up. This ain't charity, Wolfie. Fox has paid, don't forget, and he'll be mad as a hatter if he don't get his money's worth. Good lad," she said approvingly. "You've got a lot of growing to do. How old are you?"
"Ten."
Bella was shocked. Her eldest daughter was nine and Wolfie's height and body weight were well below hers. On the last occasion when she'd seen him, back in the summer at Barton Edge, Wolfie and his brother had rarely emerged from behind their mother's skirt. Bella had assumed their timidity was due to their age, placing Wolfie at six or seven, and his brother at three. Certainly the mother had been timid, though Bella couldn't remember what her name was now, assuming she'd ever known it.
She watched the child shovel food into his mouth as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. "Is Cub your brother?"
"Yeah."
"How old is he?"
"Six."
Christ! She wanted to ask him if he'd ever been weighed, but she didn't want to alarm him. "Did either of you ever go to school, Wolfie? Or get taught by the traveling teachers?"
He lowered his spoon and fork with a shake of his head. "Fox said there was no point. Mum taught me and Cub to read and write. We went to libraries sometimes," he offered. "I like computers best. Mum showed me how to work the Net. I've learned lots off that."
"What about the doctor? Did you ever go to the doctor?"
"No," he said. "Ain't never been ill." He paused. "Haven't never been ill," he corrected himself.
Bella wondered if he had a birth certificate, if the authorities even knew of his existence. "What's your mother's name?"
"Vixen."
"Does she have another one?"
He spoke through a mouthful. "You mean like Evil? I asked her once and she said only Fox is Evil."
"Sort of. I meant a surname. Mine's Preston. That makes me Bella Preston. My girls are Tanny, Gabby, and Molly Preston. Did your mum have a second name?"
Wolfie shook his head.
"Did Fox ever call her anything except Vixen?"
Wolfie glanced at the girls. "Only 'bitch,'" he said, before stuffing his mouth again.
Bella smiled, because she didn't want the children to know how disturbed she was. Fox was showing another character from Barton Edge, and she wasn't the only member of the group who thought he was following a different agenda from the one of adverse possession proposed five months ago. Then the emphasis had been on family.
"It's better odds than the fourteen million to one chance of buying a lottery ticket, and just as legal," Fox had told them. "At worst, you'll stay in the same place for as long as it takes interested parties to organize a case against you… time for your kids to log on with a GP and get some decent schooling… maybe six months… maybe longer. At best, you'll get a house. I'd say that's worth a gamble."
No one really believed it would happen. Certainly not Bella. The most she could hope for was local-council accommodation on some depressed estate, and that was less attractive to her than staying on the road. She wanted safety and freedom for her kids, not the corrupting influence of delinquent yobs in a pressure cooker of poverty and crime. But Fox was convincing enough to persuade some of them to take the chance. "What have you got to lose?" he'd asked.
Bella had met him once again between Barton Edge and the convoy forming last night. All other arrangements had been made by phone or radio. No one had been told where the waste ground was-except that it was somewhere in the southwest-and the only other meeting had been to make a final decision on who would be included. By that time news of the project had spread and competition for places was intense. A maximum of six buses, Fox had said, and the choice of who went would be his. Only people with kids would be considered. Bella had asked what gave him the right to play God in this way, and he answered, "Because I'm the one who knows where we're going."
The single logic to his selection was that there were no existing alliances among the group, making his leadership unassailable. Bella had argued strongly against this. Her view was that a bonded group of friends would make a more successful unit than a disparate group of strangers, but given a blunt ultimatum-take it or leave it-she had capitulated. Surely any dream-even a pipe dream-was worth pursuing?
"Is Fox your dad?" she asked Wolfie.
"I guess so. Mum said he was."
Bella wondered about that. She remembered his mother saying that Wolfie took after his father, but she could see no resemblance between this child and Fox. "Have you always lived with him?" she asked.
"Reckon so, 'cept when he went away."
"Where did he go?"
"Dunno."
Prison, Bella guessed. "How long was he away?"
"Dunno."
She mopped up the sauce in his plate with a piece of bread and handed it to him. "Have you always been on the road?"
He crammed the bread into his mouth. "Not rightly sure."
She lifted the saucepan off the cooker and put it in front of him with more bread. "You can wipe this out as well, darlin'. You've a powerful hunger, that's for sure." She watched him set to, wondering when he'd last had a proper meal. "So how long since your mum left?"
She expected another one word answer, instead she received a flood. "Dunno. I don't have a watch, see, and Fox won't never tell me what day it is. He don't reckon it matters, but I do. She and Cub was gon
e one morning. Weeks, I reckon. Fox gets mad if I ask. He says it's me she abandoned but I don't reckon that's right, 'coz I was the one always looked out for her. It's more likely him. She was really frightened of him. He don't-doesn't-" he corrected himself- "like it when people argue with him. You shouldn't say 'ain't' and 'don't' too much, neither," he added gravely, dropping into an abrupt imitation of Fox. "It's bad grammar and he doesn't like it."
Bella smiled. "Does your mum talk posh, too?"
"You mean like in the movies?"
"Yes."
"Sometimes. She don't say much, though. It's always me talks to Fox 'coz she's too scared."
Bella thought back to the selection meeting of four weeks ago. Had the woman been there then, she asked herself? It was hard to remember. Fox was so dominant that he tended to fill the mind. Had Bella cared if his "wife" was around? No. Had she cared if the children were visible? No. For all her questioning of his right to lead, she found his certainty exciting. He was a man who could make things happen. A tough bastard, yes-not one she'd want to cross in a hurry-but a bastard with a vision.
"What does he do when people argue with him?" she asked Wolfie.
"Gets out his razor."
Julian closed the doors on Bouncer, then went looking for Gemma, whose own horsebox was parked fifty yards away. She was the daughter of one of the tenant farmers in Shenstead Valley and Julian's passion for her was as intense as any sixty-year-old's for a willing young woman. He was enough of a realist to recognize that this had as much to do with her youthful body and uninhibited libido as it did with a desire for conversation but to a man of his age, married to a wife who had long since lost her attraction, the combination of sex and beauty was a powerful stimulus. He felt fitter and younger than he had for years.
Nevertheless, Gemma's alarm when she realized that Eleanor was her caller had surprised him. His own reaction had been relief that the cat was finally out of the bag-he was even fantasizing that Eleanor might have decamped by the time he reached home, preferably leaving a bitter little note to say what a bastard he'd been. Julian had always felt comfortable with guilt, perhaps because he had no experience of betrayal. Even so, a small voice kept reminding him that the reality would be tantrums. Did he care? No. In his noncommittal, detached way-a "man's thing" his first wife had always called it-he assumed that Eleanor was no keener to prolong a sexless marriage than he was.
He found Gemma beside her car with her hackles up. "How could you be such dork?" she demanded, glaring at him.
"What do you mean?"
"Leaving my phone number lying around."
"I didn't." In a clumsy attempt to deflect her anger he slipped an arm around her waist. "You know what she's like. She's probably been poking through my things."
Gemma smacked his hand away. "People are watching," she warned, shrugging out of her jacket.
"Who cares?"
She folded the jacket and put it on the backseat of her black Volvo station wagon. "I do," she said tightly, walking around him to check the tow bar connection to her horsebox. "In case you hadn't noticed, that bloody reporter's standing twenty yards away… and it's not going to help to have a picture of you groping me slapped all over tomorrow's paper. Eleanor would have to be really stupid not to put two and two together if she saw that."
"It'll save time on explanations," he said flippantly.
She fixed him with a withering gaze. "Who to?"
"Eleanor."
"And what about my dad? Have you any idea how angry he's going to be about this? I'm just hoping that bitch of a wife of yours hasn't phoned him already to tell him what a whore I am, seeing as how stirring's about the only thing she's good at." She stamped her foot in exasperation. "Are you sure there's nothing with my name on it in the house?"
"I'm sure." Julian ran a hand up the back of his neck and glanced behind him. The reporter was looking the other way, more interested in the huntsman marshaling his pack than she was in them. "Why are you so worried about what your father thinks?"
"You know why," she snapped. "I can't race Monkey Business without him. I can't even afford to keep a horse on a bloody secretary's wages. Nobody can. Dad pays for everything… even the bloody car… so unless you're offering to take over immediately then you'd bloody well better make sure Eleanor keeps her mouth shut." She gave an irritated sigh at his suddenly beleaguered expression. "Oh, for Christ's sake, grow up," she hissed. "Can't you see this is a fucking disaster? Dad's hoping for a son-in-law who'll help on the farm… not someone the same age as he is."
He'd never seen her angry before, and in a horrible sort of way she reminded him of Eleanor. Blond and pretty and only interested in money. They were both just clones of his first wife, who'd always been fonder of their children than she'd been of him. Julian was a man with few illusions. For whatever reason, desperate thirty-plus blondes appealed to him… and he appealed to them. It wasn't something he could explain, any more than he could explain why he became uninfatuated with them just as easily.
"It was going to come out sooner or later," he muttered. "What were you planning to tell your father then?"
"Yes, well, that's it, isn't it. It was me who was going to tell him. I hoped we could do it a little more tactfully… lead him in gently. You know all this," she said impatiently. "Why do you think I keep telling you to be careful?"
Julian hadn't given it much thought, merely looked to when and where the next sexual encounter would happen. The technicalities were immaterial as long as Gemma kept presenting her body for his pleasure. Any discretion he'd shown was on his own behalf. He'd been around long enough to know it wasn't worth showing his hand until the gamble looked solid, and he certainly didn't fancy being at Eleanor's mercy for the rest of his life if he dangled Gemma in front of her and Gemma took off.
"So what do you want me to do?" he asked lamely. Her mention of what Peter Squires was looking for in a son-in-law had unsettled him. Yes, he wanted freedom from Eleanor, but he also wanted to keep the status quo with Gemma. Stolen moments of sex between golfing and drinking that enlivened his life but brought no responsibility. He'd done marriage and he'd done babies, and neither appealed to him. A mistress, on the other hand, was infinitely appealing… until her demands became excessive.
"Jesus, I hate it when men do that! I'm not your bloody nursemaid, Julian. You got us into this mess… you get us out. It's not me who left my sodding phone number lying around." She flung herself into the driver's seat and started her engine. "I'm not giving up Monkey Business… so if Dad gets to hear of it-" She broke off angrily, thrusting the Volvo into gear. "We can keep Monkey in the stables at your place as long as Eleanor's not there." She slammed the door closed. "Your choice," she mouthed through the window before driving off.
He watched her turn out onto the main road before thrusting his hands into his pockets and stomping back to his own car. To Debbie Fowler, who had witnessed the contretemps out of the corner of her eye, the body language said it all. An affair between a dirty old man using Grecian 2000 and a spoiled bimbo with her biological clock running out.
She turned to one of the hunt followers who was standing beside her. "Do you know what that man's name is?" she asked, nodding at Julian's departing back. "He gave it to me earlier when I did an interview with him but I seem to have lost the piece of paper."
"Julian Bartlett," said the woman obligingly. "He plays golf with my husband."
"Where does he live?"
"Shenstead."
"He must be worth a bob or two."
"Came from London."
"That explains it, then," said Debbie, locating the page in her notebook where she'd written "gypsies, Shenstead" and jotted "Julian Bartlett" underneath. "Thanks," she told the woman with a smile, "you've been really helpful. So, in a nutshell, what you're saying is that it's kinder to kill vermin with dogs than by shooting or poisoning."
"Yes. There's no argument. Dogs kill cleanly. Poison and shot pellets don't."
"Does that
apply to all vermin?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, for example, is it kinder to set dogs on rabbits? Or gray squirrels… or rats… or badgers? They're all vermin, aren't they?"
"Some people would say so. Terriers were bred to go down burrows and setts."
"Do you approve?"
The woman shrugged. "Vermin is vermin," she said. "You have to control it somehow."
Bella left Wolfie with her daughters and went back to the chainsaw gang. The machine was working again and a dozen posts of various widths and lengths had been hacked out of fallen timber. The idea, which had seemed feasible in the planning but appeared naive to Bella now, was to drive posts into the ground to create a stockade. It looked an impossible task. Placed upright, these dozen haphazardly shaped posts would neither stand straight nor enclose more than a couple of meters, not to mention the arduous task of digging them into the frozen earth.
The Copse had been flagged as a site of scientific interest, Fox had warned that morning, and a felled tree would be an excuse for eviction. There was enough on the ground to get them started. Why had he waited until now to tell them? Bella had asked angrily. Who was going to let them build on a protected site? It wasn't protected yet, he told her. They would lodge an objection while they established themselves. He spoke as if establishing themselves would be easy.
It didn't seem so now. Much of the dead wood was rotten and crumbling, with fungus growing out of the sodden bark. Impatience was beginning to set in and Ivo, angry and frustrated, already had his eye on the living wood. "This is a waste of time," he growled, kicking the end of a branch that crumbled to dust under his boot. "Look at it. There's only about three feet that's usable. We'd do much better to take out one of these trees in the middle. Who's going to know?"
"Where's Fox?" asked Bella.
"Guarding the barrier."
She shook her head. "I've just been there. The two lads on it are getting bored."
Ivo made a throat-cutting gesture to the guy on the chain-saw and waited for the noise to die down. "Where's Fox?" he demanded.
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