Fox Evil

by Minette Walters

  Fox let the tape run while he searched the desk drawers. Eleanor's message clicked to one of Darth Vader's, followed by another. He didn't bother to rewind after he pressed stop. James had stopped listening when he took to guarding the terrace with his shotgun, and it was unlikely Mark Ankerton would notice the difference between one Darth Vader monologue and another. In a detached way, Fox recognized that the most powerful impact came, not from the endless repetition of fact, but from the five-second silences before Darth Vader announced himself. It was a waiting game that played on the listener's nerves…

  And Fox, who had seen the old man's haggard face and trembling hands too often at the window, knew the game was working.

  Julian's approach to his wife was rather more subtle than Dick's had been to Prue, but he had an advantage because of Eleanor's decision not to confront him about his infidelity. He recognized that Eleanor's tactics were to bury her head in the sand and hope the problem would go away. It surprised him-Eleanor's nature was too aggressive to take a backseat-but his conversation with Dick suggested a reason. Eleanor couldn't afford to alienate her husband if James's solicitor made good his threat to sue. Eleanor understood the value of money, even if she didn't understand anything else.

  The one theory that never occurred to him was that she feared loneliness. To his logical mind, a woman who was vulnerable would have reined in her determination to have her own way. But even if he'd guessed the truth, it wouldn't have made any difference. He wasn't a man who ever acted out of sympathy. He didn't expect it for himself, so why should others expect it from him? In any case, he was buggered if he'd pay to keep a wife who tired him out of the courts.

  "I've just been talking to Dick," he told Eleanor, returning to the kitchen and picking up the whisky bottle to examine the level inside. "You're going at this a bit strong, aren't you?"

  She turned her back on him to look in the fridge. "Only a couple. I'm starving. I waited on lunch until you came home."

  "You don't usually. Usually I get my own. What's different about today?"

  She kept her back to him by taking a bowl of yesterday's sprouts off a shelf and carrying it to the cooker. "Nothing," she said with a forced laugh. "Can you stand sprouts again or shall we have peas?"

  "Peas," he said maliciously, helping himself to another glass and topping it up with water from the tap. "Have you heard what that idiot Prue Weldon's been doing?"

  Eleanor didn't answer.

  "Only making dirty phone calls to James Lockyer-Fox," he went on, dropping onto a chair and staring at her unresponsive back. "The heavy-breathing variety, apparently. Doesn't say anything… just puffs and pants at the other end. It's pathetic, isn't it? Something to do with the menopause, presumably." He chuckled, knowing the menopause was Eleanor's worst fear. He treated his own midlife crisis with young blondes. "Like Dick says, she's fat as a carthorse so he's not interested anymore. I mean, who would be? He's talking about divorce… says he's damned if he'll support her if she ends up in court."

  He watched Eleanor's hand shake as she took a lid off a saucepan.

  "Did you know she was doing it? You're pretty good pals… always got your heads together when I come in." He paused to give her time to answer, and when she didn't: "You know those rows you mentioned," he continued casually, "between Dick and James's chap… and Dick and Prue… well, they were nothing to do with the travelers. Dick wasn't given a chance to talk about what's going on at the Copse, instead he was read the riot act about Prue's heavy breathing. He went straight off to bawl her out and she got all hoity-toity and said it was perfectly reasonable. She's so bloody thick, she thinks the fact that James hasn't challenged any of it is because he's guilty… calls it 'smoking him out'-" another laugh, rather more scathing this time-"or bollocks to that effect. You have to feel sorry for Dick. I mean, it's not something a moron like Prue would ever have come up with herself… so who's been feeding her the crap? That's the bastard should be done for slander. Prue's just the halfwit who repeated it."

  This time there was a long silence.

  "Maybe Prue's right. Maybe James is guilty," Eleanor managed at last.

  "Of what? Being in bed when his wife died of natural causes?"

  "Prue heard him hit Ailsa."

  "Oh, for God's sake!" Julian said impatiently. "Prue wanted to hear him hit Ailsa. That's all that was about. Why are you so gullible, Ellie? Prue's a tedious social climber who was miffed because the Lockyer-Foxes didn't accept her dinner invitations. I wouldn't accept them myself if it wasn't for Dick. The poor bastard leads a dog's life and he's always asleep by the time the damn pudding arrives."

  "You should have said."

  "I have… numerous times… you never bother to listen. You think she's amusing, I don't. So what's new? I'd rather be in the pub than listen to a tipsy middle-aged frump trot out her fantasies." He propped his feet on another chair, something he knew she hated. "From the way Prue talks now, you'd think the Manor was her second home, but everyone knows it's a load of garbage. Ailsa was a private person… why would she choose the Dorset megaphone for a friend? It's a joke."

  It was a good two hours since Eleanor had realized she didn't know her husband as well as she thought she did. Now paranoia entered her psyche. Why the emphasis on middle age…? Why the emphasis on the menopause…? Why the emphasis on divorce…? "Prue's a nice person," she said lamely.

  "No, she isn't," he retorted. "She's a frustrated bitch with a chip on her shoulder. At least Ailsa had something in her life other than gossip, but Prue lives on the damn stuff. I told Dick he was doing the right thing. Get out quick, I said, before the writs roll in. It's hardly his responsibility if his wife embroiders the tag end of a conversation because she's so damn boring no one wants to listen to her."

  Eleanor was provoked into turning around. "What makes you so convinced James has nothing to hide?"

  He shrugged. "I'm sure he has. He'd be a very unusual man if he didn't."

  He half expected her to say "you should know," but she dropped her gaze and said lamely: "Well then."

  "It doesn't pass the 'so what' test, Ellie. Look at all the things you've been trying to hide since we moved down here… where we lived… what my salary was-" he laughed again-"your age. I bet you haven't told Prue you're nearly sixty… I bet you've been pretending you're younger than she is." Her mouth turned down in immediate anger, and he eyed her curiously for a moment. She was holding herself under enormous restraint. A remark like that yesterday would have brought a cutting response. "If there was any evidence that James killed Ailsa, the police would have found it," he said. "Anyone who thinks differently needs their head examined."

  "You said he'd got away with murder. You went on and on about it."

  "I said if he had murdered her, it was the perfect crime. It was a joke, for Christ's sake. You should listen once in a while, instead of forcing everyone to listen to you."

  Eleanor turned back to the hob. "You never listen to me. You're always out or in your study."

  He drained his whisky. Here it comes, he thought. "I'm all yours," he invited her. "What do you want to talk about?"

  "Nothing. There's no point. You always take the man's side."

  "I'd certainly have taken James's if I'd realized what Prue was up to," Julian said coolly. "So would Dick. He's never had any illusions about being married to a bitch, but he didn't know she was venting her spleen on James. Poor old chap. It was bad enough Ailsa dying without having some twisted harpy plaguing him with the equivalent of poison-pen letters. It's a form of stalking… the kind of thing sex-starved spinsters do…"

  Eleanor could feel his eyes boring between her shoulder blades.

  "…or in Prue's case," he finished brutally, "women whose husbands don't fancy them anymore."

  In Shenstead Farm kitchen, Prue was as worried as her friend. They were both deeply frightened. The men they had taken for granted had surprised them. "Dad doesn't want to talk to you," Prue's son had said curtly over the phone. "H
e says if you don't stop calling his mobile, he'll have the number changed. We've told him he can stay here tonight."

  "Just put him on," she snapped. "He's being ridiculous."

  "I thought that was your province," Jack flashed back. "We're all trying to get our head round the toe-curling embarrassment of your phone calls to that poor old man. What the hell did you think you were doing?"

  "You don't know anything about it," she said coldly. "Neither does Dick."

  "That's exactly right. We don't… and never have done. Jesus wept, Mum! How could you do a thing like that? We all thought you were working the poison out of your system by slagging him off at home, but to plague him with calls and not even say anything… It's not as if anyone believes your version of what happened. You're always rewriting history to put yourself in a better light."

  "How dare you speak to me like that?" demanded Prue as if he were still a bolshie teenager. "You've done nothing but criticize me since you married that girl."

  Jack gave an angry laugh. "Point proved… Mother. You only ever remember what you want to remember, and the rest goes into a hole in your brain. If you have any sense you'll replay that conversation you say you heard, and try to recall the bits you've left out… it's damn bloody strange that the only person who believes you is that idiot Bartlett woman." There was the sound of a voice in the background. "I have to go. Lindy's parents are leaving." He paused and when he spoke again his tone was final. "You're on your own with this one, so just remember to tell the police and any solicitors who turn up that the rest of us were in the dark. We've all worked too hard to see the business go down the drain because you can't keep your mouth shut. Dad's already protected this end by transferring it to Lindy and me. Tomorrow he's going to ring-fence your end so we don't lose Shenstead in slander damages." The line went dead as he hung up.

  Prue's immediate reaction was a physical one. The saliva drained so drastically from her mouth that she couldn't swallow and with desperation she returned the receiver to its rest and filled a glass at the tap. She began by blaming everyone except herself. Eleanor had done far worse than she had… Dick was such a wet he'd been frightened off… Belinda had poisoned Jack's mind against her from the start… If anyone should know what James was like, it was Elizabeth… All Prue had done was take the poor girl's side… and, by default, Ailsa's…

  In any case she knew what she'd heard. Of course, she did.

  "…you're always rewriting history… you remember what you want to remember…"

  Was Dick right? Had Ailsa been talking about James and not to him? She couldn't remember now. The truth was the one she had created during her drive home from the Copse when she'd filled in the gaps to make sense of what she'd heard, and at the back of her mind was the memory of a police officer suggesting exactly that.

  "No one remembers anything with absolute accuracy, Mrs. Weldon," he had told her. "You need to be very sure indeed that what you're saying is true, because you may have to stand up in court and swear to it. Are you that sure?"

  "No," she had answered. "I am not."

  But Eleanor had persuaded her differently.

  Fox knew a file must exist-James was too meticulous about his correspondence-but a search of the cabinets against the wall failed to produce it. In the end, he came across it by accident. It was at the bottom of one of the dusty desk drawers, with "Miscellaneous" written in the top right-hand corner. He wouldn't have bothered with it except that it looked less battered than the rest and suggested a more recent collating of information than the files on Lockyer-Fox history that were stacked on top of it. More out of curiosity than with any recognition that he was about to strike the mother lode, he opened the cover and found James's correspondence with Nancy Smith on top of Mark Ankerton's reports on his progress in finding her. He took the entire file because there was no reason not to. Nothing would destroy the Colonel quicker than knowing his secret was out.

  Nancy rapped lightly on the side of the bus before she mounted the steps and appeared in the open doorway. "Hi," she said cheerfully, "mind if we come in?"

  Nine adults were grouped around a table on the same side as the door. They sat the length of a U-shaped banquette in purple vinyl, three with their backs to Nancy, three facing her, and three in front of the unbearded window. On the other side of the narrow aisle was an elderly stove with a Calor gas bottle beside it, and a kitchen unit with an inset sink. Two of the coach's original bench seats remained in the area between the door and the banquette-presumably for the use of passengers while the vehicle was moving-and dazzling pink and purple curtaining hung from rails around the interior to provide partitioning for privacy. In a psychedelic way it reminded Nancy of the layout of the narrowboats her parents had hired for canal holidays when she was a child.

  The occupants had been eating lunch. Dirty plates littered the table and the air was redolent with the smells of garlic and cigarette smoke. Her sudden entrance and the deceptive speed with which she advanced up the aisle in three long strides took them by surprise, and she was amused to see the comical expression on the face of the fat woman at the end of the banquette. Caught in the process of lighting a joint-perhaps fearing a raid-her black eyebrows shot like inverted Vs toward her cropped, peroxided hair. For no reason at all-except that beauty was the least of her attributes and she was dressed in flowing purple-Nancy decided this was Bella.

  She raised a friendly hand to a group of children who were clustered around a small battery-operated television behind a half-drawn curtain, then positioned herself between Bella and the sink, effectively pinning her to her seat. "Nancy Smith," she introduced herself before gesturing to the two men following close on her heels. "Mark Ankerton and James Lockyer-Fox."

  Ivo, sitting with his back to the window, made an attempt to rise, but he was hampered by the table in front of him and the people wedged against him on either side. "We do mind," he snapped, jerking his head urgently at Zadie who still had freedom of movement opposite Bella.

  He was too late. With James urging him forward, Mark found himself guarding the end of the table, while James became the stop that closed the exit at Zadie's end. "The door was open," Nancy said good-humoredly, "and in these parts, that constitutes an invitation to enter."

  "There's a 'keep out' notice on the rope," Ivo told her aggressively. "You gonna tell me you can't read?"

  Nancy glanced from Mark to James. "Did you see a 'keep out' notice?" she asked in surprise.

  "No," said James honestly, "I didn't see a rope either. Admittedly my eyesight's not as good as it was, but I think I'd have noticed if our way was barred."

  Mark shook his head. "It's completely free entry from the Copse," he assured Ivo courteously. "Perhaps you'd like to check for yourself. Your vehicles are parked at an angle to each other so you should be able to see from the window whether the rope's there or not. I can guarantee it isn't."

  Ivo twisted around to peer along the length of the bus. "It's fallen on the fucking ground," he said angrily. "Which of you idiots tied that one?"

  No one volunteered.

  "It was Fox," said a child's nervous voice from behind James.

  Ivo and Bella spoke in unison.

  "Shut your mouth," growled Ivo.

  "Hush, darlin'," said Bella, trying to rise against the apparently casual pressure of Nancy's arm, resting on the banquette back.

  Mark, as ever the observer, turned to look in the direction from which the voice had come. He was becoming obsessed with Lockyer-Fox genes, he thought, as he stared into Wolfie's startling blue eyes beneath the tangled thatch of platinum blond hair. Or perhaps the word "fox" had created associations in his mind. He nodded to the boy. "Hey, mate, what's happening?" he said, aping the style of his numerous nephews while wondering what the child had meant. Had a fox gnawed through the rope?

  Wolfie's lower lip trembled. "I dunno," he muttered, his courage ebbing away as fast as it had come. He had wanted to protect Nancy because he knew she'd untied the rope, but Ivo
's angry reaction had frightened him. "No one never tells me nothing."

  "So what's 'fox'? A pet?"

  Bella gave a sudden hard shove against Nancy to push her out of the way and came up against an immovable force. "Look, lady, I wanna stand up," she grunted. "It's my sodding bus. You got no right to come in here and throw your weight around."

  "I'm just standing beside you, Bella," said Nancy amiably. "It's you who's throwing her weight around. We came for a chat, that's all… not to exchange blows." She jerked a thumb at the unit behind her. "If it's of any interest, my back's rammed up against your sink, and if you don't stop shoving your unit's going to collapse… which seems a shame, since you've obviously installed a tank and a pump, and the system will run dry if your pipes rupture."

  Bella assessed her for a moment, then relaxed her pressure. "A bit of a wise-arse, eh? How do you know my name?"

  Nancy lifted an amused eyebrow. "It's written on your bus in large letters."

  "You a cop?"

  "No. I'm a Captain in the Royal Engineers. James Lockyer-Fox is a retired Colonel from the Cavalry, and Mark Ankerton is a solicitor."

  "Shi-i-it!" said Zadie ironically. "It's the heavy brigade, folks. They've given up on the candyfloss and sent in the armored division." She sent a mischievous glance around the table. "What do you reckon they're after? Surrender?"

  Bella quelled her with a frown before assessing Nancy a second time. "At least let the kid get by," she said then. "He's scared out of his wits, poor mite. He'll be better off with the others round the telly."

  "Sure," Nancy agreed, nodding to James. "We can pass him along in front of us."

  The old man shifted to make room, reaching out a hand to guide Wolfie forward, but the child dodged back. "I ain't going," he said.

  "No one's gonna hurt you, darlin'," said Bella.