Fox Evil

by Minette Walters

  "The door," he said solemnly.

  "What door?"

  "Lucky Fox's door. He said it was usually open." He shook his head at her baffled expression. "It means you have a hiding place," he told her.

  The tremors came back into James's hand when Nancy told him she had to leave, but he made no attempt to dissuade her. The army was a hard taskmaster, was all he said, turning to stare out of the window. He didn't accompany her to the door, so she and Mark said their farewells alone on the doorstep.

  "How long are you planning to stay?" she asked him, pulling on her hat and zipping up her fleece.

  "Till tomorrow afternoon." He handed her a card. "If you're interested, that has my email, landline, and mobile on it. If you're not, I'll look forward to seeing you the next time."

  She smiled. "You're one of the good guys, Mark. There aren't many lawyers who'd spend Christmas with their clients." She took a piece of paper from her pocket. "That's my mobile… but you don't have to be interested… think of it more as 'just in case.' "

  He gave her a teasing smile. "Just in case of what?"

  "Emergencies," she said soberly. "I'm sure he's not sitting on that terrace every night for fun… and I'm sure those travelers aren't there by accident. They were talking about a psycho when I was outside their bus, and, from the way the child behaved, they were referring to his father… this Fox character. It can't be a coincidence, Mark. With a name like that he has to be connected in some way. It would explain the scarves."

  "Yes," he said slowly, thinking of Wolfie's blond hair and blue eyes. He folded the piece of paper and put it in his pocket. "Much as I appreciate your offer," he said, "wouldn't it make more sense to phone the police in an emergency?"

  She unlocked the Discovery door. "Whatever… the offer's there if you want to take it up." She hoisted herself behind the steering wheel. "I should be able to come back tomorrow evening," she said diffidently, bending forward to feed the key into the ignition so that he couldn't see her face. "Could you ask James if that's okay, and text me the answer?"

  Mark was surprised both by the question and the tentative way she put it. "I don't need to. He's besotted with you."

  "He didn't say anything about me coming back, though."

  "You didn't either," he pointed out.

  "No," she agreed, straightening. "I guess meeting a grandfather isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be." She gunned the engine to life and thrust the vehicle into gear.

  "What made it difficult?" he asked, putting a hand on her arm to stop her closing the door.

  She flashed him a wry smile. "Genes," she said. "I thought he'd be a stranger and I wouldn't care very much… but I discovered he isn't and I do. Pretty naive, eh?" She didn't wait for an answer, just let out the clutch and slowly accelerated, forcing Mark to drop his hand, before she pulled the door closed and headed up the drive toward the gate.

  James was sitting hunched in his armchair by the time Mark returned to the drawing room. He looked a forlorn and diminished figure again, as if the energy that had possessed him during the afternoon had indeed been the result of a brief transfusion of blood. There was certainly no sign of the tough SCO who had opted for solitary confinement rather than barter his religion to Communist atheism.

  Assuming the cause of his depression was Nancy's departure, Mark took up a position in front of the fireplace and announced cheerfully: "She's a bit of a star, isn't she? She'd like to come back tomorrow evening if that's all right with you."

  James didn't answer.

  "I said I'd let her know," Mark persisted.

  The old man shook his head. "Tell her I'd rather she didn't, will you? Put it as kindly as you can, but make it clear that I don't want to see her again."

  Mark felt as if his legs had been chopped out from underneath him. "Why on earth not?"

  "Because your advice was right. It was a mistake to go looking for her. She's a Smith, not a Lockyer-Fox."

  Mark's anger flared abruptly. "Half an hour ago you were treating her like royalty, now you want to ditch her like a cheap tart," he snapped. "Why didn't you tell her to her face instead of expecting me to do it?"

  James closed his eyes. "It was you who warned Ailsa of the danger of resurrecting the past," he murmured. "A little belatedly, I'm agreeing with you."

  "Yes, well, I've changed my mind," the younger man said curtly. "Sod's law predicted that your granddaughter should have been a clone of Elizabeth because that's exactly what you didn't want. Instead-and for God knows what reason-you get a clone of yourself. Life isn't supposed to be like that, James. Life's supposed to be a complete and utter bummer where every step forward takes you two back." He clenched his fists. "For Christ's bloody sake, I told her you were besotted. Are you going to make me a liar?"

  To his dismay, tears welled through the old man's lids and ran down his cheeks. Mark hadn't intended another breakdown. He was tired and confused himself, and he'd been seduced by Nancy's conviction that James was the tough soldier of her imagination and not the shadow Mark had witnessed for the previous two days. Perhaps the tough soldier had been the reality of James Lockyer-Fox for the few hours she'd been there, but this broken man, whose secrets were unraveling, was the one Mark recognized. All his suspicions gathered like a knot around his heart.

  "Ah, shit!" he said in despair. "Why couldn't you have been honest with me? What the hell am I going to say to her? Sorry, Captain Smith, you didn't come up to expectations. You dress like a dyke… the Colonel's a snob… and you speak with a Herefordshire accent." He took a shuddering breath. "Or maybe I should tell her the truth?" he went on harshly. "There's a question mark over your paternity… and your grandfather intends to disown you a second time rather than put himself forward for a DNA test."

  James pressed a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "Tell her anything you like," he managed, "just so long as she never comes back."

  "Tell her yourself," said Mark, taking his mobile from his pocket and programming in Nancy's number before dropping the piece of paper in James's lap. "I'm going out to get drunk."

  It was a foolish ambition. He hadn't appreciated the difficulty of getting drunk on Boxing Day afternoon in the wilds of Dorset and drove in aimless circles, looking for an open pub. In the end, recognizing the futility of what he was doing, he parked on the Ridgeway above Ringstead Bay, and in the rapidly fading light watched the turbulent waves thrash the coast.

  The wind had swung to the southwest quadrant during the afternoon and clouds rode up the channel on the warmer air. It was a darkening wilderness of louring sky, angry sea, and mighty cliffs, and the elemental beauty of it brought a return of perspective. After half an hour, when the spume was just a phosphorescent glow in the rising moonlight and Mark's teeth were chattering with cold, he switched on the engine and headed back to Shenstead.

  Certain truths had become clear to him once the red mist had faded. Nancy had been right to say that James had changed his mind some time between the first and second letter to her. Prior to that, the pressure to locate his granddaughter had been intense, so much so that James had been prepared to forfeit damages by writing to her. By the end of November, the pressure was working the other way. "You will under no circumstances feature in any legal documents relating to this family."

  So what had happened? The phone calls? The mutilation of foxes? Henry's death? Were they linked? What was the order in which they'd happened? And why had James never mentioned any of it to Mark? Why write a fable to Nancy to refuse to discuss anything with his solicitor? Did he think Nancy might believe in Leo's guilt where Mark could not?

  For all James's insistence that the man Prue Weldon had heard must have been his son-"we sound alike… he was angry with his mother for changing her will… Ailsa blamed him for Elizabeth's problems"-Mark knew it couldn't have been. While Ailsa was dying in Dorset, Leo was shafting Mark's fiancee in London, and, much as Mark now despised the airhead he had once adored, he never doubted she was telling the trut
h. At the time Becky had had no regrets at being cited as Leo's alibi. She thought it meant the affair-so much more passionate than anything she'd experienced with Mark-was leading somewhere. But Mark had listened to too many hysterical pleas for a second chance since Leo had unceremoniously dumped her to believe she wouldn't retract a lie that had been coerced.

  It had made sense nine months ago. Leo-charismatic Leo-had taken an easy revenge on the lawyer who'd dared to usurp his friend, and, worse, refused to break his pledge of confidentiality to his clients. It was hardly difficult. Mark's long hours and disinclination to party night after night had presented Leo with a peach, ripe for the plucking, but the idea that wrecking his imminent marriage was anything but a malicious game had never occurred to Mark. Ailsa had even planted the idea in his head. "Do be careful of Leo," she'd warned when Mark mentioned the dinners he and Becky had had with her son. "He's so charming when he wants to be, and so deeply unpleasant when he doesn't get his own way."

  "Unpleasant" was hardly the word for what Leo had done, he thought now. Sadistic-twisted-perverted-all were better descriptions of the callous way he had destroyed Mark and Becky's lives. It had left Mark rudderless for months. So much trust and hope invested in another person, two years of living together, the wedding booked for the summer, and the desperate shame of explanations. Never the truth, of course-she was being laid behind my back by a dissolute gambler old enough to be her father, only the lies-"it didn't work out… we needed space… we realized we weren't ready for a long-term commitment."

  At no point had he ever had time to step back and take stock. Within twenty-four hours of arriving in Dorset to support James through the police questioning, he had had a weeping Becky on his mobile, telling him she was sorry, she hadn't meant it to come out like this, but the police had asked her to confirm where she was the night before last. Not, as she'd told Mark, shepherding a group of Japanese businessmen around Birmingham in her role as PR to a development agency, but with Leo in his Knightsbridge flat. And, no, it wasn't a one-night stand. The affair had started three months before, and she'd been trying to tell Mark for weeks. Now that the secret was out, she was moving in with Leo. She'd be gone by the time Mark came home.

  She was sorry… she was sorry… she was sorry…

  He had struggled with his devastation in private. In public he had remained impassive. The pathologist's findings-"no evidence of foul play… animal blood on the terrace"-took the heat out of the investigation, and police interest in James promptly died. Where was the point then in telling his client that the reason his accusations against Leo had been dismissed as "wild and unfounded" was because his solicitor's fiancee had exonerated him? He couldn't have said it even if he'd thought it necessary. His scars were too raw to be opened up to public inspection.

  He wondered now if Leo had gambled on that. Had he guessed that Mark's pride would prevent him telling James the truth? Mark knew the moment Becky admitted to it that the affair had had nothing to do with Ailsa's death. He could salvage some self-esteem by calling it Leo's revenge-he even believed it at times-but the truth was more pedestrian. What had he done wrong? he asked Becky. Nothing, she said tearfully. That was the trouble. It had all been so boring.

  There was no way back from that, not for Mark. For Becky it was different. Reconciliation was a way to salvage her own pride after Leo threw her out. Most of what she said was recorded on his answerphone. Leo was a mistake. All he wanted was sex on tap. Mark was the only man she'd ever really loved. She begged and pleaded to be allowed home. Mark never returned her calls, and on the few occasions when she caught him in, he laid the receiver beside the telephone and walked away. His feelings swung from hatred and anger through self-pity to indifference, but he'd never once considered that Leo's motive had been anything other than spite.

  He should have done. If the tapes in James's library proved anything it was that someone who knew him ultimately was prepared to play a long game. Three months' worth? To provide a rock-solid alibi on a single night in March? Maybe. This was all about fighting demons alone, he thought… the absurd British class psyche that said, keep a stiff upper lip and never show your tears. But what if he and James were fighting the same demon, and that demon was clever enough to exploit it?

  "Divide and rule… fog of war… propaganda is a powerful-weapon…"

  If he understood anything at the end of his cold vigil on that Dorset cliffside, it was that James would not have pressed so hard to find his granddaughter if there had been the remotest chance that he had fathered her. He didn't fear a DNA test for himself, he feared it for Nancy…

  …and had done since the calls began…

  …better she hate him for rejecting her a second time than drag her into a dirty war over allegations of incest…

  …particularly if he knew who her father really was…

  Message from Mark

  I've picked a side. James is a good guy. If he's told you different he's lying.

  18

  Wolfie marveled at how clever Fox was as he watched him pretend to Bella that he didn't know anyone had been in the camp. But Wolfie knew he knew. He knew it in the way Fox smiled when Bella told him everything was cool: Ivo had taken the chainsaw gang back to work and she and Zadie were about to relieve the guards on the rope. "Oh, and a reporter came," she added lightly. "I explained about adverse possession and she left."

  He knew it in the way Fox praised her. "Well done."

  Bella looked relieved. "We'll get on then," she said, nodding to Zadie.

  Fox blocked her way. "I'll need you to make a phone call later," he told her. "I'll give you a shout when I'm ready."

  She was too trusting, thought Wolfie, as her natural bullishness returned with the baldly stated order. "Sod that," she said crossly. "I'm not your fucking secretary. Why can't you do it yourself?"

  "I need the address of someone in the area, and I don't think a man will be able to get it. A woman might, though."

  "Whose address?"

  "No one you know." He held Bella's gaze. "A woman. Goes by the name of Captain Nancy Smith of the Royal Engineers. It'll take one call to her parents to find out where she's staying. You wouldn't have a problem with that, would you, Bella?"

  She gave an indifferent shrug, but Wolfie wished she hadn't dropped her gaze. It made her look guilty. "What d'ya want with an army tart, Fox? Ain't you got enough excitement here?"

  His lips spread in a slow smile. "Are you offering?"

  A flash of something Wolfie didn't understand passed between them, before Bella took a step to the side and walked past him. "You're too deep for me, Fox," she said. "I wouldn't have a clue what I was signing on for if I took you to bed."

  Mark found the Colonel in the library, sitting behind his desk. He seemed absorbed in what he was doing, and didn't hear the younger man come in. "Have you called her?" Mark asked urgently, leaning his hands on the wooden surface and nodding toward the phone.

  Alarmed, the old man pushed his chair away from the desk, scrabbling his feet on the parquet floor in an attempt to gain some purchase. His face was gray and drawn, and he looked frightened.

  "I'm sorry," said Mark, backing away himself and holding up his hands in surrender. "I just wanted to know if you'd phoned Nancy."

  James ran his tongue nervously across his lips but it was several seconds before he found his voice. "You gave me a shock. I thought you were-" He broke off abruptly.

  "Who? Leo?"

  James waved the questions away with a tired hand. "I've written you an official letter-" he nodded to a page on the desk-"asking for a final account and a return of all documents relating to my affairs. I'll settle as promptly as I can, Mark, and afterward you can be assured that your connection with this family is at an end. I have expressed my gratitude-warmly meant-for everything you've done for Ailsa and myself, and all I ask is that you continue to respect my confidence-" there was a painful pause-"particularly where Nancy's concerned."

  "I would never betray
your confidence."

  "Thank you." He signed the letter in a shaking hand and made an attempt to fold it into an envelope. "I'm sorry it had to end this way. I've much appreciated your kindness over the last two years." He abandoned the envelope and offered the letter to Mark. "I do understand how difficult this whole wretched business has been for you. I fear we've both missed Ailsa. She had a way of seeing things in their true light that, sadly, you and I seem unable to do."

  Mark wouldn't take the letter. Instead he dropped into a leather armchair beside the desk. "This isn't to stop you sacking me, James-I'm a bloody useless lawyer so I think you probably should-but I'd like to apologize unreservedly for everything I said. There are no excuses for what I've been thinking except that you hit me with those tapes without warning or explanation. En masse they have a powerful effect-particularly as I know that some of the facts are true. The hardest thing to deal with has been Nancy herself. She could be your daughter. Her looks, her mannerisms, her personality-everything… it's like talking to a female version of you." He shook his head. "She's even got your eyes-brown-Elizabeth's are blue. I know there's a rule about that-Mendel's law, I think-that says she can't have a blue-eyed father, but that's no grounds for assuming the nearest brown-eyed man was responsible. What I'm trying to say is that I've let you down. This is the second time I've listened to unpalatable facts delivered by telephone and on both occasions I've believed them." He paused. "I should have been more professional."

  James examined him closely for a moment before putting the letter on the desk and clasping his hands on top of it. "Leo always accused Ailsa of thinking the worst," he mused pensively, as if a memory had been triggered. "She said she wouldn't need to if just once or twice the worst hadn't happened. By the end she had such an abhorrence of self- fulfilling prophecies that she refused to comment on anything… which is why this-" he made an all-encompassing gesture to include the terrace and the stack of tapes-"has come as such a shock. She was obviously keeping something from me, but I've no idea what it was… possibly these terrible allegations. The only thing that comforts me in the cold hours of the night is that she wouldn't have believed them."