Fox Evil

by Minette Walters

"Are you still there?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, for Christ's sake, watch what you say in front of the Colonel. No one'll get any money if his father-" She broke off abruptly. "Look, forget I said that. Leo scares the shit out of me. He's a really sick bastard, Mark. He's got this thing about his dad… something to do with the Colonel being tortured during the war. Don't ask me why because I don't understand it… but Leo really hates him for it. I know it sounds crazy-oh, God, he is crazy-but all he ever thinks about is how to bring the old man to his knees. It's a kind of crusade with him."

  Mark ran through his very limited psychological vocabulary, acquired through briefing barristers on defendants' psychiatric report. Transference… compensation… displacement… depersonalization… He took it a step at a time. "Okay, let's start with this relationship you mentioned-are we talking fact or guesswork?"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake!" Becky said angrily. "I told you to watch what you say. You're so damn thoughtless, Mark. As long as you're all right, you couldn't give a shit about anybody else."

  That sounded more like the Becky he knew. "You're doing all the talking… darling," he said coolly. "Anything I say is purely incidental. Fact or guesswork?"

  "Guesswork," she admitted. "She was always sitting on his lap. I never actually saw anything but I'm sure it happened. I was at work all day, don't forget, earning the bloody mon-" She checked herself again. "They could have been doing anything. Elizabeth definitely wanted it. She used to trail after Leo as if he were God."

  Mark glanced at James and saw that his eyes were closed. But he knew he was listening. "Leo's an attractive man," he murmured. "A lot of people gravitate toward him. You thought he was God for a while… or have you forgotten?"

  "Oh, please don't do that," she begged. "What will the Colonel think?"

  "More or less what he thinks now, I should imagine. Why does it matter? You're never likely to meet him."

  She didn't say anything.

  "You were the one with illusions," he went on, wondering if she still had hopes of Leo. "For everyone else the charm had run a bit thin."

  "Yes, and I found that out the hard way," she said harshly. "I've been trying to tell you for ages, but you wouldn't listen. It's just an act. He uses people then throws them aside."

  Mark decided it would be counterproductive to say: I told you so. "How did he use you?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Was the alibi a lie?"

  There was a long hesitation as if she were considering her options. "No," she said firmly.

  "Are you sure?"

  There was the sound of a stifled sob. "He's such a bastard, Mark. He took all my money and then got me to borrow off my parents and my sisters. They're all so angry with me… and I don't know what to do. They've told me to get it back, but I'm so scared of him. I was hoping you'd… being his father's solicitor and everything… I thought he might…" She petered into silence.

  Mark took a deep breath to hide his irritation. "What?"

  "You know…"

  "Reimburse you?"

  Her relief was so strong he could feel it through the phone. "Will he?"

  "I shouldn't think so… but I'll discuss it with him if you give me some honest answers. Did you go through my briefcase? Did you tell Leo the Colonel was looking for his grandchild?"

  "Only once," she said. "I saw a draft of a will that mentioned a granddaughter. That's all I told him. There was no name or anything. I didn't mean any harm, honestly I didn't… the only thing he was interested in was how much he and Lizzie were going to get."

  A car approached down the narrow lane, blinding him with its headlights. It was traveling too fast and the rush of wind as it passed the Lexus buffeted against the sides. It was too close for comfort and it set Mark's nerves jangling. "Christ!" he swore, switching on his headlights.

  "Don't be cross with me," Becky pleaded at the other end. "I know I shouldn't have done it… but I was so frightened. He's really horrible when he doesn't get his own way."

  "What does he do?"

  But she wouldn't or couldn't say. Whatever terrors Leo held for her-real or imagined-she was not about to share them with Mark. Instead she became coy in an attempt to discover if her "terrors" would persuade Mark to recover her parents' money.

  He rang off, saying his battery was on the blink.

  A year ago he would have trusted her implicitly…

  … now he didn't believe a word she said.

  21

  Prue's sense of isolation was becoming unbearable. She was too ashamed to phone any of her friends, and there was no answer from her daughter. Loneliness led her to imagine that Jenny, too, had gone to Jack and Belinda's house, and her resentment against Eleanor grew. She pictured her at home with Julian, using her wiles to bind him to her, while Prue stared into an abyss of rejection and divorce.

  The focus of her dislike was her so-called friend. Darth Vader existed only on the periphery of her thinking. Her mind was too trammeled in misery to give any thought to who he was or what sort of relationship he had with her friend. It was with a thrill of terror, then, that she looked up to see a man's face at the window. It was a momentary glimpse, a flash of white skin and dark eye sockets, but a scream rocketed from her mouth.

  This time she did call the police. She was incoherent with fear, but managed to give her address. The police had been expecting trouble since the arrival of the travelers, and a car was dispatched immediately to investigate. Meanwhile, the female officer at the center kept Prue on the line to calm her. Could Mrs. Weldon give a description of this man? Had she recognized him? Prue delivered what sounded like a stereotypical description of a burglar or a mugger. "White face… staring eyes…" It wasn't James Lockyer-Fox or Mark Ankerton, she kept repeating.

  The policewoman asked her why Colonel Lockyer-Fox and Mr. Ankerton should even be considered, and was rewarded with a garbled account of forced entry, intimidation, incest, nuisance calls, tape recordings, Darth Vader, the murder of a dog, and Prue's innocence of any wrongdoing. "It's Eleanor Bartlett at Shenstead House you should be talking to," Prue insisted, as if the police had called her and not the other way around. "She's the one who started all this."

  The woman relayed the information to a colleague who had worked on the Ailsa Lockyer-Fox investigation. This might interest him, she said. A Mrs. Weldon was suggesting some bizarre skeletons in the Lockyer-Fox closet.

  It was self-pity that persuaded Prue to talk so freely. She had been starved of kindness all day and the calming voice on the end of the phone, followed by the arrival of two solid-looking uniformed men to search the house and yard for an intruder, won her allegiance in a way that badgering never could. Tears bloomed in her eyes as one of the constables pressed a cup of tea into her hand and told her there was nothing to worry about. Whoever the Peeping Tom was, he was no longer there.

  By the time Detective Sergeant Monroe arrived half an hour later she was falling over herself to assist the police in any way she could. Better informed since James and Mark's visit, she gave a rambling exposition of events, finishing with a description of the nuisance caller who used a voice distorter, the "murder" of James's dog, and Mark's mention of a burglary at the Manor.

  Monroe frowned. "Who is this caller? Do you know?"

  "No, but I'm sure Eleanor Bartlett does," she said eagerly. "I thought the information came from Elizabeth… that's what Eleanor told me, anyway… but Mr. Ankerton said Eleanor was reading from a script, and I think he's right. When you listen to both of them-her and the man-you notice how many repetitions there are."

  "Meaning what exactly? That this man wrote the script?"

  "Well, yes, I suppose so."

  "So you're saying that Mrs. Bartlett's conspiring with him to blackmail Colonel Lockyer-Fox?"

  Such an idea had never occurred to Prue. "Oh, no… it was to shame James into confessing."

  "To what?"

  "Ailsa's murder."

  "Mrs. Lockyer-Fox died of natural c
auses."

  Prue waved a despairing hand. "That was the coroner's verdict… but no one believed it."

  It was a sweeping statement which the sergeant chose to discount. He flicked back through his notes. "And you're assuming the Colonel killed her because the day before her death Mrs. Lockyer-Fox was told by her daughter that the baby was his? Do you know for a fact that Mrs. Lockyer-Fox saw her daughter that day?"

  "She went to London."

  "London's a big place, Mrs. Weldon, and our information was that she attended a committee meeting of one of her charities. Also, both Elizabeth and Leo Lockyer-Fox said they hadn't seen their mother for six months. That doesn't square with what you're alleging."

  "Not me," she said, "I've never alleged anything. I kept quiet in my calls."

  Monroe's frown deepened. "But you knew your friend was alleging it, so who put the idea of the meeting into her mind?"

  "It must have been Elizabeth," said Prue uncomfortably.

  "Why would she do that if she told us she hadn't seen her mother in six months?"

  "I don't know." She chewed her lip anxiously. "This is the first time I've heard that you even knew Ailsa had gone to London. Eleanor always says James never told you."

  The sergeant smiled slightly. "You don't have a very high opinion of the Dorset police, do you?"

  "Oh, no," she assured him, "I think you're wonderful."

  His smile, a cynical one, vanished immediately. "Then why assume we wouldn't check Mrs. Lockyer-Fox's movements in the days prior to her death? There was a question mark over how she died until the pathologist delivered his postmortem findings. For two days we talked to everyone who might have been in contact with her."

  Prue fanned herself as a hot flush spread up her neck. "Eleanor said you were all Freemasons… and so was the pathologist."

  Monroe eyed her thoughtfully. "Your friend is either misinformed, malicious, or ignorant," he said, before consulting his notes again. "You claim you were convinced the story of the meeting was true because of this row you overheard when Mrs. Lockyer-Fox accused her husband of destroying Elizabeth's life…"

  "It seemed so logical…"

  He ignored her. "…but now you're not sure if it was the Colonel she was talking to. Also, you think you may have put the events in the wrong sequence, and that Mr. Ankerton was right when he said the subsequent killing of the Colonel's dog was connected in some way with the sound of the punch you heard. He believes Mrs. Lockyer-Fox may have witnessed the deliberate mutilation of a fox."

  "It was so long ago. At the time I really didn't think… it was all very shocking, particularly as Ailsa was dead the next morning… I couldn't see who else it could have been except James."

  He didn't speak for a moment, but mulled over some bullet points he'd made. "The Colonel reported a mutilated fox on his terrace at the beginning of the summer," he said suddenly. "Did you know about that one? Or if there've been any others since?"

  She shook her head.

  "Could your friend Mrs. Bartlett have been responsible?"

  "God, no!" she protested, deeply shocked. "Eleanor likes animals."

  "But eats them for lunch, presumably?"

  "That's not fair."

  "Very little is, I find," Monroe said dispassionately. "Let me put this another way. It's quite a catalogue of brutality that's been aimed at Colonel Lockyer-Fox in the wake of his wife's death. You keep telling me the nuisance campaign was your friend's idea, so why balk at the suggestion that she was prepared to kill his dog?"

  "Because she's afraid of dogs," she said lamely, "particularly Henry. He was a Great Dane." She shook her head in bewilderment, as much in the dark as he was. "It's so cruel… I can't bear to think about it."

  "But you don't think it's cruel to accuse an old man of incest?"

  "Ellie said he'd come out fighting if none of it was true, but he's never said a word… just stayed in his house and pretended it wasn't happening."

  Monroe was unimpressed. "Would you have believed him if he'd said he hadn't done it? In the absence of the child, it was his word against his daughter's and you and your friend had already made up your minds that the daughter was telling the truth."

  "Why would she lie about it?"

  "Have you met her?"

  Prue shook her head.

  "Well, I have, Mrs. Weldon, and the only reason I accepted her statement that her mother did not visit her the day before she died was because I double-checked with her neighbors who deal with her on a daily basis. Did your friend do that?"

  "I don't know."

  "No," he agreed. "For a self-styled judge you really are remarkably ignorant… and frighteningly willing to change your viewpoint when someone challenges it. You said earlier that you told Mrs. Bartlett you didn't believe the child could be the Colonel's, yet you tamely went along with the hate campaign. Why? Did Mrs. Bartlett promise you money if you conspired to destroy the Colonel? Will she benefit if he's driven from his home?"

  Prue's hands flew to her blazing cheeks. "Of course not," she cried. "That's an outrageous suggestion."

  "Why?"

  The bluntness of the question sent her grasping miserably at straws. "It all seems so obvious now… but it wasn't at the time. Eleanor was so convinced… and I had heard that awful row. Ailsa did say Elizabeth's life was destroyed, and I know I'm remembering that correctly."

  The sergeant gave a disbelieving smile. He'd sat through too many trials to believe that memory was accurate. "Then why did none of your friends go along with it? You told me you were shocked to find you were the only one who'd signed up. You felt you'd been conned." He paused and, when she didn't say anything, went on: "Assuming Mrs. Bartlett is as gullible as you-which I doubt-then the instigator is this man with the Darth Vader voice. So who is he?"

  Prue showed the same anxiety that she'd shown when asked the same question by Mark. "I've no idea," she muttered wretchedly. "I didn't even know he existed until this evening. Eleanor never mentioned him, just said it was the girls who were phoning-" She stopped abruptly as her mind groped through the fog of confused shame that had been clouding it since James's visit. "How stupid of me," she said with sudden clarity. "She's been lying about everything."

  A police car drew up in front of the rope barrier and two burly constables climbed out, leaving the headlights on full beam to illuminate the camp. Blinded, Bella eased Wolfie off her lap and stood up, sheltering him inside the flap of her coat. "Good evening, gents," she said, pulling her scarf over her mouth. "Can I help you?"

  "A lady up the road reported an intruder on her property," said the younger of the two, pulling on his cap as he approached. He gestured to his right. "Has anyone from here set off in that direction in the last hour or two?"

  Bella felt Wolfie tremble. "I didn't see anyone, darlin'," she told the policeman cheerfully, "but I've been facin' toward the road… so I wouldn't, would I?" She was cursing Fox roundly inside her head. Why make a rule that no one should leave the site after dark, then break it himself? Unless, of course, the only reason for the rule was to give himself free run of the village. The idea that he was a common thief appealed to her. It brought him down to a manageable size in a way that Wolfie's constant references to the cutthroat razor did not.

  The other officer chuckled as he moved into the light. "That has to be Bella Preston," he said. "It'd take more than a scarf and a bulky coat to disguise that shape and voice. What are you up to this time, girl? Not organizing another rave, I hope. We're still recovering from the last one."

  Bella recognized him immediately as a police negotiator from the Barton Edge rave. Martin Barker. One of the good guys. Tall, brown-eyed, forty-plus, and a heart pleaser. She lowered the scarf with a smile. "Nn-nn. It's all aboveboard and legal, Mr. Barker. This land don't belong to anyone, so we're claiming it through adverse possession."

  Another chuckle. "You've been reading too much fiction, Bella."

  "Maybe, but we're planning to stay until someone produces deeds, proving
it's theirs. We're entitled to have a go-anyone's entitled-we just happened to think of it first."

  "No chance, darlin'," he said, aping her manner of speech. "If you're lucky you'll get a delay on the usual seven days' notice, but if you're still here in two weeks I'll eat my hat. How's that for an offer?"

  "Should be amusing. Why so confident?"

  "What makes you think this land isn't owned?"

  "It's not on anyone's deeds."

  "How do you know?"

  It was a good question, thought Bella. They'd taken Fox's word for it, just as they'd taken his word on everything else. "Put it this way," she answered, "it don't look like anyone in the village wants to take us on. A couple of them have blustered a bit and threatened us with lawyers, but the only lawyer that's turned up wasn't interested in talking about squatters on his client's doorstep."

  "I wouldn't pin your hopes on it," Martin Barker warned kindly. "They'll get round to it as soon as the holiday's over. There's too much money invested in this place to let travelers bring down the price of the houses. You know the rules as well as I do, Bella. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there's damn all the likes of you and me can do about it." He put his hand on the rope. "Are you going to let us in? It would be useful to confirm that no one here was involved."

  Bella jerked her head in invitation. They would come in whatever she said-on suspicion of breach of peace if nothing else-but she appreciated Martin's courtesy in asking. "Sure. We didn't come here to cause trouble, so the sooner you count us out the better." She was prepared to play "keeper" to Fox's son but not to Fox himself. Let the bastard make his own explanations, she thought, as she eased Wolfie from under her coat. "This is Wolfie. He's stopping with me 'n' the girls while his mum's away."

  Wolfie shook with alarm as he stared at the constables' faces, his trust in Bella running like sawdust from his knees. Hadn't he told her Fox wasn't there? What would these men do when they found the bus empty? Bella should never have let them in… should never have mentioned his mother… they'd search for bruises and take him away…