Fox Evil

9

The hunt was the shambles Julian Bartlett had predicted. The saboteurs had kept a surprisingly low profile at the start but, as soon as a fox was put up in Blantyre Wood, cars raced ahead to create avenues of safety by using hunting horns to divert the hounds onto false trails. Out of practice after the long layoff, the dogs quickly became confused and the huntsman and his whippers-in lost control. The riders circled impatiently until order was restored, but a return to Blantyre Wood to raise a second fox was no more successful.

Hunt followers in their cars attempted to block the saboteurs and shout to the huntsman the direction the fox had taken, but an amplified tape of a pack in full cry, played through loudspeakers on a van, drew the hounds away. The aggravation levels among the riders-already high-mounted alarmingly as saboteurs invaded the field and waved their arms at the horses in a criminal and dangerous attempt to unseat the riders. Julian lashed out at a foolhardy lad who tried to catch Bouncer's reins, then swore profusely when he saw he'd been photographed by a woman with a camera.

He circled and came up beside her, wrestling to keep Bouncer in check. "I'll sue if you publish that," he said through gritted teeth. "That man was frightening my horse and I was within my rights to protect myself and my mount."

"Can I quote you?" she asked, pointing the lens at his face and clicking off a fusillade of shots. "What's your name?"

"None of your damn business."

She lowered the camera on its neck strap and patted it with a grin, before pulling a notebook from her jacket pocket. "It won't take me long to find out… not with these pictures. Debbie Fowler, Wessex Times," she said, retreating to a safe distance. "I'm a neutral… just a poor little hack trying to make a living. So-" another grin-"do you want to tell me what you have against foxes… or shall I make it up?"

Julian scowled ferociously. "That's about your level, isn't it?"

"Talk to me, then," she invited. "I'm here… I'm listening. Put the hunt's side."

"What's the point? You'll paint me as the aggressor and that idiot there-" he jerked his chin at the skinny saboteur who was backing away, rubbing his arm where the crop had caught him-"as the hero, never mind he made a deliberate attempt to break my neck by unseating me."

"That's a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it? You're hardly an inexperienced rider, so you must have been in this situation before." She glanced around the field. "You know you're going to face the sabs at some point, so presumably taking them on is part of the fun."

"That's rubbish," he snapped, reaching down to ease his left stirrup, which had jammed against his heel in the fracas with the saboteur. "You could say the same thing about these blasted hooligans with their horns."

"I do and I will," she said cheerfully. "It's gang fighting. Sharks against Jets. Toffs against proles. From where I'm standing the fox seems fairly irrelevant. He's just an excuse for a rumble."

It wasn't Julian's habit to back away from an argument. "If you print that you'll be laughed out of court," he told her, straightening again and gathering in his reins. "Whatever your views on the fox, at least credit all of us-saboteurs and huntsmen alike-with doing what we do for love of the countryside. It's the wreckers you should be writing about."

"Sure," she agreed disingenuously. "Tell me who they are, and I'll do it."

"Gyppos… travelers… whatever you want to call them," he growled. "Busloads of them arrived in Shenstead Village last night. They muck up the environment and steal off the locals, so why aren't you writing about them, Ms. Fowler? They're the real vermin. Focus on them and you'll be doing everyone a favor."

"Would you set your dogs on them?"

"Damn right I would," he said, wheeling Bouncer away to rejoin the hunt.

Wolfie was crouched in the woodland, watching the people on the lawn. He thought it was two men until one of them laughed and the voice sounded like a woman's. He couldn't hear what they were saying because they were too far away, but they didn't look like murderers. Certainly not the old murderer that Fox had talked about. He could see more of the man in the long brown coat than he could of the person with the hat pulled low, and he thought the man's face was kind. He smiled often and, once or twice, put his hand behind the other's back to steer him in a different direction.

A terrible longing grew in Wolfie's heart to run from hiding and ask this man for help, but he knew it was a bad idea. Strangers turned away whenever he begged for money… and money was a little thing. What would a stranger do if he begged for rescue? Hand him over to the police, he guessed, or take him back to Fox. He turned his frozen face toward the house and marveled again at its size. All the travelers in the world could fit inside it, he thought, so why was a murderer allowed to live there alone?

His sharp eyes caught a movement in the downstairs room at the corner of the house, and, after several seconds of concentrated staring, he made out a figure standing behind the glass. He felt a thrill of terror as a white face turned toward him and sunlight glinted on silver hair. The old man! And he was looking straight at Wolfie! With heart knocking, the child scrambled backward until he was out of sight, then ran like the wind for the safety of the bus.

Mark thrust his hands into his pockets to keep his circulation going. "I can only think it was James's change of mind about involving you that persuaded you to come," he told Nancy, "though I don't understand why."

"It has more to do with the suddenness of his decision," she said, marshaling her thoughts. "His first letter implied he was so desperate to make contact that he was prepared to pay a fortune in compensation just to get a reply. His second letter suggested the exact opposite. Keep away… no one will ever know who you are. My immediate idea was that I'd done the wrong thing by replying. Maybe the plan was to provoke me into suing as a way of draining the family finances away from his son-" she broke off on an upward inflection, making the statement a question.

Mark shook his head. "That wouldn't have been his reason. He's not that devious." Or never used to be, he thought.

"No," she agreed. "If he were, he'd have described himself and his son in very different terms." She paused again, recalling her impressions of the correspondence. "That little fable he sent me was very strange. It effectively said that Leo killed his mother in anger because she refused to go on subsidizing him. Is that true?"

"You mean did Leo kill Ailsa?"

"Yes."

Mark shook his head. "He couldn't have done. He was in London that night. It was a very solid alibi. The police investigated it thoroughly."

"But James doesn't accept it?"

"He did at the time," said Mark uncomfortably, "or at least I thought he did." He paused. "Don't you think you might be reading too much into the fable, Captain Smith? If I remember correctly, James apologized in his second letter for using emotive language. Surely it was symbolic rather than literal. Supposing he'd written 'ranted at' instead of 'devoured'? It would have been a lot less colorful… but far closer to the truth. Leo was prone to shout at his mother, but he didn't kill her. Nobody did. Her heart stopped."

Nancy nodded abstractedly as if she were only half listening. "Did Ailsa refuse to give him money?"

"Insofar as she rewrote her will at the beginning of the year to exclude both her children." He shook his head. "As a matter of fact, I've always regarded that as a reason for Leo not to kill her. Both he and his sister were informed of the changes, so they knew they had nothing to gain by her death… or not the half-million they were hoping for, anyway. They had a better a chance of that if they kept her alive."

She looked toward the sea with a thoughtful frown between her eyes. "This being the 'mending of ways' that James referred to in the fable?"

"Effectively, yes." He took his hands from his pockets to blow on them. "He's already told you they're a disappointment, so I'm not giving anything away by stressing that. Ailsa was always looking for leverage over their behavior, and changing her will was one way to exert pressure for improvement."

"Which is where the search for me came in," Nancy said without hostility. "I was another lever."

"It really wasn't as callous as that," said Mark apologetically. "It was more about finding the next generation. Both Leo and Elizabeth are childless… and that makes you the only genetic link to the future."

She turned to look at him. "I never thought about my genes until you turned up," she said with a small smile. "Now they terrify me. Do the Lockyer-Foxes ever consider anyone but themselves? Are selfishness and greed my only inheritance?"

Mark thought about what was on the tapes in the library. How much worse would she feel if she ever heard them? "You need to speak to James," he said. "I'm just the poor bloody solicitor who takes instruction, though for what it's worth I wouldn't describe either of your grandparents as selfish. I think James was very wrong to write to you-and I told him so-but he was clearly depressed when he did it. It's no excuse, but it might explain some of the apparent confusion."

She held his gaze for a moment. "His fable also suggested that Leo will kill him if he gives any of the money away. Is that true?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I read the damn thing for the first time yesterday and I haven't a clue what it's about. James isn't very easy to talk to at the moment, as you probably realize, so I'm not sure myself what's going on inside his head."

She didn't answer immediately, but seemed to be mulling over ideas to see if they were worth voicing. "Just for the sake of argument," she murmured then, "let's say James wrote exactly what he believes: that Leo killed his mother in anger because money was denied him and is threatening his father with a similar fate if he dares give the money away. Why did he back off involving me between his first and second letters? What changed between October and November?"

"You wrote extremely forcefully to say you didn't want his money and didn't want to confront Leo over it. Presumably he took that to heart."

"That's not the issue, though, is it?"

He looked puzzled. "Then what is?"

Nancy shrugged. "If his son is as dangerous as the fable implies, why wasn't he always worried about involving me? Ailsa had been dead several months before he sent you to look for me. He believed when he wrote his first letter that Leo had something to do with her death, but it didn't stop him writing to me."

Mark followed her logic step-by-step. "But doesn't that prove you're assuming too much from what he wrote? If James had thought he was putting you in danger, he wouldn't have asked me to go looking for you… and, if I'd had any doubts, I wouldn't have done it."

Another shrug. "So why do an about-turn in his second letter and fill it with guarantees of noninvolvement and anonymity? I was expecting a bullish reply, saying I'd got the wrong end of the stick entirely; instead I had a rather confused apology for having written in the first place." She assumed from his suddenly worried expression that she wasn't explaining herself very well. "It suggests to me that someone put the fear of God into him between the two letters," she said, "and I'm guessing it's Leo, because he's the one James seems to be afraid of."

She was studying his face and saw the guarded look that had come into his eyes. "Let's trade information on that bench over there," she said abruptly, setting off toward a seat overlooking the valley. "Was James's description of Leo accurate?"

"Very accurate," said Mark, following her. "He's a charmer until you cross him… then he's a bastard."

"Have you crossed him?"

"I took James and Ailsa as clients two years ago."

"What's wrong with that?" she asked, rounding the bench and looking at the saturated wooden slats.

"The family affairs were managed by Leo's closest friend until I arrived on the scene."

"Interesting." She nodded toward the seat. "Do you want to lend me a flap of your Dryzabone to keep my bum dry?"

"Of course." He started to undo the metal poppers. "My pleasure."

Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Are you always this polite, Mr. Ankerton, or do clients' granddaughters get special treatment?"

He shrugged out of his Dryzabone and threw it across the seat like Sir Walter Raleigh subduing a puddle before Queen Elizabeth. "Clients' granddaughters get special treatment, Captain Smith. I never know when… or if… I'm going to inherit them."

"Then you'll freeze to death in a lost cause," she warned, "because this is one granddaughter who won't be inherited by anyone. Doesn't that make this gesture a little OTT? All I need is a triangle… if you open out the flap, you can go on wearing it."

He lowered himself onto the middle of the seat. "I'm far too frightened of you," he murmured, stretching his legs in front of him. "Where would I put my arm?"

"I wasn't planning on getting that close," she said, perching awkwardly beside him in the small gap that remained.

"It's unavoidable when you sit on a man's coat… and he's still in it."

He had deep brown eyes that were almost black, and there was too much recognition in them. "You should go on a survival course," she said cynically. "You'd soon discover that keeping warm is more important than worrying about what you're touching."

"We're not on a survival course, Captain," he said lazily. "We're sitting in full view of my client who won't be at all amused to see his solicitor put his arm round his granddaughter."

Nancy glanced behind her. "Oh, my God, you're right!" she exclaimed, surging to her feet. "He's coming toward us."

Mark leaped up and whipped around. "Where? Oh, ha-bloody-ha!" he said sarcastically. "I suppose you think that's funny."

"Hilarious," she said, sitting down again. "Were the family affairs in order?"

Mark resumed his seat, this time pointedly putting distance between himself and her. "Yes, insofar as my predecessor followed James's instructions at the time," he said. "I replaced him when James wanted to change the instructions without Leo being given advance warning."

"How did Leo react?"

He stared thoughtfully toward the horizon. "That's the million-dollar question," he answered slowly.

She eyed him curiously. "I meant, how did he react toward you?"

"Oh… wined me and dined me until he realized I wasn't going to betray his parents' confidence, then took his revenge."

"How?"

He shook his head. "Nothing important. Just personal stuff. He can be very charismatic when he wants to be. People fall for it."

His voice sounded bitter and Nancy suspected the "personal stuff' had been very important. She leaned forward to prop her elbows on her knees. For "people" read "women," and for "it" read "Leo," she thought. Women fall for Leo… One woman? Mark's woman?

"What does Leo do? Where does he live?"

For someone who hadn't wanted to know anything about her biological family, she was suddenly extremely curious about them. "He's a playboy gambler and lives in a flat in Knightsbridge that belongs to his father." He was amused by her expression of disapproval. "More accurately, he's unemployed and unemployable because he stole from the bank he used to work for, and only avoided prison and bankruptcy because his father made good the debt. It wasn't the first time, either. Ailsa had bailed him out a couple of times before because he couldn't control his gambling."

"God!" Nancy was genuinely shocked. "How old is he?"

"Forty-eight. He spends every night in the casinos, has done for years… even when he was working. He's a con artist, pure and simple. People get taken for a ride all the time because he's good at selling himself. I don't know what his situation is at the moment-I haven't spoken to him in months-but it won't be healthy since Ailsa's will was published. He was using his projected inheritance to guarantee private loans."

It explained a lot, thought Nancy. "No wonder his parents changed their wills," she said dryly. "Presumably he'd sell this place and blow it on roulette if it was left to him?"

"Mm."

"What a fuckhead!" she said contemptuously.

"You'd probably like him if you met him," Mark warned. "Everyone else does."

"No chance," she said firmly. "I knew a man like that once and I'll never get taken in again. He was a casual laborer on the farm when I was thirteen. Everyone thought the sun shone out of his arse-including me-till he threw me onto the straw in one of the stables and pulled out his prick. He didn't get very far. I suppose he thought he was so much stronger than I was that I wouldn't fight back, so the moment he relaxed his grip I wriggled out from under him and went for him with a pitchfork. I probably ought to have run away, but I kept thinking what a fake he was… pretending one thing and doing another. I've always hated people like that."

"What happened to him?"

"Four years for sexual assault of a minor," she said, staring at the grass. "He was a right little shit… tried to pretend I'd attacked him for relieving himself against the stable wall-but I was screaming so much that two of the other laborers came piling in and found him curled up on the floor with his trousers round his ankles. If it hadn't been for that, I think he might have won. It was his word against mine and Mum said he was very convincing on the witness stand. In the end, the jury took the view that a man didn't need to expose his buttocks to urinate against a wall, particularly as the outside loo was only twenty yards away."

"Did you attend the court?"

"No. They said I was too young to be cross-examined. My version was presented in the form of a written statement."

"What was his defense?"

She glanced at him. "That I'd launched in without provocation and he refused to defend himself for fear of injuring me. His barrister argued that because the defendant was more damaged than I was, and because a thirteen-year-old couldn't have inflicted such harm on a grown man unless he allowed her to do it, I must have been the aggressor. It made me mad when I read the report of the trial. He painted me as a spoiled, rich brat with a bad temper, who didn't think twice about lamming into the hired help. You end up feeling you're the one in the dock when that kind of thing happens."

"How much damage did you do?"

"Not enough. Ten stitches in a slash across the bum and fuzzy vision after one of the prongs caught the corner of his eye. It was a lucky shot… meant he couldn't focus properly… which is why he didn't fight back. If he'd been able to see the fork, he'd have grabbed it off me, and I'd have been the one in hospital." Her expression hardened. "Or dead, like Ailsa."