Fox Evil

13

Eleanor bolstered her courage with a neat whisky before she phoned Prue, knowing that her friend wasn't going to be happy about no solicitor, no police, and no Bartlett involvement. Eleanor couldn't afford to alienate her husband further by signing him up for expensive legal fees, nor was she prepared to tell Prue why. Julian's preference for a thirty-something was humiliating enough without it becoming public knowledge.

Her relationship with Prue was based on their mutual certainty of their husbands, whom they tore to shreds for their own amusement. Dick was slow. Julian was boring. Both allowed their wives to rule the roost because they were too lazy or inept to make decisions themselves, and so helpless that if their women ever said enough is enough, they would be lost and rudderless like ships adrift. Such statements were funny when made from a position of strength, deeply unfunny with a blonde threatening in the background.

Prue answered at the first ring as if she'd been waiting for the call. "Jack?" Her voice sounded strained.

"No, it's Ellie. I've just come in. Are you all right? You sound cross."

"Oh, hello." She seemed to make an effort to inject some lightness into her tone. "Yes, I'm fine. How did it go?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid. The situation's completely different from the way you described it," said Eleanor in a slightly accusing tone. "It's not just travelers stopping over, Prue, it's people who say they're going to stay there until someone produces deeds to show who owns it. They're claiming it by adverse possession."

"What does that mean?"

"Fencing it in and building on it… effectively what you and Dick tried to do when you first came here. As far as I understand it, the only way to get rid of them is for either Dick or James to produce evidence that it's part of their estate."

"But we don't have any evidence. That's why Dick gave up the attempt to enclose it."

"I know."

"What did your solicitor say?"

"Nothing. I haven't spoken to him." Eleanor took a quiet sip of her whisky. "There's no point, Prue. His advice will be that it's nothing to do with us… which, in fairness, it isn't-there's no way we can claim the Copse as part of our land-so our chap won't be able to access any of the deeds or give us a considered judgment. I know it's boring, but I actually think Dick was right to phone James's solicitor. Dick and James are the only ones with an interest, so they'll have to come to an agreement over who's going to fight it."

Prue didn't answer.

"Are you still there?"

"Did you call the police?"

"Apparently Dick phoned them from the Copse. You should have talked it through with him. It was a complete waste of my time going up there." She warmed to her grievance in order to put Prue on the back foot. "And it was pretty damn frightening as well. They're wearing masks… and they're alarmingly well informed about everyone in the village. People's names… who owns what… that kind of thing."

"Have you been talking to Dick?" demanded Prue.

"No."

"Then how do you know he spoke to the police?"

"The man at the Copse told me."

Prue's voice was scornful. "Oh, really, Ellie! How can you be so gullible? You promised you'd phone the police. Why agree to it if you had no intention of following through? I could have done it myself two hours ago and saved us all a lot of trouble."

Eleanor bridled immediately. "Then why didn't you? If you'd listened to Dick instead of assuming he was running away from the problem, you and he could have dealt with this mess yourselves instead of expecting Julian and me to bail you out. We're hardly to blame if people move onto your land… and it's certainly not our responsibility to pay a solicitor to rescue you from it."

If Prue was surprised by Eleanor's volte-face she didn't show it. Instead she said petulantly, "It's not our land, not according to the deeds anyway, so why should we have to take responsibility?"

"Then it's James's… which is exactly what Dick was trying to tell you before you had your row. If you want my advice, you'll eat some humble pie before you have another go at him… either that or talk to these squatters yourself. At the moment they're cock-a-hoop because Dick and I are the only people to turn up… they think the rest of the village doesn't care."

"What about James's solicitor? Has he done anything?"

Eleanor hesitated before the lie. "I don't know. I caught a glimpse of him outside the Manor, but he had someone with him. They seemed more interested in the state of the roof than what's going on at the Copse."

"Who was it?"

"Someone who drives a green Discovery. It's parked in the drive."

"Man? Woman?"

"I don't know," said Eleanor again, rather more impatiently. "I didn't hang around to find out. Look, I can't waste any more time on this… you need to talk it through with Dick."

There was a silence, laden with suspicion, as if Prue were questioning the value of Ellie's friendship. "I'll be very angry if I find out you've been speaking to him behind my back."

"That's ridiculous! Don't blame me if you and he have fallen out. You should have listened to him in the first place."

Prue's suspicions deepened. "Why are you being so peculiar?"

"Oh, for goodness' sake! I've just had a frightening encounter with some extremely unpleasant people. If you think you can do any better, you go and talk to them. See how far you get!"

Any fears nancy might have had about meeting James Lockyer-Fox were allayed by the straightforward way he greeted her. There was no forced sentiment, no feigned affection. He met her on the terrace and took her hand briefly in both of his. "You couldn't be more welcome, Nancy." His eyes were a little watery, but his handshake was firm and Nancy applauded him for taking the embarrassment out of a potentially difficult situation.

To Mark, the observer, it was a moment of appalling tension. He held his breath, certain that James's confident demeanor would rapidly collapse. What if the phone rang? What if Darth Vader began a monologue on incest? Guilty or innocent, the old man was too frail and exhausted to remain detached for long. Mark doubted there was ever a right time or method to discuss DNA sampling, but he ran hot and cold at the thought of discussing it to Nancy's face.

"How did you know it was me?" Nancy asked James with a smile.

He stood aside to usher her through the French windows and into the drawing room. "Because you're so like my mother," he said simply, leading her toward a bureau in the corner where a wedding photograph stood in a silver frame. The man was in uniform, the woman in a plain, 1920s-style, low-waisted dress, with a train of lace curled about her feet. James picked it up and looked at it for a moment before handing it to Nancy. "Do you see a resemblance?"

It surprised her that she could, but then she'd never known anyone to compare herself with. She had this woman's nose and jawline-neither of which, in Nancy's view, were anything to be pleased about-and the same dark coloring. She looked for beauty in the celluloid face but couldn't see it, any more than she could see it in her own. Instead, the woman wore a small frown above her eyes as if she were questioning the point of her history being recorded on camera. A similar frown creased Nancy's brow as she studied the photograph. "She looks undecided," she said. "Did marriage make her happy?"

"No." The old man smiled at her perspicacity. "She was much brighter than my father. I think it suffocated her to be trapped in a subservient role. She was always champing at the bit to do something with her life."

"Did she succeed?"

"Not by today's standards… but by the Dorset standards of the 1930s and forties, I think she did. She started a racing stable here-trained some decent horses, mostly hurdlers-one of them came second in the Grand National." He saw the flash of approval in Nancy's eyes, and gave a happy laugh. "Oh, yes, that was a splendid day. She persuaded the school to let me and my brother take the train to Aintree and we won a lot of money on an each-way bet. My father took the credit, of course. Women weren't allowed to train professionally in those days, so he was the nominal license holder in order to allow her to charge fees and make the enterprise pay for itself."

"Did she mind?"

"About him taking the credit? No. Everyone knew she was the trainer. It was just a bit of gobbledegook to satisfy the Jockey Club."

"What happened to the stables?"

"The war put paid to them," he said regretfully. "She couldn't train with my father away… and when he came back he had them converted into the garage block."

Nancy replaced the photograph on the bureau. "That must have annoyed her," she said, with a teasing glint in her eyes. "What did she do for revenge?"

Another chuckle. "Joined the Labor party."

"Wow! A bit of a rebel, then!" Nancy was genuinely impressed. "Was she the only member in Dorset?"

"Certainly in the circle my parents moved in. She joined after the forty-five election when they published their plans for a National Health Service. She worked as a nurse during the war and became very unhappy about the lack of medical care for the poor. My father was appalled, because he was a lifelong Conservative. He couldn't believe his wife would want Churchill overthrown in favor of Clement Attlee-very ungrateful, he called it-but it made for some spirited debates."

She laughed. "Whose side were you on?"

"Oh, I always took my father's side," said James. "He could never win an argument against my mother without assistance. She was too powerful a character."

"What about your brother? Did he take her side?" She looked at a photograph of a young man in uniform. "Is this him? Or is this you?"

"No, that's John. He died in the war, sadly, otherwise he would have inherited the estate. He was the older by two years." He touched a gentle hand to Nancy's arm and steered her toward the sofa. "My mother was devastated, of course-they were very close-but she wasn't the type to hide herself away because of it. She was a wonderful influence… taught me that a wife with an independent mind was a prize worth having."

She sat down on the edge of the seat, turning toward James's armchair and placing her feet apart like a man with her elbows on her knees. "Is that why you married Ailsa?" she asked, glancing past him toward Mark, surprised to see satisfaction in the younger man's face as if he were a schoolteacher showing off a prize pupil. Or was the commendation for James? Perhaps it was harder for a grandfather to meet the child he'd helped put up for adoption, than it was for the granddaughter to offer the possibility of a second chance.

James lowered himself into his own chair, bending toward Nancy like an old friend. There was a powerful intimacy in the way they'd arranged themselves, though neither seemed aware of it. It was clear to Mark that Nancy had no idea of the impact she was making. She couldn't know that James rarely laughed-that even an hour ago he wouldn't have been able to lift a photograph without his hands trembling so much she'd have noticed it-or that the sparkle in the faded eyes was for her.

"Goodness me, yes," said James. "Ailsa was even more of a rebel than my mother. When I first met her, she and her friends were trying to disrupt her father's shoot in Scotland by waving placards around. She didn't approve of killing animals for sport-thought it was cruel. It worked, too. The shoot was abandoned when the birds were frightened off. Mind you," he said reflectively, "all the young men were much more impressed by the way the girls' skirts rode up when they lifted their placards above their heads than they were by the cruelty-to-animals argument. It wasn't a fashionable cause in the fifties. The savagery of war seemed far worse." His face became suddenly thoughtful.

Mark, fearing tears, stepped forward to draw attention to himself. "How about a drink, James? Shall I do the honors?"

The old man nodded. "That's a splendid idea. What time is it?"

"After one."

"Good lord! Are you sure? What are we doing about lunch? This poor child must be starving."

Nancy shook her head immediately. "Please don't-"

"How does cold pheasant, pate de foie gras, and French bread sound?" Mark broke in. "It's all in the kitchen… won't take a minute to do." He smiled encouragingly. "Drink's limited to what's in the cellar, I'm afraid, so it has to be red or white wine. Which do you prefer?"

"White?" she suggested. "And not too much. I'm driving."

"James?"

"The same. There's a decent Chablis at the far end. Ailsa's favorite. Open some of that."

"Will do. I'll bring it in, then make the lunch." He caught Nancy's eye and lifted his right thumb at hip level, out of James's sight, as much as to say "well done." She dropped him a wink in return, which he interpreted rightly as "thank you." Had he been a dog, his tail would have wagged. He needed to feel he was more than just an observer.

James waited until the door closed behind him. "He's been a wonderful support," he said. "I was worried about dragging him away from his family at Christmas, but he was determined to come."

"Is he married?"

"No. I believe he had a fiancee once, but it didn't gel for some reason. He comes from a large Anglo-Irish family… seven daughters and one son. They all get together at Christmas-it's an old family tradition, apparently-so it was very generous of him to come here instead." He fell silent for a moment. "I think he thought I'd do something silly if I was left on my own."

Nancy eyed him curiously. "Would you?"

The bluntness of the question reminded him of Ailsa, who had always found tiptoeing around other people's sensibilities an irritating waste of time. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I've never thought of myself as a quitter, but then I've never been into battle without my friends beside me… and which of us knows how brave he is until he stands alone?"

"First define bravery," she commented. "My sergeant would tell you it's a simple chemical reaction that pumps the heart with adrenaline when fear paralyzes it. The poor bloody soldier, terrified out of his wits, experiences a massive rush and behaves like an automaton under the influence of hormonal overdose."

"Does he say that to the men?"

She nodded. "They love it. They practice self-induced adrenaline rushes to keep their glands in trim."

James looked doubtful. "Does it work?"

"More in the mind than the body, I suspect," she said with a laugh, "but it's good psychology whichever way you look at it. If bravery is a chemical then we all have access to it, and fear is easier to deal with if it's a recognizable part of the process. In simple terms, we have to be frightened before we can be brave, otherwise the adrenaline won't flow… and if we can be brave without being frightened first-" she lifted an amused eyebrow-"then we're dead from the neck up. What we imagine is worse than what happens. Hence my sergeant's belief that a defenseless civilian, waiting day after day for the bombs to fall, is braver than a member of an armed unit."

"He sounds quite a character."

"The men like him," she said with a dry edge to the words.

"Ah!"

"Mm!"

James chuckled again. "What's he really like?"

Nancy pulled a wry face. "A self-opinionated bully who doesn't believe there's a place for women in the army… certainly not in the Engineers… certainly not with an Oxford degree… and certainly not in command."

"Oh dear!"

She gave a small shrug. "It would be all right if it was amusing… but it isn't."

She seemed such a confident young woman that he wondered if she was being kind, trading a weakness for advice in order to allow him to do the same. "I never had to face that specific problem, of course," he told her, "but I do remember one particularly tough sergeant who made a habit of taking me on in front of the men. It was all very subtle, mostly in the tone of his voice… but nothing I could challenge him about without looking stupid. You can't take a man's stripe away because he repeats your orders in a patronizing way."

"What did you do?"

"Swallowed my pride and asked for help. He was transferred out of the company within a month. Apparently, I wasn't the only one having trouble with him."

"Except my subalterns think the sun shines out of the sergeant's backside. They let him get away with murder because the men respond to him. I feel I ought to be able to handle him. It's what I've been trained for, and I'm not convinced my CO's any more sympathetic to women in the army than my sergeant is. I'm fairly sure he'll tell me that if I can't take the heat I should get out of the kitchen-" she made an ironic correction-"or, more likely, get back to it because it's where a woman belongs." As James had guessed, she had chosen a subject to draw him out, but she hadn't intended to reveal so much. She told herself it was because James had been in the army and knew the power a sergeant could wield.

He watched her for a moment. "What sort of bullying does this sergeant go in for?"

"Character assassination," she said in a matter-of-fact tone that belied the very real difficulties it was causing her. "There's a lot of whispering about slags and tarts behind my back and sniggers whenever I appear. Half of the men seem to think I'm a dyke who needs curing, the other half think I'm the platoon bicycle. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a drip-drip of poison that's starting to have an effect."

"You must feel very isolated," murmured James, wondering how much Mark had told her about his situation.

"It's certainly getting that way."

"Doesn't the fact that your subalterns kowtow to him suggest they're having problems as well? Have you asked them about it?"

She nodded. "They deny that they are… say he responds to them exactly as a senior NCO should." She shrugged. "Judging by his smiles afterward, I guessed the conversation went straight back to him."

"How long's it been going on?"

"Five months. He was posted to the unit while I was on leave in August. I never had any trouble before, then-wham!-I get stuck with Jack the Ripper. I'm on a month's secondment to Bovington at the moment, but I'm dreading what I'll find when I get back. If I have any reputation left, it'll be a miracle. The trouble is, he's good at his job, he certainly gets the best out of the men."

They both looked up as the door opened and Mark came in with a tray. "Perhaps Mark has some ideas," James suggested. "The army's always had its share of bullies, but I confess I have no idea how you deal with a situation like this."

"What?" asked Mark, handing Nancy a glass.

She wasn't sure she wanted him to know. "Trouble at the office," she said lightly.

James had no such qualms. "A new sergeant, recently posted to the unit, is undermining Nancy's authority with her men," he said, taking his glass. "He derides women behind her back-calls them tarts or lesbians-presumably with the intention of making life so uncomfortable for Nancy that she'll leave. He's good at his job and popular with the men, and she's worried that if she reports him it'll reflect badly on her, even though she's never had any trouble exercising authority before. What should she do?"

"Report him," said Mark promptly. "Demand to be told what his average length of service is with any unit. If he moves regularly then you can be certain that similar accusations have been made against him in the past. If they have-indeed, even if they haven't-insist on full disciplinary charges rather than a quiet passing of the buck to someone else. Men like this get away with it because commanding officers would rather transfer them quietly than draw attention to the poor discipline in their ranks. It's a big problem in the police service. I sit on a committee that's producing guidelines on how to deal with it. The first rule is: don't pretend it isn't happening."

James nodded. "Sounds like good advice to me," he said gently.

Nancy smiled slightly. "I suppose you knew Mark was on this committee?"

He nodded.

"So what's to report?" she asked with a sigh. "A good old guy swaps jokes with his men. Have you heard the one about the tart who joined the Engineers because she was looking for a screw? Or the dyke who poked her finger in the sump to check the lubrication levels?"

James looked helplessly toward Mark.

"Sounds like a rock and a hard place," said Mark sympathetically. "If you show an interest in a man, you're a tart… if you don't, you're a lesbian."

"Right."

"Then report him. Whichever way you look at it, it's sexual intimidation. The law's on your side, but it's powerless unless you exercise your rights."

Nancy exchanged an amused glance with James. "He'll be suggesting I take out injunctions next," she said lightly.