Fox Evil

15

They ate lunch in the kitchen with James presiding at the head of the table. The two men prepared the food-the elegant fare that Mark had brought from London-and Nancy was put in charge of finding plates. For some reason, James insisted on using the "good" ones, and she was sent to the dining room to find them. She guessed it was an excuse to give the men a chance to talk, or a subtle way to introduce her to photographs of Ailsa, Elizabeth, and Leo. Perhaps both.

From the way the dining room had been turned into a junk room for unwanted chairs and chests of drawers, it was apparent that it was a long time since it had been used. It was cold, and dust lay everywhere. There was the smell of the decay that Mark had mentioned earlier, although Nancy thought it was disuse and damp rather than rot. There were blisters in the paintwork above the skirting boards, and the plaster underneath was soft to the touch. It had obviously been Ailsa's domain, she thought, and she wondered if James avoided it as he avoided her garden.

A dark mahogany table stretched the length of one wall, covered in papers and with piles of cardboard boxes stacked at one end. Some of the boxes had "RSPCA" inscribed in large letters across their fronts, others "Barnado's" or "Child Soc." The writing was strong and black, and Nancy guessed that this was Ailsa's filing system for her charities. Patches of mildew on the boxes suggested Ailsa's interests had died with her. A few were unmarked, and these lay on their side, with files spilling out across the table. Household bills. Garden receipts. Car insurance. Bank statements. Savings accounts. The stuff of everyday life.

There were no paintings, only photographs, although pale rectangular patches on the walls suggested paintings had hung there at one time. The photographs were everywhere. On the walls, on every available surface, in a stack of albums on the sideboard that held the dinner plates. Even if she'd wanted to, Nancy couldn't have ignored them. They were largely historical. A pictorial record of past generations, of Shenstead's lobster enterprise, landscapes of the Manor and the valley, shots of horses and dogs. A studio portrait of James's mother hung over the mantelpiece, and in the alcove to the right was a wedding photograph of a younger, unmistakable James and his bride.

Nancy felt like an eavesdropper, in search of secrets, as she stared at Ailsa. It was a pretty face, full of character, as different from James's square-jawed, black-haired mother as the north pole is from the south. Blond and delicate, with bright blue, impish eyes like a knowing Siamese cat's. Nancy was astonished. She hadn't imagined Ailsa like this at all. In her mind, she had transposed her late adoptive grandmother-a tough, wrinkled farmer's wife with gnarled hands and spiky personality-onto her natural grandmother, turning her into a daunting woman with a quick tongue and little patience.

Her eyes were drawn to two more photographs that stood in a leather double-hander on the bureau beneath the wedding picture. In the left frame: James and Ailsa with a couple of toddlers; in the right: a studio portrait of a girl and a boy in their teens. They were dressed in white against a black background, a studied pose of profiled bodies, the boy behind the girl, his hand on her shoulder, their faces turned to the camera. "Trust me," Mark had said, "in a million years no one would mistake you for Elizabeth." He was right. There was nothing in Nancy that recognized this made-up Barbie doll with petulant mouth and bored eyes. She was a clone of her mother, but with none of Ailsa's sparkle.

Nancy told herself it wasn't fair to judge a person by a photograph-particularly one that was so fake-except that Leo wore the same bored expression as his sister. She had to assume the whole setup was their choice, for why would James and Ailsa want such a bizarre record of their children? Leo interested her. From her perspective of twenty-eight years his attempts to look sultry were amusing, but she was honest enough to admit that at fifteen she would probably have found him attractive. He had his grandmother's dark hair and a paler version of his mother's blue eyes. It made for an interesting combination, although it disturbed Nancy that she saw more of herself in him than she did in his sister.

She took against both of them, though she couldn't say whether her dislike was instinctive or a result of what Mark had told her. If they reminded her of anything-possibly because of the white clothes and Elizabeth's false eyelashes-it was Malcolm McDowell's deceptively innocent face in A Clockwork Orange, as he slashed and cut his victims in an orgy of violent self-expression. Was that their intention, she wondered? Was it a coded image of amorality that would amuse their friends and pass their parents by?

The dinner service stood on the sideboard, covered in dust, and she lifted the stack of plates to the table to retrieve clean ones from the bottom. You could read too much into a picture, she told herself, recalling the unsophisticated snapshots of herself, mostly taken by her father, that littered the farmhouse. What did such unimaginative portrayals say about her? That Nancy Smith was a genuine person who concealed nothing? If so, it wouldn't be true.

As she returned the plates to the sideboard, she noticed a small heart-shaped mark in the dust where they'd been standing. She wondered who or what had made it. It seemed a poignant symbol of love in that cold, dead room, and she gave a superstitious shiver. You could read too much into anything, she thought, as she took a last look at her grandparents' smiling faces on their wedding day.

Fox ordered Wolfie back to the bus, but Bella intervened. "Let him stay," she said, pulling the child into her side. "The kid's worried about his mum and brother. He wants to know where they are, and I said I'd ask you."

Wolfie's alarm was palpable. Bella could feel the tremors through her coat. He shook his head anxiously. "It's o-k-kay," he stuttered. "F-fox can tell me later."

Fox's pale eyes stared at his son. "Do as I tell you," he said coldly, jerking his head toward the bus. "Wait for me there."

Ivo put out a hand to stop the child moving. "No. We've all got an interest in this. You chose families for this project, Fox… let's build a community, you said… so where's yours? You had a lady and another kid at Barton Edge. What happened to them?"

Fox's gaze traveled around the group. He must have seen something in their collective expressions that persuaded him to answer, because he gave an abrupt shrug. "She took off five weeks ago. I haven't seen her since. Satisfied?"

No one said anything.

Bella felt Wolfie's hand steal into hers. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth to stimulate some saliva. "Who with?" she asked. "Why didn't she take Wolfie with her?"

"You tell me," Fox said dismissively. "I had some business to see to and when I got back she and the kid were gone. It wasn't my choice she left Wolfie. He was stoned out of his head when I found him… but he can't remember why. Her stuff was gone and there were signs someone had been in the bus with her, so I'm guessing she put the kids to sleep in order to score. Probably for H. She couldn't go long without it."

Wolfie's fingers squirmed inside Bella's hand, and she wished she knew what he was trying to tell her. "Where was this? Were you on a site?"

"Devon. Torquay area. We were working the fairgrounds. She got desperate when the season ended and the clients dried up." He lowered his gaze to Wolfie. "Cub was easier to carry than this one, so I expect she salved her conscience by taking the smallest." He watched tears limn the child's eyes, and his mouth thinned into a cynical smile. "You should try living with a zombie, Bella. It fucks the brain when the only thing in it is obedience to a craving. Everything else can go to hell-kids, food, responsibilities, life-only the drug matters. Or maybe you've never thought about it like that… maybe your own addictions make you feel sorry for them."

Bella squeezed Wolfie's hand. "My guy had a habit," she said, "so don't lecture me about zombies. I've been there, done that, got the sodding T-shirt. Sure, his brain was fucked, but I went looking for him every time till he OD'd. Did you do that, Fox? Did you go looking?" She stared him down. "It don't make no difference how she got her fix… she'd be on the streets again within half a second flat. So do me a favor. A lady with a kid in her arms? The cops and the social would have had her in safety before she even woke up. Did you go to them? Did you ask?"

Fox shrugged. "I might have done if I'd thought that's where she was, but she's a whore. She's holed up in a squat somewhere with a pimp who'll put up with her as long as he has access to hits and she does the business. It's happened before. She had her first kid taken off her because of it… made her so scared of cops and social workers she won't go near them now."

"You can't just leave her," Bella protested. "What about Cub?"

"What about him?"

"He's your son, ain't he?"

He looked amused. "'Fraid not," he said. "That little bastard's some other fucker's responsibility."

James wanted to discuss the travelers, for which Nancy was grateful. She wasn't keen to talk about herself or her impressions of photographs. On the various occasions that she and Mark exchanged glances across the table, she could see he was baffled by James's sudden curiosity about the squatters at the Copse, and she wondered what their conversation had been while she was in the dining room. The topic of mutilated foxes had been dropped very abruptly. "I don't want to talk about it," James had said.

"Make sure the table's clean, Mark. She's obviously a very well-brought-up young lady. I don't want her telling her mother I live in a pigsty."

"It is clean."

"I didn't shave this morning. Does it show?"

"You look fine."

"I should have worn a suit."

"You look fine."

"I feel I'm a disappointment. I think she was expecting someone more impressive."

"Not at all."

"I'm such a boring old man these days. Do you think she'd be interested in the family diaries?"

"Not at the moment, no."

"Perhaps I should ask her about the Smiths? I'm not sure what the etiquette is in these circumstances."

"I don't think there is one. Just be yourself."

"It's very difficult. I keep thinking about those terrible phone calls."

"You're doing great. She likes you a lot, James."

"Are you sure? You're not just being kind?"

James quizzed Mark on the law of adverse possession, land registry, and what constituted habitation and usage. Finally, he pushed his plate aside and asked the younger man to repeat what both Dick Weldon and Eleanor Bartlett had said about them.

"How very odd," he mused, when Mark mentioned the scarves over the mouths. "Why should they be doing that?"

Mark shrugged. "In case the police turn up?" he suggested. "Their mug shots must be in most of the nicks in England."

"I thought Dick said the police didn't want to be involved."

"Yes, he did but-" He paused. "Why so interested?"

James shook his head. "We're bound to find out who they are eventually, so why hide their faces now?"

"The lot I saw through the binoculars were wearing scarves and balaclavas," said Nancy. "Pretty heavily muffled, in fact. Doesn't that make Mark right… they're worried about being recognized?"

James nodded. "Yes," he agreed, "but by whom?"

"Certainly not Eleanor Bartlett," said Mark. "She was adamant that she'd never seen them before."

"Mm." He was silent for a moment before smiling from one to the other. "Perhaps I'm the one they're afraid of. As my neighbors seem fond of pointing out, they are on my doorstep. Shall we go and talk to them? If we cross the ha-ha and approach through the wood we can surprise them from behind. The walk will do us good, don't you think?"

This was the man Mark knew of old-Action Man-and he smiled at him before looking inquiringly at Nancy.

"I'm game," she said. "As someone once said: 'know your enemy.' We wouldn't want to shoot the wrong people by mistake, now, would we?"

"They may not be the enemy," Mark protested.

Her eyes teased him. "Even better, then. Perhaps they're our enemy's enemy."

Julian was brushing the dried mud off Bouncer's legs when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He turned suspiciously as Eleanor appeared at the stable door. It was so out of character that he assumed she'd come to tear strips off him. "I'm not in the mood," he said curtly. "We'll discuss it when I've had a drink."

Discuss what? Eleanor asked herself frantically. She felt as if she were skating blindfolded on thin ice. As far as Julian was concerned, there was nothing to discuss. Or was there? "If you mean those wretched people at the Copse, I've already dealt with it," she said brightly. "Prue tried to pass the buck back to you but I told her she was being unreasonable. Do you want a drink, sweetheart? I'll fetch you one if you like."

He tossed the grooming brush into a bucket and reached for Bouncer's blanket. Sweetheart…? "What do you mean Prue tried to pass the buck?" he asked, spreading the blanket over Bouncer's back and stooping to buckle it under his belly.

Eleanor relaxed slightly. "Dick couldn't get hold of his solicitor so she asked me to put Gareth onto it. I said I didn't think that was fair, bearing in mind we have no claim to the land and you'd be paying Gareth's fees." She was unable to suppress her hectoring personality indefinitely. "I thought it was a bloody cheek, actually. Dick and James's solicitor had a row about it… then Prue rowed with Dick… so you and I were expected to pick up the pieces. I said to Prue, why should Julian cover the costs? It's not as though we've anything to gain by it."

Julian made what he could of this. "Has anyone phoned the police?"

"Dick did."

"And?"

"I only know what Prue said," Eleanor lied. "It's to do with ownership of land, so it's a matter for a solicitor."

He frowned at her. "So what's Dick doing about it?"

"I don't know. He went off in a huff and Prue doesn't know where he is."

"You said something about James's solicitor."

She pulled a face. "Dick spoke to him and got blown out of the water for his pains-which is probably what put him in a bad mood-but I've no idea if the man's done anything about it."

Julian kept his thoughts to himself while he filled the water pail and replenished the hay in Bouncer's trough. He gave the elderly hunter's neck a final pat, then picked up the grooming bucket and waited pointedly by the door until Eleanor moved. "Why would Dick phone James's solicitor? How can he help? I thought he was in London."

"He's staying with James. He arrived on Christmas Eve."

Julian shot the bolt on the stable door. "I thought the poor old boy was on his own."

"It's not just Mr. Ankerton. There's someone else there as well."

Julian frowned at her. "Who?"

"I don't know. It looked like one of the travelers."

Julian's frown deepened. "Why would James have travelers visiting him?"

Eleanor smiled weakly. "It's nothing to do with us."

"Like hell it isn't," he snapped. "They're parked on the bloody Copse. How did the solicitor blow Dick out of the water?"

"Refused to discuss it with him."

"Why?"

She hesitated. "I suppose he resents what Prue said about James and Ailsa fighting."

"Oh, come on!" said Julian impatiently. "He might not like her for it-he might not like Dick either-but he's not going to refuse to discuss something that affects his client. You said they had a row. What was that about?"

"I don't know."

He marched up the path to the house with Eleanor scurrying behind him. "I'd better call him," he said crossly. "The whole thing sounds totally ridiculous to me. Solicitors don't row with people." He pulled the back door open.

She caught his arm to hold him back. "Who are you going to phone?"

"Dick," he said, shaking her off as abruptly as Mark had done earlier. "I want to know what the hell's been going on. Anyway, I said I'd call as soon as I got back."

"He's not at the farm."

"So?" He wedged his right heel into the bootjack to yank off his riding boot. "I'll call him on his mobile."

She eased around him into the kitchen. "It's not our fight, sweetheart," she called gaily over her shoulder, taking a whisky tumbler from a cupboard and unscrewing the bottle to top up her own and pour him a generous slug. "I told you. Dick and Prue have already come to blows over it. Where's the sense in our getting caught in the middle?"

The "sweethearts" were grating on his nerves, and he guessed it was her answer to Gemma. Did she think terms of endearment could win him back? Or perhaps she thought "sweetheart" was a word he used as a matter of course with mistresses? Had he used it with her when he was two-timing his first wife…? God knew. It was so long ago he couldn't remember. "Okay," he said, padding into the kitchen in stockinged feet. "I'll call James."

Eleanor handed him the tumbler of whisky. "Oh, I don't think that's a good idea either," she said rather too hastily. "Not if he's got visitors. Why don't you wait till tomorrow? It'll probably have sorted itself by then. Have you eaten? I could make a turkey risotto or something? That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

Julian took in her flushed face, the half-empty whisky bottle, and the signs of repaired makeup around her eyes, and wondered why she was so determined to stop him using the phone. He tipped the glass to her. "Sounds good, Ellie," he said with an artless smile. "Give me a call when it's ready. I'll be in the shower."

Upstairs in his dressing room he opened his wardrobe door and looked at the neatly spaced suits and sports jackets that he'd left pushed to one side in order to remove his hunting jacket, and he asked himself why his wife had suddenly decided to search his things. She had always behaved as if looking after a husband was a form of slavery, and he had long since learned to pull his weight, particularly in the rooms he called his own. He even preferred it. Comfortable clutter was more in tune with his nature than the showy cleanliness in the rest of the house.

He set the shower running, then pulled out his mobile and scrolled down the menu for Dick's number. When the phone was answered at the other end, he quietly closed his dressing room door.

James and his two companions made no secret of their approach, although by mutual consent they didn't speak after they left the terrace and crossed the lawn to the ha-ha. There was no sign of the chainsaw gang, but Nancy pointed out the machine itself, which had been abandoned on a small pile of logs. They headed up to their right, skirting the thickly sprouting ash and hazel bushes which, once used for coppicing, created a natural sight screen between the Manor and the encampment.

In light of James's questions about recognition, Nancy wondered how deliberate the positioning of the vehicles had been. Any farther inside the wood and they would have been visible through the skeletal trees as the Copse dipped into the valley. Certainly James could have kept an easy eye on them through binoculars from the drawing-room windows. She turned her head to catch sounds, but there was nothing to hear. Wherever the travelers were, they were keeping as quiet as their visitors.

James guided them up to the path that led toward the entrance. Here the trees were thinner and they could see the encampment clearly. A couple of the buses were brightly colored. One in yellow and lime green, the other painted purple with "Bella" sprayed in pink along its side. By comparison, the rest were curiously drab-ex-coach-hire vehicles in grays and creams, with their logos obliterated.

They were parked in a rough semicircle arcing out from the entrance, and even from a hundred yards away Nancy could see that each bus was linked by rope to its neighbors, with more "keep out" notices strung between the gaps. There was a beat-up Ford Cortina nosed in behind the lime green bus, and children's bicycles lying on the ground. Otherwise, the site appeared to be empty except for the fire in the middle and two distant hooded figures who sat on chairs at either end of the rope barrier facing the road. A couple of Alsatians lay tethered at their feet.

Mark jerked his chin toward the two figures, then pointed his forefingers at his ears to indicate headphones, and Nancy nodded as she watched one of the guardians mark time with his foot as he strummed an air guitar. She raised the binoculars to take a closer look. They weren't adults, she thought. Their immature shoulders were too narrow for their borrowed coats, and their skinny wrists and hands protruded from the bunched sleeves like tablespoons. Easy prey for anyone prepared to cut the rope and reclaim the Copse for the village.

Too easy. The dogs were old and threadbare, but presumably their barks still worked. The parents and owners had to be within calling range.

She scanned across the windows of the various vehicles, but they all had cardboard obscuring visibility from this side. It was interesting, she thought. None of the engines was running so the interiors must be lit by natural light-unless the travelers were crazy enough to use batteries alone-yet the strong sunlight from the south had been blocked out. Why? Because the Manor lay in that direction?

She whispered her guesses into James's ear. "The kids on the barricade are vulnerable," she finished, "so at least one of the buses has to have adults in it. Do you want me to find out which one?"

"Will it help?" he whispered back.

She made a rocking motion with her hand. "It depends how aggressive they're likely to be and how many reinforcements they have. Bearding them in their den looks safer than being caught in the open."

"It'll mean crossing one of the barriers between the coaches."

"Mm," she agreed.

"What about the dogs?"

"They're old, and probably too far away to hear us as long as we move quietly. They'll bark if the occupants kick up a ruckus, but we'll be inside by then."

His eyes gleamed with amusement as he glanced toward Mark. "You'll frighten our friend," he warned, tilting his head fractionally in the lawyer's direction. "I can't believe his rules of engagement allow for unlawful entry to other people's property."

She grinned. "And yours? What do they allow?"

"Action," he said without hesitation. "Find me a target and I'll follow your signal."

She made a ring with her thumb and forefinger and slipped away among the trees.

"I hope you know what you're doing," murmured Mark in his other ear.

The old man chuckled. "Don't be such a killjoy," he said. "I haven't had such fun in months. She's so like Ailsa."

"An hour ago you were saying she was like your mother."

"I can see the two of them in her. It's the best of both worlds… she's got all the good genes, Mark, and none of the bad."

Mark hoped he was right.

There were raised voices inside "Bella," which became increasingly audible the closer Nancy came. She guessed the door was open on the other side for the sound to travel, but too many people were talking at once to follow the thread of individual arguments. It was all good. It meant the dogs were indifferent to altercation in the vehicles.

She knelt on one knee beside the off-side front wheel, which was as near to the door as she could safely go, confident that the cardboard blinds made her as invisible to those inside as they were to her. As she listened, she unhitched the rope barrier at "Bella's" end and let it fall to the ground with the "keep out" notice facedown, then she searched the trees to the south and west for movement. The argument seemed to be about who should be in control of the enterprise, but the reasoning was largely negative.

"Nobody else knows anything about the law…" "Only his word that he does…" "He's a fucking psycho…" "Sh-sh, the kids are listening…" "Okay, okay, but I'm not taking any more of his crap…" "Wolfie says he carries a razor…"

She raised her eyes to search for chinks at the base of the cardboard blinds, hoping to get a glimpse of the interior and a rough count of heads. From the number of different voices, she suspected the whole encampment was in there, minus the one who was under discussion. The psycho. She would have been happier knowing where he was, but the absolute stillness beyond the buses meant he was either very patient or he wasn't there.

The last window she examined was the one above her head, and her heart missed a beat as she locked eyes with someone looking down at her through a tweaked-back edge of the cardboard. The eyes were too round and the nose too small to be anything but a child's, and, instinctively, she smiled and raised a finger to her lips. There was no reaction, just a quiet withdrawal as the board was pressed back into place. After two or three minutes, during which the rumble of conversation continued undisturbed, she stole back among the trees and signaled to James and Mark to join her.

Wolfie had sneaked into the driving seat of Bella's bus, which was partitioned off by a piece of curtain. He didn't want to be noticed, frightened that someone would say he should be with his father. He had curled into a ball on the floor between the dashboard and the seat, hiding as much from Fox on the outside as from Bella and the others inside. After half an hour, when the cold of the floor set his teeth chattering, he crawled onto the seat and peered over the steering wheel to see if he could spot Fox.

He was more frightened now than he'd ever been. If Cub wasn't Fox's, then perhaps that was why his mother had taken him away and left Wolfie behind. Perhaps Wolfie didn't belong to Vixen at all, but only to Fox. The thought terrified him. It meant Fox could do what he liked, whenever he liked, and there'd be no one to stop him. At the back of his mind, he knew it didn't make any difference. His mother had never been able to keep Fox from acting crazy, just holler and cry and say she wouldn't be bad again. He had never understood what the badness was, though he was beginning to wonder if the sleeps she made him and Cub take had something to do with it. A tiny knot of anger-a first understanding of material betrayal-wound like a noose about his heart.

He heard Bella say that if Fox was telling the truth about working the fairgrounds, it would explain why none of them had come across him on the circuit, and he wanted to call out: but he isn't telling the truth. There wasn't a single time that Wolfie could remember when the bus had been parked near other people except in the summer when the rave had happened. Most of the time Fox left them in the middle of nowhere, then vanished for days on end. Sometimes Wolfie followed to see where Fox went, but he was always picked up by a black car and driven away.

When his mother had been brave enough she'd walked him and Cub along the roads till they came to a town, but most of the time she was curled on the bed. He had believed it was because she was worried about do-gooders, but now he wondered if it had more to do with how much she slept. Perhaps it hadn't been bravery at all, but just a need to find whatever it was that made her feel better.

Wolfie tried to remember the time when Fox wasn't there. Sometimes it came to him in his dreams, memories of a house and a proper bedroom. He was sure it was real and not just a piece of fantasy engendered by movies… but he didn't know when it had happened. It was very confusing. Why was Fox his father and not Cub's? He wished he knew more about parents. His entire knowledge of them was based on the American flicks he'd seen-where moms said "love you," the kids were called "pumpkin," and telephone codes were 555-and all of it was as fake as Wolfie's John Wayne walk.

He stared hard at Fox's bus, but he could tell from the way the handle was tilted that it had been locked from the outside. Wolfie wondered where Fox had gone and tweaked the edge of the cardboard in the side window to search the woodland toward the murderer's house. He saw Nancy long before she saw him, watched her slip out of the wood to crouch beside the wheel below where he was sitting, saw the rope barrier fall to the ground. He thought about calling out a warning to Bella, but Nancy raised her face and put a finger to her lips. He decided that her eyes were full of soul, so he pressed the cardboard back and dropped down between the seat and the dashboard again. He would like to have warned her that Fox was probably watching her, too, but his habit of self-protection was too ingrained to draw attention to himself.

Instead, he sucked on his thumb and closed his eyes, and pretended he hadn't seen her. He'd done it before-closed his eyes and pretended he couldn't see-but he didn't remember why… and didn't want to…

The ringing of the telephone made Vera jump. It was a rare occurrence at the Lodge. She looked furtively toward the kitchen, where Bob was listening to the radio, then picked up the receiver. A smile lit her faded eyes as she heard the voice at the other end. "Of course I understand," she said, stroking the fox's brush in her pocket. "It's Bob who's stupid… not Vera." As she replaced the receiver, something stirred in her mind. A fleeting recollection that someone had wanted to talk to her husband. Her mouth sucked and strained as she tried to remember who it was, but the effort was too great. Only her long-term memory worked these days and even that was full of holes…