Minette Walters - Fox Evil

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.