Minette Walters - Fox Evil

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."