Minette Walters - Fox Evil

"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.

"Where the hell are you going?" hissed Fox, grabbing Wolfie by his hair and swinging him around.

"Nowhere," said the child.

He had moved as quietly as a shadow, but Fox was quieter. There had been nothing to alert Wolfie to his father's presence behind the tree, yet Fox had heard him. From the middle of the wood came the loud and persistent buzz of a chainsaw, which drowned all other sounds, so how had Fox heard Wolfie's stealthy approach? Was he a magician?

Shrouded in his hood and scarf, Fox was staring across the lawn at the open French windows where the old man and the two people Wolfie had seen earlier were looking for the source of the noise. The woman-for there was no mistaking her gender without her hat or bulky fleece-stepped through the opening and raised a pair of binoculars to her eyes. "Over there," her lips said plainly, as she lowered the binoculars and pointed through the skeletal trees to where the chainsaw gang was operating.

Even Wolfie with his sharp sight could barely make out the dark-coated figures against the black of the serried trunks, and he wondered if the lady, too, was a magician. His eyes widened as the old man came out to join her and scanned the line of trees where he and Fox were hiding. He felt Fox draw back into the lee of the trunk before his hand whipped Wolfie around and clamped his face against the rough serge of his coat. "Keep still," Fox muttered.

Wolfie would have done, in any case. There was no mistaking the bulk of the hammer in Fox's coat pocket. Whatever fears the razor held for him, the hammer held more, and he didn't know why. He'd never seen Fox use it-just knew it was there-but it held a multitude of terrors for him. He thought it was something he'd dreamed, but he couldn't remember when or what the dream was about. Carefully, so that Fox wouldn't notice, he held his breath and eased a space between himself and the coat.

The chainsaw coughed suddenly and fell silent, and the voices from the Manor terrace carried clearly across the grass. "…seemed to have fed Eleanor Bartlett a load of nonsense. She quoted terra nullius and Lockean theory at me like a sort of mantra. Presumably she got it from the travelers because they're unlikely terms for her to know. Rather archaic as a matter of fact."

"No-man's-land?" asked the woman's voice. "Does it apply?"

"I wouldn't think so. It's a concept of dominion. In simple terms, the first arrivals in an uninhabited area can lay claim to it on behalf of their sponsor, usually a king. I can't imagine it could be applied to disputed land in Britain in the twenty-first century. The obvious claimants are James or Dick Weldon… or the village, on the grounds of common usage."

"What's Lockean theory?"

"A similar concept of private ownership. John Locke was a seventeenth-century philosopher who systematized ideas of possession. The first individual in a place acquired rights to it which could then be sold. The early American homesteaders used the principle to fence in land which hadn't been enclosed before, and the fact that it belonged to the indigenous people who didn't subscribe to the notion of enclosure was ignored."

Another man spoke, a gentler, older voice. "Akin to what these chaps are up to, then. Take what you can by ignoring the established practice of the settled community that already exists. It's interesting, isn't it? Particularly as they probably think of themselves as nomadic Indians in tune with the land rather than violent cowboys intent on exploiting it."

"Do they have a case?" asked the woman.

"I don't see how," said the older man. "Ailsa nominated the Copse as a site of scientific interest when Dick Weldon tried to fence it in, so any attempt to cut down the trees will bring the police in quicker than if they'd camped on my lawn. She was afraid Dick would do what his predecessors did and demolish an ancient natural habitat in order to acquire an extra acre of arable land. When I was a child this wood stretched half a mile toward the west. It's hardly believable now."

"James is right," said the other man. "Almost anyone in this village-even the holidaymakers-can demonstrate a history of usage long before this lot turned up. It might take a while to shift them, so the nuisance levels will be fairly high… but in the short term we can certainly stop them felling the trees."

"I don't think that's what they're doing," said the woman. "From what I can see, they're cutting the dead wood on the ground… or would be if the chainsaw hadn't packed up." She paused. "I wonder how they knew this place might be worth a shot. If the ownership of Hyde Park was in dispute then that would be newsworthy… but Shenstead ? Who's even heard of the place?"

"We have a lot of holidaymakers here," said the older man. "Some of them come back year after year. Perhaps one of the travelers was brought here as a child."

There was a period of silence before the first man spoke again. "Eleanor Bartlett said they knew everyone's names… even mine, apparently. It suggests some fairly meticulous research or a helpful insider passing on knowledge. She was pretty worked up for some reason, so I'm not sure how much to believe, but she was convinced they've been spying on the village."

"It would make sense," said the woman. "You'd have to be an idiot not to recce a place before you invaded it. Have you seen anyone hanging around, James? That wood's perfect cover, particularly the elevation to the right. With a decent pair of binoculars you can probably see most of the village."

Aware that Fox was concentrating on what was being said, Wolfie carefully twisted his head to make sure he wasn't missing anything. Some of the words were too complicated for him to understand, but he liked the voices. Even the murderer's. They sounded like actors, just as Fox did, but he took most pleasure from the lady's voice because there was a soft lilt in it that reminded him of his mother.