Minette Walters - Fox Evil

"You know, Nancy, I think I've been very foolish," said the older man then. "I thought my enemies were closer to home… but I wonder if you're right… I wonder if it's these people who've been mutilating Ailsa's foxes-such unbelievable cruelty. It's a sickness-muzzles smashed and brushes lopped off while the poor things are still al-"

For no reason that he understood, Wolfie's world suddenly exploded in a flurry of movement. Hands clapped against his ears, deafening him, before he was whisked upside down and thrown over Fox's shoulder. Disorientated, weeping with fear, he was run through the wood and thrown to the ground in front of the fire. Fox's mouth, pressed up against his face, grated words that he could only partially hear.

"Have… been watching? That woman… when… she get there?… heard what they say? Who's Nancy?"

Wolfie had no idea why Fox was so angry, but his eyes widened when he saw him reach for the razor in his pocket.

"What the hell are you doing?" demanded Bella angrily, barging Fox away and kneeling beside the terrified child. "He's a kid, for Christ's sake. Look at him, he's scared out of his wits."

"I caught him sneaking down to the Manor."

"So?"

"I don't want him queering our pitch."

"Jesus wept!" she growled. "And you think frightening the life out of him is the way to do it. Come here, darlin'," she said taking Wolfie in her arms and standing up. "He's skin and bone," she accused Fox. "You ain't feeding him right."

"Blame his mother for abandoning him," said Fox indifferently, taking a twenty-pound note from his pocket. " You feed him. I don't have time. That should keep him going for a while." He stuffed the money between her arm and Wolfie's body.

Bella eyed him suspiciously. "How come you're so flush all of a sudden?"

"None of your fucking business. As for you," he said, jabbing a finger under Wolfie's nose, "if I catch you round that place again, you'll wish you'd never been born."

"I didn't mean no harm," the child wailed. "I was only looking for Mum and li'l Cub. They's gotta be somewhere , Fox. They's gotta be somewhere …"

Bella hushed her own three children to silence as she put plates of spaghetti bolognese in front of them. "I want to talk to Wolfie," she said, sitting beside him and encouraging him to tuck in. Her children, all girls, eyed the stranger solemnly before bending obediently to their food. One looked older than Wolfie, but the other two were about his age, and it made him shy to be among them because he was acutely aware of how dirty he was.

"What happened to your mum?" asked Bella.

"Dunno," he muttered, staring at his plate.

She picked up his spoon and fork and put them in his hands. "Come on, eat up. This ain't charity, Wolfie. Fox has paid, don't forget, and he'll be mad as a hatter if he don't get his money's worth. Good lad," she said approvingly. "You've got a lot of growing to do. How old are you?"

"Ten."

Bella was shocked. Her eldest daughter was nine and Wolfie's height and body weight were well below hers. On the last occasion when she'd seen him, back in the summer at Barton Edge, Wolfie and his brother had rarely emerged from behind their mother's skirt. Bella had assumed their timidity was due to their age, placing Wolfie at six or seven, and his brother at three. Certainly the mother had been timid, though Bella couldn't remember what her name was now, assuming she'd ever known it.

She watched the child shovel food into his mouth as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. "Is Cub your brother?"

"Yeah."

"How old is he?"

"Six."

Christ! She wanted to ask him if he'd ever been weighed, but she didn't want to alarm him. "Did either of you ever go to school, Wolfie? Or get taught by the traveling teachers?"

He lowered his spoon and fork with a shake of his head. "Fox said there was no point. Mum taught me and Cub to read and write. We went to libraries sometimes," he offered. "I like computers best. Mum showed me how to work the Net. I've learned lots off that."

"What about the doctor? Did you ever go to the doctor?"

"No," he said. "Ain't never been ill." He paused. "Haven't never been ill," he corrected himself.

Bella wondered if he had a birth certificate, if the authorities even knew of his existence. "What's your mother's name?"

"Vixen."

"Does she have another one?"

He spoke through a mouthful. "You mean like Evil? I asked her once and she said only Fox is Evil."

"Sort of. I meant a surname. Mine's Preston. That makes me Bella Preston. My girls are Tanny, Gabby, and Molly Preston. Did your mum have a second name?"

Wolfie shook his head.

"Did Fox ever call her anything except Vixen?"

Wolfie glanced at the girls. "Only 'bitch,'" he said, before stuffing his mouth again.

Bella smiled, because she didn't want the children to know how disturbed she was. Fox was showing another character from Barton Edge, and she wasn't the only member of the group who thought he was following a different agenda from the one of adverse possession proposed five months ago. Then the emphasis had been on family.

"It's better odds than the fourteen million to one chance of buying a lottery ticket, and just as legal," Fox had told them. "At worst, you'll stay in the same place for as long as it takes interested parties to organize a case against you… time for your kids to log on with a GP and get some decent schooling… maybe six months… maybe longer. At best, you'll get a house. I'd say that's worth a gamble."

No one really believed it would happen. Certainly not Bella. The most she could hope for was local-council accommodation on some depressed estate, and that was less attractive to her than staying on the road. She wanted safety and freedom for her kids, not the corrupting influence of delinquent yobs in a pressure cooker of poverty and crime. But Fox was convincing enough to persuade some of them to take the chance. "What have you got to lose?" he'd asked.

Bella had met him once again between Barton Edge and the convoy forming last night. All other arrangements had been made by phone or radio. No one had been told where the waste ground was-except that it was somewhere in the southwest-and the only other meeting had been to make a final decision on who would be included. By that time news of the project had spread and competition for places was intense. A maximum of six buses, Fox had said, and the choice of who went would be his. Only people with kids would be considered. Bella had asked what gave him the right to play God in this way, and he answered, "Because I'm the one who knows where we're going."

The single logic to his selection was that there were no existing alliances among the group, making his leadership unassailable. Bella had argued strongly against this. Her view was that a bonded group of friends would make a more successful unit than a disparate group of strangers, but given a blunt ultimatum-take it or leave it-she had capitulated. Surely any dream- even a pipe dream -was worth pursuing?

"Is Fox your dad?" she asked Wolfie.

"I guess so. Mum said he was."

Bella wondered about that. She remembered his mother saying that Wolfie took after his father, but she could see no resemblance between this child and Fox. "Have you always lived with him?" she asked.

"Reckon so, 'cept when he went away."

"Where did he go?"

"Dunno."

Prison, Bella guessed. "How long was he away?"

"Dunno."

She mopped up the sauce in his plate with a piece of bread and handed it to him. "Have you always been on the road?"

He crammed the bread into his mouth. "Not rightly sure."

She lifted the saucepan off the cooker and put it in front of him with more bread. "You can wipe this out as well, darlin'. You've a powerful hunger, that's for sure." She watched him set to, wondering when he'd last had a proper meal. "So how long since your mum left?"