Minette Walters - Fox Evil

She expected another one word answer, instead she received a flood. "Dunno. I don't have a watch, see, and Fox won't never tell me what day it is. He don't reckon it matters, but I do. She and Cub was gone one morning. Weeks, I reckon. Fox gets mad if I ask. He says it's me she abandoned but I don't reckon that's right, 'coz I was the one always looked out for her. It's more likely him. She was really frightened of him. He don't- doesn't -" he corrected himself- "like it when people argue with him. You shouldn't say 'ain't' and 'don't' too much, neither," he added gravely, dropping into an abrupt imitation of Fox. "It's bad grammar and he doesn't like it."

Bella smiled. "Does your mum talk posh, too?"

"You mean like in the movies?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes. She don't say much, though. It's always me talks to Fox 'coz she's too scared."

Bella thought back to the selection meeting of four weeks ago. Had the woman been there then, she asked herself? It was hard to remember. Fox was so dominant that he tended to fill the mind. Had Bella cared if his "wife" was around? No. Had she cared if the children were visible? No. For all her questioning of his right to lead, she found his certainty exciting. He was a man who could make things happen. A tough bastard, yes-not one she'd want to cross in a hurry-but a bastard with a vision.

"What does he do when people argue with him?" she asked Wolfie.

"Gets out his razor."

Julian closed the doors on Bouncer, then went looking for Gemma, whose own horsebox was parked fifty yards away. She was the daughter of one of the tenant farmers in Shenstead Valley and Julian's passion for her was as intense as any sixty-year-old's for a willing young woman. He was enough of a realist to recognize that this had as much to do with her youthful body and uninhibited libido as it did with a desire for conversation but to a man of his age, married to a wife who had long since lost her attraction, the combination of sex and beauty was a powerful stimulus. He felt fitter and younger than he had for years.

Nevertheless, Gemma's alarm when she realized that Eleanor was her caller had surprised him. His own reaction had been relief that the cat was finally out of the bag-he was even fantasizing that Eleanor might have decamped by the time he reached home, preferably leaving a bitter little note to say what a bastard he'd been. Julian had always felt comfortable with guilt, perhaps because he had no experience of betrayal. Even so, a small voice kept reminding him that the reality would be tantrums. Did he care? No. In his noncommittal, detached way-a "man's thing" his first wife had always called it-he assumed that Eleanor was no keener to prolong a sexless marriage than he was.

He found Gemma beside her car with her hackles up. "How could you be such dork?" she demanded, glaring at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Leaving my phone number lying around."

"I didn't." In a clumsy attempt to deflect her anger he slipped an arm around her waist. "You know what she's like. She's probably been poking through my things."

Gemma smacked his hand away. "People are watching," she warned, shrugging out of her jacket.

"Who cares?"

She folded the jacket and put it on the backseat of her black Volvo station wagon. "I do," she said tightly, walking around him to check the tow bar connection to her horsebox. "In case you hadn't noticed, that bloody reporter's standing twenty yards away… and it's not going to help to have a picture of you groping me slapped all over tomorrow's paper. Eleanor would have to be really stupid not to put two and two together if she saw that."

"It'll save time on explanations," he said flippantly.

She fixed him with a withering gaze. "Who to?"

"Eleanor."

"And what about my dad? Have you any idea how angry he's going to be about this? I'm just hoping that bitch of a wife of yours hasn't phoned him already to tell him what a whore I am, seeing as how stirring's about the only thing she's good at." She stamped her foot in exasperation. "Are you sure there's nothing with my name on it in the house?"

"I'm sure." Julian ran a hand up the back of his neck and glanced behind him. The reporter was looking the other way, more interested in the huntsman marshaling his pack than she was in them. "Why are you so worried about what your father thinks?"

"You know why," she snapped. "I can't race Monkey Business without him. I can't even afford to keep a horse on a bloody secretary's wages. Nobody can. Dad pays for everything… even the bloody car… so unless you're offering to take over immediately then you'd bloody well better make sure Eleanor keeps her mouth shut." She gave an irritated sigh at his suddenly beleaguered expression. "Oh, for Christ's sake, grow up," she hissed. "Can't you see this is a fucking disaster? Dad's hoping for a son-in-law who'll help on the farm… not someone the same age as he is."

He'd never seen her angry before, and in a horrible sort of way she reminded him of Eleanor. Blond and pretty and only interested in money. They were both just clones of his first wife, who'd always been fonder of their children than she'd been of him. Julian was a man with few illusions. For whatever reason, desperate thirty-plus blondes appealed to him… and he appealed to them. It wasn't something he could explain, any more than he could explain why he became uninfatuated with them just as easily.

"It was going to come out sooner or later," he muttered. "What were you planning to tell your father then?"

"Yes, well, that's it, isn't it. It was me who was going to tell him. I hoped we could do it a little more tactfully… lead him in gently. You know all this," she said impatiently. "Why do you think I keep telling you to be careful?"

Julian hadn't given it much thought, merely looked to when and where the next sexual encounter would happen. The technicalities were immaterial as long as Gemma kept presenting her body for his pleasure. Any discretion he'd shown was on his own behalf. He'd been around long enough to know it wasn't worth showing his hand until the gamble looked solid, and he certainly didn't fancy being at Eleanor's mercy for the rest of his life if he dangled Gemma in front of her and Gemma took off.

"So what do you want me to do?" he asked lamely. Her mention of what Peter Squires was looking for in a son-in-law had unsettled him. Yes, he wanted freedom from Eleanor, but he also wanted to keep the status quo with Gemma. Stolen moments of sex between golfing and drinking that enlivened his life but brought no responsibility. He'd done marriage and he'd done babies, and neither appealed to him. A mistress, on the other hand, was infinitely appealing… until her demands became excessive.

"Jesus, I hate it when men do that! I'm not your bloody nursemaid, Julian. You got us into this mess… you get us out. It's not me who left my sodding phone number lying around." She flung herself into the driver's seat and started her engine. "I'm not giving up Monkey Business… so if Dad gets to hear of it-" She broke off angrily, thrusting the Volvo into gear. "We can keep Monkey in the stables at your place as long as Eleanor's not there." She slammed the door closed. "Your choice," she mouthed through the window before driving off.

He watched her turn out onto the main road before thrusting his hands into his pockets and stomping back to his own car. To Debbie Fowler, who had witnessed the contretemps out of the corner of her eye, the body language said it all. An affair between a dirty old man using Grecian 2000 and a spoiled bimbo with her biological clock running out.

She turned to one of the hunt followers who was standing beside her. "Do you know what that man's name is?" she asked, nodding at Julian's departing back. "He gave it to me earlier when I did an interview with him but I seem to have lost the piece of paper."