Minette Walters - Fox Evil

He heard Bella say that if Fox was telling the truth about working the fairgrounds, it would explain why none of them had come across him on the circuit, and he wanted to call out: but he isn't telling the truth. There wasn't a single time that Wolfie could remember when the bus had been parked near other people except in the summer when the rave had happened. Most of the time Fox left them in the middle of nowhere, then vanished for days on end. Sometimes Wolfie followed to see where Fox went, but he was always picked up by a black car and driven away.

When his mother had been brave enough she'd walked him and Cub along the roads till they came to a town, but most of the time she was curled on the bed. He had believed it was because she was worried about do-gooders, but now he wondered if it had more to do with how much she slept. Perhaps it hadn't been bravery at all, but just a need to find whatever it was that made her feel better.

Wolfie tried to remember the time when Fox wasn't there. Sometimes it came to him in his dreams, memories of a house and a proper bedroom. He was sure it was real and not just a piece of fantasy engendered by movies… but he didn't know when it had happened. It was very confusing. Why was Fox his father and not Cub's? He wished he knew more about parents. His entire knowledge of them was based on the American flicks he'd seen-where moms said "love you," the kids were called "pumpkin," and telephone codes were 555-and all of it was as fake as Wolfie's John Wayne walk.

He stared hard at Fox's bus, but he could tell from the way the handle was tilted that it had been locked from the outside. Wolfie wondered where Fox had gone and tweaked the edge of the cardboard in the side window to search the woodland toward the murderer's house. He saw Nancy long before she saw him, watched her slip out of the wood to crouch beside the wheel below where he was sitting, saw the rope barrier fall to the ground. He thought about calling out a warning to Bella, but Nancy raised her face and put a finger to her lips. He decided that her eyes were full of soul, so he pressed the cardboard back and dropped down between the seat and the dashboard again. He would like to have warned her that Fox was probably watching her, too, but his habit of self-protection was too ingrained to draw attention to himself.

Instead, he sucked on his thumb and closed his eyes, and pretended he hadn't seen her. He'd done it before-closed his eyes and pretended he couldn't see-but he didn't remember why… and didn't want to…

The ringing of the telephone made Vera jump. It was a rare occurrence at the Lodge. She looked furtively toward the kitchen, where Bob was listening to the radio, then picked up the receiver. A smile lit her faded eyes as she heard the voice at the other end. "Of course I understand," she said, stroking the fox's brush in her pocket. "It's Bob who's stupid… not Vera." As she replaced the receiver, something stirred in her mind. A fleeting recollection that someone had wanted to talk to her husband. Her mouth sucked and strained as she tried to remember who it was, but the effort was too great. Only her long-term memory worked these days and even that was full of holes…

This time keys were unnecessary. Fox knew the Colonel's habits of old. He was obsessive about barring his front and back doors, but rarely remembered to lock the French windows when he left the house via the terrace. It was the work of seconds to sprint across the grass, after James and his visitors had disappeared into the wood, to let himself into the drawing room. He stood for a moment, listening to the heavy silence of the house, but the heat from the log fire was too intense after the cold outside, and he flung back his hood and loosened the scarf around his mouth as he felt himself start to burn up.

A hammer throbbed in his temple and he reached out a hand to steady himself against the old man's chair as sweat poured out of him. A sickness of the mind, the bitch had called it, but maybe the kid was right. Maybe the alopecia and the shakes had a physical cause. Whatever it was, it was getting worse. He gripped the leather chair, waiting for the faintness to pass. He was afraid of no man, but fear of cancer writhed like a snake through his gut.

Dick Weldon was in no mood to protect his wife. Plied with wine by his son-something he rarely drank-his belligerence had come to the fore, particularly after Belinda relayed the bullet points of her telephone conversation with Prue while Jack cooked lunch.

"I'm sorry, Dick," she told him in genuine apology. "I shouldn't have lost my rag, but it drives me mad when she accuses me of keeping Jack away from her. He's the one who doesn't want to see her. All I ever do is try to keep the peace… not very successfully." She sighed. "Look, I know this isn't something you want to hear, but the honest-to-God truth is that Prue and I loathe each other. It's a personality clash in spades. I can't stand her Lady-Muck routine, and she can't stand my everyone's-equal attitude. She wanted a daughter-in-law she could be proud of… not a country bumpkin who can't even make babies."

Dick saw the glint of tears along her lashes and his anger with his wife intensified. "It's only a matter of time," he said gruffly, taking Belinda's hand in both of his and patting it clumsily. "I had a couple of cows once when I was still doing the dairy lark. They took an age to do the business but they got there in the end. Told the vet he wasn't shoving the gizmo up far enough… worked a treat when he went in up to his elbow."

Belinda gave a half-laugh, half-sob. "Maybe that's where we're going wrong. Maybe Jack's been using the wrong gizmo."

He gave a grunt of amusement. "I always said the bull would have done it better. Nature has a way of getting things right… it's the shortcuts that cause the problems." He pulled her into a hug. "If it's worth anything, pet, no one's prouder of you than I am. You've made more of our lad than we ever managed. I'd trust him with my life these days… and that's something I never thought I'd say. Did he tell you he burned the barn down once because he took his friends in there for a smoke? I marched him up to the nick and made them give him a caution." He chuckled. "It didn't do much good but it made me feel better. Trust me, Lindy, he's come a long way since he married you. I wouldn't swap you for the world."

She wept her heart out for half an hour and by the time Julian called, several glasses later, Dick was in no mood to keep dirty laundry under wraps. "Don't believe anything Ellie tells you," he said drunkenly. "She's even more of an idiot than Prue is. Thick as two short planks, the pair of them, and vicious with it. I don't know why I married mine… skinny little thing with no tits thirty years ago… fat as a bloody carthorse now. Never liked her. Nag… nag… nag. That's all she knows. I'll tell you this for nothing… if she thinks I'm paying the damn legal bills when she's done for slander and malicious phone calls then she's got another think coming. She can pay for them herself out of the divorce settlement." There was a small hiatus as he knocked over his glass. "If you've any sense you'll tell that bit of scrag-end you married the same bloody thing. According to Prue, she's been smoking James out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm buggered if I know," said Dick with unconscious humor, "but I bet James didn't enjoy it."

In the library, Fox's curiosity led him to press play on the tape recorder. A woman's voice came to life in the amplifier. He recognized it immediately as Eleanor Bartlett's. High pitched. Strident. Telltale vowels, exaggerated by electronics, which suggested a different background from the one she was claiming.

"…I've met your daughter… seen for myself what your abuse has done to her. You disgusting man. I suppose you thought you'd got away with it… that no one would ever know because Elizabeth kept the secret for so long… Who would believe her, anyway? Was that your thinking? Well, they did, didn't they…?Poor Ailsa. What a shock it must have been to find out that she wasn't your only victim… no wonder she called you mad… I hope you're frightened now. Who's going to believe you didn't kill her when the truth comes out? It can all be proved through the child… Is that why you demanded Elizabeth be aborted? Is that why you were so angry when the doctor said it was too late? It all made sense to Ailsa when she remembered the rows… how she must have hated you…"