Minette Walters - Fox Evil

He shifted his hand to the glove and pulled it on. "I only know about machines that work off electricity," he said. "Give me a microwave and a processed meal and I'm in seventh heaven. This is all a bit serious for me."

She giggled. "You really are a prime candidate for a survival course. You'd have a whole new perspective on life if you were marooned in the middle of a jungle during a tropical storm with a fire that won't light."

"What do you do?"

"Eat your worms raw… or go without. It depends how hungry you are and how strong your stomach is."

"What do they taste like?"

"Disgusting," she said, putting a plate in the rack. "Rat's all right… except you don't get much on the bone."

He wondered if she was teasing him because his life was so normal. "I'd rather stick with the microwave," he said mutinously.

She flicked him an amused glance. "It's hardly living dangerously, though, is it? How will you know what you're capable of if you never test yourself?"

"Do I need to? Why can't I just face the problem when it comes?"

"Because you wouldn't advise a client to do that," she said. "At least I hope you wouldn't. Your advice would be the opposite… find out all the information you can in order to defend yourself against whatever's thrown at you. That way, you're less likely to underestimate the opposition."

"What about overestimating the opposition?" he said tetchily. "Isn't that just as dangerous?"

"I don't see how. The warier you are, the safer you are."

She was back on the black and white answers, he thought. "What if it's your own side? How do you know you're not overestimating James? You're assuming he's tough because of what he went through fifty years ago, but he's an old man now. Yesterday, his hands were shaking so much he couldn't lift a glass."

"I'm not talking about his physical toughness, I'm talking about his mental toughness." She placed the last pieces of cutlery in the rack and pulled out the plug. "No one's character changes just because they get old." She reached for a towel. "If anything, it becomes more exaggerated. My mother's mother was a virago all her life… and when she hit eighty she became a mega-virago. She couldn't walk because of rheumatoid arthritis but her tongue kept wagging. Old age is about rage and resentment, not about going tamely into oblivion… it's Dylan Thomas's cry to 'burn and rave at close of day.' Why should James be the exception? He's a fighter… that's his nature."

Mark took the towel from her and hung it on the Aga rail to dry. "Yours, too."

She smiled. "Perhaps it goes with the job." He opened his mouth to say something, and she raised a finger to stop him. "Don't quote my genes at me again," she told him firmly. "My entire individuality is in danger of being swamped by your obsessive need to explain me. I am the complex product of my circumstances… not the predictable, linear result of an accidental coupling twenty-eight years ago."

They both knew they were too close. She saw it in the flash of awareness that sparked in his eyes. He saw it in the way her finger hovered within inches of his mouth. She dropped her hand. "Don't even think about it," she said, baring her teeth in a fox-like smile. "I've enough trouble with my bloody sergeant without adding the family lawyer to my list of difficulties. You weren't supposed to be here, Mr. Ankerton. I came to speak to James."

Mark raised his palms in a gesture of surrender, jealousy spent. "It's your fault, Smith. You shouldn't wear such provocative clothes."

She gave a splutter of laughter. "I specifically dressed butch."

"I know," he murmured, putting the mugs on a tray, "and my imagination's in overdrive. I keep wondering about all the softness that's underneath the armor plating."

Wolfie wondered why adults were so stupid. He tried to warn Bella that Fox would know they'd had visitors-Fox knew everything-but she hushed him and swore him to silence along with the rest. "Let's just keep it to ourselves," she said. "There's no point getting him worked up over nothing. We'll tell him about the reporter… that's fair enough… we all knew the press would stick their noses in sooner or later."

Wolfie shook his head at her naivety but didn't argue.

"It's not that I want you to lie to your dad," she told him, crouching down and giving him a hug, "just don't tell him, eh? He'll be mad as a hatter if he finds out we let strangers into the camp. Can't do that, see, not if we want to build houses here."

He touched a comforting hand to her cheek. "Okay." She was like his mother, always hoping for the best even though the best never happened. She must know she would never have a house here, but she needed to dream, he thought. Just as he needed to dream about running away. "Don't forget to tie the rope again," he reminded her.

Jesus Christ! She had forgotten. But what kind of life had this little boy led that made him mindful of every little detail? She searched his face, saw wisdom and intelligence well beyond his physical immaturity and wondered how she'd missed them before. "Is there anything else I should remember?"

"The door," he said solemnly.

"What door?"

"Lucky Fox's door. He said it was usually open." He shook his head at her baffled expression. "It means you have a hiding place," he told her.

The tremors came back into James's hand when Nancy told him she had to leave, but he made no attempt to dissuade her. The army was a hard taskmaster, was all he said, turning to stare out of the window. He didn't accompany her to the door, so she and Mark said their farewells alone on the doorstep.

"How long are you planning to stay?" she asked him, pulling on her hat and zipping up her fleece.

"Till tomorrow afternoon." He handed her a card. "If you're interested, that has my email, landline, and mobile on it. If you're not, I'll look forward to seeing you the next time."

She smiled. "You're one of the good guys, Mark. There aren't many lawyers who'd spend Christmas with their clients." She took a piece of paper from her pocket. "That's my mobile… but you don't have to be interested… think of it more as 'just in case.' "

He gave her a teasing smile. "Just in case of what?"

"Emergencies," she said soberly. "I'm sure he's not sitting on that terrace every night for fun… and I'm sure those travelers aren't there by accident. They were talking about a psycho when I was outside their bus, and, from the way the child behaved, they were referring to his father… this Fox character. It can't be a coincidence, Mark. With a name like that he has to be connected in some way. It would explain the scarves."

"Yes," he said slowly, thinking of Wolfie's blond hair and blue eyes. He folded the piece of paper and put it in his pocket. "Much as I appreciate your offer," he said, "wouldn't it make more sense to phone the police in an emergency?"

She unlocked the Discovery door. "Whatever… the offer's there if you want to take it up." She hoisted herself behind the steering wheel. "I should be able to come back tomorrow evening," she said diffidently, bending forward to feed the key into the ignition so that he couldn't see her face. "Could you ask James if that's okay, and text me the answer?"

Mark was surprised both by the question and the tentative way she put it. "I don't need to. He's besotted with you."

"He didn't say anything about me coming back, though."

"You didn't either," he pointed out.

"No," she agreed, straightening. "I guess meeting a grandfather isn't as easy as I thought it was going to be." She gunned the engine to life and thrust the vehicle into gear.

"What made it difficult?" he asked, putting a hand on her arm to stop her closing the door.

She flashed him a wry smile. "Genes," she said. "I thought he'd be a stranger and I wouldn't care very much… but I discovered he isn't and I do. Pretty naive, eh?" She didn't wait for an answer, just let out the clutch and slowly accelerated, forcing Mark to drop his hand, before she pulled the door closed and headed up the drive toward the gate.