Minette Walters - Fox Evil

She was sorry… she was sorry… she was sorry…

He had struggled with his devastation in private. In public he had remained impassive. The pathologist's findings- "no evidence of foul play… animal blood on the terrace" -took the heat out of the investigation, and police interest in James promptly died. Where was the point then in telling his client that the reason his accusations against Leo had been dismissed as "wild and unfounded" was because his solicitor's fiancee had exonerated him? He couldn't have said it even if he'd thought it necessary. His scars were too raw to be opened up to public inspection.

He wondered now if Leo had gambled on that. Had he guessed that Mark's pride would prevent him telling James the truth? Mark knew the moment Becky admitted to it that the affair had had nothing to do with Ailsa's death. He could salvage some self-esteem by calling it Leo's revenge-he even believed it at times-but the truth was more pedestrian. What had he done wrong? he asked Becky. Nothing, she said tearfully. That was the trouble. It had all been so boring .

There was no way back from that, not for Mark. For Becky it was different. Reconciliation was a way to salvage her own pride after Leo threw her out. Most of what she said was recorded on his answerphone. Leo was a mistake. All he wanted was sex on tap. Mark was the only man she'd ever really loved. She begged and pleaded to be allowed home. Mark never returned her calls, and on the few occasions when she caught him in, he laid the receiver beside the telephone and walked away. His feelings swung from hatred and anger through self-pity to indifference, but he'd never once considered that Leo's motive had been anything other than spite.

He should have done. If the tapes in James's library proved anything it was that someone who knew him ultimately was prepared to play a long game. Three months' worth? To provide a rock-solid alibi on a single night in March? Maybe. This was all about fighting demons alone, he thought… the absurd British class psyche that said, keep a stiff upper lip and never show your tears. But what if he and James were fighting the same demon, and that demon was clever enough to exploit it?

"Divide and rule… fog of war… propaganda is a powerful-weapon…"

If he understood anything at the end of his cold vigil on that Dorset cliffside, it was that James would not have pressed so hard to find his granddaughter if there had been the remotest chance that he had fathered her. He didn't fear a DNA test for himself, he feared it for Nancy…

…and had done since the calls began…

…better she hate him for rejecting her a second time than drag her into a dirty war over allegations of incest…

…particularly if he knew who her father really was…

Message from Mark

I've picked a side. James is a good guy. If he's told you different he's lying.

Wolfie marveled at how clever Fox was as he watched him pretend to Bella that he didn't know anyone had been in the camp. But Wolfie knew he knew. He knew it in the way Fox smiled when Bella told him everything was cool: Ivo had taken the chainsaw gang back to work and she and Zadie were about to relieve the guards on the rope. "Oh, and a reporter came," she added lightly. "I explained about adverse possession and she left."

He knew it in the way Fox praised her. "Well done."

Bella looked relieved. "We'll get on then," she said, nodding to Zadie.

Fox blocked her way. "I'll need you to make a phone call later," he told her. "I'll give you a shout when I'm ready."

She was too trusting, thought Wolfie, as her natural bullishness returned with the baldly stated order. "Sod that," she said crossly. "I'm not your fucking secretary. Why can't you do it yourself?"

"I need the address of someone in the area, and I don't think a man will be able to get it. A woman might, though."

"Whose address?"

"No one you know." He held Bella's gaze. "A woman. Goes by the name of Captain Nancy Smith of the Royal Engineers. It'll take one call to her parents to find out where she's staying. You wouldn't have a problem with that, would you, Bella?"

She gave an indifferent shrug, but Wolfie wished she hadn't dropped her gaze. It made her look guilty. "What d'ya want with an army tart, Fox? Ain't you got enough excitement here?"

His lips spread in a slow smile. "Are you offering?"

A flash of something Wolfie didn't understand passed between them, before Bella took a step to the side and walked past him. "You're too deep for me, Fox," she said. "I wouldn't have a clue what I was signing on for if I took you to bed."

Mark found the Colonel in the library, sitting behind his desk. He seemed absorbed in what he was doing, and didn't hear the younger man come in. "Have you called her?" Mark asked urgently, leaning his hands on the wooden surface and nodding toward the phone.

Alarmed, the old man pushed his chair away from the desk, scrabbling his feet on the parquet floor in an attempt to gain some purchase. His face was gray and drawn, and he looked frightened.

"I'm sorry," said Mark, backing away himself and holding up his hands in surrender. "I just wanted to know if you'd phoned Nancy."

James ran his tongue nervously across his lips but it was several seconds before he found his voice. "You gave me a shock. I thought you were-" He broke off abruptly.

"Who? Leo?"

James waved the questions away with a tired hand. "I've written you an official letter-" he nodded to a page on the desk-"asking for a final account and a return of all documents relating to my affairs. I'll settle as promptly as I can, Mark, and afterward you can be assured that your connection with this family is at an end. I have expressed my gratitude-warmly meant-for everything you've done for Ailsa and myself, and all I ask is that you continue to respect my confidence-" there was a painful pause-"particularly where Nancy's concerned."

"I would never betray your confidence."

"Thank you." He signed the letter in a shaking hand and made an attempt to fold it into an envelope. "I'm sorry it had to end this way. I've much appreciated your kindness over the last two years." He abandoned the envelope and offered the letter to Mark. "I do understand how difficult this whole wretched business has been for you. I fear we've both missed Ailsa. She had a way of seeing things in their true light that, sadly, you and I seem unable to do."

Mark wouldn't take the letter. Instead he dropped into a leather armchair beside the desk. "This isn't to stop you sacking me, James-I'm a bloody useless lawyer so I think you probably should-but I'd like to apologize unreservedly for everything I said. There are no excuses for what I've been thinking except that you hit me with those tapes without warning or explanation. En masse they have a powerful effect-particularly as I know that some of the facts are true. The hardest thing to deal with has been Nancy herself. She could be your daughter. Her looks, her mannerisms, her personality- everything … it's like talking to a female version of you." He shook his head. "She's even got your eyes- brown -Elizabeth's are blue. I know there's a rule about that-Mendel's law, I think-that says she can't have a blue-eyed father, but that's no grounds for assuming the nearest brown-eyed man was responsible. What I'm trying to say is that I've let you down. This is the second time I've listened to unpalatable facts delivered by telephone and on both occasions I've believed them." He paused. "I should have been more professional."

James examined him closely for a moment before putting the letter on the desk and clasping his hands on top of it. "Leo always accused Ailsa of thinking the worst," he mused pensively, as if a memory had been triggered. "She said she wouldn't need to if just once or twice the worst hadn't happened. By the end she had such an abhorrence of self- fulfilling prophecies that she refused to comment on anything… which is why this -" he made an all-encompassing gesture to include the terrace and the stack of tapes-"has come as such a shock. She was obviously keeping something from me, but I've no idea what it was… possibly these terrible allegations. The only thing that comforts me in the cold hours of the night is that she wouldn't have believed them."