Minette Walters: Fox Evil

She ignored him. "You were lucky to find me at home. I'm only here because I'm on two weeks' leave from Kosovo, otherwise I'd be at my base." She watched his mouth start to open. "Please don't say 'good lord' again," she said. "You're making me feel like a performing monkey."

God! She was like James. "I'm sorry."

She nodded. "What do you want from me, Mr. Ankerton?"

The question was too blunt and he faltered. "Have you received my letters?"

"Yes."

"Then you know I'm representing the Lock-"

"So you keep saying," she broke in impatiently. "Are they famous? Am I supposed to know who they are?"

"They come from Dorset."

"Really!" She gave an amused laugh. "Then you're looking at the wrong Nancy Smith, Mr. Ankerton. I don't know Dorset. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone I've ever met who lives in Dorset. I certainly have no acquaintance with a Lockyer-Fox family… from Dorset or anywhere else."

He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. "Elizabeth Lockyer-Fox is your natural mother."

If he'd hoped to surprise her, he was disappointed. He might as well have named royalty as her mother for all the emotion she showed.

"Then what you're doing is illegal," she said calmly. "The rules on adopted children are very precise. A natural parent can publicize his or her willingness for contact, but the child isn't obliged to respond. The fact that I didn't answer your letters was the clearest indication I could give that I have no interest in meeting your client."

She spoke with the soft lilt of her Herefordshire parents, but her manner was as forceful as Mark's and it put him at a disadvantage. He had hoped to switch tack and play on her sympathies but her lack of expression suggested she didn't have any. He could hardly tell her the truth. It would only make her angrier to hear that he had done his damnedest to prevent this wild goose chase. No one knew where the child was or how she'd been brought up and Mark had advised strongly against laying the family open to worse problems by courting a common little golddigger.

("Could it be any worse? " had been James's dry response.)

Nancy ratcheted up his discomfort by glancing pointedly at her watch. "I don't have all day, Mr. Ankerton. I return to my unit on Friday, and I'd like to make the most of the time I have left. As I have never registered an interest in meeting either of my biological parents, could you explain what you're doing here?"

"I wasn't sure if you'd received my letters."

"Then you should have checked with the post office. They were all sent by registered delivery. Two of them even followed me out to Kosovo, courtesy of my mother who signed for them."

"I hoped you'd acknowledge receipt on the prepaid cards I enclosed. As you never did, I assumed they hadn't found you."

She shook her head. Lying bastard! "If that's as honest as you can be, then we might as well call a halt now. There's no obligation on anyone to answer unsolicited mail. The fact that you registered delivery-" she stared him down-"and I didn't answer, was proof enough that I didn't want correspondence with you."

"I'm sorry," he said again, "but the only details I had were the name and address that were recorded at the time of your adoption. For all I knew, you and your family had moved… perhaps the adoption hadn't worked out… perhaps you'd changed your name. In any of those circumstances, my letters wouldn't have reached you. Of course I could have sent a private detective to ask questions of your neighbors, but I felt that would be more intrusive than coming myself."

He was too glib with his excuses and reminded her of a boyfriend who stood her up twice and then got the elbow. It wasn't his fault… he had a responsible job… things came up… But Nancy hadn't cared enough to believe him. "What could be more intrusive than an unknown woman claiming title to me?"

"It's not a question of claiming title."

"Then why did you give me her surname? The implied presumption was that a common-or-garden Smith would fall over herself to acknowledge a connection with a Lockyer-Fox."

God! "If that's the impression you received then you read more into my words than was there." He leaned forward earnestly. "Far from claiming title, my client is in the position of supplicant. You would be doing a great kindness if you agreed to a meeting."

Loathsome little toerag! "The issue is a legal one, Mr. Ankerton. My position as an adopted child is protected by law. You had no business to give me information that I've never requested. Did it occur to you that I might not know I was adopted?"

Mark took refuge in lawyerspeak. "There was no mention of adoption in any of my letters."

Any amusement Nancy had found in pricking his rehearsed defenses was rapidly giving way to anger. If he in any way represented the views of her natural mother then she had no intention of "doing a kindness." "Oh, please ! What inference was I supposed to draw?" It was a rhetorical question, and she looked toward the window to calm her irritation. "You had no right to give me the name of my biological family or tell me where they live. It's information I've never requested or wanted. Must I avoid Dorset now in case I bump into a Lockyer-Fox? Must I worry every time I'm introduced to someone new, particularly women called Elizabeth?"

"I was working to instruction," he said uneasily.

"Of course you were." She turned back to him. "It's your get-out-of-jail card. Truth is as alien to lawyers as it is to journalists and estate agents. You should try doing my job. You think about truth all the time when you hold the power of life and death in your hands."

"Aren't you following instructions, just as I am?"

"Hardly." She flicked her hand in a dismissive wave. " My orders safeguard freedom… yours merely reflect one individual's attempts to get the better of another."

Mark was stung to mild protest. "Do individuals not count in your philosophy? If number bestowed legitimacy, then a handful of suffragettes could never have won the right for women to vote… and you would not be in the army now, Captain Smith."

She looked amused. "I doubt that citing the rights of women is the best analogy you could have drawn in the present circumstances. Who has precedence in this case? The woman you represent or the daughter she gave up?"

"You, of course."

"Thank you." Nancy pushed herself forward in her chair. "You can tell your client I'm fit and happy, that I have no regrets about my adoption, and that the Smiths are the only parents I recognize or wish to have. If that sounds uncharitable, then I'm sorry, but at least it's honest ."

Mark moved to the edge of his seat to keep her sitting down. "It's not Elizabeth who's instructing me, Captain Smith. It's your grandfather, Colonel James Lockyer-Fox. He assumed you'd be more inclined to respond if you thought your mother was looking for you"-he paused-"though I gather from what you've just said that his assumption was wrong."

It was a second or two before she answered. Like James, her expression was difficult to read and it was only when she spoke that her contempt was obvious. " My God! You really are a piece of work, Mr. Ankerton. Supposing I had replied… supposing I'd been desperate to find my biological mother… when were you planning to tell me that the best I could hope for was a meeting with a geriatric colonel?"

"The idea was always to introduce you to your mother."

Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Did you bother to inform Elizabeth of this?"

Mark knew he was handling this badly, but he couldn't see how to retrieve the situation without digging bigger holes for himself. He deflected attention back to her grandfather. "James may be eighty but he's very fit," he said, "and I believe you and he would get on well together. He looks people in the eye when he speaks to them and he doesn't suffer fools gladly… rather like yourself. I apologize unreservedly if my approaches have been-" he sought a word-" clumsy -but James wasn't confident that a grandfather would appeal over a mother."