Minette Walters - Fox Evil

The child shook his head.

"Does he always lock the bus when he goes away?"

A nod.

"Does he tell you when he's going?"

A frightened shake.

"So what are you supposed to do? Freeze to death? What happens if there's no one like Bella around?" He was angry, and it showed. "What's in the bus that's more important than his kid?" he demanded of Bella. "I think it's time we had a chat with this mysterious friend of yours. Where is he? What's he up to?"

Bella felt a rush of movement beside her. "Oh, great !" she said crossly, watching Wolfie take off into the wood as if the hounds of hell were behind him. "Well done, Mr. Barker. Now what are we gonna do? 'Coz you're right about one thing, dar-lin', his dad won't care if he freezes to death… and neither will anyone else." She poked a finger at Barker's chest. "And d'you wanna know why ? I don't reckon he's been registered, so the poor little tyke don't fucking exist ."

Nancy's message came through as soon as Mark disconnected, and this time there was no discussion. He punched 999 into his mobile before lodging the handset into the car rest. "Police," he said curtly into the overhead microphone, before slamming the Lexus into a three-point turn.

It was a dog-eat-dog, thought Monroe, as the Bartletts tore into each other. He had no sympathy for Eleanor, but Julian's sneering grated on his nerves. The dynamics of their relationship were relentlessly aggressive, and he began to wonder if some of Eleanor's problems could be laid at her husband's door. For all his urbanity, the man was a bully.

"You're making an idiot of yourself, Ellie. Someone's obviously fed you a piece of gossip, and now you're trying to manufacture a war out of it. Where did all this rubbish about a tart come from?"

She was too fired-up to think through her answers. "The people at the Copse," she snapped. "They've been watching us."

He gave a surprised laugh. "The gyppos?"

"It's not funny. They know a lot about us… my name… what car you drive."

"So? It's hardly secret information. They probably got it off a weekender. You need to cut down on the HRT and Botox injections, girl. They're frying your brain."

She stamped her foot. "I looked in your computer, Julian. It's all there. Emails to GS."

Not anymore, thought Monroe, as Julian gave an amused shrug. It was too easy for him. He was a step ahead of her every time. Monroe's mobile started to vibrate in his breast pocket. He retrieved it and listened to the request to attend an incident at the Manor. "Will do. Three minutes." He stood up. "I shall want to talk to you again," he told Eleanor. "You, too, Mr. Bartlett."

Julian frowned. "Why me? I'm not answerable for my wife's actions."

"No, but you're answerable for your own, sir," said Monroe, heading for the door.

The soundof tires on gravel reached Nancy on the terrace, and, with relief, she turned her head toward it. Her sergeant was right. Imagination was a terrible thing. The shrubs and trees on the lawn made too many shadows, and each one resembled a dark, crouching figure. She recalled James's words of earlier. "Which of us knows how brave he is until he stands alone?" Well, now she knew.

She had remained rooted to the same spot for what seemed like hours, her back to the windows, torch beam flickering to and fro, unable to persuade herself to move. It was highly irrational. Her training and experience told her to return to her car, protecting her rear by hugging the contours of the house, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

The climber-clad walls of the house held as many alarms for her as the garden. A thickly growing, unpruned pyracanthas, lethal with thorns, belled out between the drawing room and the library. Reason told her there was no one behind it. She had walked past it on her way to the French windows and would have seen a lurker in its shadow, but every time she held her breath she could hear breathing.

"Who's there?" she asked at one point.

The only answer was silence.

In periods of darkness when the moon was hidden by cloud she saw the glow of light behind the hazel clumps in the Copse. Once or twice, she heard laughter and muted conversation. She thought about calling out, but the wind was in the wrong direction. Any sound she made would be swallowed by the house behind her. She couldn't have done it, anyway. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, fear had persuaded her that inertia was safer than provoking confrontation.

Fox raised his head, and the girl felt him do it. His senses so much better attuned than hers, caught the reaction. A flash of agonizing awareness as something-a vibration in the air, perhaps-heightened her fear. She had no idea where he was but she knew her danger had increased. Like her grandmother whose pleas to be let back inside had fallen on deaf ears but who had been too afraid to move because she believed death would come from the hammer and not from the insidious cold of the night.

He could smell fear…

…like a fox in a chicken run…

Martin Barker acknowledged the radio message while his colleague retrieved a couple of torches from the boot. He propped one foot on the doorsill and watched coated figures emerge from buses as Bella rousted everyone to look for Wolfie. "Yes, I've got that… intruder, Shenstead Manor… mm… it's a fair bet… the farm's less than half a mile away. Yes, we've one traveler unaccounted for… I'd say so… same guy… Nancy Smith? No… Hang on." He beckoned to Bella to join him. "What's Fox's full name?"

She pulled a wry face as she approached. "Fox Evil."

" Real name, Bella."

She shook her head. "Sorry, Mr. Barker. That's all he gave us. Even Wolfie don't know. I asked him."

"Has he ever mentioned a Nancy Smith to you?"

She looked troubled. "Yeah, he got me to phone her parents to find out where she was. I didn't tell him, though. I said she was up on Salisbury Plain. Who is she? What's his beef with her? She came to the bus earlier, but Fox don't know that."

Barker shook his head, narrowing his eyes to focus on Fox's bus. "He's driving an IVECO coach," he said into the radio, "cream and gray… battered condition… logo obscured… registration number L324 UZP… Will do. We were.heading there anyway. His kid took off in that direction about five minutes ago. Apparently the Colonel leaves his door open, so there's a possibility he's inside… Right. Tell Monroe we're on our way. Hang on," he said again, as Bella laid an urgent hand on his arm.

"You wanna tell your blokes to be a bit wary, Mr. Barker. He carries a cutthroat razor. Wolfie's shit-scared of him. His mum and brother vanished a while back, and the rest of us are pretty worried about it."

"The kid said they were in Torquay."

"Only 'coz he's frightened of you. He heard Fox tell us she went off with a pimp after they worked the fairgrounds in Devon. But Wolfie don't believe it and neither do we. Why would she take one kid and leave the other?"

Zadie came up behind her. "Fox's been acting weird ever since we arrived. He sure as hell knows Shenstead. I reckon he's lived here." She jerked her head at the Manor. "That's the draw. Heads off toward it every time our backs are turned."

Barker spoke into the radio. "How much of that did you get…? Yes, cutthroat razor. Query, lived in Shenstead… query, missing woman and child… possibly Devon. Names?" he asked Bella, holding the radio toward her. "Descriptions?"

"Vixen and Cub," she said. "Clones of Wolfie, both of them. Blond, blue-eyed, skinny. Sorry, Mr. Barker, it's the best I can do. I only saw them the once. The mother was stoned and the kid looked about three though Wolfie says he's six."

Barker put the radio to his ear again. "I agree. Tell Monroe we'll meet him at the front." He switched off and dropped the radio into its rest. "Okay, this is how we're going to play it. Forget the search for Wolfie, I want you all in Bella's bus with the door locked. If Fox comes back, don't approach him and don't try to stop him leaving." He jotted a number into his notebook and tore off the sheet. "Presumably you still have your mobile, Bella? Good. This is the quickest way to get hold of me."