Minette Walters - Fox Evil

She shook her head, mouth too dry to speak.

"Lock the door, Ma," he ordered Vera. "I don't want Wolfie making a run for it while I sort this bitch out." But Vera didn't move and he rounded on her angrily. "Do what you're told!"

Nancy took the moment to press the key into Wolfie's hand behind her back, hoping he'd have the sense to throw it out the window the minute he had the chance. At the same time she shuffled him toward a chest of drawers to their right that had some heavy bookends on it. It was the wrong side for her-she'd have to turn away from Fox in order to grab the nearest one-but it was a weapon of sorts. She had no illusions about her chances. In army terminology, she was fucked… unless a miracle happened.

"Go away," Vera cried, beating at the air in front of Fox with her fists. "You're not my baby. My baby's dead."

Fox slammed his fingers around her throat and pinned her to the wall. "Shut up, you stupid old fool. I don't have time for this. Are you going do what you're told or am I going to hurt you?"

Nancy felt Wolfie slip out behind her and reach for the bookend. "He's not my dad neither," he muttered fiercely, putting the heavy ornament into her good hand. "I reckon my dad was somebody else."

"Yes," said Nancy, turning the bookend against her thigh to give herself a better grip in fingers that were slippery with sweat. "Me, too, friend."

In the great scheme of things, it hardly ranked as heroism. There was no time for thought, no weighing of danger, merely a gut response to a stimulus. It wasn't even a sensible thing to do with a policeman downstairs, but it brought a glow to Mark's heart whenever he thought about it. Coming around the corner from the top of the stairs he and Bella saw a man silhouetted against a shaft of light from a bedroom before the door slammed and the corridor was plunged into darkness again. "What the hell-?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"Fox," said Bella.

It was like a red rag to a bull. Ignoring Bella's restraining arm, Mark charged down the corridor and burst through the door.

Bella, with a stronger sense of self-preservation, paused long enough to yell down the stairs for help, then she, too, took off, exerting herself in a way she hadn't for years.

Mark was past Fox and into the room before he saw Nancy in the corner. "Here!" She threw the bookend toward him. "Behind you to your left."

He caught the heavy weight like a rugby ball and spun on his heel just as Fox abandoned Vera to face him. For Mark, too, the likeness to Leo was extraordinary, but it was a fleeting impression that vanished as soon as he looked into the man's eyes. As Bella's cry for help reverberated down the corridor, he raised the bookend in his left hand and advanced on the man.

"Do you want to try someone your own size?" he invited.

Fox shook his head, but kept a wary eye on the bookend. "You're not going to hit me with that, Mr. Ankerton," he said confidently, edging toward the door. "You'll break my skull."

He even sounded like Leo. "Self-defense," said Mark, moving to block his exit.

"I'm unarmed."

"I know," said Mark, feinting a clubbing blow with his left, while powering his right in a swinging uppercut to Fox's jaw. He danced away, grinning rather manically as the man's knees began to buckle. "You can thank my dad for this," he said, stepping in again to land a rabbit punch on the back of Fox's neck as he went down. "He said a gentleman should appreciate the art of boxing."

"Nice one, mate," said Bella breathlessly from the doorway. "Shall I sit on him? I could do with a bloody rest."

An hour later Fox was escorted downstairs in handcuffs. He dismissed any suggestion that he was suffering from concussion, but Monroe, who didn't like his pallor or the welts on his arms where Nancy had cut him with the razor, telephoned ahead for a secure room at the county hospital to have him checked. They lived in a compensation culture, he told Mark sourly, and he didn't plan to give Fox any room to sue the Dorset Constabulary. For the same reason, he offered Nancy a ride, but again she refused. She knew what the emergency room was like on bank holidays when the drunks started rolling in, she said, and she was damned if she'd give Fox the pleasure of seeing her wait in line while he took precedence.

A preliminary search had produced several items of interest in the capacious pockets of Fox's coat, notably a matching set of keys to those Vera held, a roll of twenty-pound notes, a mobile telephone with a distorter attachment, and, alarmingly for both Mark and Nancy, a sawn-off shotgun in a canvas lining under his left arm. Bella looked extremely thoughtful when Barker told them about it. "I thought he was wriggling a bit," she said. "Next time I'll sit on his head and make sure he doesn't come round."

From the evidence of the keys in Fox's possession, his presence in the house, and Nancy's report that Vera had claimed him as her son, it seemed likely that Fox had had a free run of Shenstead Manor for some time. As he refused to say anything, however, the issue of what he had been doing there was temporarily put on hold. James was asked to make a thorough check of the premises in advance of a police search the following morning, and a small team was sent down to check out Manor Lodge.

Mark took Monroe aside to ask him what had been in Fox's bus. He was particularly interested in the file on Nancy that Fox had taken from the Colonel's desk that afternoon. It contained privileged information, he said, which neither the Colonel nor Captain Smith wanted made public. Monroe shook his head. No such file had been found, he said. He in turn picked Mark's brains about the telephone calls, explaining that he had interviewed both Mrs. Weldon and Mrs. Bartlett.

"They both say the information came from the Colonel's daughter, Mr. Ankerton. Could there be a connection between her and this man?"

"I don't know," said Mark honestly.

Monroe eyed him thoughtfully. "The voice distorter certainly suggests it. Mrs. Bartlett claims she was told about the incest sometime in October when Leo introduced her to Elizabeth, but she denies any knowledge of the Darth Vader messages. And I believed her. So how is Fox involved?"

"I don't know," said Mark again. "I'm almost as new to this as you are, Sergeant. The Colonel told me about the calls late on Christmas Eve, and I've been trying to make sense of them ever since. The allegations aren't true, of course, but we didn't learn until this evening that Elizabeth was the alleged informant."

"Have you spoken to her?"

Mark shook his head. "I've been trying to contact her for a couple of hours." He glanced toward the drawing room, where Vera was sitting. "The Colonel recorded the messages on tape, and they include details which were known only to the family. The obvious conclusion was that one or both of the Colonel's children were involved-which is why he didn't report it-but of course the other person who was privy to the family's secrets was Vera."

"According to Captain Smith, Mrs. Dawson said she locked Mrs. Lockyer-Fox out in the cold on her son's instructions. Does that sound likely to you?"

"God knows," said Mark with a sigh. "She's completely batty."

Vera couldn't help them at all. Questions about Fox were greeted with incomprehension and fear, and she sat in a pathetic huddle in the drawing room, whimpering to herself. James asked her where Bob was, suggesting the police should try to contact him, but that only seemed to unhinge her further. As yet, James had not seen Fox, who was under restraint in the bedroom. However, he was able to say categorically that Vera had never had a child. He believed Ailsa had mentioned a stillbirth on one occasion, which had devastated the poor woman, but unfortunately, being a man, he had not paid much attention.