Minette Walters - Fox Evil

For her part, Nancy repeated most of what Vera had said-the part she played in Ailsa's death, her mention of someone else being responsible for Henry's mutilation, the woman's obvious confusion about her relationship with Wolfie. "I don't think anything she said can be relied on," she told Monroe. "She repeats the same phrases over and over again, like a learned mantra, and it's difficult to know if any of it's true."

"What sort of phrases?"

"About being taken for granted… do this… do that… no one cares." Nancy shrugged. "She's very confused about children. She said she taught Wolfie manners when he was younger, and that he had brown curly hair. But he can't have done. Blond hair can darken as children get older but dark hair doesn't turn ash blond. I think she's mistaking him for another child."

"What other child?"

"I've no idea. One from the village, perhaps." She shook her head. "I'm not sure it matters. She's got holes in her brain. She remembers a dark-haired child from somewhere and she's persuaded herself that that was Wolfie."

"Or been persuaded by somebody else?"

"It wouldn't be difficult. Anyone who sympathized with her would get a hearing. She seems to feel the whole world's against her-" she pulled a cynical expression-"except her darling boy, of course."

She remained reticent about what the old woman had said on the subject of her parentage. She told herself she was protecting Wolfie, but it wasn't true. The child had agreed to go to the kitchen with Bella, and Nancy was free to speak as openly as she wanted. Instead, she remained tight-lipped, unwilling to tempt fate. The specter of Vera as a grandmother seemed to have been removed, but it gave her no confidence that Fox was out of the picture. Deep in her stomach was a continuous nutter of foreboding that, in that respect at least, Vera had been telling the truth. And she cursed herself for ever coming to this house.

It made her brusque and sharp-tongued in response to James's solicitous queries about her welfare. She was fine, she told him. In fact, she didn't even think her arm was broken, so she was planning to drive back to Bovington to have it looked at there. She wished everyone would stop fussing and leave her alone. James retired, crushed, but Mark, with an intuition learned through growing up with seven sisters, took himself off to the kitchen for a quiet word with Wolfie. With a little coaxing from Bella, and some filling in of gaps- "she said she didn't want Fox to be her dad or the nasty lady to be her gran"… "me and her both reckoned our dads were somebody else" -Mark guessed what the trouble was. And he, too, cursed himself for helping to unlock a biological history that Nancy had never wanted to know.

Monroe was interested enough in the vanishing file to send Barker back to Fox's bus. "The solicitor says it's bulky, so where the hell has he hidden it? Take another look and see if you can spot something I've missed." He handed over Fox's keys. "We can't move the damn thing while the Welshman's blocking the exit, but if you power it up you can run the lights inside. They might help."

"What am I looking for?"

"A compartment of some sort. There has to be one, Martin. Otherwise we'd have found the file."

Mark took himself into the garden with his mobile telephone. "I'll make you a promise," he told Leo, well out of earshot of anyone in the house. "Deal with me straight over the next five minutes, and I'll try to persuade your father to reinstate you. Interested?"

"Maybe," said the other with amusement. "Is this about the granddaughter?"

"Just answer the questions," said Mark grimly. "Do you know a man who calls himself Fox Evil?"

"No. Good name, though… I might adopt it myself. Who is he? What's he done?"

"Vera claims he's her son and that she helped him murder your mother. But she's gone off the rails completely, so it may not be true."

"Good God!" said Leo in genuine surprise. There was a short pause. "Look, it can't be true, Mark. She's obviously confused. I know she saw Ma's body on the terrace, and was pretty shaken by it, because I rang her after the funeral to say I was sorry I hadn't spoken to her. She kept telling me how cold Ma must have been. She's probably convinced herself it was her fault."

"What about this man being her son?"

"It's rubbish. She doesn't have a son. Dad knows that. I was her blue-eyed boy. She'd have jumped over the moon if I'd asked her to."

Mark stared toward the house, brow furrowed in thought. "Okay, well, Fox Evil's just been arrested for breaking into the Manor, and he had a voice distorter in his possession. Did your father tell you that most of the incest allegations were made by someone who spoke like Darth Vader?"

"I thought he was barking," said Leo sourly.

"Far from it. This guy's a psychopath. He's already attacked your niece with a hammer, and when he was arrested he was carrying a sawn-off shotgun."

"Shit! Is she okay?"

It sounded genuine. "Broken arm and broken rib, but still alive. The trouble is, you and Lizzie are implicated through the voice distorter. Mrs. Bartlett has told the police that it was you who contacted her some time in October so that Lizzie could give her chapter and verse on your father's abuse. As Darth Vader's been saying identical things to Mrs. Bartlett, the obvious conclusion-which the police are already drawing-is that you and Lizzie set this bastard on your father."

"That's ridiculous," said Leo angrily. "The obvious conclusion is that the Bartlett woman's behind it."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why? She's lying through her teeth."

"What does she have to gain by it? You and Lizzie are the only ones with a motive for destroying your father and Lizzie's child."

"Jesus!" said Leo disgustedly. "You're as bad as the old man. Give a dog a bad name and every sod on the planet can have a go at hanging him. That's what Becky's up to in case you're interested… and I'm hacked off with it."

For the second time that evening, Mark ignored the rant. "What about Lizzie? Could she have been persuaded to get involved in something like this without your knowledge?"

"Don't be an idiot."

"What's so idiotic about it? If Lizzie's as shot as Becky says, it's conceivable a con artist persuaded her to go along with it… though I don't understand why, unless he can get access to the money when she inherits." He mentally crossed his fingers. "You said she never got over her first love. Perhaps he came back for another go?"

"No chance. He was a craven little sod. Took the money and ran. That was half the problem. If he'd come back, she'd have seen him for what he was, instead of remembering him as an Irish charmer."

"What did he look like?"

"I don't know. I never saw him. He was gone by the time I got back from France."

"How well did your mother know him? Would she have recognized him again?"

"I've no idea."

"I thought you said Ailsa took his education in hand."

"He wasn't one of the children, you jerk. He'd fathered most of them. That's why Ma went ballistic. This bozo knew more about sex than Don Juan, which is why Lizzie fell for him so heavily."

"Are you sure about that?"

"It's what Lizzie told me."

"Then there's only a fifty-fifty chance it was the truth," said Mark sarcastically.

Perhaps Leo agreed because, for once, he didn't react. "Look, for what it's worth, I can prove Mrs. Bartlett never spoke to Lizzie… not in October anyway. Or, if she did, she'd have been talking to her in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Thomas's hospital. Did this woman mention drips and monitors to the police? Did she say Lizzie's in such a bad way she can't even stand up anymore?"

Mark was taken aback. "What's wrong with her?"

"Her liver packed up at the end of September and she's been in and out of Tommy's ever since. In between whiles, she lives with me. At the moment she's in a hospice for a couple of weeks' respite care, but the prognosis is pretty dire."