Fox Evil (33 page)

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.

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."

Mark was truly shocked. "I'm sorry."

"Yes."

"You should have told your father."

"Why?"

"Oh, come on, Leo. He'll be devastated."

The other man's voice took on an amused note again as if irony were a means of coping. "That's what Lizzie's worried about. She feels ill enough without Dad weeping all over her."

"What's the real reason?"

"I gave her a promise I wouldn't tell anyone. I wouldn't have told
you
except that I'm buggered if I'll let a fat cow tell lies about her."

"It's Mrs. Weldon who's fat," said Mark. "Why doesn't Lizzie want anyone to know?"

There was a long silence, and when Leo spoke again his voice wasn't entirely steady. "She'd rather die quietly than find out that no one cares."

When Fox was finally brought downstairs, James was asked to wait in the hall to see if he recognized him. He was given the option of standing in shadow but he chose instead to place himself in full view, with DS Monroe on one side and his solicitor on the other. Mark tried to persuade Nancy to join them, but she refused, preferring instead to take Bella's suggestion of positioning herself in the kitchen corridor to block any accidental view Wolfie might have of Fox being taken away in handcuffs.

"Take your time, sir," Monroe told James when Fox appeared between two policemen on the landing above. "There's no hurry."

But James knew him immediately. "Liam Sullivan," he said, as the man was marched down the stairs, "though I never believed that was his real name."

"Who is he?" asked Monroe. "How do you know him?"

"He's a thief who took my wife's charity and threw it in her face." He stepped forward and forced the two constables to bring Fox to a halt. "Why?" he asked simply.

A rare smile lit Fox's eyes. "You're like Everest, Colonel," he said in perfect mimicry of the old man's baritone. "You're there."

"What were you hoping to achieve?"

"You'll have to ask Leo and Lizzie that. I'm just the hired help. They want your money and they don't much care how they get it-" his gaze flickered toward the corridor as if he knew Nancy was there-"or who gets hurt in the process."