Fox Evil (8 page)

Mark's eyes strayed to the answerphone on the desk. "I can't agree," he said bluntly. "There were five calls last night, and none of them was from a woman. Do you want to listen to them?"

"No."

Mark wasn't surprised. There was nothing new. They were simply repeat liturgies of the information that was on the stack of tapes he'd worked through the previous day, but the anonymous voice, distorted electronically, rasped on the listener's nerves like a dentist's drill. He turned his chair to address the elderly man directly. "You know as well as I that this won't go away of its own accord," he said gently. "Whoever it is knows he's being recorded and he'll just keep on with it until you agree to involve the police. That's what he's angling for. He wants them to hear what he's saying."

The Colonel continued to stare through the window as if reluctant to meet the younger man's gaze. "It's all lies, Mark."

"Of course it is."

"Do you think the police will agree with you?" There was a tiny inflection in his voice that sounded like irony.

Mark ignored it and gave a straightforward answer. "Not if you keep putting off the decision to involve them. You should have told me about these calls when they began. If we'd acted immediately we could have nipped it in the bud. Now I'm worried the police will ask what you've been trying to hide." He massaged the back of his neck where a sleepless night, beset by doubt and punctuated by the ringing of the telephone, had given him a headache. "Put it this way, this bastard has obviously been passing information to Mrs. Bartlett or she wouldn't be so well informed… and, if he's spoken to her, what makes you think he hasn't been to the police already? Or that
she
hasn't?"

"The police would have questioned me."

"Not necessarily. They may be conducting an investigation behind your back."

"If he had any evidence he'd have gone to them before the inquest-that was the time to destroy me-but he knew they wouldn't listen." He turned 'round and stared angrily at the telephone. "It's a form of terror, Mark. When he sees he can't break me, he'll stop. It's a waiting game. All we have to do is hold our nerve."

Mark shook his head. "I've been here two days and I haven't slept at all. How long do you think you can last before you keel over?"

"Does it matter?" said the old man wearily. "I don't have much left except my reputation and I'm damned if I'll give him the satisfaction of placing these lies in the public domain. The police won't keep their mouths shut. Look how the details of their investigation into Ailsa's death leaked out."

"You have to trust someone. If you die tomorrow these allegations will become fact simply because you failed to challenge them. What price your reputation then? There are always two sides to a story, James."

The remark brought a faint smile to the Colonel's face. "Which is precisely what my friend on the telephone is saying. He's really quite persuasive, isn't he?" There was a painful beat of silence before he went on. "The only thing I've ever been good at is soldiering, and a soldier's reputation is won on the battlefield, not by kowtowing to grubby little blackmailers." He rested a light hand on his solicitor's shoulder before walking toward the door. "I'd rather deal with this in my own way, Mark. Would you care for a coffee? It's about time for one, I think. Come into the drawing room when you've finished."

He didn't wait for an answer and Mark remained where he was until he heard the latch click. Through the window he could see the discolored paving stone where animal blood had sunk into the worn surface. A yard or two to the left beside the sundial was where Ailsa had lain. Was the caller right? he wondered. Did people die of shock when truth was unpalatable? With a sigh he turned back to the desk and rewound the last message. It had to be Leo, he thought, pressing play to listen to the Darth Vader voice again. Apart from Elizabeth, no one knew so much about the family, and it was ten years since Elizabeth had been able to string two coherent words together.

"Do you ever ask yourself why Elizabeth's such an easy lay… and why she's drunk all the time…? Who taught her to debase herself…? Did you think she'd keep the secret forever…? Perhaps you thought your uniform would protect you? People look up to a man with bits of metal pinned to his chest… You probably felt like a hero every time you brought out your swagger stick…"

Sickened, Mark closed his eyes, but he couldn't prevent his mind playing relentless images of Captain Nancy Smith, whose likeness to her grandfather had been remarkable.

Dick Weldon found his wife in the spare room, making up beds for their son and daughter-in-law, who were arriving that evening. "Have you been phoning James Lockyer-Fox?" he demanded.

She frowned at him, stuffing a pillow into its case. "What are you talking about?"

"I've just been on to the Manor, and his solicitor said someone from here has been making abusive calls to James." His ruddy face was dark with irritation. "It flaming well wasn't me, so who was it?"

Prue turned her back on him to pat the pillow into shape. "You'll have a heart attack if you don't do something about your blood pressure," she told him critically. "You look as if you've been on the bottle for years."

Dick was well used to her habit of deflecting unwelcome questions by sticking the knife in first. "So it
was
you," he snapped. "Are you
mad
? The lawyer said you were panting."

"That's ridiculous." She turned 'round to pick up another pillowcase before flicking him a disapproving glance. "There's no need to look so huffy. As far as I'm concerned, that brute deserves everything he gets. Have you any idea how guilty I feel about leaving Ailsa in his clutches? I should have helped her instead of walking away. She'd still be alive if I'd shown some spirit."

Dick sank onto a blanket chest by the door. "Supposing you're wrong? Supposing it was someone else you heard?"

"It wasn't."

"How can you be so sure? I thought the solicitor was James till he told me he wasn't. It certainly sounded like him when he said 'Shenstead Manor.' "

"Only because you expected James to answer."

"The same applies to you. You expected Ailsa to be rowing with the Colonel. You were always asking me to find out the dirt on them."

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" she countered crossly. "How many times do I have to tell you? She
called
him James. She said, 'No, James, I won't put up with this anymore.' Why would she do that if she was talking to somebody else?"

Dick rubbed his eyes. He'd heard her say this a number of times, but the solicitor's remark about words out of context had unsettled him. "You told me the next day that you couldn't hear anything James said… well, maybe you didn't hear Ailsa too well either. I mean, it makes a hell of a difference if she was talking
about
him instead of
to
him. Maybe the I wasn't there… maybe she said, 'James won't put up with this anymore.' "

"I know what I heard." Prue said stubbornly.

"So you keep saying."

"It's true."

"All right… what about this punch you said he gave her? Why didn't the postmortem find any bruises?"

"How would I know? Maybe she died before they could develop." Irritably, she pulled the coverlets over the beds and smoothed them flat. "What were you phoning James for, anyway? I thought we agreed to take Ailsa's side."

Dick stared at the floor. "Since when?"

"It was you who told me to go to the police."

"I said you didn't have much choice. That's not an agreement to take a side." Another vigorous rub of his eyes. "The solicitor said there's a case against you for slander. According to him, you've been inciting people to call James a murderer."

Prue was unimpressed. "Then why doesn't he sue? Eleanor Bartlett says that's the best evidence there is that he's guilty. You should hear what
she
says about him." Her eyes gleamed at some memory that amused her. "Plus if anyone's making abusive phone calls, it's her. I've been there when she's made one. She calls it 'smoking him out.' "

Dick took stock of his wife for the first time in years. She was dumpier than the girl he'd married but a great deal more assertive. At twenty, she'd been mild-mannered and mousy. At fifty-four, she was a dragon. He hardly knew her now except as the woman who shared his bed. They hadn't had sex or talked about anything personal for years. He was out all day on the farm, and she was playing either golf or bridge with Eleanor and her snobbish friends. Evenings were passed in silence in front of the television, and he was always asleep before she came upstairs.

She sighed impatiently at his shocked expression. "It's fair enough. Ailsa was Ellie's friend… mine, too. What did you expect us to do? Let James get away with it? If you'd shown a blind bit of interest in anything other than the farm, you'd know there's far more to the story than the nonsense verdict the coroner produced. James is a complete brute, and the only reason you're making a fuss now is because you've been listening to his solicitor… and he's
paid
to take his client's side. You're so
slow
sometimes."

There was no arguing with that. Dick had always taken his time to think things through. What he blamed himself for was his indifference. "Ailsa can't have died that quickly," he protested. "You said the reason you didn't interfere was because she spoke to him after the punch. Okay, I'm no pathologist, but I'm pretty sure a person's circulation would have to stop immediately to prevent the damaged blood vessels leaking into the skin. Even then I wouldn't bet on it."

"There's no point browbeating me, it's not going to change my mind," announced Prue with a return to irritability. "I expect the cold had something to do with it. I heard a door slam afterward, so James obviously locked her out and left her to die. If you're so interested, why don't you call the pathologist and talk to him? Though you probably won't get much joy. Eleanor says they're all in the funny-handshake brigade, which is why James hasn't been arrested."

"That's ridiculous. Why do you take any notice of what that stupid woman says? And since when were either of you friends of Ailsa? The only time she ever spoke to you was when she was after money for her charities. Eleanor was always complaining about what a scrounger she was. I remember how mad you both were when the paper said she'd left £1.2m. Why did she ask us for money, you both said, when she was rolling in it?"

Prue ignored the remark. "You still haven't explained why you were phoning James."

"Travelers have taken over the Copse," he grunted, "and we need a solicitor to get rid of them. I hoped James would put me in touch with his."

"What's wrong with ours?"

"On holiday till the second."

Prue shook her head in disbelief. "Then why on earth didn't you phone the Bartletts? They have a solicitor. What possessed you to phone James? You're such an idiot, Dick."

"Because Julian had already passed the buck to me," hissed Dick through clenched teeth. "He's gone to the Compton Newton meet, dressed up like a dog's dinner, and he thought they were saboteurs. Didn't want to get his blasted clothes dirty, as per bloody usual. You know what he's like… lazy as hell and didn't fancy a run-in with some thugs… so ducked the whole damn issue. It makes me mad, frankly. I work harder than anyone in this valley but I'm always expected to pick up the pieces."

Prue gave a scornful snort. "You should have told me. I'd have sorted it with Ellie. She's perfectly capable of putting us in touch with their solicitor… even if Julian can't."

"You were in bed," Dick snapped. "But be my guest. Go ahead. It's all yours. You and Eleanor are probably the best people to deal with invaders, anyway. It'll scare the living daylights out of them to have a couple of middle-aged women shouting abuse at them through a megaphone." He stomped angrily from the room.

It was Mark Ankerton who answered the peal of the old-fashioned brass bell that hung from a spring in the Manor hall and was operated by a wire pull in the porch. He and James were sitting in front of a log fire in the paneled drawing room, and the sudden noise caused them both to jump. Mark's reaction was relief. The silence between them had become oppressive, and he welcomed any diversion, even an unpleasant one.

"Dick Weldon?" he suggested.

The older man shook his head. "He knows we never use that entrance. He'd have come to the back."

"Should I answer it?"

James shrugged. "What's the point? It's almost certainly a nuisance ring-usually the Woodgate children. I used to shout at them… now I don't bother. They'll grow tired of it eventually."

"How often?"

"Four or five times a week. It's very boring."

Mark pushed himself to his feet. "At least let me take out injunctions for that," he said, reverting to the subject that had brought on the long silence. "It's easily done. We can stop them coming within fifty yards of your gate. We'll insist that the parents take responsibility… threaten them with jail if the children continue with the nuisance."

James smiled faintly. "Do you think I want accusations of fascism added to all my other problems?"

"It's nothing to do with fascism. The law puts the onus on parents to take responsibility for underage children."

James shook his head. "Then I haven't a leg to stand on. Leo and Elizabeth have done worse than the Woodgate children will ever do. I won't take cover behind a piece of paper, Mark."

"It's hardly taking cover. Think of it more as a weapon."

"I can't. White paper. White flag. It smacks of surrender." He waved the lawyer toward the hall. "Go and give them a tongue-lashing. They're all under twelve," he said with a small smile, "but it'll make you feel better to see them run away with their tails between their legs. Satisfaction, I find, has nothing to do with the caliber of the opponent, merely the routing of him."

He steepled his fingers under his chin and listened to Mark's footsteps cross the flagged stone floor of the hall. He heard the bolts being drawn and caught the sound of voices before the black depression, his constant companion these days, briefly in abeyance because of Mark's presence in the house, struck without warning and flooded his eyes with shameful tears. He leaned his head against the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to force them into retreat. Not now, he told himself in desperation. Not in front of Mark. Not when the young man had come so far to help him through his first Christmas alone.