Bella pulled a face. "You mean she gets paid to leave things in this state?" she asked incredulously. "Shit! Talk about money for old rope."
"And gets a rent-free cottage."
Bella was astonished. "You gotta be joking. I'd give my right arm for a deal like that… and I wouldn't take advantage of it, neither."
Mark smiled at her expression. "In fairness, she probably oughtn't to be working at all. She's virtually senile, poor old thing. But you're right, she does take advantage. The trouble is James has been very-" he sought for a suitable word-"depressed these last few weeks so he hasn't been keeping an eye on her… or anything else for that matter." His mobile started to ring. "Excuse me," he said, retrieving it from his pocket and frowning at the number displayed. He raised the handset to his mouth. "What do you want, Leo?" he asked coolly.
Every doubt nancy had ever had about discovering her biological history screamed for the old woman to be quiet, but she refused to give Vera the satisfaction of saying it aloud. Had she been alone, she would have denied any relationship with Fox or his mother, but she was conscious that Wolfie was listening to every word being said. She had no idea how much he understood, but she couldn't bring herself to deny a relationship with him.
"What did you do it for?" she asked the old woman. "Money? Were you blackmailing Ailsa?"
Vera gave a grunt of laughter. "Why not? The missus could afford it. It was such a little amount to keep quiet about your daddy. She said she'd rather die, silly woman." She seemed to wander suddenly. "Everyone dies. Bob'll die. My boy gets angry when people annoy him. Not Vera, though. Vera does what she's told… do this… do that… Is that right?"
Nancy didn't say anything because she didn't know what to say. Was it better to sympathize? Or was it better to tie the old woman's brain in knots by arguing? She wanted to believe that Vera was so confused that nothing she said was true, but she had a terrible fear that the pieces relating to her were accurate. Hadn't she feared it all her life? Wasn't that why she had closed her mind to her heritage? It was truly said that "what the heart didn't know, it couldn't grieve over."
"The missus called my boy 'vermin,'" the old woman went on, her lips smacking ferociously, "so he showed her what happens to real vermin. She didn't like that… one of her foxes with its brains on the ground… said it was cruel."
Nancy screwed her eyes in pain as she inched forward. She had to keep her talking… "It was cruel," she said flatly. "It was even crueler to kill Henry. What did a poor old dog ever do to your rotten son?"
"It wasn't my boy did that. It was the other one."
Nancy took a breath, her nerve endings protesting at every movement. "What other one?"
"Never you mind. Common as muck, sniffing around petticoats. Vera's seen it… Vera sees everything. You get out the house, Ma, says my boy, and let me do the talking. But I saw him… and the flighty little piece he had in tow. She was always a problem… made her parents' life hell with her flirting and her whoring."
Elizabeth…? "Stop blaming other people," she said sharply. "Blame yourself and your boy."
"He's a good boy."
"Bullshit!" she spat. "He kills people."
More lip smacking. "He didn't want to," Vera whined. 'The missus brought it on herself. What's more cruel than giving money to save foxes, and refusing to help him. It wasn't enough to put him out of his house, she wanted him sent to jail as well." She smacked her fists together again. "It was her own fault."
"No, it wasn't," countered Nancy angrily. "It was your fault."
Vera cowered against the wall. "I didn't do it. It was the cold." Her voice went into a croon. "Vera saw her… all white and frozen with next to nothing on and her mouth open. She'd have been so ashamed. She was a proud lady. Never told anyone about Lizzie and my boy… never told the Colonel, He'd have been very angry. Got a bad temper has the Colonel."
Nancy shifted forward another inch. "Then he'll carve you into little pieces when I tell him you helped your son kill his wife," she snarled through gritted teeth.
Vera tapped in agony at her mouth. "He's a good boy. You put your feet up, Ma, he says. You've been a drudge and a slave all your life. What's Bob ever done for you? What's the Colonel ever done for you? What did the missus ever do except take the baby away because you weren't good enough?" Her mouth writhed. "He'd have gone away if she'd given him what he asked."
Wolfie seemed to grasp suddenly that Nancy was trying to work her way to the edge of the seat because he wedged his elbows onto the chair arm behind him and took his weight off her lap. "Of course he wouldn't have gone away," she said loudly, to keep Vera's attention. "He'd have gone on bleeding Ailsa till there was nothing left. Thieving and killing're all he knows, Mrs. Dawson."
"She didn't bleed," Vera countered triumphantly. "My boy was cleverer than that. Only the fox bled."
"Then there's a nice symmetry to this whole wretched story because it isn't my blood on this jacket, it's your darling boy's. So if you know where he is-and if you care for him at all-you should be persuading him to go to hospital instead of gibbering like a senile ape."
Vera's mouth puckered into uncontrollable movement again. "Don't you call me an ape… I've got rights. You're all the same. Do this… do that… Vera's been a drudge and a slave all her life-" she tapped the side of her head-"but Vera knows what's what… Vera's still got her marbles."
Nancy reached the edge of the seat. "No, you haven't."
The blunt contradiction was too much for the old woman's fragile hold on reality. "You're just like her," she spat. "Making judgments… telling Vera she's senile. But he is my boy. Do you think I don't know my own baby when I see him?"
"Okay, Mark, this is the deal. Take it or leave it. Lizzie and I will get Dad off the hook as long as he agrees to reinstate the previous will. We don't have a problem with everything going to Lizzie's kid in the long run but, in the short term, we want-"
"No deal," said Mark, breaking in as he moved into the corridor.
"It's not your decision to make."
"Right. So phone your father on the landline and put the offer to him. If you give me five minutes I'll make sure he answers."
"He won't listen to me."
"Congratulations!" Mark muttered sardonically. "That's the second time you've got something right in under a minute."
"Christ! You really are a patronizing bastard. Do you want our cooperation, or not?"
Mark stared at the corridor wall. "I don't view a demand for reinstatement as cooperation, Leo, and neither will your father. Nor am I prepared to test him on it because you and Lizzie will be dead in the water from the moment I open my mouth." He stroked his jaw. "Here's why. Your niece-Lizzie's daughter-has been in this house since ten o'clock this morning. Your father would give her the entire estate tomorrow if she'd agree to accept it… but she won't. She has an Oxford degree, she's a captain in the army, and she's due to inherit her family's two-thousand-acre farm in Herefordshire. The reason she's here is because your father wrote to her in a moment of depression, and she cared enough to follow it up. She expects nothing from him… wants nothing from him. She came with no ulterior motive except to be kind… and your father's besotted with her as a result."
"And showing it, I suppose," the other man said with a trace of bitterness. "So how would she be doing if he was treating her like a criminal? Not so well, I'll bet. It's easy to be nice to the old man when he treats you like royalty… bloody hard when you get the bum's rush."