"I prefer hunting metaphors," said Monroe. "Fox and Bartlett are two of a kind. They both enjoy terrorizing dumb animals."
The inspector chuckled. "The Colonel's not a dumb animal."
"Might as well be when he's accused of raping his daughter. How do you argue against a thing like that?"
"Mm." The inspector eased himself off the edge of the sergeant's desk. "There's something very personal about Fox's pursuit of that family. Do you think he's telling the truth about the affair with the daughter? The psychiatrists will have a field day if he is. Pampered little rich girl. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks."
"We'll be asking for confirmation as soon as we have access to Elizabeth."
"She'll deny it for Captain Smith's sake."
"I hope she does," said Monroe. "The man's an animal. If he really believed the girl was his daughter, why did he attack her?"
The inspector moved to the window. "Because he doesn't see her as an individual… just as a member of a family he's obsessed with. It's bloody odd, frankly. The Colonel and his son have jumped in with offers of DNA to prove there's no relationship between themselves and Fox."
Monroe nodded. "I know. I spoke to Ankerton. His argument is that any similarity to Leo is coincidental, but it's the similarity that led Fox to plague the family. He spouted a load of gobbledegook about transference and depersonalization… something to do with bringing the Colonel down to size in order to feel superior."
"Mm. But Captain Smith is refusing a DNA comparison?"
"On Ankerton's advice." Monroe pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "Give her a break, guv. She's a decent girl, and there's no compulsion to force her to find out who fathered her. It won't affect the case."
The inspector nodded. "Has Fox said how he and Bartlett hooked up again? That's the key to who planned it. They would certainly have overlapped in ninety-seven, but Bartlett wouldn't have known how to find Fox once he vanished. Common sense suggests it was Fox who made the initial contact."
"Says it was a chance meeting in the Copse, and Bartlett threatened to turn him in for impersonating Leo if he didn't cut him in on this deal."
"What was Fox doing in the Copse?"
"Sussing out the Manor. Says he read about Ailsa's death and wanted to know how the land lay. He doesn't deny that he was there to rob the place, but he does deny the wholesale stripping of the contents that he claims Bartlett wanted. According to him, Bartlett said the Colonel was a sitting duck. The trick was to make him so reclusive that it would be weeks before anyone else realized the place had been emptied."
"The Colonel would have to be dead for that."
"Which is what Fox says Bartlett ordered. Along with Robert and Vera Dawson. They were lonely people. No one spoke to them. By the time anyone bothered to investigate-probably Mark Ankerton-there'd have been no witnesses, the travelers would have been long gone and we'd have concentrated our efforts on them."
"Do you buy that?"
The sergeant shrugged. "It's undoubtedly what Fox was planning, but I can't see Bartlett going for it. The coats and balaclavas are the key. My guess is the plan was to concentrate everyone's attention on the travelers during the holiday while Bartlett and Fox went into the Manor, tied the Colonel up, stripped the place, and left him to be found by Bob or Vera when they bothered to turn up for work. Assuming he was still alive, he would have told us the travelers were responsible."
The inspector folded his arms. "Or accused his son because of the nuisance calls."
"It's quite neat, guv. Fox said they were planning to take the tapes so we wouldn't know the calls had happened. That's why I think he was intending to kill the old boy."
"Then Mark Ankerton and Nancy Smith turned up."
"Right."
"What did Fox have to say about that?"
"That Bartlett ordered the go-ahead anyway."
"How?"
"Through Vera."
The inspector gave a grunt of amusement. "That woman's very useful to him. He blames her for everything."
"He certainly knows how to use women. Look at Mrs. Bartlett and Mrs. Weldon."
"A coven of bloody witches," said the inspector morosely, staring out of the window. "That's what happens when rich bastards export their inflation to the countryside. Communities die and the scum floats to the surface."
"You having a go at me, guv?"
"Why not? Your house is twice the size of mine, and I'm a sodding inspector."
"Luck of the draw."
"Bollocks! There should be a tax on people like you and Bartlett using your megabucks to deprive country people of homes. That way you'd both have stayed in London, and I wouldn't have a psychopath in my cells."
Monroe grinned. "He'd have come anyway… and you wouldn't have had my expertise."
Another grunt of amusement. "So what about the wife and Mrs. Weldon? Any ideas? Ankerton's after their blood, but the Colonel's refusing to prosecute because he doesn't want the incest allegations in the public domain. He says-and I agree with him-that it doesn't matter how powerful the DNA evidence, mud will stick."
Monroe stroked his jaw. "Arrest and caution? It would be water off a duck's back to a fifteen year old, but it may just terrify the living daylights out of a couple of middle-aged harpies."
"I wouldn't bet on it," said the inspector. "They'll be back in each other's pockets before the week's out, blaming Bartlett for their problems. They've no other friends. You could argue the Colonel brought his problems on his own head. If he'd been more welcoming to newcomers, the women wouldn't have behaved the way they did."
"I hope you didn't tell Mark Ankerton that."
"I didn't need to. The Colonel seems to have realized it for himself."
Nancy and Bella stood side by side at the drawing-room window, watching James and Wolfie in the garden. Wolfie looked like the Michelin Man in some oversize castoffs that Mark had discovered at the bottom of a chest in Leo's old bedroom, while James had decided to sport his great-grandfather's tatty ulster. The pair of them stood with their backs to the house, gazing out over the valley and the sea beyond and, from the way James was gesturing, it looked as if he were giving Wolfie a brief history of Shenstead.
"What's gonna happen to the poor little tyke?" asked Bella. "It don't seem right to let him be swallowed by the system. Boys of his age never get adopted. He'll just be parceled around from foster mum to foster mum till he starts to get stroppy in adolescence, then they'll bung him in a home."
Nancy shook her head. "I don't know, Bella. Mark's going through Ailsa's files at the moment to see if he can locate a copy of this housing application she made. If he can find a name… if Wolfie was one of the children… if Vera was right about teaching him manners… if there are relatives…" She broke off. "Too many 'ifs,' " she said sadly, "and the trouble is, James thinks Fox or Vera has already done a similar search. According to him, Ailsa's boxes were neatly stacked the last time he went into the dining room… now they're all over the place."
"Martin Barker ain't holding out much hope. He was the community policeman at the time of the squat, and he reckons it was a woman with daughters." She touched a comforting hand to Nancy's shoulder. "Better you hear it now, darlin'. The other thing he told me was they've found kids' and women's clothing in a hidey-hole in Fox's bus. They think they're trophies, like the fox brushes he hung."
Tears sprang into Nancy's exhausted eyes. "Does Wolfie know?"
"It ain't just one kid and one woman, Nance. Martin says there's ten distinct pieces-all different sizes. They're doing tests to see how many DNA prints they come up with. Looks at the moment like Fox has been murdering wholesale."