"Do you recognize any of the other photographs? Take as long as you like. Look at them closely."
She seemed to feel it was an order and picked up each one in shaking fingers and stared at it for several seconds. "No," she said at last.
Monroe isolated a picture from the middle and pushed it toward her. "That is Leo Lockyer-Fox, Mrs. Bartlett. Are you sure he wasn't the man you met?"
What little color she had left drained from her cheeks. She shook her head.
Monroe laid another series of photographs on the table. "Do you recognize any of these women?"
She hunched forward, staring at the faces. "No," she said.
"Are you absolutely certain?"
She nodded.
Again he isolated one. "That is Elizabeth Lockyer-Fox, Mrs. Bartlett. Are you sure she wasn't the woman you spoke to?"
"Yes." She stared up at him with tears in her eyes. "I don't understand, Sergeant. The woman I saw was so convincing. No one could pretend to be that damaged, could they? She was shaking the whole time she talked to me. I believed her."
Monroe pulled out a chair on the other side of the table. Time enough to put the fear of God into her when he had her husband in the bag; for the moment he wanted cooperation. "Probably because she was afraid of the man who was calling himself Leo," he said, sitting down. "Also, she may have been telling you the truth, Mrs. Bartlett… but it would have been her own story and not Elizabeth Lockyer-Fox's. Sadly, we believe the woman you met is now dead, although there's a chance we've found her passport. In a day or two I'll ask you to look at some more photographs. If you recognize any of those faces then we may be able to put a name to her and find out something about her history."
"But I don't understand. Why did she do it?" She looked at Fox's picture. "Who's this person? Why did he do it?"
Monroe rested his chin on his hands. "You tell me, Mrs. Bartlett. Two strangers weren't likely to know that you'd be interested in a fabricated story about Colonel Lockyer-Fox. How did they know you'd believe it? How did they know you had a close friend in Mrs. Weldon who would support a campaign of nuisance calls? How did they know you both thought the Colonel had murdered his wife?" He gave a sympathetic shrug. "Someone very close to you must have given them your name, don't you think?"
She really was deeply unintelligent. "Someone who doesn't like James?" she suggested. "Otherwise, what was the point?"
"You were a decoy. Your phone calls were designed to make the Colonel think there was no one he could trust… not even his son or daughter. Your role-" he smiled slightly-"which you performed extremely well-was to drive a defenseless old man to confusion and exhaustion. While he was concentrating on you-and by default his children because of what you were alleging-he was being robbed." He raised inquiring eyebrows. "Who knew you well enough to set you up like that? Who knew you resented the Lockyer-Foxes? Who thought it would be amusing to let you do his dirty work?"
As monroe told his inspector afterward, it might be true that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but hell broke loose in Shenstead House when a scorned woman found she'd been framed. Once started, Eleanor couldn't stop. She had an absolute memory of their finances at the time of the move, the approximate value of Julian's portfolio, the amount of his early- retirement package and the minimal pension he was receiving until he turned sixty-five. She leaped at the chance to construct a list of her own expenditures since moving to Dorset, including the cost of every home improvement. The list she made of Julian's known expenses ran to two pages, with the gifts mentioned in the GS emails scored into the paper at the end.
Even Eleanor could see that expenditure far outweighed income, so, unless Julian had sold every share they possessed, there was money coming from somewhere else. She disproved the sale of shares by taking Monroe to Julian's study and locating the stockbroker file in one of his cabinets. She then assisted the police further by going through all his other files and isolating anything she didn't recognize. She grew more and more confident as evidence of her husband's guilt became apparent-bank and investment accounts that he'd never mentioned, receipts for goods sold that had never belonged to them, even correspondence with a previous mistress-and it was obvious to Monroe that she was rapidly beginning to see herself as the victim.
He had requested specifically that she look for a file containing letters from Colonel Lockyer-Fox to a Captain Nancy Smith, and when she finally unearthed it at the bottom of a rubbish bag which she remembered Julian taking outside that morning-"he's never so obliging usually"-she handed it over with a triumphant flourish. She was even more triumphant when one of the officers dug farther into the coffee grounds and sprouts and produced a Darth Vader voice distorter. "I told you it wasn't my fault," she said stridently.
Monroe, who had assumed a second voice distorter because of the number of calls Darth Vader had made, held open a polythene bag to take it. "Perhaps this is why he was so keen to go out," the other officer remarked as he dropped it in. "He was hoping to chuck them into a hedge somewhere on the other side of Dorchester."
Monroe glanced at Eleanor while he sealed the bag. "He'll deny all knowledge of them," he said matter-of-factly, "unless his wife can prove she's never set eyes on them before. There are two people living in this house and there's no evidence at the moment to say which one was responsible."
The woman gobbled like a turkey as all her fears resurfaced. It was a satisfying reaction. In Monroe's view, she was as much at fault as her husband. Her degree of involvemenl might have been less, but he'd heard some of her messages or tape and the pleasure she'd taken from bullying an old man had turned his stomach.
BBC News Online-
17 september 2002, 10:10 GMT
Death of a Fox
It was reported yesterday that "Fox Evil," the suspect at the center of one of the biggest murder investigations of the last 10 years, has died of an inoperable brain tumor in a London hospital. He was transferred there 10 days ago from the hospital wing of HMP Belmarsh where he was awaiting trial.
Brian Wells, 45, aka "Liam Sullivan," aka "Fox Evil," remained an enigma to the end. His refusal to cooperate in the murder investigation led to a "missing persons" search involving 23 police forces. Described by some as a charmer and by others as a terrifying night stalker, Wells's arrest last year caused huge public concern when police revealed he was suspected of the slaughter of three women and seven children, none of whose bodies have been recovered.
"We believe his victims were squatters or travelers," said a police spokesperson. "Either single mothers or mothers persuaded to leave their partners. Sadly, these are people whose whereabouts are seldom known to their extended families and their disappearances go unreported."
Police suspicions were aroused after Wells was taken into custody on 26 December last year. Camped with other travelers on waste ground in the tiny Dorset village of Shenstead, he was charged with a hammer attack on Nancy Smith, 28, an army officer, and the murder of Robert Dawson, 72, a gardener. Guns and stolen property were found in his vehicle and police began a search for underworld contacts.
The scope of the investigation widened after a witness reported seeing Wells murder a woman and child. Within hours bloodstained clothing belonging to seven toddlers and three women was found in a concealed compartment beneath the floor of his bus. Police feared they were looking at a sick murderer's "trophies."
Confirmation came earlier this year that two of the victims, a woman and her six-year-old son, had been identified. Their names were given only as "Vixen" and "Cub" to protect surviving family members. It is believed that DNA testing of the woman's relatives has shown genetic links to a woman's dress and a toddler's T-shirt. Police refused to comment further, saying only that the investigation was ongoing and travelers should not be afraid to come forward.