"What do you think happened?"
He skated round the question and produced what sounded like a rehearsed answer. "James suffers from arthritis and he hadn't slept all that week. The doctor was able to confirm that he picked up a prescription for barbiturates the day of Ailsa's death and two were missing from the bottle. The traces were still in his system when he insisted the police take a blood sample to prove he was comatose at the time the argument is supposed to have happened. It didn't satisfy his doubters, of course-they say he took the pills after Ailsa was dead-but it satisfied the coroner." He fell into a brief silence that Nancy didn't break. "It wouldn't have done if there'd been proof she'd been murdered, but as there wasn't…" He didn't bother to finish.
"Your chaos theory sounds about right," she said sympathetically.
He gave a hollow laugh. "It's a hell of a mess, frankly. Even the fact that he armed himself with barbiturates is considered suspicious. Why that day? Why take two? Why insist the police take a blood sample? They keep saying he needed an alibi."
"Are these the phone calls you were talking about?"
"Mm. I've been going through the recordings… and it's getting worse rather than better. You asked if something happened between October and November… well, these calls certainly did. He'd had the odd one during the summer-nothing unpleasant, just long silences-but there was a step up in frequency in November to two or three a week." He paused, clearly wondering how much to tell her. "It's unbearable," he said abruptly. "It's five a night now and I don't think he's slept in weeks… which is maybe why he goes out to sit on the terrace. I suggested he change his number but he says he's damned if he'll be seen as a coward. He says malicious calls are a form of terrorism and he refuses to kowtow to it."
Nancy had some sympathy with that view. "Who's doing it?"
Another shrug. "We don't know. Most of them are from a number or numbers that have been withheld… probably because the caller dials 141 to block number recognition. James has managed to trace a few by dialing call-return on 1471, but not many. He's keeping a list, but the worst offender-" he paused-"or offenders-it's hard to know if it's always the same person-isn't stupid enough to advertise who he is."
"Does he speak? Don't you recognize the voice?"
"Oh, yes, he speaks all right," said Mark bitterly. "The longest call goes on for half an hour. I think it's one man-almost certainly Leo, because he knows so much about the family-but he uses a voice distorter which makes him sound like Darth Vader."
"I've seen those things. They work just as well for women."
"I know… which is most of the trouble. It would be fairly straightforward if we could say it was Leo… but it could be anyone."
"Isn't it illegal? Can't you ask BT to do something?"
"They can't act without police authority, and James won't have the police involved."
"Why not?"
Mark took to grinding his eye sockets again, and Nancy wondered what was so difficult about the question. "I think he's scared it'll make matters worse if the police hear what the Darth Vader voice is saying," he said finally. "There are details of events-" a long pause-"James denies them, of course, but when you hear them over and over again…" He lapsed into silence.
"They sound convincing," she finished for him.
"Mm. Some of it's certainly true. It starts to make you wonder about the rest."
Nancy recalled the Colonel's reference to Mark Ankerton being an "honorable exception" among the ranks of those rushing to condemn him, and she wondered if he knew that his lawyer had begun to waver. "Can I listen to these tapes?" she asked.
He looked appalled. "No way. James would have a fit if he thought you'd heard them. They're pretty damn awful. If I was on the receiving end of them, I'd have changed my number and gone ex-directory immediately. The bloody Weldon woman doesn't even have the guts to speak… just phones in the middle of the night to wake him… then sits and pants for five minutes."
"Why does he answer?"
"He doesn't… but the phone still rings, he still wakes up, and the tape records her silence."
"Why doesn't he disconnect at night?"
"He's collecting evidence… but won't use it."
"How far away is the Weldons' farmhouse?"
"Half a mile up the road toward Dorchester."
"Then why don't you go and read the riot act to her? She sounds like a lump of jelly to me. If she doesn't even have the courage to speak, then she'll probably faint if his solicitor turns up."
"It's not that easy." He blew on his hands to bring back some warmth. "I had a go at her husband this morning over the phone, told him there was a case against his wife for slander. James came in in the middle and gave me hell for even suggesting it. He refuses to consider injunctions… calls them white flags… says they smack of surrender. To be honest, I don't understand his reasoning at all. He uses siege metaphors all the time as if he's content to wage a war of attrition instead of doing what I want him to do, which is take the fight to the enemy. I know he's worried that legal action might put the story back on the pages of the newspapers-something he doesn't want-but I also think he's genuinely afraid of renewed police interest in Ailsa's death."
Nancy pulled off her hat and tucked it over his hands. "That doesn't make him guilty," she said. "I imagine it's far more frightening to be innocent of a crime, and unable to prove it, than guilty and covering your tracks all the time. The one's a passive state, the other's proactive, and he's a man who's used to action."
"Then why won't he take my advice and start attacking these bastards?"
She stood up. "For the reasons you've already given. Look, I can hear your teeth chattering. Put your coat back on and let's start walking again." She waited while he re-donned the Dryzabone then purposefully retraced their steps toward the Japanese garden. "There's no point him putting his head above the parapet if it's likely to be blown off," she pointed out. "Maybe you should suggest guerrilla warfare instead of formal troop deployment in the shape of injunctions and police involvement. It's a perfectly honorable course of action to send out a sniper to pick off an enemy in a dugout."
"My God!" he said with a groan, surreptitiously tucking her hat into his pocket, very conscious that it was a DNA gold mine. If she forgot it, the problem could be solved. "You're as bad as he is. Do you want to put that into English?"
"Take out the people you can identify, like the Weldon woman, then concentrate on Darth Vader. He'll be easier to neutralize once you've isolated him." She smiled at his expression. "It's bog-standard tactics."
"I'm sure it is," he said sourly. "Now tell me how to do it without injunctions."
"Divide and rule. You've made a start on Mrs. Weldon's husband. How did he react?"
"Angrily. He didn't know she'd been making calls."
"That's good. Who else has 1471 identified?"
"Eleanor Bartlett… lives in Shenstead House, about fifty yards down the road. She and Prue Weldon are close friends."
"Then that'll be the strongest axis against James. You need to split them."
He bared his teeth in a sarcastic grimace. "And how do I do that?"
"Start believing in the cause you're fighting for," she said dispassionately. "It's no use being halfhearted about it. If Mrs. Weldon's version of events is true, then James is lying. If James is telling the truth then it's Mrs. Weldon who's lying. There are no gray areas. Even if Mrs. Weldon believes she's telling the truth-but it isn't the truth-then it's a lie." She bared her teeth back at him. "Pick a side."