"Vixen."
"Does she have another one?"
He spoke through a mouthful. "You mean like Evil? I asked her once and she said only Fox is Evil."
"Sort of. I meant a surname. Mine's Preston. That makes me Bella Preston. My girls are Tanny, Gabby, and Molly Preston. Did your mum have a second name?"
Wolfie shook his head.
"Did Fox ever call her anything except Vixen?"
Wolfie glanced at the girls. "Only 'bitch,'" he said, before stuffing his mouth again.
Bella smiled, because she didn't want the children to know how disturbed she was. Fox was showing another character from Barton Edge, and she wasn't the only member of the group who thought he was following a different agenda from the one of adverse possession proposed five months ago. Then the emphasis had been on family.
"It's better odds than the fourteen million to one chance of buying a lottery ticket, and just as legal," Fox had told them. "At worst, you'll stay in the same place for as long as it takes interested parties to organize a case against you… time for your kids to log on with a GP and get some decent schooling… maybe six months… maybe longer. At best, you'll get a house. I'd say that's worth a gamble."
No one really believed it would happen. Certainly not Bella. The most she could hope for was local-council accommodation on some depressed estate, and that was less attractive to her than staying on the road. She wanted safety and freedom for her kids, not the corrupting influence of delinquent yobs in a pressure cooker of poverty and crime. But Fox was convincing enough to persuade some of them to take the chance. "What have you got to lose?" he'd asked.
Bella had met him once again between Barton Edge and the convoy forming last night. All other arrangements had been made by phone or radio. No one had been told where the waste ground was-except that it was somewhere in the southwest-and the only other meeting had been to make a final decision on who would be included. By that time news of the project had spread and competition for places was intense. A maximum of six buses, Fox had said, and the choice of who went would be his. Only people with kids would be considered. Bella had asked what gave him the right to play God in this way, and he answered, "Because I'm the one who knows where we're going."
The single logic to his selection was that there were no existing alliances among the group, making his leadership unassailable. Bella had argued strongly against this. Her view was that a bonded group of friends would make a more successful unit than a disparate group of strangers, but given a blunt ultimatum-take it or leave it-she had capitulated. Surely any dream-even a pipe dream-was worth pursuing?
"Is Fox your dad?" she asked Wolfie.
"I guess so. Mum said he was."
Bella wondered about that. She remembered his mother saying that Wolfie took after his father, but she could see no resemblance between this child and Fox. "Have you always lived with him?" she asked.
"Reckon so, 'cept when he went away."
"Where did he go?"
"Dunno."
Prison, Bella guessed. "How long was he away?"
"Dunno."
She mopped up the sauce in his plate with a piece of bread and handed it to him. "Have you always been on the road?"
He crammed the bread into his mouth. "Not rightly sure."
She lifted the saucepan off the cooker and put it in front of him with more bread. "You can wipe this out as well, darlin'. You've a powerful hunger, that's for sure." She watched him set to, wondering when he'd last had a proper meal. "So how long since your mum left?"
She expected another one word answer, instead she received a flood. "Dunno. I don't have a watch, see, and Fox won't never tell me what day it is. He don't reckon it matters, but I do. She and Cub was gone one morning. Weeks, I reckon. Fox gets mad if I ask. He says it's me she abandoned but I don't reckon that's right, 'coz I was the one always looked out for her. It's more likely him. She was really frightened of him. He don't-doesn't-" he corrected himself- "like it when people argue with him. You shouldn't say 'ain't' and 'don't' too much, neither," he added gravely, dropping into an abrupt imitation of Fox. "It's bad grammar and he doesn't like it."
Bella smiled. "Does your mum talk posh, too?"
"You mean like in the movies?"
"Yes."
"Sometimes. She don't say much, though. It's always me talks to Fox 'coz she's too scared."
Bella thought back to the selection meeting of four weeks ago. Had the woman been there then, she asked herself? It was hard to remember. Fox was so dominant that he tended to fill the mind. Had Bella cared if his "wife" was around? No. Had she cared if the children were visible? No. For all her questioning of his right to lead, she found his certainty exciting. He was a man who could make things happen. A tough bastard, yes-not one she'd want to cross in a hurry-but a bastard with a vision.
"What does he do when people argue with him?" she asked Wolfie.
"Gets out his razor."
Julian closed the doors on Bouncer, then went looking for Gemma, whose own horsebox was parked fifty yards away. She was the daughter of one of the tenant farmers in Shenstead Valley and Julian's passion for her was as intense as any sixty-year-old's for a willing young woman. He was enough of a realist to recognize that this had as much to do with her youthful body and uninhibited libido as it did with a desire for conversation but to a man of his age, married to a wife who had long since lost her attraction, the combination of sex and beauty was a powerful stimulus. He felt fitter and younger than he had for years.
Nevertheless, Gemma's alarm when she realized that Eleanor was her caller had surprised him. His own reaction had been relief that the cat was finally out of the bag-he was even fantasizing that Eleanor might have decamped by the time he reached home, preferably leaving a bitter little note to say what a bastard he'd been. Julian had always felt comfortable with guilt, perhaps because he had no experience of betrayal. Even so, a small voice kept reminding him that the reality would be tantrums. Did he care? No. In his noncommittal, detached way-a "man's thing" his first wife had always called it-he assumed that Eleanor was no keener to prolong a sexless marriage than he was.
He found Gemma beside her car with her hackles up. "How could you be such dork?" she demanded, glaring at him.
"What do you mean?"
"Leaving my phone number lying around."
"I didn't." In a clumsy attempt to deflect her anger he slipped an arm around her waist. "You know what she's like. She's probably been poking through my things."
Gemma smacked his hand away. "People are watching," she warned, shrugging out of her jacket.
"Who cares?"
She folded the jacket and put it on the backseat of her black Volvo station wagon. "I do," she said tightly, walking around him to check the tow bar connection to her horsebox. "In case you hadn't noticed, that bloody reporter's standing twenty yards away… and it's not going to help to have a picture of you groping me slapped all over tomorrow's paper. Eleanor would have to be really stupid not to put two and two together if she saw that."
"It'll save time on explanations," he said flippantly.
She fixed him with a withering gaze. "Who to?"
"Eleanor."
"And what about my dad? Have you any idea how angry he's going to be about this? I'm just hoping that bitch of a wife of yours hasn't phoned him already to tell him what a whore I am, seeing as how stirring's about the only thing she's good at." She stamped her foot in exasperation. "Are you sure there's nothing with my name on it in the house?"
"I'm sure." Julian ran a hand up the back of his neck and glanced behind him. The reporter was looking the other way, more interested in the huntsman marshaling his pack than she was in them. "Why are you so worried about what your father thinks?"