"You know why," she snapped. "I can't race Monkey Business without him. I can't even afford to keep a horse on a bloody secretary's wages. Nobody can. Dad pays for everything… even the bloody car… so unless you're offering to take over immediately then you'd bloody well better make sure Eleanor keeps her mouth shut." She gave an irritated sigh at his suddenly beleaguered expression. "Oh, for Christ's sake, grow up," she hissed. "Can't you see this is a fucking disaster? Dad's hoping for a son-in-law who'll help on the farm… not someone the same age as he is."
He'd never seen her angry before, and in a horrible sort of way she reminded him of Eleanor. Blond and pretty and only interested in money. They were both just clones of his first wife, who'd always been fonder of their children than she'd been of him. Julian was a man with few illusions. For whatever reason, desperate thirty-plus blondes appealed to him… and he appealed to them. It wasn't something he could explain, any more than he could explain why he became uninfatuated with them just as easily.
"It was going to come out sooner or later," he muttered. "What were you planning to tell your father then?"
"Yes, well, that's it, isn't it. It was me who was going to tell him. I hoped we could do it a little more tactfully… lead him in gently. You know all this," she said impatiently. "Why do you think I keep telling you to be careful?"
Julian hadn't given it much thought, merely looked to when and where the next sexual encounter would happen. The technicalities were immaterial as long as Gemma kept presenting her body for his pleasure. Any discretion he'd shown was on his own behalf. He'd been around long enough to know it wasn't worth showing his hand until the gamble looked solid, and he certainly didn't fancy being at Eleanor's mercy for the rest of his life if he dangled Gemma in front of her and Gemma took off.
"So what do you want me to do?" he asked lamely. Her mention of what Peter Squires was looking for in a son-in-law had unsettled him. Yes, he wanted freedom from Eleanor, but he also wanted to keep the status quo with Gemma. Stolen moments of sex between golfing and drinking that enlivened his life but brought no responsibility. He'd done marriage and he'd done babies, and neither appealed to him. A mistress, on the other hand, was infinitely appealing… until her demands became excessive.
"Jesus, I hate it when men do that! I'm not your bloody nursemaid, Julian. You got us into this mess… you get us out. It's not me who left my sodding phone number lying around." She flung herself into the driver's seat and started her engine. "I'm not giving up Monkey Business… so if Dad gets to hear of it-" She broke off angrily, thrusting the Volvo into gear. "We can keep Monkey in the stables at your place as long as Eleanor's not there." She slammed the door closed. "Your choice," she mouthed through the window before driving off.
He watched her turn out onto the main road before thrusting his hands into his pockets and stomping back to his own car. To Debbie Fowler, who had witnessed the contretemps out of the corner of her eye, the body language said it all. An affair between a dirty old man using Grecian 2000 and a spoiled bimbo with her biological clock running out.
She turned to one of the hunt followers who was standing beside her. "Do you know what that man's name is?" she asked, nodding at Julian's departing back. "He gave it to me earlier when I did an interview with him but I seem to have lost the piece of paper."
"Julian Bartlett," said the woman obligingly. "He plays golf with my husband."
"Where does he live?"
"Shenstead."
"He must be worth a bob or two."
"Came from London."
"That explains it, then," said Debbie, locating the page in her notebook where she'd written "gypsies, Shenstead" and jotted "Julian Bartlett" underneath. "Thanks," she told the woman with a smile, "you've been really helpful. So, in a nutshell, what you're saying is that it's kinder to kill vermin with dogs than by shooting or poisoning."
"Yes. There's no argument. Dogs kill cleanly. Poison and shot pellets don't."
"Does that apply to all vermin?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, for example, is it kinder to set dogs on rabbits? Or gray squirrels… or rats… or badgers? They're all vermin, aren't they?"
"Some people would say so. Terriers were bred to go down burrows and setts."
"Do you approve?"
The woman shrugged. "Vermin is vermin," she said. "You have to control it somehow."
Bella left Wolfie with her daughters and went back to the chainsaw gang. The machine was working again and a dozen posts of various widths and lengths had been hacked out of fallen timber. The idea, which had seemed feasible in the planning but appeared naive to Bella now, was to drive posts into the ground to create a stockade. It looked an impossible task. Placed upright, these dozen haphazardly shaped posts would neither stand straight nor enclose more than a couple of meters, not to mention the arduous task of digging them into the frozen earth.
The Copse had been flagged as a site of scientific interest, Fox had warned that morning, and a felled tree would be an excuse for eviction. There was enough on the ground to get them started. Why had he waited until now to tell them? Bella had asked angrily. Who was going to let them build on a protected site? It wasn't protected yet, he told her. They would lodge an objection while they established themselves. He spoke as if establishing themselves would be easy.
It didn't seem so now. Much of the dead wood was rotten and crumbling, with fungus growing out of the sodden bark. Impatience was beginning to set in and Ivo, angry and frustrated, already had his eye on the living wood. "This is a waste of time," he growled, kicking the end of a branch that crumbled to dust under his boot. "Look at it. There's only about three feet that's usable. We'd do much better to take out one of these trees in the middle. Who's going to know?"
"Where's Fox?" asked Bella.
"Guarding the barrier."
She shook her head. "I've just been there. The two lads on it are getting bored."
Ivo made a throat-cutting gesture to the guy on the chain-saw and waited for the noise to die down. "Where's Fox?" he demanded.
"Search me. Last time I saw him he was heading for the Manor."
Ivo looked inquiringly at the rest of the gang but they shook their heads. "Jesus," he said disgustedly, "this fucker's got a nerve. Do this, do that. So what the hell's he doing? The rules as I remember them is that if we pull together we got a chance, but all he's done so far is play the ponce in front of a pissed-off farmer and a sad bitch in an anorak. Am I the only one with reservations?"
There were mutters of discontent. "The farmer recognized his voice," said Zadie, who was married to the chainsaw operator. She tugged off her scarf and balaclava and lit a roll-up. "That's why he's got us wearing this shit. He doesn't want to be singled out as the only one trying to hide."
"Is that what he said?"
"No… just guessing. The whole thing sucks. Me and Gray came here to try and get our kids a house… but now I'm figuring it's a setup. We're the diversion. While everyone's looking at us, Fox is off doing his own thing."
"He's mighty interested in this house," said her man, lowering the chainsaw to the ground and jerking his head toward the Manor. "Every time he vanishes it's in that direction."
Ivo glanced thoughtfully through the trees. "Who is he, anyway? Does anyone know him? Seen him around?"