"I only know what Prue said," Eleanor lied. "It's to do with ownership of land, so it's a matter for a solicitor."
He frowned at her. "So what's Dick doing about it?"
"I don't know. He went off in a huff and Prue doesn't know where he is."
"You said something about James's solicitor."
She pulled a face. "Dick spoke to him and got blown out of the water for his pains-which is probably what put him in a bad mood-but I've no idea if the man's done anything about it."
Julian kept his thoughts to himself while he filled the water pail and replenished the hay in Bouncer's trough. He gave the elderly hunter's neck a final pat, then picked up the grooming bucket and waited pointedly by the door until Eleanor moved. "Why would Dick phone James's solicitor? How can he help? I thought he was in London."
"He's staying with James. He arrived on Christmas Eve."
Julian shot the bolt on the stable door. "I thought the poor old boy was on his own."
"It's not just Mr. Ankerton. There's someone else there as well."
Julian frowned at her. "Who?"
"I don't know. It looked like one of the travelers."
Julian's frown deepened. "Why would James have travelers visiting him?"
Eleanor smiled weakly. "It's nothing to do with us."
"Like hell it isn't," he snapped. "They're parked on the bloody Copse. How did the solicitor blow Dick out of the water?"
"Refused to discuss it with him."
"Why?"
She hesitated. "I suppose he resents what Prue said about James and Ailsa fighting."
"Oh, come on!" said Julian impatiently. "He might not like her for it-he might not like Dick either-but he's not going to refuse to discuss something that affects his client. You said they had a row. What was that about?"
"I don't know."
He marched up the path to the house with Eleanor scurrying behind him. "I'd better call him," he said crossly. "The whole thing sounds totally ridiculous to me. Solicitors don't row with people." He pulled the back door open.
She caught his arm to hold him back. "Who are you going to phone?"
"Dick," he said, shaking her off as abruptly as Mark had done earlier. "I want to know what the hell's been going on. Anyway, I said I'd call as soon as I got back."
"He's not at the farm."
"So?" He wedged his right heel into the bootjack to yank off his riding boot. "I'll call him on his mobile."
She eased around him into the kitchen. "It's not our fight, sweetheart," she called gaily over her shoulder, taking a whisky tumbler from a cupboard and unscrewing the bottle to top up her own and pour him a generous slug. "I told you. Dick and Prue have already come to blows over it. Where's the sense in our getting caught in the middle?"
The "sweethearts" were grating on his nerves, and he guessed it was her answer to Gemma. Did she think terms of endearment could win him back? Or perhaps she thought "sweetheart" was a word he used as a matter of course with mistresses? Had he used it with her when he was two-timing his first wife…? God knew. It was so long ago he couldn't remember. "Okay," he said, padding into the kitchen in stockinged feet. "I'll call James."
Eleanor handed him the tumbler of whisky. "Oh, I don't think that's a good idea either," she said rather too hastily. "Not if he's got visitors. Why don't you wait till tomorrow? It'll probably have sorted itself by then. Have you eaten? I could make a turkey risotto or something? That would be nice, wouldn't it?"
Julian took in her flushed face, the half-empty whisky bottle, and the signs of repaired makeup around her eyes, and wondered why she was so determined to stop him using the phone. He tipped the glass to her. "Sounds good, Ellie," he said with an artless smile. "Give me a call when it's ready. I'll be in the shower."
Upstairs in his dressing room he opened his wardrobe door and looked at the neatly spaced suits and sports jackets that he'd left pushed to one side in order to remove his hunting jacket, and he asked himself why his wife had suddenly decided to search his things. She had always behaved as if looking after a husband was a form of slavery, and he had long since learned to pull his weight, particularly in the rooms he called his own. He even preferred it. Comfortable clutter was more in tune with his nature than the showy cleanliness in the rest of the house.
He set the shower running, then pulled out his mobile and scrolled down the menu for Dick's number. When the phone was answered at the other end, he quietly closed his dressing room door.
James and his two companions made no secret of their approach, although by mutual consent they didn't speak after they left the terrace and crossed the lawn to the ha-ha. There was no sign of the chainsaw gang, but Nancy pointed out the machine itself, which had been abandoned on a small pile of logs. They headed up to their right, skirting the thickly sprouting ash and hazel bushes which, once used for coppicing, created a natural sight screen between the Manor and the encampment.
In light of James's questions about recognition, Nancy wondered how deliberate the positioning of the vehicles had been. Any farther inside the wood and they would have been visible through the skeletal trees as the Copse dipped into the valley. Certainly James could have kept an easy eye on them through binoculars from the drawing-room windows. She turned her head to catch sounds, but there was nothing to hear. Wherever the travelers were, they were keeping as quiet as their visitors.
James guided them up to the path that led toward the entrance. Here the trees were thinner and they could see the encampment clearly. A couple of the buses were brightly colored. One in yellow and lime green, the other painted purple with "Bella" sprayed in pink along its side. By comparison, the rest were curiously drab-ex-coach-hire vehicles in grays and creams, with their logos obliterated.
They were parked in a rough semicircle arcing out from the entrance, and even from a hundred yards away Nancy could see that each bus was linked by rope to its neighbors, with more "keep out" notices strung between the gaps. There was a beat-up Ford Cortina nosed in behind the lime green bus, and children's bicycles lying on the ground. Otherwise, the site appeared to be empty except for the fire in the middle and two distant hooded figures who sat on chairs at either end of the rope barrier facing the road. A couple of Alsatians lay tethered at their feet.
Mark jerked his chin toward the two figures, then pointed his forefingers at his ears to indicate headphones, and Nancy nodded as she watched one of the guardians mark time with his foot as he strummed an air guitar. She raised the binoculars to take a closer look. They weren't adults, she thought. Their immature shoulders were too narrow for their borrowed coats, and their skinny wrists and hands protruded from the bunched sleeves like tablespoons. Easy prey for anyone prepared to cut the rope and reclaim the Copse for the village.
Too easy. The dogs were old and threadbare, but presumably their barks still worked. The parents and owners had to be within calling range.
She scanned across the windows of the various vehicles, but they all had cardboard obscuring visibility from this side. It was interesting, she thought. None of the engines was running so the interiors must be lit by natural light-unless the travelers were crazy enough to use batteries alone-yet the strong sunlight from the south had been blocked out. Why? Because the Manor lay in that direction?
She whispered her guesses into James's ear. "The kids on the barricade are vulnerable," she finished, "so at least one of the buses has to have adults in it. Do you want me to find out which one?"
"Will it help?" he whispered back.
She made a rocking motion with her hand. "It depends how aggressive they're likely to be and how many reinforcements they have. Bearding them in their den looks safer than being caught in the open."