"To what?"
"Ailsa's murder."
"Mrs. Lockyer-Fox died of natural causes."
Prue waved a despairing hand. "That was the coroner's verdict… but no one believed it."
It was a sweeping statement which the sergeant chose to discount. He flicked back through his notes. "And you're assuming the Colonel killed her because the day before her death Mrs. Lockyer-Fox was told by her daughter that the baby was his? Do you know for a fact that Mrs. Lockyer-Fox saw her daughter that day?"
"She went to London."
"London's a big place, Mrs. Weldon, and our information was that she attended a committee meeting of one of her charities. Also, both Elizabeth and Leo Lockyer-Fox said they hadn't seen their mother for six months. That doesn't square with what you're alleging."
"Not me," she said, "I've never alleged anything. I kept quiet in my calls."
Monroe's frown deepened. "But you knew your friend was alleging it, so who put the idea of the meeting into her mind?"
"It must have been Elizabeth," said Prue uncomfortably.
"Why would she do that if she told us she hadn't seen her mother in six months?"
"I don't know." She chewed her lip anxiously. "This is the first time I've heard that you even knew Ailsa had gone to London. Eleanor always says James never told you."
The sergeant smiled slightly. "You don't have a very high opinion of the Dorset police, do you?"
"Oh, no," she assured him, "I think you're wonderful."
His smile, a cynical one, vanished immediately. "Then why assume we wouldn't check Mrs. Lockyer-Fox's movements in the days prior to her death? There was a question mark over how she died until the pathologist delivered his postmortem findings. For two days we talked to everyone who might have been in contact with her."
Prue fanned herself as a hot flush spread up her neck. "Eleanor said you were all Freemasons… and so was the pathologist."
Monroe eyed her thoughtfully. "Your friend is either misinformed, malicious, or ignorant," he said, before consulting his notes again. "You claim you were convinced the story of the meeting was true because of this row you overheard when Mrs. Lockyer-Fox accused her husband of destroying Elizabeth's life…"
"It seemed so logical…"
He ignored her. "…but now you're not sure if it was the Colonel she was talking to. Also, you think you may have put the events in the wrong sequence, and that Mr. Ankerton was right when he said the subsequent killing of the Colonel's dog was connected in some way with the sound of the punch you heard. He believes Mrs. Lockyer-Fox may have witnessed the deliberate mutilation of a fox."
"It was so long ago. At the time I really didn't think… it was all very shocking, particularly as Ailsa was dead the next morning… I couldn't see who else it could have been except James."
He didn't speak for a moment, but mulled over some bullet points he'd made. "The Colonel reported a mutilated fox on his terrace at the beginning of the summer," he said suddenly. "Did you know about that one? Or if there've been any others since?"
She shook her head.
"Could your friend Mrs. Bartlett have been responsible?"
"God, no!" she protested, deeply shocked. "Eleanor likes animals."
"But eats them for lunch, presumably?"
"That's not fair."
"Very little is, I find," Monroe said dispassionately. "Let me put this another way. It's quite a catalogue of brutality that's been aimed at Colonel Lockyer-Fox in the wake of his wife's death. You keep telling me the nuisance campaign was your friend's idea, so why balk at the suggestion that she was prepared to kill his dog?"
"Because she's afraid of dogs," she said lamely, "particularly Henry. He was a Great Dane." She shook her head in bewilderment, as much in the dark as he was. "It's so cruel… I can't bear to think about it."
"But you don't think it's cruel to accuse an old man of incest?"
"Ellie said he'd come out fighting if none of it was true, but he's never said a word… just stayed in his house and pretended it wasn't happening."
Monroe was unimpressed. "Would you have believed him if he'd said he hadn't done it? In the absence of the child, it was his word against his daughter's and you and your friend had already made up your minds that the daughter was telling the truth."
"Why would she lie about it?"
"Have you met her?"
Prue shook her head.
"Well, I have, Mrs. Weldon, and the only reason I accepted her statement that her mother did not visit her the day before she died was because I double-checked with her neighbors who deal with her on a daily basis. Did your friend do that?"
"I don't know."
"No," he agreed. "For a self-styled judge you really are remarkably ignorant… and frighteningly willing to change your viewpoint when someone challenges it. You said earlier that you told Mrs. Bartlett you didn't believe the child could be the Colonel's, yet you tamely went along with the hate campaign. Why? Did Mrs. Bartlett promise you money if you conspired to destroy the Colonel? Will she benefit if he's driven from his home?"
Prue's hands flew to her blazing cheeks. "Of course not," she cried. "That's an outrageous suggestion."
"Why?"
The bluntness of the question sent her grasping miserably at straws. "It all seems so obvious now… but it wasn't at the time. Eleanor was so convinced… and I had heard that awful row. Ailsa did say Elizabeth's life was destroyed, and I know I'm remembering that correctly."
The sergeant gave a disbelieving smile. He'd sat through too many trials to believe that memory was accurate. "Then why did none of your friends go along with it? You told me you were shocked to find you were the only one who'd signed up. You felt you'd been conned." He paused and, when she didn't say anything, went on: "Assuming Mrs. Bartlett is as gullible as you-which I doubt-then the instigator is this man with the Darth Vader voice. So who is he?"
Prue showed the same anxiety that she'd shown when asked the same question by Mark. "I've no idea," she muttered wretchedly. "I didn't even know he existed until this evening. Eleanor never mentioned him, just said it was the girls who were phoning-" She stopped abruptly as her mind groped through the fog of confused shame that had been clouding it since James's visit. "How stupid of me," she said with sudden clarity. "She's been lying about everything."
A police car drew up in front of the rope barrier and two burly constables climbed out, leaving the headlights on full beam to illuminate the camp. Blinded, Bella eased Wolfie off her lap and stood up, sheltering him inside the flap of her coat. "Good evening, gents," she said, pulling her scarf over her mouth. "Can I help you?"
"A lady up the road reported an intruder on her property," said the younger of the two, pulling on his cap as he approached. He gestured to his right. "Has anyone from here set off in that direction in the last hour or two?"
Bella felt Wolfie tremble. "I didn't see anyone, darlin'," she told the policeman cheerfully, "but I've been facin' toward the road… so I wouldn't, would I?" She was cursing Fox roundly inside her head. Why make a rule that no one should leave the site after dark, then break it himself? Unless, of course, the only reason for the rule was to give himself free run of the village. The idea that he was a common thief appealed to her. It brought him down to a manageable size in a way that Wolfie's constant references to the cutthroat razor did not.
The other officer chuckled as he moved into the light. "That has to be Bella Preston," he said. "It'd take more than a scarf and a bulky coat to disguise that shape and voice. What are you up to this time, girl? Not organizing another rave, I hope. We're still recovering from the last one."