"You wanna tell your blokes to be a bit wary, Mr. Barker. He carries a cutthroat razor. Wolfie's shit-scared of him. His mum and brother vanished a while back, and the rest of us are pretty worried about it."
"The kid said they were in Torquay."
"Only 'coz he's frightened of you. He heard Fox tell us she went off with a pimp after they worked the fairgrounds in Devon. But Wolfie don't believe it and neither do we. Why would she take one kid and leave the other?"
Zadie came up behind her. "Fox's been acting weird ever since we arrived. He sure as hell knows Shenstead. I reckon he's lived here." She jerked her head at the Manor. "That's the draw. Heads off toward it every time our backs are turned."
Barker spoke into the radio. "How much of that did you get…? Yes, cutthroat razor. Query, lived in Shenstead… query, missing woman and child… possibly Devon. Names?" he asked Bella, holding the radio toward her. "Descriptions?"
"Vixen and Cub," she said. "Clones of Wolfie, both of them. Blond, blue-eyed, skinny. Sorry, Mr. Barker, it's the best I can do. I only saw them the once. The mother was stoned and the kid looked about three though Wolfie says he's six."
Barker put the radio to his ear again. "I agree. Tell Monroe we'll meet him at the front." He switched off and dropped the radio into its rest. "Okay, this is how we're going to play it. Forget the search for Wolfie, I want you all in Bella's bus with the door locked. If Fox comes back, don't approach him and don't try to stop him leaving." He jotted a number into his notebook and tore off the sheet. "Presumably you still have your mobile, Bella? Good. This is the quickest way to get hold of me."
"What about Wolfie?"
"The sooner we flush out Fox, the sooner we can find him."
"What if Fox comes back, and he's got the kid with him?"
"Same instructions. Avoid confrontation." He put a hand on Bella's shoulder. "I'm relying on you. Keep everyone away from him. It won't help Wolfie if his father thinks there's no way out."
Wolfie crept toward Fox's tree, his eyes straining through the darkness in search of his father. In the first heat of flight, his one confused idea had been to find Fox and tell him to make the policemen go away, but second thoughts had prevailed when his stampeding feet set twigs snapping like gunshots. Fox would lash out with his razor if Wolfie's wild approach alerted people to where he was.
The child exerted tremendous willpower to slow his panicky heart, then circled around with the stealth of a cat to come at Fox from the slope where the hazel coppices grew. His father would be looking toward the Manor, and wouldn't know Wolfie was there until he put his hand in his. It was a good plan, he thought. Fox couldn't take out the razor if Wolfie had hold of his hand, and he couldn't be cross if Wolfie didn't make a noise. He shied away from thoughts of the hammer. If he didn't think about it, it didn't exist.
But Fox wasn't by his tree, and fear gripped the child's heart anew. For all his father's failings, he had trusted him to keep the police away. What should Wolfie do now? Where could he go where he wouldn't be found? The cold was biting at his bones, and he had enough intelligence to know he couldn't stay outside. He thought about Lucky Fox, thought about his smiley face and his promise that his door was always open, thought about the size of the house and how easy it would be to hide in it. With nowhere else to go, he slid into the ha-ha and crawled up the other side onto the Manor lawn. The darkness of the building didn't trouble him. Time meant nothing without a watch, and he assumed the old man and his friends were asleep. More concerned about the police than about what lay ahead of him, he scampered on all fours, negotiating his way via the shrubs and trees that dotted the park and keeping a watchful eye over his shoulder. Every so often, when he peeked at the terrace to take a bearing, a light winked in one of the downstairs windows. He thought it was inside the house and paid it no attention.
His shock was enormous then, when, fifty feet from the terrace, the clouds began to thin and he saw that it was a torch in the hand of a person. He could make out the bulk of a black-clad figure against the French windows, and the pale gleam of a face. He shrank into a trembling huddle behind a tree. He knew it wasn't Fox. He could always tell Fox's shape by his coat. Was it a policeman, put there to catch him?
The cold dampness of the ground seeped through his thin clothes, and a dreadful lethargy stole over him. If he went to sleep, he might never wake up. The thought appealed to him. It was better than being frightened all the time. He clung to the belief that, if his mother hadn't gone away, she would save him. But she had gone away, and his new, tiny voice of cynicism told him why. She cared more about herself and Cub than she did about Wolfie. He rested his head on his knees as tears spilled in hot streams down his frozen cheeks.
"Who's there?"
He recognized Nancy's voice and heard the fear in it, but he thought she was talking to someone else and didn't answer. Like her, he held his breath and waited for something to happen. The silence stretched interminably until nervous curiosity drove him to see if she was still there. He lay on his belly and squirmed around the base of the tree, and this time he saw his father.
Fox stood a few yards to Nancy's left, his head bent to stop the moonlight catching his face, the silhouette of his hooded coat unmistakable against the stone wall of the Manor. The only movement either of them made was Nancy's switching of the torch beam to and fro. With his infinite capacity to understand fear, Wolfie knew that she was aware of Fox's presence but couldn't see him. Every time the light flicked in his direction, it lit a bush on the front of the house and failed to show the shadow behind it.
Wolfie fixed his father with an intense gaze, trying to make out if he held his razor. He decided not. Nothing of Fox showed except the black shadow of his long hooded coat. There was no flash of blade, and the child relaxed slightly. Even if Fox was stroking it in his pocket, he was only truly dangerous when he held it in his hand. He didn't bother to question why his father should be stalking Nancy, guessing that her visit to the campsite had something to do with it. No one invaded Fox's territory without facing the consequences. His sharp little ears picked up the sound of tires on gravel, and he sensed Nancy's relief as she lowered the torch to light the flagstones at her feet. She shouldn't have done that, he thought, when Fox's only escape was to run past her to the back of the house. Panic-stricken, his eyes returned to his father, and he watched in alarm as Fox's hand slid from his pocket.
Monroe drew in beside Nancy's Discovery and left his motor running as he climbed out to look through her windows. The driver's door was unlocked and he hoisted himself onto the seat, leaning across to retrieve a canvas bag from the floor in front of the passenger seat. He thumb-punched numbers into his mobile, while he flicked through the contents. "I've found a car," he said. "No sign of the owner but there's a wallet here-Visa in the name of Nancy Smith. The keys are in the ignition but I'd say the engine's been off for a while. There's precious little heat in here." He peered through the windscreen. "This side's certainly in darkness… no, the Colonel sits in the room overlooking the terrace." He frowned. "Out? So who reported it? The solicitor?" He frowned. "It sounds a bit flaky to me. How does the solicitor know this woman's in danger if he's halfway to Bovington? Who is she, anyway? Why the panic?" He was taken aback by the answer. "The Colonel's granddaughter? My God!" He glanced back up the drive as he heard the sound of an approaching car. "No, mate, I've no idea what's going on…"