The Weldons' purchase of Shenstead Farm had been a life-saver for Eleanor. In Prue, she found a bosom pal who could restore her confidence. Prue was the admiring acolyte with a circle of contacts from her ten years on the other side of Dorchester that Eleanor needed. Eleanor was the sophisticated London steel in Prue's backbone that gave her permission to voice her criticism of men and marriage. Together they joined a golf club, learned to play bridge, and went on shopping expeditions to Bournemouth and Bath. It was a friendship made in heaven-or hell, depending on your viewpoint-two women in perfect tune with each other.

Julian had remarked sourly to Dick some months before, during a particularly dire supper party when Eleanor and Prue had ganged up drunkenly to abuse them, that their wives were Thelma and Louise going through menopause-but without the sex appeal. The only mercy was they hadn't met earlier, he said, otherwise every man on the planet would be dead-irrespective of whether he'd found the nerve to rape them or not. Dick had never seen the movie, but he laughed nonetheless.

It wasn't surprising, therefore, that Prue distorted the facts when she spoke to Eleanor that Boxing Day morning. Julian's "passing the buck" became "a typical male reluctance to be involved"; Dick's "idiocy in phoning Shenstead Manor" became "a panic reaction to something he couldn't handle"; and the solicitor's "abusive calls" and "slander" became "cowardly threats because James was too frightened to sue."

"How many travelers are there?" asked Eleanor. "It's not a repeat of Barton Edge, I hope. The Echo gave a figure of four hundred for that."

"I don't know-Dick went off in a huff without giving any details-but there can't be many or their vehicles would be clogging the street. The traffic jams to Barton Edge were five miles long."

"Did he call the police?"

Prue gave an irritated sigh. "Probably not. You know how he shies away from confrontation."

"All right, leave it with me," said Eleanor, who was used to taking control. "I'll have a look, then ring the police. There's no point wasting money on solicitors before we have to."

"Call me back when you know what's happening. I'm in all day. Jack and Belinda are due this evening… but not till after six."

"Will do," said Eleanor, adding a cheerful "goodbye" before going through to the back porch to find her padded candy-stripe jacket and designer walking boots. She was a few years older than her friend, rapidly approaching sixty, but she always lied about her age. Prue's hips were spreading disastrously, but Eleanor worked hard to keep hers in trim. HRT had kept her skin in good condition for eight years but she was obsessive about keeping her weight down. She didn't want to be sixty; she certainly didn't want to look sixty.

She sidled past her BMW in the drive, and thought how much better everything had been since Ailsa died. There was no question who was the leading lady of the village now. The money situation had improved by leaps and bounds. She boasted to Prue about bull markets and the wisdom of investing offshore, while being grateful that her friend was too stupid to understand what she was talking about. She didn't want to answer difficult questions.

Her route to the Copse took her past Shenstead Manor and she paused to fire her usual inquisitive glance up the driveway. She was surprised to see a dark green Discovery parked in front of the dining-room window and wondered who it belonged to. Certainly not the solicitor, who had arrived in a silver Lexus on Christmas Eve, nor Leo, who had driven her around London a couple of months ago in a black Mercedes. Elizabeth? Surely not. The Colonel's daughter could barely string a sentence together, let alone drive a car.

Mark put out a hand to hold Nancy back as they rounded the corner of the house from the garage block. "There's that bloody Bartlett woman," he said crossly, nodding toward the gate. "She's trying to work out who your car belongs to."

Nancy took stock of the distant figure in its pink jacket and pastel ski pants. "How old is she?"

"No idea. Her husband admits to sixty, but she's his second wife-used to be his secretary-so she's probably a lot younger."

"How long have they lived here?"

"Not sure. Three years… four years."

"What did Ailsa think of her?"

"Called her Tokeweed'… common as muck, pokes her nose in where it isn't wanted, stinks to high heaven, and lives in a bog." Mark watched Eleanor move out of sight, then turned to Nancy with a grin. "It's a poisonous plant in America. Gives you headaches and nausea if you're unwise enough to swallow it. Your mother probably knows about it if she's interested in global flora. Ailsa certainly did. It has pretty berries and edible shoots but the root and stem are poisonous."

Nancy smiled. "What did she call Prue Weldon?"

"Staggerbush. A poisonous shrub that affects sheep."

"You?"

He moved out onto the drive. "What makes you think she called me anything?"

"Instinct," she murmured, following him.

"Mandrake," he said dryly.

It was Nancy's turn to laugh. "Was that meant as a compliment or an insult?"

"I was never too sure. I looked it up once. The root is said to look like a man and gives a terrible shriek when it's pulled from the ground. The Greeks used it as both an emetic and an anesthetic. It's poisonous in large doses and soporific in small ones. I prefer to think she looked at my name, M. Ankerton… saw Man… and added drake."

"I doubt it. Pokeweed and Staggerbush are brilliantly evocative, so presumably Mandrake was intended to be, too. Man. Drake." Her eyes twinkled again as she made a deliberate separation between the words. "Doubly macho, therefore. I'm sure it was meant as a compliment."

"What about the poisonous aspect?"

"You're not giving credit to its other properties. It's fabled to have magical powers, particularly against demonic possession. In the Middle Ages people put the roots on their mantelpieces to bring happiness and prosperity to their houses and ward off evil. It was also used as a love potion and a cure for infertility."

He looked amused. "You've got Ailsa's genes as well," he said. "That's almost word for word what she said when I accused her of lumping me in with Pokeweed and Staggerbush."

"Mm," she said coolly, leaning against her car, still indifferent to her genetic heritage. "What did she call James?"

"Darling."

"I don't mean to his face. What was her nickname for him?"

"She didn't have one. She always referred to him as 'James' or 'my husband.' "

She crossed her arms and stared at him with a thoughtful expression. "When she called him 'darling,' did she sound as if she meant it?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Most people don't. It's a term of endearment that means very little… like: 'I love you with all my heart.' If someone said that to me, I'd stick my fingers down my throat."

He recalled how often he'd called women "darling" without thinking about it. "What do you like to be called?"

"Nancy. But I'm happy to accept Smith or Captain."

"Even by lovers?"

"Particularly by lovers. I expect a man to know who I am when he shoves his prick up my fanny. 'Darling' could be anyone."

"Christ!" he said with feeling. "Do all women think like you?"

"Obviously not, otherwise they wouldn't use endearments on their men."

He felt an irrational need to defend Ailsa. "Ailsa seemed to mean it," he said. "She never used it for anyone else… not even for her children."

"Then I doubt James ever lifted a finger against her," Nancy said matter-of-factly. "It sounds to me as if she used names to define people, not reinforce their violence with pretty words. What did she call Leo?"

Mark looked interested, as if her more objective eye had seen something he hadn't. "Wolfsbane," he said. "It's a form of aconite, highly poisonous."