She was a good sixty, but HRT, Botox injections, and regular home aerobics were doing their bit to keep her skin firm. From a distance, she looked younger, but not tonight. She lay on the sofa, eyes glued to the television screen in the corner where EastEnders was playing, her ferrety face puffed and blotchy from the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the floor. Unaware of a Peeping Tom, she kept delving her hand into her bra to scratch her breasts, making her blouse gape and showing the telltale sags and wrinkles around her neck and cleavage.

It was the human side of a nouveau-riche snob and it would have amused Fox if he had any liking for her. Instead, it increased his contempt. He moved around the side of the house to see if he could locate her husband. As usual, Julian was in his study, his face, too, flushed with alcohol from the bottle of Glenfiddich on the desk in front of him. He was talking on the telephone and his hearty laugh rattled against the pane. Snippets of the conversation drifted through the glass. "…don't be so paranoid… she's watching telly in the sitting room… of course not… she's far too self-centered… yes, yes, I should be there by nine thirty at the latest… Geoff tells me the hounds are out of practice and saboteurs are expected in droves…"

Like his wife he didn't look his age, but he kept a secret stash of Grecian 2000 in his dressing room that Eleanor didn't know about. Fox had found it on a stealthy tour of the house one afternoon in September when Julian had gone out and left the back door unlocked. The hair dye wasn't the only thing that Eleanor didn't know about, and Fox toyed with the razor in his pocket as he thought of his satisfaction when she found out. The husband couldn't control his appetites, but the wife had a vicious streak that made her fair game to a hunter like Fox.

He abandoned Shenstead House to stalk the weekender cottages, looking for life. Most were boarded up for the winter, but in one he found a foursome. The overweight twin sons of the London banker who owned it were with a couple of giggly girls who clung to the men's necks and shrieked hysterically every time they spoke. The fastidious side of Fox's nature found the spectacle distasteful: Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with the sweat of overindulgence staining their shirts and glistening on their brows, looking to score over Christmas with a couple of willing scrubbers.

The twins' only attraction for women was their father's wealth-which they vaunted-and the fervor with which the drunken girls were throwing themselves into the party spirit suggested a determination to be part of it. If they had any intention of emerging before their libidos wore out, Fox thought, they wouldn't be interested in the encampment at the Copse.

Two of the commercial rents had staid-looking families in them, but otherwise there were only the Woodgates at Paddock View-the husband and wife team who looked after the commercial properties, and their three young children-and Bob and Vera Dawson at Manor Lodge. Fox couldn't predict how Stephen Woodgate would react to travelers on his doorstep. The man was deeply lazy, so Fox's best guess was that he would leave it to James Lockyer-Fox and Dick Weldon to sort out. If nothing happened by the beginning of January, Woodgate might make a phone call to his employers, but there'd be no urgency until the letting season got under way in spring.

By contrast, Fox could predict exactly how the Dawsons would react. They would bury their heads in the sand as they always did. It wasn't their place to ask questions. They lived in their cottage courtesy of James Lockyer-Fox and, as long as the Colonel honored his wife's promise to keep them there, they would pay lip service to supporting him. In a bizarre echo of the Bartletts, Vera was glued to EastEnders and Bob was closeted in the kitchen, listening to the radio. If they spoke at all that night, it would be to have a row, because whatever love they had once shared was long since dead.

He lingered for a moment to watch the old woman mutter to herself. In her way she was as vicious as Eleanor Bartlett but hers was the viciousness of a wasted life and a diseased brain, and her target was invariably her husband. Fox had as much contempt for her as he had for Eleanor. In the end, they had both chosen the lives they led.

He returned to the Copse and picked his way through the wood to his vantage point beside the Manor. It was all good, he thought, catching sight of Mark Ankerton sitting hunched over the old man's desk in the library. Even the solicitor was on hand. It wouldn't suit everyone, but it suited Fox. He held them all to blame for the man he had become.

The first person to see the encampment was Julian Bartlett, who drove past at eight o'clock on Boxing Day morning on his way to the West Dorset meet at Compton Newton. He slowed as he spotted a rope across the frontage with a painted notice saying "keep out" hanging from its center, and his gaze was drawn to the vehicles among the trees.

Dressed for the hunt, in yellow shirt, white tie, and buff breeches, and towing a horsebox behind his Range Rover, he had no intention of becoming involved and speeded up again. Once out of the valley, he drew onto the side of the road and phoned Dick Weldon, whose farm the land abutted.

"We have visitors in the Copse," he said.

"What sort of visitors?"

"I didn't stop to find out. They're almost certainly fox lovers, and I didn't fancy taking them on with Bouncer in the back."

"Saboteurs?"

"Maybe. Most likely travelers. Most of the vehicles look like they've come from a scrap-metal yard."

"Did you see any people?"

"No. I doubt they're awake yet. They've slung a notice across the entrance saying 'keep out', so it might be dangerous to tackle them on your own."

"Damn! I knew we'd have a problem with that piece of land eventually. We'll probably have to pay a solicitor to get rid of them… and that's not going to be cheap."

"I'd call the police if I were you. They deal with this kind of thing every day."

"Mm."

"I'll leave it with you then."

"Bastard!" said Dick with feeling.

There was a faint laugh. "It'll be chicken feed compared with the melee I'm heading for. Word is the sabs have been seeding false trails all night, so God only knows what sort of a shambles it's going to be. I'll call when I get home." Bartlett switched off his mobile.

Irritably, Weldon pulled on his Barbour and summoned his dogs, calling up the stairs to his wife that he was going to the Copse. Bartlett was probably right that it was a job for the police, but he wanted to satisfy himself before he phoned them. His gut feeling said they were saboteurs. The Boxing Day meet had been well publicized and, after the ten months' layoff because of foot-and-mouth, both sides were spoiling for a fight. If so, they'd be gone again by the evening.

He bundled the dogs into the back of his mud-spattered Jeep and drove the half-mile from the farmhouse to the Copse. The road had a hoar of frost on it and he picked up Bartlett's tire tracks coming from Shenstead House. There was no sign of life anywhere else and he guessed that, like his wife, people were making the most of their bank-holiday lie-in.

It was a different story at the Copse. As he drew into the entrance, a line of people spread out behind the rope barrier to block his way. They made an intimidating array with balaclavas and scarves hiding their faces and thick coats bulking out their bodies. A couple of barking Alsatians on leads lunged forward as the vehicle stopped, teeth bared aggressively, and Dick's two Labradors set up an answering clamor. He cursed Bartlett for driving on by. If the man had had the sense to demolish the barrier and call for reinforcements before these buggers could organize, instructions to keep out would have had no validity. As it was, Dick had a nasty suspicion they might be within their rights.