Survivor

by Roberta Kray

  ‘And just who are you?’

  ‘Nick Trent.’

  Lita shook her head. ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’

  ‘No, we’ve never met before. But you knew my uncle. Stanley Parrish?’

  She drew in a breath. It had been a long time since she’d even thought about Stanley. ‘Oh,’ she said. And now that she looked at Trent more closely, she could see the resemblance, the rather long gaunt face and the mouth that curled down at the corners. ‘He was a nice man. I’m sorry about… It was sad, what happened to him.’

  ‘The accident?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lita said.

  ‘If it was an accident.’

  Lita frowned. She had a sudden memory of Esther saying exactly the same thing all those years ago. ‘What do you mean? Do you think —’

  ‘I don’t think anything as yet,’ Trent said. ‘I’m keeping an open mind. But I’m hoping Mr Fury may be able to shed some light on it all. Maybe I could talk to you too. I don’t mean right now or tonight, but tomorrow perhaps? If you could spare half an hour, I’d be very grateful.’

  ‘I suppose,’ she said reluctantly, ‘but I only met him a couple of times. I’m not sure I could tell you anything useful.’

  ‘Well, who knows what’s useful and what isn’t? We’ll wait and see. If I come here tomorrow afternoon about two o’clock, would that suit you?’

  ‘All right then. Two o’clock.’ As Lita left the balcony, leading him through the house and into the coolness of the hallway, she experienced a strange shivery sensation. It might just have been the change in temperature after the warmth of the garden, but it felt like something else: ghosts from the past, perhaps, coming back to haunt her.

  40

  Nick Trent’s life was in the toilet. As he waited in the library – Lita had left him there while she went off to search for Mal Fury – he had plenty of time to muse on this truth. He was twenty-two, jobless and living in a crappy London bedsit that was barely big enough to swing the proverbial cat. He had no direction, no future and a rapidly dwindling bank balance. And whose fault was all of that? His own, of course, as his father never tired of telling him.

  Nick’s career in the police force had been short and not in the slightest bit sweet. He’d only stuck it out as long as he had because of his mum. She’d been so proud of him, following in his uncle’s footsteps, and he hadn’t wanted to let her down. But the truth was he’d never been cut out to be a cop. He didn’t like taking orders and didn’t care for the mentality of most of his colleagues.

  The death of his mother – it had only been six months ago – still filled him with a raw, cruel pain. Her life, although she’d never complained, hadn’t been a happy one. She had married the wrong man but, like so many women of her generation, had made the best of a bad job. Had she ever considered leaving him? It must have crossed her mind, especially after Stanley had been banished from the house. He hoped she hadn’t stayed for his sake, in some mistaken belief that a son needed his father.

  It was his mother’s will, ironically, that had freed him from the shackles of a job he’d come to loathe. She had left him two thousand pounds, money that she must have scrimped and saved from the meagre housekeeping his father had provided. He’d handed in his notice the day the cash had gone into his account and had been living off it ever since.

  Nick had found his uncle’s work files when he was helping his father to clear out the garage, half a dozen boxes filled with brown folders. ‘What should I do with these?’

  ‘Just throw them in the bin. God knows why your mother kept all that rubbish.’

  But Nick hadn’t thrown them away. Instead he’d stashed them in his car, half in the boot, half on the back seat, and taken them home. In truth, most of it had made for tedious reading: insurance jobs, divorce cases, investigations into missing cats and the like. It was only when he’d come across the Fury file that his interest had been piqued. It was a thick folder covering years of work, a tale of child kidnap, of murder, of interviews, clues and leads and a string of dead ends. All of which had led him here to Mal Fury’s house.

  He stood up and walked over to the French windows that overlooked the garden. The party was in full swing, the champagne flowing, but all Nick could think about was a murdered girl and a lost baby. It was clear from his uncle’s long and meticulous notes that he believed Kay Fury had drowned on the day of her abduction – but still the search had gone on. Without any definitive answers, all that had been left was hope.

  He sighed, turned away from the revellers and began to pace around the library. Why was he getting involved in this? It was partly down to his conscience, he thought, a means of assuaging his guilt: if he couldn’t be a cop – even for his mother’s sake – he could at least try and find out the truth about how and why her brother had died. And he’d liked Stanley too. They’d been close when he was a kid, before his father had refused to have him in the house.

  Nick rolled his eyes at the thought of it. He hadn’t known at the time but there had been a scandal involving Stanley and another man. Back then, homosexuality had been a dirty word, or at least it had been in the Trent household. What had his father been so afraid of? That it might be catching, perhaps, or that Stanley could have perverse designs on his nephew? He could still remember opening the card on his seventeenth birthday to find the ten-pound note inside. By then Stanley was already dead and his mother’s eyes were red from crying.

  It was down to his mum’s sentimentality that so much of Stanley’s stuff still existed. When she had emptied his flat and his office, she had kept all the paperwork, including the phone bills. It was from the last of these that Nick had been able to see that Stanley had made two calls on the day he died, one to West End Central police station and the other to Mal Fury.

  When Nick had called the house this morning, he hadn’t even expected to be put through to Mal. The rich and privileged had ways of protecting themselves from unwanted intrusions. But amazingly the man had taken his call, had been polite, even pleasant when he’d told him who he was, and then invited him over this evening.

  ‘About eight o’clock,’ Mal said. ‘Would that suit?’

  He hadn’t mentioned a party and, after driving to West Henby and giving his name to the uniformed guy on the gate, Nick had been surprised to find a drive full of expensive cars and a house full of people. And not just any people. These were the rich and the famous, the crème de la crème. He had recognised the faces as he strolled through the grounds; men and women he’d seen at the cinema or who graced his TV screen.

  However, he wasn’t the type to be starstruck, and was more curious than in awe of them. They were like a different species inhabiting a different world, a place where the superficiality of fame was all that really mattered. He had noticed Esther straight away and not just from the thick sheaf of press cuttings in the Fury file. She was one of those women who stood out in a crowd.

  It had been obvious from Stanley’s notes that he’d neither liked nor trusted Esther Fury. At best he had held a grudging sympathy for her (who couldn’t feel sorry for someone who had lost a child in such tragic circumstances?) but had, maybe, seen her more clearly than those who were blinded by her beauty. Even now, at the age of thirty-eight, she was enough to take your breath away.

  Nick could have asked anyone where he could find Mal Fury but had chosen to put the question to Esther. He had wanted to get up close to her, to get a sense for himself of what she was really like.

  ‘Mal?’ she had said, looking round. ‘Oh heavens, I’ve really no idea. He’s probably in the house somewhere. Why don’t you —’ But at that very moment, her attention had been caught by a young couple sitting on the grass a few yards away. ‘Actually, I’ve got a better idea. Come with me.’

  Nick had seen that the girl was none too impressed at being despatched to find Mal. And he had seen something else too, the way the guy called Jude looked at Esther. Was he Lita’s friend or her boyfriend? It was hard to tell,
but the guy only had eyes for the actress. And perhaps the actress liked what she saw too. He was one of those handsome, moody looking blokes, the type who probably modelled himself on James Dean.

  It had taken him about thirty seconds to make the connection between Lita and Lolly, the girl the Furys had taken in when she was thirteen years old. He wouldn’t have known her from the black and white passport photo Stanley had in the file. She’d looked an odd sort of kid, but then those booths weren’t exactly flattering. The grown-up Lita certainly wasn’t a beauty – not in the Esther league – although she did have an interesting face. And he didn’t mean that in a disparaging way. Bland, pretty girls were ten a penny but there was something about Lita that made you want to look twice.

  Nick wasn’t sure what to make of her yet. It struck him that she didn’t quite fit in with these showy, glittering people, and that the Kellston Lolly still lurked in her somewhere, hidden beneath the fancy clothes and the smoothed-out accent. He knew that Stanley had been concerned about bringing her here, about leaving her here, but perhaps the alternative had seemed too bleak a prospect.

  Nick had just returned to the window when the door to the library opened and Mal Fury came in. He was suave and elegant, older than the man in the newspaper clippings but still undeniably handsome.

  ‘My apologies,’ he said, striding over to Nick and holding out his hand. ‘It’s good to meet you. I’m sorry to keep you waiting.’

  ‘And I’m sorry to disturb you. I didn’t realise you had guests. We could have arranged a different time.’

  Mal shook his head. ‘No, really, it’s quite all right. Do sit down; make yourself comfortable. Let me get you a drink. Scotch? Or would you prefer a brandy?’

  ‘Scotch is fine, thank you.’

  Mal poured the drinks and handed a glass to Nick. ‘I liked your uncle,’ he said. ‘He was a decent man. He had integrity. What happened – well, it was a tragedy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick agreed. ‘It was very sad.’ He took a sip of the Scotch; the whisky was deep and smooth, slightly smoky, and slid easily down his throat. ‘And I really don’t want to cause any upset. I appreciate how delicate the situation is, how painful for you and your wife. I didn’t come here to —’

  ‘You just want some answers, right? That’s fine. I understand.’

  ‘It’s the loose ends,’ Nick explained.

  ‘If I can help, I will. You have my word on it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Nick drank some more whisky while he collected his thoughts. Where to start? He was playing this pretty much by ear, wanting to keep the man on side while he tried to squeeze as much information as he could from him. Stanley had liked Mal Fury, which made Nick inclined to like him too, but when it came to murder it didn’t pay to trust anyone. ‘What I’ve been wondering is what Stanley spoke to you about on the day of the accident.’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  Nick frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I didn’t talk to him that day. I’m sure of it.’

  Nick reached into his pocket and took out a phone bill. ‘According to this, he made two calls, one to West End Central police station, the other one to here. This is your number, isn’t it?’

  Mal took the bill and stared down at it. ‘Yes. Mrs Gough or Esther must have answered the phone.’

  ‘The call lasted for six minutes.’

  ‘I can only presume that they went to look for me.’

  Six minutes seemed like a long time to Nick, but then again it was a big house. ‘And he didn’t leave a message, not even to let you know he’d called?’

  ‘No. Or maybe they forgot – whoever answered, I mean. I can ask, see if anyone remembers, but after all this time…’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Do you think it might have been important?’

  Nick countered with another question. ‘Did he often ring you here?’

  ‘Sometimes here, sometimes at work. But no, not that often. I suppose it could have been about Lita. She hadn’t been here long. He might have wanted to check how she was.’ Mal Fury gazed at him over the rim of his glass. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘He called someone at West End Central, had a fifteen-minute conversation with them – well, thereabouts, depending on how long he was on hold – and then immediately tried to call here. It might just be a coincidence, but it suggests he found out something he wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘It could have been anything.’

  ‘And then a few hours later, he was killed in a hit-and-run in Kellston.’

  ‘You don’t think it was an accident?’

  ‘It’s never crossed your mind?’

  Mal tilted back his head, was silent for a while and then released a sigh. ‘The police gave the impression it was straightforward, that the driver panicked and drove off. I mean, why would anyone want to deliberately kill him?’

  ‘Maybe he’d found out something. Maybe he was getting a little too close to the truth.’

  ‘That’s a lot of maybes.’

  Nick glanced towards the window. From where he was sitting he could see the guests in all their finery parading through the garden. The evening light had a fading quality about it. He returned his attention to the matter in hand, dug into his pocket again, took out another sheet of paper and passed it over. ‘And then there’s this. The name underlined in red: what can you tell me about him?’

  Mal stared down at the list. ‘Not much.’

  Nick thought the man’s face had paled a little but couldn’t be sure. ‘You knew him, though? You must have done.’

  ‘Briefly, and it was a long time ago. He was a friend of Esther’s, one of those down-at-heel actor types, waiting for the big break that was never going to happen. He had a problem.’ Mal nodded towards his glass. ‘A bit too fond of the hard stuff from what I remember. But he was harmless enough.’

  ‘Did the police ever interview him?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was about a year since we’d seen him by then, maybe longer. I don’t think he was even in the country. There was a rumour he’d gone to Spain, looking for work on the Spaghetti Westerns. Almeria, I think; they shot a lot of those films in the Tabernas Desert. But the movie business is full of rumours. I’ve no idea if it was true or not. Anyway, he was never a suspect. Most mornings Teddy was barely capable of tying his shoelaces, never mind pulling off a kidnap.’

  ‘Even drunks need money,’ Nick said. ‘And it wasn’t exactly “pulled off”, was it? It all went badly wrong. Hardly the work of a professional.’

  ‘No, I can’t see it. Teddy wasn’t the type.’

  ‘And what is the type?’

  Mal played with his glass while he thought about. ‘Cruel, brutal, ruthless? He was none of those things.’

  ‘Vengeful?’

  ‘Why would Teddy want revenge? He had no reason to hate us. On the contrary. We were always good to him.’

  Nick wondered whether being the recipient of the Furys’ largesse would be enough to trigger a simmering resentment. ‘So Stanley never mentioned him to you, never asked you about him?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea why he might have underlined the name?’

  Mal gave a shrug. ‘I really can’t think of any reason.’

  A silence fell over the room. Nick kept his eyes fixed on Mal Fury. He had the feeling he was being lied to. It was a gut instinct, a kind of inner prompting, but those feelings were often the most telling. Something was wrong – he was sure of it – and he wasn’t going to give up until he found out what it was.