Survivor: Only the strongest will remain standing . . .

by Roberta Kray

  Lita, still stung by his response, said nothing.

  ‘Please don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean to have a go. I’ve had too much to drink and… You’re the one person I’d never want to hurt.’ Jude reached out and gave her arm a friendly squeeze. ‘You’re my lucky charm, Lolly, remember? And all of this, what’s going on now, is down to you. If you hadn’t invited me to the party, I’d never have met Esther and she’d never have introduced me to Claud. I’m really grateful. You do realise that, don’t you?’

  An earlier suspicion snaked its way back into Lita’s head. What if Jude’s appearance in the village last Saturday hadn’t been a coincidence? Maybe he’d already known about the party and was angling for an introduction all along. Maybe he’d had more on his mind than an outstanding apology over something that happened years ago. It was an ugly thought and she tried to push it away.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said stiffly. ‘And people call me Lita now, remember?’

  ‘I can’t get used to that.’ Inclining his head to one side, he smiled at her. ‘Please say you forgive me, Lita. I’m just a drunken idiot. Tell me how I can make it up to you. I’ll take you for that dinner, yeah, next week? What do you reckon? Is it a date? Come on, please say yes.’

  Lita, still wary of his motives – and not wanting to look like a pushover – gave a shrug. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Good. That’s all I want. And now tell me what’s been going on. I’ve been rambling on about myself for ever. I haven’t even asked about you.’

  Lita hesitated, not sure if she wanted to confide in him right now. ‘Not much.’

  ‘You’re the worst liar in the world. Something’s up. I mean something more than my awful behaviour. You can tell me. You know you can.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It clearly does. Come on, just tell me, yeah?’

  She glanced at him and looked away. ‘It’s a bit weird.’

  ‘I can do weird.’

  She hesitated again. ‘Do you… do you remember that guy who turned up at the party looking for Mal? Esther brought him over. He was called Nick, Nick Trent.’

  Jude nodded. ‘What about him?’

  And Lita couldn’t hold it in any longer. The rest quickly spilled out – Angela’s marriage to Billy Martin, the stuff about Teddy, Stanley’s ‘accident’ and, finally, the coup de grâce, the fact that her mother might not be her mother at all. She paused for breath, drawing the thick summer air into her lungs. ‘So there you go. If she couldn’t have kids, I’m either a modern-day miracle or I’m not actually her daughter.’

  ‘Jesus, what was Mal thinking keeping something like that a secret?’

  ‘I suppose he was trying to protect me.’

  ‘From what? The truth?’

  ‘He didn’t know what the truth was, not for sure.’

  ‘He had a pretty good idea.’

  Lita pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘It’s not his fault, not really. He just didn’t want to see me get hurt.’

  ‘Why are you defending him? He had no right to keep you in the dark.’

  ‘But it’s not an easy decision to make. I think, after Stanley died, he decided it would be kinder to let things lie. I’m not saying it’s right, just that I kind of understand it.’

  Jude didn’t seem to share this point of view. He pulled at the short grass with his fingers, dragging it out by the roots. ‘People like him reckon they can do whatever they like. Just because they have money and influence, they think they can walk all over the rest of us.’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’

  ‘It’s true, though. So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I need some time… I don’t know.’

  Jude left off tormenting the grass, put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the trunk of the oak tree. He half closed his eyes and gave a sigh. ‘I always used to dream that my mother wasn’t my real mum. It would explain why she left like that, just buggered off without a word. I mean, she could have got a divorce, for God’s sake, if she wasn’t happy. She didn’t have to… Anyway, what the hell. I’ve done all right without her. And you’ll be all right too. I know you will.’

  Lita nodded. ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘Of course you will. And if you look at it a different way, maybe she did you a favour in the end.’

  ‘A favour?’ Lita echoed, not understanding what he meant.

  ‘Well, if she hadn’t topped herself like that, you’d never have ended up here.’

  Lita stared at him. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’

  ‘Is it?’ He frowned. ‘I didn’t mean it to be, but have you forgotten what it was like back then? Half the time you had nothing to eat, no gas, no electricity. What kind of life is that for a kid? You could have starved to death and she wouldn’t have noticed. She wasn’t fit to look after you.’

  ‘She was sick. It wasn’t her fault.’

  Jude rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘Why do you always make excuses for everyone?’

  ‘I don’t. I just…’

  ‘Yes, you do. You need to get some backbone, Lolly, start standing up for yourself. You’re not a kid any more, you’re a grown woman. Don’t let other people run your life.’ He jumped to his feet, brushing the grass off his trousers. ‘Figure out what you want and go get it. That’s sure as hell what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I need a pee,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Lita watched him walk over to the house, her gaze fixed on his back. Sometimes Jude was hard to like. He was full of contradictions, kind one moment, cruel the next. But perhaps that was what attracted her. He’d always been different to other boys.

  After a while Anna sauntered across the lawn, a cigarette in her hand. ‘So that’s Jude Rule,’ she said, despite having seen him at lunch. ‘You should watch out. Your boyfriend is too handsome for his own good.’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

  ‘No,’ Anna said slyly. ‘I don’t believe he is.’

  49

  It probably wouldn’t be the smartest move in the world to approach Terry Street in his own pub and ask if he knew anything about the death of Stanley Parrish, but Nick Trent was running out of ideas. He sat in the Fox, sipping on a pint of London Pride while he thought about it. He’d been in Kellston for over an hour and had already faced two major disappointments. The first had come with the discovery that Ma Fenner had passed away three years ago. Would she have had anything to add to what she’d already told his uncle? Well, he’d never know now. The second had been arriving at Connolly’s only to find that Maeve Riley had finished her shift and wouldn’t be in work again until tomorrow.

  A visit to the pawnbroker’s hadn’t yielded much of interest either. Brenda Cecil had given him short shrift. She’d welcomed him with a generous smile when he first walked in, but that smile quickly faded at the mention of Lolly Bruce. Glaring at him through small angry eyes, her whole face had tightened, her jaw jutting out like an attack dog ready to pounce.

  ‘You’re wasting your time. I ain’t got nothin’ to say about that ungrateful little cow.’

  ‘And what about Stanley Parrish?’

  ‘What about him?’

  Nick had watched her carefully as he told an outright lie. ‘The police are reopening the inquiry into his death. It appears it might not have been an accident after all.’

  But Brenda hadn’t been fazed. Either that or she was damn good at hiding her feelings. ‘Yeah? And what’s that got to do with us? Or are the filth going to try and pin that on my Tony too?’

  Nick took a few more sips of his pint as he went over the exchange in his head. He couldn’t really see a motive for the Cecils killing Stanley. Brenda might have been pissed off at the lack of return she’d got on her investment in Lolly, but it was a big leap from that to cold-blooded murder. No, he couldn’t see it, not unless he was missing something.

/>   He glanced across the room at Terry who was currently chatting to a slim but well-developed blonde who kept throwing back her head and laughing too much. To the gangster’s right was a guy who looked big enough and mean enough to deter any Tom, Dick or Harry from asking his boss awkward questions. It was, he presumed, the infamous Vinnie who’d accompanied Joe Quinn on his visit to see Stanley.

  Nick had done his homework on Terry Street. He knew that he’d slid effortlessly into the gap left by Joe Quinn and was rapidly becoming even more powerful than his former guvnor. Whether he’d created that gap himself was still a matter for conjecture. Quinn’s two sons had gone down for their father’s murder but it wouldn’t be the first time the law had got it wrong. Anyway, it was a rumour that did little to damage Terry’s reputation, reminding his enemies – if they needed reminding – that he wasn’t a man to be messed with.

  Back when Stanley had died, Terry would only have been nineteen or so, just starting out on his criminal career – which begged the question of how much he might actually have known about Quinn’s activities. And even if he had been in on the hit-and-run, was he likely to tell? The answer to that was a big fat no, but Nick was still interested to find out what his reaction would be. It was a risky ploy, however, and perhaps one best left to a time when Vinnie wasn’t glued to his side.

  Nick, having made a sensible decision for once, finished his pint and left the Fox. He got in his car, drove along Station Road to the place where Stanley had been knocked down and pulled over. It was only a stone’s throw from Albert Road, where the toms plied their trade, and he wondered if this was where his uncle had been, or was headed, on the evening he died. But why? Certainly not to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. When it came to sex, Stanley had had about as much interest in women as Nick had in men.

  He sat there for a while hoping for some inspiration but receiving none. So what now? Reluctant to call it a day – he was no further on than when he’d started – he decided on one last-ditch attempt to find out something, anything, that could shed a little light on Stanley’s death.

  It turned out to be surprisingly easy to find Sheila Barstow. She was still living at the same Lambeth address recorded in the Fury file five years ago. When she answered the door he passed over one of the cheap business cards he’d had printed – Nick Trent, Private Investigator, with a fake West End address and his own phone number – and, smiling pleasantly, asked if she was Billy Martin’s sister.

  Sheila laughed in his face. ‘If it’s money you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place. I ain’t seen him in years.’

  ‘No, this is about Angela.’

  ‘What about her? If she wants to know where Billy is, I don’t have a clue. I told her straight last time she came round here, kicking up a rumpus, going on about how Billy had “disappeared”. The only place he’d disappeared to was some other woman’s bed, but she wasn’t having it. She was in a right old state.’

  ‘You haven’t heard, then?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘I’m afraid Angela is dead.’

  Sheila instantly stiffened, her face becoming tight and wary. ‘And what’s this got to with Billy? What are you saying, that he —’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. It was five years ago. A suicide.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ When she realised she wasn’t about to get dragged into a messy murder inquiry, her body visibly relaxed. ‘That’s a shame. Poor girl. I’m sorry to hear it.’

  Nick gave her the spiel about searching for Angela’s relatives and finally got invited inside. Now that he was here, he was almost wishing he wasn’t. It was bedlam in the Barstow house. He sat at the kitchen table while a horde of kids ran riot, chasing each other round the living room and up and down the stairs. A dog was barking, the TV blaring out. From the floor above, a baby cried intermittently, thin piercing wails that Sheila appeared oblivious to. He had thought the hardest part would be getting over the threshold but was rapidly revising this view. A dull pain was starting to throb in his temples. While Sheila made a brew, he told her about Lita, that she was eighteen now and hoping to track down some family.

  ‘Well, she’s not Billy’s if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘No, I’m aware of that. Angela couldn’t have kids, could she? And it’s all a bit vague as to where Lita came from. Did your brother ever mention anything to you?’

  ‘Half-brother,’ she corrected him. ‘And no, he told me sod all. He only came round here when he wanted something. Borrowed a score off me, didn’t he? Swore he’d have it back by Friday and that was the last I ever saw of the bastard.’ She placed a mug of strong tea in front of him. ‘We were never what you’d call close. He has a mean streak, Billy. Gets it from his dad.’

  ‘What about you and Angela? Did you see much of each other?’

  ‘Hang on a moment.’ Sheila strode to the door and yelled into the living room. ‘Will you lot shut the fuck up! I’m trying to have a conversation here.’ She came back to the table and sat down opposite him. ‘Not after they split up. I didn’t hear from her for years, not until Billy was back on the scene again. And God knows what all that was about. I mean, she knew what he was like. What was she thinking? You don’t make the same mistake twice.’

  ‘No,’ Nick agreed. ‘You wouldn’t think so.’

  ‘But there you go. Some women never learn.’

  ‘So you’ve no idea where Billy is now? Or how I could contact him? No old friends, mates he may have stayed in touch with?’

  ‘Not a clue, love. And I can’t say I’m sorry. Life’s a damn sight more peaceful when he’s not around.’

  Nick tried a different tack. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a guy called Teddy Heath? Not Ted Heath, the old PM, another one.’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Billy never mentioned him?’

  ‘No.’

  Nick guessed that Sheila wasn’t the type to volunteer information even if she had any. She came from a world where you shielded your own no matter what. Billy might not be her favourite person but he was still her flesh and blood. She’d keep her mouth shut unless she had a big enough incentive to open it. ‘Lita would be very grateful for any help you could give her. Very grateful.’

  Sheila lit a fag, puffed out some smoke and stared across the table. ‘She got money then, this Lita?’

  Nick smiled back. ‘Private investigators don’t come cheap.’

  Sheila thought about this for a while. She took a few more drags on her cigarette and drank some tea. ‘How much are we talking?’

  ‘It depends on what you know.’ With his finances in a less than healthy state, he couldn’t afford to fork out too much. ‘A score?’ he suggested. ‘That way you get back the money Billy owes you.’

  ‘Fifty.’

  Nick shook his head. ‘No way. Come on, the girl just wants to know who her parents are. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’

  ‘And what if I know something important?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Well, not where Billy is, that’s for sure, but there is something. I didn’t take much notice at the time – Angela wasn’t making any sense when she came round – but she kept muttering on about a secret she’d been made to keep. It was something to do with the kid.’

  Nick raised his brows in a sceptical fashion.