Survivor: Only the strongest will remain standing . . .

by Roberta Kray

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you there at twelve.’

  Lita said goodbye and hung up. She stood for a while gazing along the hallway, wondering if she’d done the right thing. But she had nothing to lose. If it turned out that Esther was lying, she could always ring and cancel the appointment. But if she was sticking to her story, Lita would need all the information she could get to help clear Mal’s name. He was innocent. He had to be. There was no way he was a murderer.

  53

  Lita had a restless night’s sleep, her dreams full of panic and dread. In them she was trying to run but her legs wouldn’t move properly. She was dragging herself along a street in Kellston, desperate to get somewhere although she didn’t know exactly where that somewhere was. It was winter, cold and dark, and the rain was lashing down. Jude was waiting for her – she was sure he was – but she wasn’t going to get to him on time.

  She woke at the crack of dawn, feeling as refreshed as a woman who had been on a treadmill all night. For a while she lay and listened to the chorus of the birds. Haphazard thoughts tumbled through her mind, one leading to another but none of them making a great deal of sense. Eventually a thin bright light began to stream through the gap in the curtains and she knew it was going to be sunny. Yet there would be nothing bright, she suspected, about the day that lay ahead.

  Later, hopefully, she would find out what was happening with Mal. Perhaps Esther had already thought better of what she’d told the police and retracted her statement. Or was that just wishful thinking? No matter how hard she tried, Lita could not cast Mal in the role of a murderer. He had always been kind to her, always patient. She had never even seen him lose his temper before yesterday. And what man wouldn’t get angry, wouldn’t get upset, when he discovered his wife was leaving him?

  Immediately she thought of Jude. If he was Esther’s lover, surely he’d have rung the house when she hadn’t turned up, trying to find out where she was and what was going on. Or maybe he’d presumed she’d had a change of heart and been too proud to go chasing after her. And then another idea entered her head: it was perfectly possible that Esther had got Mrs Gough to call him while she was at the hospital.

  Lita got up, had a wash, brushed her teeth and slowly got dressed. She put on her old faded jeans and a black T-shirt, ran a comb through her hair, tied it back in a ponytail and tried to prepare herself for whatever was coming next.

  The atmosphere in the kitchen was grim. Mrs Docherty was unusually quiet, shuffling around with her eyes downcast, shifting dishes from one place to another before moving them back again. She seemed at a loss as to what to do or say, and Lita understood how she felt. It was as though the house had undergone a fundamental change. Everything was weird and wrong, and nothing was as it should be.

  Lita grabbed some toast and went outside to eat it on the back step. It was probably too early for Considine to ring but she didn’t want to stray too far in case she missed the call. There was no sign of Mrs Gough so presumably she’d returned to the hospital. How long would it be before Esther came home? If she came home. But if Mal wasn’t here, there was no reason for her to stay away.

  The next few hours dragged by. Lita kept looking at her watch as if by sheer force of will she could make the phone start ringing. She roamed around the library, taking books off the shelves, flicking through them and putting them back. She worried about Mal – a night in a police cell can’t have been pleasant – and wondered how he was coping. Being falsely accused was a terrible thing.

  It was exactly 9.32 when the phone finally sprang into life. Lita rushed out of the library and snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Hello? Yes?’

  ‘Is that Lita?’

  ‘Yes, yes it is.’

  ‘This is Paul Considine. Apologies for the delay in getting back. I wanted to see Mr Fury again before I spoke to you.’

  The lawyer had a soft, lilting Scottish accent that under different circumstances might have sounded reassuring, but she heard something in its tone that sent a chill down her spine. ‘Is he all right? God, no, of course he isn’t. What’s going on? Can you say? Is it true that… Mrs Gough claims he’s going to be charged with the murder of Teddy Heath, that Esther has… I don’t understand. She came back from the hospital last night and…’ Then, realising she wasn’t giving him time to speak, she sucked in a breath and said, ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m not making any sense. I’m just… my head’s all over the place.’

  ‘That’s all right. But I’m afraid the news isn’t good.’

  Lita pressed the receiver against her ear. She swallowed hard, trying to stay calm, trying to prepare herself. ‘Okay. Just tell me.’

  As she listened to what Paul Considine had to say, she felt the hope rush from her lungs and the ground shift beneath her. She didn’t interrupt, didn’t ask any questions. It was all she could do to remain on her feet. His words flowed over and around her like some terrible tsunami.

  54

  Mal Fury lay back on the hard, narrow bunk, put his hands behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling. The police cell was small and bare, but he wouldn’t be here for long. Soon they’d be taking him to the magistrates’ court and from there, after he had entered his plea, to a London jail where he would be put in another cell probably not that different to this one. For now there was little else he could do but accept it.

  Twenty-four hours was all it had taken to rip his life apart. He could have denied the charge, of course, but Esther knew too much. Her betrayal didn’t come as any great shock. What was more surprising, perhaps, was that she’d kept her mouth shut for all these years. But now he understood that she’d simply been waiting for the right time, for the moment she could use the revelation to her own advantage. And he had played right into her hands.

  Mal smiled wryly. It didn’t pay to underestimate a woman like Esther. When she wanted something, nothing would stop her. She had played out the scene to perfection, drawing on all her acting abilities. And made damn sure there was a witness too. What she couldn’t have anticipated was that she’d fall so badly, but even that had turned out to her advantage. Now she could paint him as a cruel and violent man, the kind of husband who wouldn’t think twice about throwing his wife down a flight of steps.

  Mal felt less afraid than he probably should, although in truth he was still trying to get his head round it all. One minute he’d been in the frame for assault – well, two charges of assault if he counted the one against the officer who had tried to stop him getting in the ambulance – and the next he’d been staring down the barrel of a life sentence.

  DI Stone had been one of the detectives who’d interviewed him, an ageing, wily cop who had seen it all and heard it all, and probably wished he hadn’t. He’d interspersed his questions with soft wistful sighs, as though he harboured a quiet despair at the depths to which so many human beings sank.

  ‘Tell me about Teddy Heath. When did you first meet him?’

  Mal had thought about it. ‘It was before Kay was born. Three years? Four? Maybe longer. I don’t remember exactly. He was an actor of sorts. He didn’t get much work, bit parts mainly, but he liked to hang out with the crowd. I suppose he was quite charming in a drunken, louche kind of way.’

  ‘And your wife? How did she feel about Teddy?’

  ‘Oh, you already know the answer to that question. They had a brief affair, nothing serious. She soon got bored. As it happens, Esther has a very low boredom threshold. Teddy wasn’t the first and he wasn’t the last.’

  ‘And how did that make you feel?’

  ‘How do you think? But I’d learned to live with it by then. They came and went. We survived – the marriage survived. That’s how it was. I don’t expect you to understand. Why should you? I suppose our relationship isn’t what you’d call conventional.’

  ‘Some people might think that you killed Teddy Heath because he had an affair with your wife.’

  Mal gave a dry smile. ‘If I’d murdered every m
an my wife had ever slept with, Inspector, you’d be looking at a serial killer.’

  DI Stone hadn’t smiled back. He’d stared at him, a slow careful scrutiny while he weighed up the truth – or otherwise – of what Mal was saying. ‘So when was the last time you saw Teddy? I mean, the last time before you bumped into him again in London.’

  ‘I don’t recall exactly. A year, eighteen months before Kay came along? He wasn’t her father if that’s what you’re thinking. No, he was well gone by then. There were rumours he was working in Spain, Almeria, but who knows? The acting business is full of rumour and gossip.’

  The next part of the interview had gone pretty much along the same lines as his conversation with Nick Trent, with Stone asking whether he’d ever suspected Teddy after Kay’s abduction and Mal saying that it had never crossed his mind. ‘Teddy wasn’t an aggressive sort of person. He might not have been what you’d call moral but even when he was drunk – which was most of the time – he was still good-natured. I got the impression he never planned anything, that he was one of those men who just drift through life.’

  ‘So take me through what happened that day in London. This was about two years after Kay was taken, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, 1960. It was November, early evening, about half past five. I was walking along Shaftesbury Avenue – I’d been to see a client in Covent Garden – when I spotted him. Well, I’d already walked straight past when I suddenly realised who it was. I turned round and called out his name. And that’s when it happened. Teddy turned round too, saw me, and then seemed to freeze. He had this look on his face – pure fear, horror – as though he’d just seen a ghost. And then he suddenly took off and sprinted away down the street. That’s when I knew.’

  ‘What did you know, Mr Fury?’

  ‘That he’d had something to do with Kay’s abduction.’

  DI Stone raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s quite a leap, don’t you think? I mean, couldn’t he have wanted to avoid you for a different reason? Like the fact he’d been sleeping with your wife, for instance?’

  ‘No, I’d seen him plenty of times after his affair with Esther ended. If I’d been going to confront him about it, I’d have done it long ago. This was something else. Call it a gut feeling, if you like, but no one reacts that way unless they’re seriously scared.’

  ‘So you went after him?’

  ‘No, not straight away. It was too late to try and catch up. He was out of sight by then. But I knew he’d need a drink after what had just happened. Teddy always needed a drink. So I decided to head into Soho and see if I could track him down. I figured it wasn’t that far away and was the kind of place he might feel safe.’

  ‘And you found him?’

  ‘Not for hours. I must have checked out every pub and bar before I finally came across him in a seedy little dive at the bottom of Berwick Street. It was late by then, almost closing time. He didn’t see me enter the bar so I went back outside and waited for him there. When he came out I followed him to his flat. I kept my distance but he was too drunk by then to be cautious. It was Lexington Street, about halfway along. He had a place above a shop, a barber’s.’

  Mal had paused to drink some water. His mouth was dry and he had the start of a hangover headache. He’d spent years trying to forget what had happened next, to delete the memory from his brain, but now it was all flooding back.

  ‘And then?’ DI Stone prompted.

  ‘I caught up with him just as he had the key in the lock. He tried to bolt again but I was ready this time. I pushed him through the door and up the stairs. Two flights. He was frightened. I could see that. Even with the booze inside him. I don’t know what I said exactly, something about having to know what happened to Kay. He tried to make out he didn’t understand, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He knew he’d blown it the minute he did a runner. That’s the irony, I suppose: if he hadn’t lost his nerve when we bumped into each other, I’d never have suspected him.’

  Mal lifted the plastic cup and drank some more water before he continued. ‘We went into the flat – it was filthy, a hovel – and that’s when he dropped the innocent act. He knew there was no point in pretending any more. He said it was all down to Esther, that he’d taken Kay to punish her, so she’d know how it felt to lose someone you loved. He was angry, bitter about how she’d treated him. It all came pouring out in a drunken tirade. I didn’t believe him, not entirely; I still think it was more about the money. He said he’d never meant to kill Cathy Kershaw, it had been an accident, but after that he’d been too afraid to go through with the ransom demand.’

  DI Stone nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘All I wanted to know was whether my daughter was still alive. That was the only thing that mattered. I didn’t want to hear his self-pitying crap. But then he turned all sly on me, said if I laid a finger on him or went to the law I’d never find out the truth, that he’d deny everything and I’d never see Kay again. He said she was safe, that she was living somewhere I’d never find her. He said we could make a deal, come to an “arrangement”, that if I paid him the reward money he’d tell me where she was.’

  ‘Did you believe him?’

  ‘I wanted to. At least I wanted to believe she wasn’t dead. But I didn’t trust him. And I was angry, at my wits’ end. It felt like he was playing games with me, with my daughter’s life and I just… I snapped, I suppose, and grabbed hold of him. I punched him, once, a couple of times perhaps – I’m not sure – and he staggered back and fell on the floor. I think I was shouting at him, swearing. Then he started clutching his chest. I thought he was faking it, just trying it on but then his eyes rolled back and…’ Mal shook his head. ‘He must have had a heart attack. I didn’t mean to kill him, I just —’

  ‘There’s no proof that you did kill him,’ Considine interrupted. He looked across the table at DI Stone. ‘Teddy Heath could have had a heart attack at any time. He was already sick, and he drank and smoked excessively. While it might be true that my client exacerbated the situation, in no way can it be proved that Heath died as a direct consequence of his actions that night. In fact, he called an ambulance and did all he could to try and revive the man. The last thing he wanted was to kill Teddy Heath – Teddy was the only person who knew of his daughter’s whereabouts.’

  Mal came back to the present, blinked a couple of times and continued to gaze up at the ceiling and the web of cracks running across the plaster. He had agreed in the end to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Considine had recommended this, saying that if he got a sympathetic judge prepared to take into account the mitigating circumstances, he might get a suspended sentence. If he pleaded not guilty, the case would be in the hands of the jury and they might, if he was unlucky, decide that he had used excessive force in trying to persuade Teddy to come clean.

  Parts of that night were not entirely clear to Mal. Had he waited for the police and the ambulance to arrive he would probably have been in a better position to explain and defend his actions, but instead he’d panicked. There had been no phone in the flat and he’d had to run down the street to find one. By the time he’d finished making the anonymous call, he’d known he wasn’t going back.

  This had been his first mistake, and the second had been his confession to Esther. He had still been in shock, of course, by the time he got home. Dazed and shaken, he hadn’t thought twice about telling her everything. For the next few days they had waited for the knock on the door, for the police to make the connection between them and Teddy Heath – but it had never happened.

  It was Mal who’d spotted the piece in the Evening News, the story about a man called Harry Taylor found dead in suspicious circumstances at his flat in Soho. That was when he realised Teddy had been using a pseudonym, reversing his initials, and that this fake identity meant the police didn’t know who the victim actually was. And that was how it had stayed until now.

  Mal felt no remorse over Teddy Heath’s death, only regret. That fatal heart attack had robbed them
of what might have been their only opportunity of discovering the truth. Kay was still out there somewhere, alive or dead. This was why Esther had stayed for so long. Guilt had been the third party in their marriage for all these years – her guilt for sleeping with Teddy in the first place, his for blowing the one chance of finding their daughter. Secrecy and lies had been the glue holding them together. But not any more. Esther had drawn a line and was finally moving on. She had turned her back on him. She had thrown him to the dogs.