by Roberta Kray
The younger cop, Carraway, finally opened his mouth. ‘And his plans for the future. What were those exactly?’
Lolly shrugged. ‘The same as anyone else’s: pick himself up, start again.’
‘He’s a jeweller, right?’
‘Yes.’ It was then Lolly recalled Mal talking about Antwerp, about how he might go there for a while, but she didn’t mention this to the cops. Anyway, how would he get out of the country without a passport? ‘That’s what he was going to do, go back into the business, maybe open a new store eventually.’
‘An expensive business to be in,’ Glass said.
‘I suppose.’ She wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at, maybe that Mal was rich enough to disappear without a trace. But she just couldn’t get her head round why Mal had done it. With so little time left to serve, it was utter madness.
‘Can you think of anywhere he might go?’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘No, I can’t think of anywhere.’
‘You don’t mind if we have a quick look around?’
Lolly stared at Sergeant Glass, her forehead scrunching into a frown. ‘You can’t think he’d come here. Why would he? He’d know you’d check. This is the last place he’d show up.’
But Glass was already on his feet. ‘It’s just routine.’
Lolly could have asked if he had a search warrant, but decided it was easier to get it over and done with. ‘Go ahead. Help yourself.’
The two officers completed their search in less time than it took to boil an egg. There was no rear exit and the flat wasn’t big enough to hide a cat, never mind a human being. Carraway emerged from the bedroom with disappointment written all over him, as though he’d expected to find Mal under the bed or huddled in the wardrobe. But it was Glass she was more concerned about. After checking the kitchen, he returned to the living room and hovered by the table, his jackdaw eyes drawn to the boxes. He reached out and poked a finger into one, delving between the items, looking for . . . for what? For something that might be on a list of stolen property, perhaps.
‘It’s just old stuff,’ she said, perhaps a tad too defensively. ‘I do it up and sell it.’
Eventually, he turned. ‘You do know it’s an offence to withhold information? If you have any knowledge as to Mal Fury’s whereabouts—’
‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not withholding anything. I swear. I don’t have a clue where he is. And I don’t understand why he’s done this. He must be ill, confused. He can’t be thinking straight.’
Glass’s face was thin, pinched-looking, as if the world and its lies pressed in on him. ‘If he gets in touch, let us know. He’s not doing himself any favours.’
‘Of course,’ Lolly said, although of course she wouldn’t.
She showed them out, closed the door and went back upstairs. Immediately she went over to the window and looked up and down the street, her gaze searching the passing faces, wondering if Mal was around somewhere. What had possessed him? Something must have happened, something she didn’t know about. If he was smart, he’d stay well away from Kellston.
She wondered if the law would put her under surveillance, hoping she’d make contact with him. With the murder at the arches, they might not have the manpower. Surely that was more important than tracking down an escaped prisoner who wasn’t a danger to anyone. But then again, Mal’s trial had been a high-profile one and his escape was likely to be all over the papers. The cops would want to grab him as soon as possible.
Lolly folded her arms across her chest. She didn’t know what to do, but doing nothing didn’t feel like an option. Her gaze fell on the phone box on the corner. She needed someone to talk to, someone to help her make sense of what had happened. Grabbing her purse, she dug out a handful of change and slipped it into her back pocket.
As she crossed the road, she kept her eyes peeled for a sign she was being watched but couldn’t spot anything obvious. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, though. Someone could be watching from a window or a car. Maybe they would think she was calling Mal. Well, they’d be wrong.
She dialled the number for Nick Trent, but only got his answering machine. ‘Hey, it’s me,’ she said. ‘Can you drop by when you have a minute?’ She paused and then added, ‘It’s about Mal.’
Lolly put the phone down, then picked it up again and called Stella. It rang and rang but nobody answered.
4
Friday 16 September. Dalston, London
Nick Trent got out of the car to stretch his legs and breathe in some diesel-laden London air. Surveillance could be a tedious business with lots of time spent twiddling your thumbs or sitting in traffic jams. For the past week he’d been tailing a man called Blake Sandler, a nasty bastard in his forties, a solicitor with links to organised crime and the National Front. The bloke also had a penchant for prostitutes.
Nick had no idea who the client was. His bosses, Marshall & Marshall, were two ex-cops who employed him to do as he was told and not ask too many questions. If he were to hazard a guess he would probably plump for the wife, looking to gather evidence before she began divorce proceedings. But then again it could be a business partner – the man had his fingers in lots of pies – or someone he’d crossed who wanted the dirt on him. There was always plenty of dirt when it came to the likes of Sandler.
The solicitor walked a fine line between law and criminality. He had bent coppers in his pocket, and drank with gangsters, thieves and lowlifes. He was the sort who could arrange for a jury to be nobbled or for witnesses to disappear. Bail was never a problem when Sandler was on the case.
Nick was parked up near a block of offices on the Kingsland Road at the Dalston end. Sandler had gone inside ten minutes before and there was no saying how long he’d be. There was no knowing who he’d gone to see either; the block had over twenty businesses in it. All Nick could do was be patient and wait. Despite hours of practice, patience still didn’t come easily.
He was about to get back in the car when he noticed the red Mini parked ten yards behind him. Something clicked in his head. He was sure it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it today. There was a girl with cropped fair hair sitting inside and she quickly turned her face away when he glanced over at her. So, he had company. Not a cop, he reckoned. Maybe another private investigator, but he didn’t think so. Not unless she was a rookie. If he’d clocked her, it wouldn’t be too long before Sandler did too. And that could be a problem. If he realised he was under surveillance, it would blow the whole job.
The little red Mini was distinctive, not like the battered white Ford he was driving. During a prolonged tail, both the car and the driver were frequently changed in order to minimise the risk. He made a decision, a quick one, sauntered over to the Mini and tapped on the window.
The blonde stared at him suspiciously before cracking open the window an inch.
‘Yes?’
He leaned down. ‘Sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering why you’re following Mr Sandler.’
‘I’m not.’
‘So, it’s just a coincidence, then, that I keep seeing you everywhere I go?’ This was a slight exaggeration, but he wanted her to know that she’d been well and truly sussed.
The girl, who was extraordinarily pretty – wide grey eyes, porcelain skin – gave him a pitying smile. ‘You’re not much of a detective.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning just that,’ she said. ‘It’s you I’ve been following.’
Nick, who hadn’t expected this particular answer, gave a start. ‘Me?’
‘You’re Nick Trent, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, and you are?’
‘Heather,’ she said. ‘Heather Grant. I want to talk to you about something.’
‘I have a phone. I’m in the book. You could have called.’
‘I hadn’t made my mind up.’
‘So you just thought you’d follow me around for a while?’
‘Pretty much,’ she said, as if it was the most normal thing
in the world.
‘You don’t think that’s a little strange?’
‘No stranger than you following some random bloke.’
She had a point, he supposed. Nick had one eye on the office block while this exchange was taking place. He didn’t want to be caught on the hop if Sandler suddenly appeared. ‘And have you made up your mind yet?’
‘You’ve kind of forced the issue, but . . . What time do you knock off?’
‘About six. Would you mind telling me what this is about?’
She hesitated, clearly still undecided as to how much to share. ‘Let’s not go into that now. I’ll meet you at seven. You know any cafés that are open late?’
Nick said the name of the first place that sprang into his head. ‘Connolly’s, on Kellston High Street. Do you know it?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘You could give me a clue before you leave.’
And then Heather Grant said something else he hadn’t expected to hear. ‘It’s about the Fury baby. Your uncle worked on the case, didn’t he?’
Nick narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you, some kind of reporter?’
‘No, I’m not a reporter.’
Then, before he could ask anything else, she wound up the window, started the engine and took off. He stood for a while gazing after her until the Mini disappeared around the corner. What the hell? That had come out of the blue. He was both suspicious and intrigued.
Nick went back to his car, got in and thought about it some more. It was over a year now since he’d last opened the file that his late uncle, Stanley Parrish, had left behind. Stanley had worked the Fury case for eleven years, sifting through the details of endless waifs and strays in the vain hope of finding Kay. It was possible, even probable, that the child had died on the day of the abduction – the pram had been found in the lake – but with no definitive proof the search had gone on.
Lolly Bruce had been one of those kids put forward, her origins shadowy enough to make her a candidate. Once it had been established that she wasn’t going to be the goose that lay the golden egg, her temporary foster mother, Brenda Cecil, had made plans to dump her in the care system. That was when Mal Fury had stepped in and offered to become her guardian. Why Lolly? She’d been, by all accounts, an unprepossessing thirteen-year-old, small and mousy, with nothing much to recommend her. Or perhaps that was exactly why. Mal could see her future and decided to change it.
In the long run, Nick wasn’t sure if Mal had done Lolly a favour or not. He had given her a roof over her head, fed, clothed and educated her, but removed her from her roots. Now she didn’t really know where she belonged. She seemed caught in a curious limbo. Even her name varied depending on where she was and who she was with. Mal’s wife Esther had insisted she be called Lita and that was how she’d been known at school and in the Fury household. In Kellston, however, she was always Lolly.
Nick was fond of her, maybe more than fond, and made an effort to keep in touch. She was different to the other girls he knew, sassy and streetwise, tough but vulnerable too. She was a mass of contradictions, sparky and unpredictable. Challenging was probably the word. He grinned. Yeah, that just about summed her up.
He stared at the office block. Sandler charged by the hour so he’d probably stretch out his appointment for as long as possible. His thoughts shifted onto Heather Grant. What was her game? His uncle had come across every con artist and charlatan in the business and left a record in his file. Nick had read through it over and over again, absorbing the details, and he wondered what angle she was going to take.
Maybe she wasn’t a reporter, or maybe she was. You could never believe what people told you. Her name might not even be Heather Grant. Interest in the Fury case had revived during Mal’s trial. A fat reward for information leading to the discovery of the whereabouts of Kay Fury was still on the table, and anyone with an eye for the main chance would be looking to take advantage.
Still, the encounter had perked up an otherwise dull day. Nick liked to think he was smart enough not to be seduced by a pretty face, that he didn’t keep his brains in his balls, but he wouldn’t be the first man to suffer from an inflated sense of moral superiority. It was all too easy to be blinded by beauty and end up with scrambled eggs for brains.
He wondered why he’d chosen Connolly’s as a meeting place. Maybe just the connection to Lolly. She only lived a short distance from the café and it would give him an excuse to drop by and have a chat. It worried him the way she lived, although he never told her that. She wouldn’t appreciate it. But he knew she’d become reacquainted with Terry Street, an association unlikely to do her any favours in the long term. Terry only ever looked out for number one. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up in the same accommodation as her guardian.
Nick checked his watch – twenty past four – and drummed his fingers on the wheel. How had Heather Grant even known about him? It wasn’t as if he’d had anything directly to do with the Fury case. Eighteen months ago, he’d gone looking for answers to his uncle’s death, a hit-and-run back in 1971, and started turning over some stones. That was how he’d met Mal Fury and Lolly. No one had ever been prosecuted over the ‘accident’, but he suspected the late Joe Quinn of being behind it. Stanley, whilst following a lead, had probably stumbled upon something Quinn didn’t want exposed and had paid with his life. Nick didn’t reckon that something was connected to Kay Fury.
None of this explained why Heather Grant should have an interest in him, and he meant interest in the loosest possible sense. Maybe she’d seen him with Lolly at Mal’s trial. Or followed the trail from Stanley. Or . . . Well, he could throw theories around all day and it wouldn’t make any difference. He’d find out soon enough.
Nick checked his watch again – twenty-five past four – and turned on the radio. Elvis Presley belting out ‘Way Down’. His mum had liked Elvis, much to his father’s disgust. His father, of course, disapproved of most things, or at least anything that brought a little joy and happiness into the world. Sadly, his mother had been of that generation who once they’d made their beds felt obliged to lie on them for ever.
The song finished and the news came on. A woman, believed to be a prostitute, had been found murdered in Kellston. Nick, who was in a cynical frame of mind, suspected that it wouldn’t have made the headlines had it not been for the Yorkshire Ripper being on the loose. There was a certain attitude in the media, and even amongst the police, that the violent death of a tom was less important than that of a ‘respectable’ woman, almost as if it was an occupational hazard of the job they chose to do. Although this latest murder was a long way from the Ripper’s usual hunting ground, his activities had made it newsworthy. There was slim chance it had been him, but the media never liked to miss an opportunity to scare the shit out of the public.
The radio didn’t give the name of the victim. One of Terry’s girls probably. He wouldn’t be best pleased. And not out of any pity, but purely because someone had destroyed one of his assets. That’s all the girls were to him, profit and loss, figures on a sheet. He’d want the bastard caught, though, just in case it became a habit.
Nick had been a cop once, although his career had been so short you only had to blink to miss it. He hadn’t taken to the authority – too reminiscent, perhaps, of his father’s iron rule – or to the attitudes. There was still a prevailing feeling in the Force that the end justified the means, even if the means weren’t always pretty. Corruption was rife. There were too many cops taking backhanders from villains, ‘losing’ evidence, or stitching up those they believed to be guilty.
Nick didn’t regret leaving the job – it wasn’t for him – but he missed the regular salary and the security. His work for Marshall & Marshall was usually mundane, gathering evidence on errant husbands or ploughing through stinking paperwork garnered from dustbins. It was surprising what people threw out: letters, bills, statements, receipts. All useful stuff when it came to piecing together what money was coming in and what was going out
.
It was another ten minutes before Sandler finally emerged from the office block with a jaunty stride and a smug expression on his face. What he was spending his money on was clear to see: Savile Row suit, stylish shoes, Rolex watch. He got into a yellow Jensen-Healey which cost more than Nick earned in a year. Still, it had the advantage of making him stand out. It was easy to tail a car like that in London without getting too close.
Nick started the engine, hoping Sandler was heading back to his office in Old Street and not to another appointment across the city. He was due to knock off at six, but that was unlikely to happen if he ended up miles away. As they joined the line of traffic, he checked his mirror for any sign of the Mini. No, she was well gone. It both pained and amused him to think that Heather Grant had been following him around for God knows how long before he’d noticed. It didn’t say much for his detecting skills.
He wondered what Stanley would make of it all. The missing Fury child had occupied his uncle for years, one of those tragic mysteries that had never been solved. He’d hear Heather out, whatever she had to say, but he wasn’t going to get involved. It was the kind of case that put you through the wringer, drained you dry and spat you out. Or worse. Yes, there were some situations it was wise to stay away from.
‘Good thinking, Nick,’ he murmured. ‘Learn from the mistakes of others.’
He was sure Stanley would still be alive today if he’d never crossed paths with Mal Fury.
5
Friday 16 September. Kellston
Nick was in Connolly’s by a quarter to seven. He ordered a coffee and a chicken sandwich at the counter and then sat down at the back. The café wasn’t busy and he flicked through an abandoned copy of the Sun until his food arrived. He gobbled down the sandwich, partly because he was starving, and partly because he didn’t want to be talking with his mouth full when Heather Grant turned up. That’s if she did turn up. Perhaps she’d have second thoughts.
