by Roberta Kray
There was something else niggling in the back of his mind. He had a sneaking suspicion that Terry had arranged for Sandler to be despatched, unaware of Vinnie’s relationship with Laura and oblivious to the fact that the killing was going to land Vinnie in the shit. Had he killed Poole too and planted the gun at his house? It was not beyond the realms of possibility.
Anyway, whatever the truth, he was off the hook. He stopped outside the Fox and lit a cigarette. Laura was history, gone, a mistake he would never repeat. Well, not until the next time . . .
Gradually it was slipping from Stella’s memory. She could go whole days and not think about it once. She’d read about him in the paper of course, just after it happened. The man stabbed to death at the arches. A travelling salesman called Henry Browning. A wife and three kids. A tiny seed of doubt had entered her mind. But he’d been Freddy, she was sure of it, and there’d been no murders since so she had to be right.
She was drinking less now, getting a grip on things. At the time the other girls had given her a few sideways looks but she’d soon put them straight. She’d been bladdered that night, hadn’t she? Barely able to walk, never mind stab a bloke to death. She’d been in the house on Albert Road, passed out on the bed, snoring like a train, when he’d gone to meet his maker. Most of them believed her, and those that didn’t – well, she didn’t give a toss.
She did still think about Dana, though, still saw her occasionally when she stepped into the kitchen. Some ghosts stayed with you for ever.
Freddy’s fears had subsided as the weeks passed. No knock on the door, no more nightmares. Lita seemed to have disappeared from his unconscious world and from the real one. He had gone by her flat a few times, loitered on the green, but hadn’t set eyes on her. He decided that he’d been worrying unnecessarily; she wasn’t a threat. The fuss about Dana had died down now. She was yesterday’s news. Interest in her death had been superseded by the murder of the man at the arches – some loser who’d picked the wrong tart to shag – and even that was fading away.
He would be more careful in future. That was twice he’d got away with it and he wasn’t going to risk a third. Kindness was his downfall, wanting to help other people. Dana had thrown it back at him and so too had Amy Wiltshire. He sighed as he thought about Amy. He had seen her arguing with the boy, seen him walk away, seen her face twist as though she was about to cry. All he had done was touch her arm and ask if she was okay.
‘What’s it to you?’
‘I was just . . . ’
‘Yeah, I know what you were just doing, you bloody pervert.’ Her eyes filling with contempt, her pretty mouth taunting him. ‘Like young girls, do you? Is that what you get off on? You should be bloody reported. They should lock you up and throw away the key.’
He had taken to carrying the knife because the estate was a dangerous place. He’d felt safer with it in his pocket, the thin blade a protection against unspecified threats. He had seen where it was going with Amy and knew that she was going to scream. What choice had he had? She had brought it on herself.
His mother was grumbling about money again. He stared at her thick legs with their blue knotted veins. He sought out affection, he thought, because he had none in his life. That was her fault. She had made him what he was, moulded him, twisted him, crushed him to the point where he could barely breathe. Everything that he was, that he would be, was down to her.
Heather Grant was keeping herself busy behind bars. Her trial was due to start in six weeks and she was still working on her defence. If Mal Fury could get away with murder, why couldn’t she? And anyway, it hadn’t been murder, not really. She had only lured Esther to the lake with the intention of confronting her, not killing her. Manslaughter was nearer the mark. It wasn’t her fault that Esther had drowned. If the bitch hadn’t said those things, hadn’t taunted her like that . . .
Now all she had to do was convince the jury. She was spending long periods practising her remorseful expression, eyes downcast, lips quivering. With her shoulders slumped, she would look every part the victim that she actually was. Hadn’t she suffered too? Hadn’t she been to hell and back? Sympathy was what she needed and she intended to get it. She would be prepared for the onslaught of the prosecution, for all their lurid accusations, and would meet them with reason and fact.
She was, however, realistic about her prospects. Getting off scot-free was hardly on the cards. There was, on balance, every chance she would be returning to jail but she refused to be downhearted. Whatever the outcome of the trial, whatever the sentence, there would be a damn good book at the end of it all.
*
In the dead of night, when other men’s nightmares echoed through the prison, Mal would think about that moment on the ferry when he had looked down into the water and seen in its depths a chance of release. Death had beckoned to him then and he had almost answered the call. How close he had come to giving up. If it hadn’t been for Lita, for her faith in him, her belief, he could not have found the strength to carry on.
He was still coming to terms with Esther’s death. Their lives had been linked for so many years, bound by love and hate, by the agony of despair. He liked to remember her the way she had been when they’d first met, vibrant and beautiful, full of life and love and laughter. Perhaps, as a young woman, everything had come too easily to her, her beauty opening doors that were closed to other people, her expectations so high that nothing in the end could really satisfy them. The world had disappointed her, and so had he. By the time Kay was taken, her experience of loss and pain was too limited for her to find a path through. She had fallen back on bitterness, on anger and resentment. She had turned away from love.
Mal had happier things to think about though. Kay – Vicky – was back in his life. He replayed the scene in his head as she’d walked into the visiting room last week and sat down in front of him. What he’d expected to feel was awkwardness, difficulty, and there had been some of that, but there had also been elation. His heart had leapt at the sight of her. He had wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her close, to tell her everything would be okay. All those years and now . . . his child had been restored to him.
Vicky had swept back her long fair hair and gazed at him with eyes full of confusion, of caution. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Mal had searched her face for signs of himself, of Esther, but apart from the colour of her hair had found little. It was as though the genes had come together, been shaken and stirred to produce someone quite new. Although there was, perhaps, something of his mother in the arch of her brows, the shape of her mouth . . .
‘I know. It isn’t easy, is it?’
‘I always wanted a dad. When I was a kid, I used to dream about him turning up one day. Even an awful one like Teddy. Anyone would have been better than no one.’ She had clasped her hands together, stared down at the table, glanced up again. ‘You must hate her. Mum, I mean. What she did. Holding on to me like that, lying about it all.’
Mal did hate Hazel Finch, loathed and despised her, but knew, for his daughter’s sake, that he must keep these feelings to himself. It would not be long until the trial and then Hazel would go to prison, but it wouldn’t even begin to pay back the time that had been lost or the agony she’d inflicted. ‘There’s no point in looking back.’
‘I hate her too,’ she’d said, ‘but I love her as well. That’s what’s so confusing. She’s the only mother I’ve known. Do you understand?’
He’d nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘I knew you would.’
She had suddenly reached out and laid her hand over his. He had felt its warmth, felt love surge through him. Her lips had curled into a smile. ‘I’m so glad you found me.’
These were early days, first steps. The joy he felt at finding his daughter was tempered by the reality of the long journey that lay ahead. Nothing could bring back the years that had been lost. Biology linked them, blood, but would that be enough? He feared rejection, feared losing her for a sec
ond time, but refused to relinquish hope. He would look forward and not back. He would take whatever she could give and be grateful for it.
It was not that long now until Christmas. The streets they had strolled through had a festive feel, the shop windows lit up by fairy lights and glistening with artificial snow. Lolly still had ‘Silent Night’ rolling harmoniously through her head, an echo from the Salvation Army band they had passed at Camden station.
The first-floor flat they had come to view was a reasonable size – not huge but not tiny either. Its position on the busy Camden Road meant that the rent was more affordable than in quieter spots. She didn’t mind the noise from the traffic, the buses and cars going by almost constantly. That sense of movement, of change, was what she liked best. The country had its charms but she was a city girl at heart.
‘What do you think?’ Nick said, looking around the empty living room. ‘It’s not too bad, is it? We’ve seen worse. And there’s a market here at Camden Lock. You’ll be able to sell your stuff.’
‘Stuff?’
He grinned. ‘Sorry, let me rephrase that – your excellent restorations.’
‘Better.’
They examined the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom, seeing nothing to put them off. Back in the living room they stood side by side and gazed out of the window. It was dark outside but the road flashed bright with the headlamps of cars. Across the road a group of strangers waited for a bus.
‘I got a call from Terry,’ Nick said.
She looked at him, surprised. ‘What did he want?’
‘He said he’d made some enquiries about Stanley, that he’d heard – although he couldn’t swear to it – that it wasn’t an accident. Joe Quinn probably was responsible for his death.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘Only that Stanley had been asking awkward questions. That’s the way of it, unfortunately; you turn over too many stones and eventually the nasties slither out. He was only investigating the Fury case but Quinn thought he was interested in something or someone else. He saw Stanley as a threat and decided to get rid of him. Terry wasn’t forthcoming over the details.’
‘Does it help, knowing the truth? Or part of the truth?’
‘I suppose it draws a line under it all.’
Lolly wondered why Terry had bothered to call. Some kind of return, possibly, for the information they had given him on Laura and Les Poole. Or a parting gift to the little girl who had once run errands for him. Maybe he had seen what she had until recently failed to see: that Nick’s peace of mind, his happiness, was important to her.
She slid her hand into Nick’s, thinking of everything that had happened. How would she have coped without him? He had stood by her throughout, solid as a rock, and she knew he would never let her down. But she valued more than his reliability. He got her in a way that no one else did, understood what made her tick. To him she was not defined by the struggles of Kellston or the debatable privilege of West Henby; she was just herself, a girl who was, apparently, worth loving.
‘So what do you reckon?’ he asked.
She had no doubts about Nick, about the flat, and only asked the question in case he still had. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit soon for us to be moving in together?’
‘Probably. You could have all sorts of bad habits I haven’t found out about yet.’
‘I don’t have bad habits, only charming ones.’
He laughed and looked into her eyes. ‘Shall we take a chance then?’
Lolly didn’t hesitate. Life, she decided, was too short. ‘Let’s do that. Let’s take a chance.’
