Survivor: Only the strongest will remain standing . . .

by Roberta Kray

  Eventually she pulled herself up into a sitting position. Her gaze flicked aimlessly around the room until it finally settled on the bedside table. She reached out for the seashell box, placed it on her knees and opened the lid. Inside were all the remnants of her childhood. She took out the tiny mother-of-pearl button and held it in her palm. At this moment she no longer knew what it meant or what it signified. Through the years it had offered her solace, a link to the past, but now all of that felt like a sham.

  Lita thought about those old World War Two bombs that were sometimes found on beaches or building sites, a dormant threat no one was ever aware of. They lay there, buried secrets in the ground, dark and ominous, just waiting to blow everything apart. All it took was for someone like Nick Trent to come along and…

  A low groan slid from between her lips. It was hard to believe how happy she’d been when she’d woken up this morning, filled with optimism and thrilled to have Jude back in her life. Now everything was falling apart. She felt a sudden need to hear his voice, to have the comfort of it. He would understand what she was going through and maybe even help her to make sense of it all.

  Lita put the box back on the bedside table and placed the button beside it. After checking the coast was clear, she went downstairs and hurried along the hall. There was a phone in the den and she’d be able to talk in private. Once inside she sat down on one of the old leather chairs, flicked over the pages of her address book – she had meticulously copied down Jude’s number last night – and snatched up the receiver. She dialled the number with trembling fingers.

  ‘Please be there,’ she murmured. ‘Please be there.’

  But the phone rang and rang and nobody answered.

  Long after she knew it was pointless, Lita continued to sit there with the receiver pressed against her ear. She didn’t know what else to do.

  45

  The following week passed in a blur for Lita. She got up, ate her meals, walked in the grounds, watched TV, had a bath and went to bed. Mal made a few tentative approaches – If you want to talk about anything – but she shook her head. She wasn’t ready yet. She hadn’t come to terms. Nick Trent phoned the house a couple of times but she refused to take his calls. She didn’t want to speak to anyone but Jude.

  Lita hadn’t tried to ring him again. She thought, on reflection, that it was probably fortunate he’d been out. Her emotions had been too fierce, the shock too fresh and raw, for any coherent exchange to have taken place. And having some hysterical female blubbing down the line was probably not conducive to the process of creative writing. No, she would wait until she could talk to him face to face. By then she might be able to share the information without bursting into tears.

  A strange calm had descended on her. Or was it just emptiness? She was wrung out, exhausted by the revelations. She walked around in a daze, barely aware of where she was or what she was doing. The secrets and lies bobbed around in her mind like so much flotsam. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to forgive Mal. Maybe, eventually, she could. There was nothing malicious in what he’d done but she still felt betrayed. As for her mum – well, could she even call her that any more? All that she’d thought she’d known had been wiped away by Nick Trent’s careless words. Angela had turned from mother to stranger in the space of a few minutes.

  As Lita walked through the garden she could smell the scent of summer roses. She breathed in deeply, trying to fill her soul with something more soothing than anger or resentment. Not knowing exactly where she came from had sparked off too many tumultuous feelings. She had raged, wept, accused and blamed, until her emotions had finally closed down and sent her into this strange trance-like state. In some ways nothing had changed – her childhood memories remained the same – but in other ways, everything. When your life is built on shaky foundations, it only takes the smallest tremor to bring everything crashing down around your ears.

  From out of nowhere she suddenly recalled standing in the tunnel on the Mansfield estate with Joseph (and what had happened to him?) talking about family. Once upon a time she might have agreed that flesh and blood wasn’t the most important thing, but that was before she had ceased to have any. Now it felt like the most important thing in the world.

  Lita climbed the back steps to the house, slipped inside and walked through to the hall. After the heat of the sun, the coolness gave her goose bumps on her arms. She noticed a large oblong parcel lying on the table and went over to look at it. It was addressed to Esther and she guessed what it was: an advance copy of Jude’s script. She thought the thin spidery handwriting was his – although all she had to go on was the phone number he had written out for her – and picked it up to take a closer look. It had a London postmark but no return address on the back.

  Lita would have liked to read the script – she was curious as to what it was about – but would have to wait. As she put the parcel back down on the table, she noticed a letter for herself. For a second she thought it might be from Jude, but then realised the handwriting was different. She tore it open and pulled out the sheet of white paper. It was a brief apology from Nick Trent, along with a phone number should she wish to ‘contact him’. She curled her lip, screwed up the note and shoved it into her back jeans pocket. It would be going in the first bin she came across.

  Lita was on her way to the den – perhaps there was something mindless she could watch on TV – when Mrs Gough and Esther emerged from the main reception room.

  ‘There she is!’ Mrs Gough exclaimed, as though Lita had been hiding from them all morning. ‘I said she’d show up eventually.’

  As the two women advanced on her, Lita could tell she was in trouble, although she had no idea why. Mrs Gough was holding something aloft in her right hand. Her face had a look of triumphant malice.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to explain this to Mrs Fury.’

  It took Lita a moment to focus on what exactly ‘this’ was. She peered up at the housekeeper’s hand. ‘Oh, it’s my button,’ she said. ‘What are you doing with it?’

  ‘You see what I mean?’ Mrs Gough sneered, turning her head towards Esther. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Little Miss Innocent.’ She glanced back at Lita. ‘More to the point, what are you doing with it?’

  Lita stared at her, bemused. She had left the button on the bedside table, unwilling to put it back in her seashell box of treasures. Somehow it had seemed out of place there after what she’d learned.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Mrs Gough persisted. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  Lita shook her head. ‘What’s the matter? What’s going on? It’s only a button.’

  ‘Just answer the question. Where did you get it?’

  ‘It was my mother’s,’ Lita said. ‘I’ve had it for years.’

  Mrs Gough gave a snort. She leaned in close to Lita and hissed into her face. ‘You’re a filthy little liar!’

  Lita jumped back, shocked and confused.

  And all the time Esther was simply glaring at her, her lips compressed, her eyes flashing with a barely contained anger.

  ‘Tell the truth!’ Mrs Gough demanded, advancing again. ‘Did you find it? Was it on the ground? Was it down by the lake? Is that when you got the idea?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ Lita snapped back. ‘It’s mine. I didn’t find it anywhere. Look, I don’t know what’s going on but —’

  Mrs Gough grabbed hold of her arm, her fingers digging into the flesh. ‘Don’t come that one with me, young lady. I know exactly what your game is, and so does everyone else. You think we were born yesterday?’

  ‘Get off!’ Lita cried out, struggling to free herself. She had a disturbing flashback to Tony Cecil grabbing her as they passed on the stairs at the pawnbroker’s. It was as if she had wandered into some weird surreal nightmare where everything had been turned on its head and nothing made sense.

  ‘You won’t get away with it,’ Mrs Gough said. ‘Whatever you’re planning, you won’t —’

  ‘Let go! Let go of me!’

/>   The door to the library opened and Mal strode out. ‘What’s with the noise? What the hell is going on out here?’

  Esther tossed back her hair and spoke for the first time. ‘You should ask your greedy little ward that question. It would appear that food, clothing, a roof over her head and an expensive education isn’t enough for her. No, she wants a lot more than that.’

  Lita, who had finally managed to shake off the housekeeper, turned her face towards Mal. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about.’

  Mrs Gough held out the button to him. ‘I found this in her room. She’s claiming it belonged to her mother.’

  Mal took the button and held it in the palm of his hand. His gaze took in all three women before settling on Esther. ‘Just because it looks similar, doesn’t mean —’

  ‘It’s not similar,’ Esther snapped. ‘It’s exactly the same.’

  ‘Okay, so it’s exactly the same. It’s still only one of… I don’t know, thousands of these must have been made, millions even. It’s not that unusual.’

  Esther glared at him. ‘Oh, I might have known you’d take her side.’

  ‘This isn’t to do with sides.’

  ‘So it’s just a coincidence, is it? It’s just freak chance that she happens to have a button like that? Well, you believe what you like but I know a devious little gold-digger when I see one.’

  The housekeeper piped up again. ‘It’s obvious what she’s up to. She and that Trent are in it together. First he comes along and claims —’

  ‘Mrs Gough!’ Mal said sharply. ‘You’re really not helping.’

  ‘I’m just saying, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t. And please, don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you have things you want to get on with.’

  Mrs Gough looked less than happy at being dismissed. She glanced towards Esther but finding no immediate support there gave a reluctant nod, threw one last dirty look at Lita and retreated down the hallway.

  ‘Perhaps we could continue this conversation somewhere more private,’ Mal said.

  Esther shook her head. ‘You do what you like. I’ve got guests to prepare for.’

  ‘We need to sort this out.’

  ‘There isn’t anything to sort out. She’s had her card marked and that’s the end of it. Whatever she was planning stops right here.’

  Lita stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘I wasn’t planning anything.’

  But her protest fell on stony ground. Esther walked away without another word.

  Lita quickly turned to Mal. ‘I don’t understand. What am I being accused of? I don’t get it. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.’

  ‘Come to the library. We’ll talk about it there.’

  Lita followed him, feeling shaken and bewildered. She hadn’t been in the best frame of mind even before this had happened and now she was totally shell-shocked. All this fuss over a button. It was crazy. Except it was more than a fuss.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  Lita shrugged. ‘I just don’t understand.’

  Mal closed the door to the library behind them, walked over to a mahogany bureau in the corner, opened it and took out a framed photograph. He passed it over to her. ‘On the cardigan,’ he said. ‘Do you see?’

  Lita gazed down at a picture of Esther and Kay. The pretty fair-haired baby was dressed in a pink lacy frock and a white cardigan – and on the cardigan was a row of small mother-of-pearl buttons. It was only then that the penny dropped. She gasped in surprise. ‘What, they think… but it can’t be the same. It was in my mum’s drawer in her bedroom. I swear. I’ve had it for years.’

  Mal nodded. ‘I believe you. Like I said, there must have been thousands of these buttons made. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  Lita continued to stare at the picture. The frown between her eyes grew deeper as the full implication of her attackers’ words sank in. ‘So they think I’m trying to… What? Pretend that I’m Kay or something? Is that what they’re saying? But it’s crazy! Why would I ever do that? It’s sick. It’s horrible.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. It’s all right. Don’t get upset. None of this is your fault. I’ll talk to Esther, to both of them, and clear all this up.’

  ‘She won’t believe you.’

  ‘Of course she will, once she’s calmed down, once she realises that she hasn’t thought it through. It’s just the emotion talking, Lita, nothing else. Someone’s been whispering in her ear, stirring up trouble and…’

  And Lita knew exactly who that someone was. Mrs Gough had always disliked her, right from the day she’d arrived. Not that Esther had ever been her biggest fan either. She passed the picture back to him. ‘I’ve never even seen this photo before so how could I have known what the buttons looked like?’

  ‘It’s in Esther’s room – and it was all over the newspapers at the time.’

  ‘I’ve never been in Esther’s room.’ She knew that Mal could have added that the picture had also been in the bureau, right here in the library where she often came to read. And even though it had been out of sight – perhaps too painful for him to look at – she could still have come across it. ‘This is the first time… I haven’t seen it before. I swear.’

  ‘I know, I know. Don’t worry about it.’

  But how was she supposed to do that? Lita couldn’t get her head round what had happened – and her head wasn’t in the best of places to start with. It was just one disaster after another. Mrs Gough must have found the button on her bedside table, concocted this bizarre story and gone running to Esther with it. How long before the whole house knew about it, maybe even the whole village? And then… then everyone would think…

  ‘Here,’ Mal said, holding out the button to her.

  Lita shrank back, shaking her head. ‘You keep it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it.’

  46

  Nick Trent was still feeling bad about what he’d inadvertently done. He winced as he relived the moment, recalling Lita’s face and the devastation on it. Shattering someone else’s life hadn’t exactly been top of his agenda when he’d decided to carry on where his uncle had left off. He could, he supposed, justify his actions by claiming he’d had no idea she was in the dark about her mother, but it didn’t sit well with him. He should have thought before he’d spoken.

  ‘Moron,’ he murmured. ‘Idiot.’

  His attempts to apologise had, unsurprisingly, fallen on stony ground. It was hard to say sorry when someone wouldn’t take your calls. She’d have received his letter by now but he wasn’t expecting her to ring. Lita wouldn’t want to see him again unless it was to shoot the messenger. His clumsy stupidity had done more than injure another person – it had also cost him a couple of the best leads he had. Neither she nor Mal would be likely to welcome him back in a hurry.

  As he flicked through the Fury file, he wondered if Stanley had been in the grip of an obsession. And not just about the disappearance of baby Kay. There were three photographs of Mal and only one of Esther. Perhaps he had slipped over that tenuous line between the professional and personal, developing the kind of feelings for his employer that went above and beyond the call of duty.

  Nick pondered on whether he was in danger of becoming equally fixated on a mystery that might never be solved. Eighteen years was a long time. If Kay was still alive – and it was doubtful – she could be anywhere. That, however, wasn’t the focus or the purpose of his investigation. It was the circumstances of Stanley’s death that bothered him. What had really happened that night in Kellston? He was sure it hadn’t been an accident but was still without a shred of evidence to prove it.