Stolen

by Roberta Kray

  Lolly waited with Nick in the drawing room. He didn’t say much but his presence was reassuring. As their initial shock subsided, people began to look around, to make up their minds about the likely perpetrator, to whisper and confer. It felt like one of those scenes in an Agatha Christie novel where all the suspects are gathered before the killer is finally revealed. Well, perhaps not all the suspects. She could hear Mal’s name being muttered and knew that he was being put firmly in the frame.

  With everything that had happened, Lolly hadn’t had the chance to think about who the actual murderer was. Jude, with his dark obsessive love, was the first name that sprang to mind. Had he let her go alone to the lake in the hope that she would be the one to find Esther’s body? She remembered how jumpy he’d been but that could have been down to all sorts of reasons, not least his unease at Esther having disappeared. But then there was Amy Wiltshire. If Jude had killed her then he could have killed Esther too.

  Jude, however, wasn’t the only person with a motive. There was Heather Grant, angry perhaps at being sidelined over Vicky Finch, although there was no evidence that this was actually the case. But she could have been aggrieved that her big scoop was about to be snatched away from her. Or interested enough in Jude to dispose of the competition. Lolly wasn’t sure if she believed there was an emotional relationship but she remembered the two of them standing on the steps, conspiring over something.

  Mrs Gough wasn’t beyond suspicion either. After years of loyal service, Esther was throwing her on the scrap-heap. Rage could easily spring from festering resentment. Perhaps she had preferred to see Esther dead than living without her on the other side of the ocean.

  Lolly looked around until her eyes came to rest on two other possible candidates: Anna Leighton and her husband, Claud. Both had good reason to hate Esther. Lolly could still hear Anna’s words: What goes around comes around. And Claud, after leaving his wife, had been unceremoniously dumped. Male pride didn’t always take kindly to that sort of thing.

  The police had requisitioned the library as their main interview room, probably because it had a desk and a suitable air of gravitas. Lists must have been drawn up with the most likely suspects at the top – those closest to the victim. Other rooms were being used too as the law tried to process all the guests and staff. Lolly was called at exactly ten to ten. As she walked into the library she tried to wipe all memory of seeing Esther’s body from her mind. She had not been there, she had not seen Mal, she had not been anywhere near the summerhouse.

  DI Latham was in his fifties, a slight, skinny, grey-haired man who already looked exhausted from the sheer pressure of having to deal not just with a murder but with so many egos gathered under one roof. He had the unenviable task of trying to control a large group of people who were used to getting their own way and did not take kindly to being told what to do by a provincial policeman.

  There was another officer with him, DS Barry, armed with a notepad. He was younger, bright-eyed, less careworn than his boss and had an air of barely contained excitement. Whether this was down to a house full of celebrities, a juicy murder or just a genuine love of the job was hard to tell.

  ‘Lolita Bruce?’ Latham asked, as if he didn’t already know her name.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He waved a hand towards the chair that had been placed in front of the desk. She sat down and he gave her some spiel about knowing how upsetting this must be for her and how they would try and get through it all as quickly as possible.

  ‘You’re the ward of the Furys. Is that right?’

  ‘Mal Fury was my guardian,’ she said.

  Latham’s eyebrows went up. ‘Just Mr Fury?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Not Esther too?’

  Lolly wondered how often she would need to repeat it. ‘Just Mal,’ she said.

  Barry quickly scribbled something down, as though he thought this detail was important.

  ‘Did you and Esther get on?’ Latham asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Lolly replied truthfully. She was aware that Mrs Gough had already been interviewed, the DI being smart enough to know that it was the staff who were the eyes and ears of any house. And the grieving housekeeper wouldn’t have been slow to express her opinion of Lolly. ‘I suppose we tolerated each other.’

  ‘Even when she threw you out?’

  Lolly gave a thin smile, sure now that Mrs Gough had been talking. ‘I wouldn’t say she threw me out exactly. It simply became impossible for me to stay here. I took Mal’s side, you see, when things came to a head with him and Esther. It would have been awkward living under the same roof.’

  ‘And are you still taking his side?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He can’t have been happy when his wife got him sent to jail.’

  Lolly could see where this was heading and tried a spot of deflection. ‘Do you know, this might sound strange but I think it was a relief. He’d been living with the secret for so long, always looking over his shoulder, that he was glad to finally have it out in the open.’

  Latham kept a poker face, but Barry’s mouth twisted into something akin to a sneer.

  ‘It’s true,’ she insisted. ‘He didn’t bear a grudge. He didn’t hate Esther. They’d been through too much together. And if you’re thinking he killed her, there’s not a chance. He’d never do that.’

  ‘So why did he abscond?’ Barry asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps prison was just getting too much for him.’

  ‘So you think it’s a coincidence that a short while after he goes on the run, his wife ends up dead?’

  ‘Perhaps someone saw their opportunity and took it. With Mal on the run, he was always going to get the blame. He’s the perfect scapegoat, isn’t he?’

  ‘Or just a murderer,’ Barry said.

  Latham threw him a look. ‘Miss Bruce is right. We can’t go jumping to any conclusions, not until we have all the facts.’

  Lolly wondered if they were doing that good cop/bad cop thing where Latham tried to lull her into a sense of security while Barry went in for the kill. Her palms were starting to sweat and she could feel the thump of her heart in her chest.

  Latham nodded and said, ‘You’ve been staying here, is that right?’

  ‘Esther invited me down so I came.’

  ‘Despite the fact you weren’t on good terms?’

  ‘We weren’t really on any terms. I suppose I saw it as an olive branch, as a chance to put the past behind us. It seemed churlish to say no, so . . . ’

  There was a silence which Lolly didn’t try to fill.

  ‘Getting back to this evening. When was the last time you saw Esther?’

  ‘It was just after Nick got here. Nick Trent. He’s a friend of mine. We were on the lawn and she came out into the garden. That would have been about eight o’clock.’

  ‘And who was she with?’

  ‘She was with Jude, but there were lots of other people around too.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No.’

  Barry tapped his pen against his teeth. ‘Were they a couple, Jude and Esther?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Lolly had no idea how much, if anything, they knew about her history with Jude or his history as regards Amy Wiltshire, and she certainly wasn’t going to enlighten them. ‘That was their business, not mine.’

  Another silence while they both stared at her.

  Then Latham said, ‘I understand Jude asked you to help him look for Esther. What time would that have been?’

  This was the part Lolly had been dreading most. Her lips had gone dry and it took an effort of will to stop sliding her tongue across them. She sensed a trap in the question and hesitated before she answered. ‘No, I don’t think he actually asked me to help. He just came over to ask if I’d seen her. That would have been about eight-thirty, a quarter to nine? Nick wasn’t there. He’d gone into the house to use the loo.’

  ‘But you offered to go and check
the lake.’

  ‘Well, he said he was going to go but that didn’t seem like the best idea. It’s dark by the water and the bank can be slippery. I know it better than he does so I told him I’d do it while he checked the drive.’

  ‘Why the drive?’ Barry asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He seemed to have looked everywhere else. I thought she might have got chatting to someone who was leaving and—’

  ‘Why would anyone be leaving at that time? The party hadn’t been going for long, had it?’

  ‘Some people don’t stay for long, only an hour or so. They have work early in the morning or other places to go. They just come to show their faces. Anyway, I was pretty sure Esther wouldn’t be down by the lake. She never went there, not since . . . not since what happened to Kay.’

  ‘But you went all the same.’

  ‘I was trying to be helpful and I only walked as far as the bench. It’s at the end of the path. You turn right and there it is.’

  ‘Did you call out?’

  Lolly could feel the stares of the two officers boring into her. She kept her own gaze on Latham, trying to keep eye contact and not appear evasive. ‘No. I had a quick look round but I couldn’t see or hear anyone. I only stayed for a minute and then I went back.’

  ‘And you didn’t meet anyone else on your way there or back?’

  ‘No, no one.’

  ‘And after that?’ Latham asked. ‘What did you do next?’

  ‘I went to the house. I needed the loo and . . . It was busy inside so that took a while and when I got back to the garden, Nick was there. It was about ten minutes later that Jude found her and . . . ’ Lolly took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, it’s only just sinking in. It still doesn’t feel real.’

  ‘That’s all right. Take your time,’ Latham said.

  It had not really occurred to Lolly until now how big a suspect she could be herself. She had only been thinking about shielding Mal but from an outside point of view she had as much reason as anyone to want Esther Fury dead. ‘That’s it, really. I can’t think of anything else.’

  There was a knock on the door and Barry got up to answer it. She could only catch snatches of the exchange, but enough to learn that a car had been reported as stolen. It was good news. That meant Mal had a decent head start and a chance of getting away.

  37

  Wednesday 21 September. West Henby

  It was Nick’s opinion that whoever said lightning never strikes twice was talking though their backside. Two murders in two days and he’d been present at both of them. He was starting to feel like the kiss of death. When he’d mentioned it to the officers – better out in the open, they were going to find out anyway – they’d looked at him as if there was no such thing as coincidence.

  Latham had placed his elbows on the desk and smiled grimly. ‘You seem to be a touch unfortunate, Mr Trent.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that.’

  ‘Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say always.’

  The interview hadn’t taken long. He’d told them what he knew, which was very little, and had been suitably vague about Lolly’s absence when she’d gone down to the lake. ‘I went for a slash and when I got back she wasn’t there. She came out of the house a few minutes later.’

  ‘A few minutes?’

  ‘Give or take.’

  ‘And how did she seem?’

  ‘Just the same as when I’d left her.’

  This hadn’t actually been true. Lolly had been on edge, nervous, her gaze continually darting towards the house, as though she was waiting for someone to come out. He had put it down to anxiety over Esther’s forthcoming announcement but now he was not so sure.

  ‘So you’re a private detective,’ DS Barry had said, barely concealing his contempt. ‘What’s your take on all this?’

  ‘It’s not my job. I don’t have a take on it.’

  ‘Were you in the Force for long, Mr Trent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not fond of rules and regulations, huh?’ Barry had said, thinking he had him sussed.

  ‘Not fond of working with people who jump to simplistic conclusions.’

  The corners of Latham’s mouth had twitched. ‘Let’s stay on subject, shall we?’

  Nick had kept his answers short and told them no more than he had to.

  It was another couple of hours before Lolly was allowed to leave the house to travel back to London. All the other guests and staff had been interviewed and dismissed, and only Jude, Heather and Mrs Gough remained. There had been some debate by the police over whether Lolly should be allowed to leave at all but with nothing to directly implicate her in the murder permission was eventually granted.

  Nick went with her to her bedroom on the first floor where she quickly grabbed her overnight bag and began packing her clothes.

  ‘Can I help?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll only be two minutes.’

  ‘You don’t need to rush.’

  ‘I want to get out of here.’

  ‘What about the rest?’ he asked, noticing that she only seemed to be taking what she had brought with her.

  ‘I don’t need the rest.’

  The clothes she was leaving behind, and there was a wardrobe full, looked expensive and it occurred to him that they were Lita’s rather than Lolly’s. They belonged to a shy, obedient, lost girl who had once lived in this house, but that girl barely existed now. She had grown up and returned to her roots. Kellston was her home now. He could have asked if she was all right, but the question seemed redundant. How could anyone be all right under the circumstances?

  Nick glanced around the room, taking in the luxury of it, the deep pile carpet and the fancy bed, the en suite bathroom. His gaze settled on the wallpaper. For the want of nothing better to say, he murmured, ‘I’m not sure if I could wake up to these peacocks every morning.’

  Lolly stopped what she was doing for a moment and stared at the wall. ‘I always rather liked them.’

  The birds were like the Furys, Nick thought, or at least the Furys of time past: beautiful but showy, creatures who liked to strut and preen. Was that unfair on Mal? A little, perhaps, but he often struggled to understand Lolly’s affection for him. Mal was a man who’d used his wealth to salve his conscience, taking in an East End orphan to recompense for having Teddy Heath’s blood on his hands. Of course, she would never see it that way and perhaps it was better that she didn’t.

  Lolly went to the bathroom, picked up her toothbrush and toothpaste, dumped them in the bag, zipped it up and put it over her shoulder. ‘Okay, I’m ready.’ Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she put the bag down again. ‘Hold on.’ She went over to the chest of drawers, reached into the very back of the middle drawer and took out a pair of socks. Slipping her hand into one, she pulled out a small bundle of notes and held them up. ‘Five pounds, she said. ‘I just remembered. It’s the money I had with me when I first came here. I was saving up for a headstone for Mum.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money for a thirteen-year-old.’

  ‘Terry Street used to pay me to run errands for him.’

  Nick didn’t ask what kind of errands they were. ‘Why did you hide it?’

  ‘I was scared someone might steal it off me.’ She gave an empty laugh. ‘I was scared of a lot of things back then.’

  He watched as she gave the room a final look, her eyes roaming everywhere, as though she was drinking it all in and storing it in her memory. Then she heaved out a breath and said, ‘Right, let’s go.’

  As they were walking down the stairs, Nick saw Mrs Gough and DS Barry huddled together in the hallway. The housekeeper was leaning in towards the policeman, her face hard, her mouth spitting out words ten to the dozen. Trouble, he thought. And he didn’t have long to wait to find out what it was. As soon as their feet touched the hallway floor, Barry strode over to them, managing to look both officious and smug at the same time.

  ‘If i
t’s all right I’d like to look in your bag, Miss Bruce, before you leave.’

  ‘No, it’s not bloody all right,’ Nick said. ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘Do you have an objection?’ Barry asked, addressing Lolly.

  But Lolly simply held out the bag towards the sergeant. ‘Help yourself. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ Nick said. ‘He’s got no right.’

  ‘The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can get out of here.’

  Barry took the bag over to the wide hall table, opened it and began taking out the items one by one. Mrs Gough watched from a distance, her eyes gleaming with spite. What was she expecting the police to find? A stash of family silver, perhaps. However, it didn’t take the sergeant long to establish that there was nothing in the bag but clothes and toiletries. He ran his hand around the inside lining, prodding and poking, searching for anything hidden. When this produced no results, he threw a glaring look at Mrs Gough, returned the clothes to the bag and handed it back to Lolly.

  ‘Thank you, Miss.’

  ‘Can we go now?’ Nick asked.

  DS Barry waved his hand towards the door. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  Mrs Gough stood, unrepentant, as they passed her. She stared at them, her lips set in a thin straight line.

  Once Lolly was outside she strode quickly towards the side of the house. The space which only a few hours ago had been filled with fancy expensive motors was now occupied by a fleet of squad cars. Nick unlocked the doors to the Ford and they got in. She said nothing as they headed down the drive. Ironically, the whole place now looked like a movie set with arc lights set up to illuminate the garden. The police were still searching, combing the ground, looking for evidence.

  The security guard at the gates had been replaced by a couple of uniformed cops. They stared at the car as it approached, but then waved it through. Lolly gazed straight ahead, tense and silent. Nick left her to her thoughts. There were questions he had to ask but they could wait.