Stolen

by Roberta Kray

  ‘Which puts me at the top of the list.’

  ‘Yeah, it probably does, but they can’t prove anything. Stick to your story and you’ll be fine.’

  Lolly sighed and nodded. She had gone over her story so many times in her head that a part of her was beginning to believe it was true. Mal hadn’t been caught yet which was a relief, but he’d remain a fugitive until the real murderer was found. ‘I wonder where he is,’ she said, thinking aloud.

  ‘Mal? You’re better off not knowing.’

  ‘Do you reckon Jude and Heather will be at West Henby too?’

  ‘Can’t think of any reason why they wouldn’t be.’

  Lolly watched the road go by for a while. Not wanting to dwell on Mal’s fate, or Esther’s come to that, she changed the subject. ‘I’ve never been to Clacton before. What’s it like?’

  ‘Like most other seaside towns,’ he replied. ‘Sea, sand, pier, crazy golf, lots of candyfloss. You’ll love it. We used to go there when I was a kid – well, to Frinton, which my dad thought was a cut above – and stay in a B and B on the sea front. I spent many a happy hour watching the rain hammering against the windows.’

  Lolly, who had never been on holiday, envied him those childhood memories even if they had been sullied by the vagaries of the British weather. ‘I bet you still had fun.’

  ‘As much fun as you could have with a dad who disapproved of virtually everything.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Oh indeed.’

  Lolly wished she’d had the chance to walk beside the sea with her mum. She’d have liked a memory like that, something special, something to store away and only take out now and again. Thinking of her mother made her sad so she tried to stop doing it. ‘How many caravans do you think there are in Clacton?’

  ‘Hundreds. Thousands maybe.’

  ‘Are you planning on us checking out all of them?’

  ‘Only the one that Hazel and Vicky are staying in.’ He saw the look of surprise on her face and said, ‘I did some ringing round this morning, all the main sites.’

  ‘And you found out where they are?’

  ‘Valley Park. It’s near the centre.’

  ‘Congratulations, Mr Trent. You really are a detective.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s always gratifying to have one’s talents recognised.’

  It was twenty past eleven by the time they arrived in Clacton. Nick parked as close as he could to the site. Valley Park had a sea view and was vast with caravans of all sizes lined up in rows. Finding Hazel would probably have been impossible without the information he’d managed to secure from the manager. Impersonating a police officer was getting to be a habit, a bad one, but it got results. It was surprising how much people would tell you if you claimed to be calling on behalf of the Met.

  He examined the map at the entrance to the site, located the position and put his finger on it. ‘Right there,’ he said. ‘On the left. Let’s go find Hazel.’

  As they walked Lolly said, ‘You don’t really think Vicky is Kay, do you?’

  ‘It’s unlikely.’

  ‘So why are we here?’

  ‘Because I don’t like loose ends. Heather’s spirited them away for a reason. She’s lied about not knowing where they are which means she doesn’t want anyone else talking to them. Doesn’t that make you curious?’

  ‘It makes me angry,’ she said. ‘If it wasn’t for Heather raising Mal’s hopes, he wouldn’t be on the run right now. He wouldn’t have gone AWOL and he wouldn’t have gone back to West Henby. She made him think Vicky was his daughter, dangled the prospect in front of him so he’d do something reckless. And now look where we are.’

  ‘She couldn’t have known Esther was going to get murdered.’

  ‘I don’t think she cared about the consequences. All she’s interested in is her stupid book.’

  The caravan Heather had rented was on the smaller end of the scale but it looked newish and clean. He knocked on the door. There was no response. He moved to the side and peered in through the window; there were clothes neatly folded on a shelf, and a suitcase in the corner. A box of tea bags, sugar and a bottle of squash were lined up by the tiny stove. ‘Someone’s still in residence.’

  ‘Out and about then.’

  He stood back. ‘Okay, let’s have a wander and come back in an hour or so.’

  They left the car where it was and walked down to the shore. Although the kids were back at school there were still plenty of people around, mostly of an older generation taking advantage of the off-season rates. The beach was lined with stripy deckchairs. A few courageous souls were braving the sea, but on the whole the visitors were sticking to dry land.

  He kept his eyes peeled, scanning the crowds. He had no idea what Hazel looked like but there was chance he might recognise Vicky from the photo he’d been shown. They walked up and down the pier, went into the penny arcades and ate hot dogs sitting on a bench. Lolly seemed entranced by it all, smiling and relaxed, and he thought about everything she’d missed out on as a kid. He was glad she was enjoying herself; tomorrow, he suspected, would be a far less pleasant day.

  Neither of them mentioned the kiss she had given him last night. Something had changed between them though. From the moment he’d picked her up this morning, he’d sensed it, a shifting in the way they looked at each other, stolen glances, small smiles, an unspoken understanding that things had started to move on from mere friendship. It was, he admitted to himself, what he’d always wanted. That she wanted it too was more than he’d ever hoped for.

  At one o’clock they returned to the site and made their way across the grass to Hazel’s caravan. This time there were signs of life, an open window and the sound of a radio. He looked at Lolly, raised his eyebrows, and said, ‘Here we go then.’

  Nick knocked on the door. It was opened by a neat, middle-aged woman with carefully coiffed blonde hair and light blue eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless white summer dress adorned with a pattern of roses. She half smiled, the way people do when they don’t know who you are but don’t want to appear unfriendly.

  ‘Hazel Finch?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘My name’s Nick Trent,’ he said. ‘This is Lolly.’ He held up his ID for her to see. ‘I’m a private investigator working on the Kay Fury case.’

  Hazel visibly paled. ‘What?’

  ‘I was wondering if—’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ she interrupted before he could explain what he was wondering about. ‘I’ve got nothing to say. Please leave me alone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.’

  ‘Who told you I was here?’

  ‘Heather Grant,’ he replied. It wasn’t a complete lie. By telling him about Harlow, she had, in a roundabout way led him to this place. His answer, understandably, both surprised and confused Hazel.

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘She thought you might not have heard the news.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘About Esther Fury. She was murdered on Wednesday night.’

  Hazel’s eyes grew wide with shock. ‘She’s dead? What? Oh my God!’ And then her self-preservation instincts kicked in. ‘But that’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t even know the woman. I was here. I haven’t . . . I don’t understand.’

  ‘If I could just have five minutes?’ Nick asked. ‘I’d like to clear up a few issues regarding Kay – and your daughter.’

  ‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘Leave me alone. You’ve got no right to harass me like this. I’ve already told you, I’ve got nothing to say.’

  ‘All right,’ Nick said. ‘If you’d prefer to talk directly to the police . . . ’

  Hazel’s mouth dropped open. Something flashed in her eyes – fear, anger? – and her body grew rigid. ‘Why would they want to talk to me? I can’t tell them anything. I’ve been here, haven’t I? You can ask anyone.’

  ‘No one’s suggesting you’re involv
ed, of course not, but the murder could be connected to Kay’s abduction. If you’ll just give me five minutes, if we can go over what you told Heather Grant then there won’t be a need to take it any further.’

  Hazel thought about this for a few seconds. ‘If you’ve already talked to Heather . . . ’

  ‘I’d like to hear it directly from you.’

  Hazel looked from Nick to Lolly and back to Nick. She clasped her hands together, unlinked them. Finally, she conceded. ‘Five minutes then. You’d better come in.’

  It was cramped inside the caravan, especially with three of them in there. He and Lolly sat down side by side on a cushioned bench that probably converted into a bed. ‘Your daughter’s not here with you?’

  Hazel sat down opposite. ‘She’s meeting some girls in town. They’re having lunch together.’

  Nick was glad Vicky wasn’t there. The mother might talk more openly in her absence. He launched straight into the questions before she could change her mind. ‘So, Heather approached you after she discovered you’d had a relationship with Teddy Heath?’

  Hazel flinched a little at the mention of Teddy. ‘That’s right. Said she was writing a book, that my name had come up and . . . But me and Teddy were over way before all that dreadful business. The bastard dumped me, didn’t he, as soon as he found out I was pregnant. Didn’t see him for dust and not a penny of maintenance.’ She scowled, the betrayal still rankling after all these years. ‘What kind of a man does that?’

  The evil kind, Nick thought, the kind who’d murder, the kind who’d abduct someone else’s baby. ‘That must have been tough. You never saw him again?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘And you had no idea what he’d done?’

  Hazel’s scowl grew deeper. ‘Of course not! You think I’d have stood by and let him get away with it? If I’d thought for one minute . . . Well, I’d have been straight down the police station. I wouldn’t have thought twice.’

  ‘How much does Vicky know about her dad?’

  ‘Everything. Now she knows everything. She was always aware that he was a waste of space, that he didn’t want anything to do with her, but then all that stuff came out at Mal Fury’s trial, about how Teddy had snatched that poor baby and Mal Fury had found out and killed him.’

  ‘Mal didn’t kill him,’ Lolly said, speaking for the first time. ‘He died of a heart attack.’

  Hazel glanced at her and gave a shrug, as if the details of his death were neither here nor there. ‘Anyway, that all came as a shock as you can imagine, to both of us. We didn’t even know he was dead. But it was worse for her. I mean, who wants a man like that for their dad? It’s not something to be proud of. It’s been hard for her coming to terms with it all. The only consolation was that no one else knew.’

  ‘And then Heather Grant came knocking on your door,’ Nick said.

  Hazel’s hands did a dance in her lap. ‘I knew what she was thinking as soon as she showed up. It was written all over her face. She saw a photo of Vicky on the mantelpiece, saw she was about the same age as Kay Fury would have been, put two and two together and made five. She was mighty disappointed when I showed her the birth certificate. April tenth, 1958. That’s when Vicky was born. It’s all there in black and white.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have it with you?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Of course I don’t. Who brings a birth certificate on holiday with them? But I can show you, soon as we get home. Or you can go and look it up in that place? What’s it called? You know, where all the births and deaths are registered.’

  ‘Somerset House.’

  ‘That’s it. You go and take a look.’

  Nick nodded. For a while, before the evidence was placed before her, Heather must have thought she’d solved a mystery nobody else had been able to. But Kay’s birthday was on the first of June. The girls, although born within weeks of each other, were two entirely separate people. ‘Okay, but there’s one other thing I don’t understand. Why did Heather bring you here? What was the point? If, as you say, Vicky is your daughter why are you hiding out in Clacton?’

  ‘No one’s hiding,’ Hazel said indignantly. ‘Who said anything about hiding? We’re on holiday, that’s all. Everyone’s entitled to a break.’

  ‘A break that Heather Grant is paying for.’ He wasn’t entirely sure of this, but thought it was a reasonable guess bearing in mind what the neighbour in Harlow had told him about a ‘niece’ whisking them away on holiday.

  ‘Well, so what?’ Hazel snapped back, confirming his hunch. ‘She was the one who caused all this trouble in the first place.’

  ‘Which particular piece of trouble are we talking about here?’

  ‘With the journalist,’ Hazel said. ‘Heather said there’d been a leak from her publisher and some journalist had got wind of me and Teddy, one of those tabloid types looking to dig the dirt. She reckoned he might start hassling, trying to pressure me and Vicky into giving an interview.’ Hazel’s face grew tight. ‘We’re respectable people. What would the neighbours say? Anyway, she swore she could put a lid on it but it would take a week or so. She felt bad about the leak so she offered us this place for a fortnight, said by the time we got home it would all be sorted. Well, I wasn’t going to say no, was I? A free holiday doesn’t come along every day.’

  Nick was pretty sure there wasn’t any journalist and that Heather had only been making sure that nobody – particularly Esther – could discover that the Finch connection was a dead end. If Esther had employed someone to make enquiries, the only thing they’d have discovered was an empty house. Heather had wanted to keep hope alive and she’d succeeded, in Mal’s case at least. He couldn’t think of anything else to ask and so he rose to his feet. ‘Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.’

  Hazel looked up at him, worry back in her eyes. ‘You won’t be telling the newspapers any of this?’

  ‘You’ve got my word.’

  Lolly stood up too. ‘I’m presuming Vicky would agree to a blood test just so we can draw a line under it all?’

  ‘That’s down to her. She’s nineteen now. She’s an adult. But you’ll be wasting your time – and hers.’

  Nick and Lolly said goodbye and stepped out of the caravan. Hazel closed the door firmly behind them. As they walked across the grass, Nick asked, ‘What made you ask about the blood test?’

  ‘I just wanted to see how she’d react.’

  ‘And?’

  Lolly shrugged. ‘She didn’t seem terrified at the prospect.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed.

  They reached the car but didn’t get in immediately. Lolly gazed over at the sea, lifted her face and sniffed the salty air. She looked downcast.

  ‘You’re disappointed,’ he said.

  ‘It’s what I was expecting, but it’s still sad. For Mal, I mean. He just wanted it so much. He’d made up his mind that Vicky was Kay and now . . . ’

  ‘Yeah, it’s going to be a blow.’

  They fell quiet, both lost in their own thoughts. A few minutes passed and neither of them moved. The world carried on around them, people coming and going. Three gulls wheeled overhead. Nick was the first to break the silence. He leaned his elbows on the roof of the car and looked at Lolly. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shook his head, trying to grasp the thin wisps of whatever was hanging in his mind ‘We’re missing something. I just can’t figure out what.’

  60

  Saturday 24 September. West Henby

  DI Latham roamed the empty house getting his thoughts in order before the others arrived. It was a warm day, a nice start to the weekend and the sun streamed in through the windows. The rooms were full of beautiful items – Persian rugs, paintings, sculptures, clocks – and he took pleasure in them without feeling any envy. He wouldn’t have wanted to change places with the owners of these treasures, not for all the porcelain in China. The Furys may have had money, even fame, but happin
ess had eluded them.

  He settled eventually in the library where he sat down on the leather chair. Progress had been made over the last couple of days and he was starting to see a clearer picture. Mal Fury had gone to ground but he would surface eventually. It was the others he was more concerned with at the moment. They all knew more than they were saying.

  He picked up the file from the side table, put it on his lap, opened it and read through the first few pages. It was the connections that interested him, the tangled threads that ran between these people. When he studied their statements, it was obvious than no one had a solid alibi for the time in question. That was the trouble with parties, with guests moving around, with snatched conversations, alcohol and distractions. Easy to slip away for ten minutes and for the absence not to be noticed.

  The pathologist had confirmed that Esther Fury had drowned. She had still been alive when she’d gone into the lake – her lungs were full of water – and accidental death might have been a possibility if it hadn’t been for those bruises at her throat. It was easy to get blinded by the obvious – and often the obvious was true – but he had the feeling darker forces were at work here. Darker forces? He raised his eyes to the ceiling. He was beginning to sound like a detective from some Victorian novel.

  The front door opened and closed, followed by the tapping of heels on the marble floor. Mrs Gough back from doing the shopping in the village. He had given her money to buy provisions for lunch; starving his interviewees might loosen their tongues but would probably be frowned upon by HQ.

  The housekeeper was currently staying on at the house until she could make other arrangements. He hadn’t quite got to grips with her yet. She was a hard-faced, bitter, difficult woman who made no bones of the fact she resented their presence, and yet had volunteered to cook for everyone. Perhaps, in a final act of retribution, she would poison them all.

  He raised his head and looked out of the window towards the row of trees and the lake beyond. What had taken place here was the stuff of nightmares. He thought of his own children, grown now, and shuddered. Dealing with the loss of a baby was bad enough but not knowing what had happened for so many years would be enough to send the sanest parent crazy.