The Lost Read online

  The Lost

  Roberta Kray

  Robinson (2011)

  *

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Fiction, Mystery Detective, General

  Fictionttt Mystery Detectivettt Generalttt

  Roberta Kray’s first novel, The Debt, was published to universal acclaim: ‘You might expect a crime novel written by the widow of Reggie Kray would be tough - it is. Recommend this to fans of Ian Rankin and Ken Bruen’(Booklist).

  In this third novel, there’s more from the dangerous and unpredictable underworld she knows so well.

  Private eye Harry Lind doesn’t believe in ghosts. Little Grace Harper went missing over twenty years ago, and missing girls can’t just reappear - or can they? It takes a brutal murder to make him think again.

  Reporter Jess Vaughan is convinced that Grace is still alive but she’s going to need some help to prove it. As she and Harry begin to unravel an age-old web of deceit and betrayal their discoveries soon put them on a collision course with one of London’s most notorious gangsters. The search for the truth is about to lead them into a world where people will kill to preserve their secrets.

  From Publishers Weekly

  At the start of Kray’s compelling, character-driven third London gangland novel (after The Pact and The Lost), Len Curzon, an alcoholic reporter interviewing a small-time villain in a local prison, notices a young woman visiting with a notorious older convict, Paul Deacon. The woman reminds him a lot of an eight-year-old girl, Grace Harper, who went missing 20 years earlier. Soon after making some indiscreet inquiries, Curzon is stabbed to death by an unknown assailant outside a pub. Meanwhile, PI Harry Lind, a crippled ex-cop, tries to track down a well-known crime czar’s brother in-law, who’s also disappeared. The two plot threads intersect when Jessica Vaughn, Curzon’s friend and fellow reporter, has a boozy flirtation with Lind and persuades him that Curzon’s murder isn’t the random act of violence that the police assume. Kray captures the cadences and rhythm of underworld life, though some readers may feel some judicious trimming would have speeded up the action in spots. Still, fans of Derek Raymond and Ken Bruen will find much to admire. (May)

  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  From School Library Journal

  Adult/High School—His body hobbled by an explosion he suffered less than a year earlier when he was a police officer, and his emotional life bruised by his longtime girlfriend’s departure, private detective Harry Lind finds himself at the nexus of a crowd of mysteries. An alcoholic newspaper reporter is killed shortly after the two have a casual conversation. The reporter’s protégée, a young woman with moxie to match his, attaches herself to Harry, not for emotional support but to browbeat him into helping her solve the murder and to identify the story on which her mentor was secretly working. That story, it turns out, involves another young woman, one with a mysterious past, which may mean that she is the grown version of a girl believed to have died at the age of eight. Kray keeps all these balls nicely aloft, but it is her characters who make this mystery a winner. Methodically, she develops Harry’s-and readers’-understanding that the little girl lost may have grown into a woman who has no desire to be found, and who will tell lies and half-truths to steer detectives (journalistic and otherwise) away from discovering who she is and what she did as a teen. Mystery fans will appreciate the storytelling here.—Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia

  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  ROBERTA KRAY was born in Southport in 1959. She worked in publishing and media research in London for fifteen years. In early 1996 she met Reg Kray and they married the following year. Roberta currently lives in Norfolk.

  Roberta’s first two novels The Debt and The Pact are also available from Constable & Robinson.

  Praise for Roberta Kray

  ‘Brilliant is the word.’

  Independent on Sunday

  ‘Swoops on Martina Cole territory with savage vengeance and reclaims it.’

  The Bookseller

  Also by Roberta Kray

  The Debt

  The Pact

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  This edition published in the UK by Robinson,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2008

  Copyright © Roberta Kray 2008

  The right of Roberta Kray to be identified as the author of this work has been identified by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-84529-718-3

  eISBN: 978-1-78033-370-0

  Printed and bound in the EU

  7 9 10 8 6

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter One

  Len Curzon had a nose for a good story but this one wasn’t worth a sniff. Frustrated, he dumped his elbows squarely on the table and scowled at the giant in front of him. Why had he even bothered? There were more useful things he could be doing with a Friday afternoon than sitting in a prison visiting room pandering to a minor villain’s ego.

  ‘For God’s sake, BJ, are you saying you’ve dragged me all the way down here just to try and flog me your life history?’

&
nbsp; ‘But you write them books. I’ve seen ’em. You did that one on Alfie Noakes.’

  Len shook his head. ‘I’m a reporter, son. You said you had something important to tell me.’

  It took a while for the implication to sink in – the route through to BJ’s brain was a slow one – but as it did his mouth slowly turned down at the corners. ‘I thought—’

  ‘I don’t care what you thought. Remind me of how old you are, exactly.’

  ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re a little young to be considering the definitive biography?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Len peered down into the polystyrene cup. He blew on the surface of the thick dark brew before taking a sip and screwing up his face. Lord, even the tea stank. He was tempted to get up and walk. Sometimes he wished he’d never written those books. Now every jumped-up low-life, every hoodlum, every toerag in the land wanted to see his name in print. ‘I mean, maybe you should wait a while, get a few more … experiences.’

  But BJ refused to be discouraged. ‘I’ve been around, Mr C. I’ve seen stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, course you have.’

  The problem with ‘Big Jay’ Barrington was that you got exactly what it said on the tin – six foot six of solid muscle, a great guy to have beside you in a brawl but with sod all in the brain department. If an original thought had ever entered his head it had exited again at the first opportunity. This accounted for why he’d already spent more than half his adult life in jail.

  ‘I’ve worked with Billy Todd, Ray Stagg, all the faces. I’ve been there, man. People are gonna be well into it.’

  Len dug deep into his reserves of patience. Through the years he had learned to cultivate the small-timers, to buy them drinks, to sit and listen to their endless cock-and-bull stories in the hope of receiving the odd snippet of interesting information. BJ might still be useful one day in the future – it was best, perhaps, not to close any doors too firmly.

  ‘Look, I can’t promise anything, okay? Things are pretty busy at the moment but go on, go ahead and tell me what you’ve got in mind.’

  As BJ began his pitch, Len gazed down at his watch. For courtesy’s sake, he’d give it five more minutes and then make his excuses. If he legged it down to the station he might still be able to catch the two thirty-four back to London. In the meantime, for want of anything better to do, he glanced discreetly round the room.

  Inevitably, he recognized some of the other inmates; after three decades on the Hackney Herald his knowledge of London criminals and their families was bordering on the encyclopedic. That HMP Maidstone was currently housing a few familiar faces, ageing villains who had never learned from their mistakes, came as no surprise. What was more depressing was that he also recognized a handful of the younger cons. These were the no-hoper sons and even grandsons of men he had seen sent down over and over again. They were the next generations staunchly carrying on the family tradition. He sighed into his tea. It wasn’t the legacy of criminality that disturbed him so much as the reminder it provided of his own advancing years. At sixty-three, retirement was snapping at his heels.

  Before that thought could start to fester he made another quick sweep. This time his gaze alighted on someone more interesting. Len’s eyes widened a fraction.

  ‘Isn’t that Paul Deacon?’

  BJ frowned, stopped his monologue and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Who?’

  ‘Deacon, Paul Deacon. Over by the window. With the woman in the red coat.’

  ‘Dunno, mate.’

  BJ obviously hadn’t heard of him, never mind made his acquaintance. Still, it was years since Len had sat through those two long and sensational weeks at the Old Bailey. Sex, politics and murder, the perfect combination, always guaranteed an excellent turnout and the courtroom had been packed to the rafters. A good show was what the public had been after and the trial hadn’t disappointed.

  Len continued to stare. Deacon was older, greyer, in his late fifties now but he still maintained an air of distinction. The prison regime may have stripped a little weight from his body but it had done nothing to wipe that impenetrable expression from his face. Why he had killed Tony Keppell remained a mystery. How he had even known him was another matter altogether. Deacon had been a successful politician, a socialite, a rich and successful man. The Keppells were pure gangster stock.

  At the trial, Deacon had claimed self-defence, a drunken row that had got out of hand, but his evidence had been vague and evasive. When cross-examined he could not – or perhaps more accurately would not – explain the nature of their relationship. In fact, he had appeared curiously indifferent to the proceedings. Impeccably dressed, he had stood in the dock with a look suspiciously like boredom on his face. Arrogant was how other reporters had described him but Len hadn’t been convinced. Resigned was more the word that had sprung to mind as if, despite all the efforts of his expensive legal team, Deacon had already decided that the outcome was inevitable. And as it turned out he’d been right. The jury, with little other option, had pronounced their unanimous guilty verdict in less than an hour.

  Len switched his attention to the woman. He could only see her in profile, a young slim girl with shortish dark hair. She looked about twenty-five. Not his daughter, that was for sure. Deacon hadn’t got any kids. So who was she? A friend, perhaps, or a girlfriend. There was something about their body language that suggested a particular kind of intimacy. His antennae were starting to twitch. Maybe this trip hadn’t been such a waste of time after all. There might just be a story here: Shamed politician finds sexy new love behind bars.

  ‘So what do you think, Mr C?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About the book, man. It’s the business, right?’

  Len glanced back at him and nodded. ‘Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe.’

  BJ smiled, his upper row of large creamy teeth showing three black spaces. ‘See. I told you. This is gonna be big. This is gonna be mega.’

  Len was only half listening. Deacon and the girl were leaning in towards each other, talking soft and fast. They were only inches apart. Deacon’s shoulders had become tight and hunched. A row? It could be. Some kind of disagreement anyway. Deacon’s left hand, curled up on the table, clenched into a fist. He didn’t look pleased. She didn’t look too happy either. Len saw her shake her head and sit back.

  He rapidly revised his headline: Shamed politician splits with sexy young girlfriend. Now that could be an exclusive, a story that could be sold on to the tabloids. All he had to do was to find out who she was.

  ‘You ever see that girl before, BJ? The one with Deacon.’

  ‘Nah, man, I’ve told you. I don’t know him. I don’t know her.’ Impatiently, he looked over his shoulder again and sighed. ‘What’s the big deal? He famous or somethin’?’

  Len thought about telling him but then changed his mind. ‘No, no one special. It doesn’t matter.’

  He continued to watch them out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly, the girl stood up. She was buttoning her red coat and preparing to leave. It was less than thirty minutes into the visit. Deacon got to his feet too. For a second the two of them stood gazing at each other before she stretched out her hand and touched him lightly on the arm. Then, without a word, she turned and walked quickly towards the door.

  It was the first time Len had seen her properly. He couldn’t describe her as beautiful. He wasn’t even sure if she was pretty. Her face, with its small sharp chin, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes, was more striking than attractive. Then he suddenly realized – there was a hint of familiarity about her. He’d seen her before. But where and when?

  Len made a decision. He scraped back his chair. If he was fast enough he might be able to follow her.

  BJ peered up at him. ‘Mr C?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Len looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got a meeting. Got to go.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Yeah, the book. Sounds good.’ A screw was already heading towards the door, a set
of keys jangling in his hand. If he didn’t leave now he might lose her – along with any chance of a scoop. ‘Make some notes. Send them on. I’ll get back to you. Good to see you again.’ He leaned forward, grabbed BJ’s hand, shook it, and hurried towards the exit.

  She didn’t even glance at him as they were escorted back. The three of them walked in silent single file. Len was careful not to stare too hard. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself.

  In the foyer he retrieved his phone and newspaper from the locker and returned the key to the screw on duty. He quickly left the building, crossed over the road and waited. If she’d driven here, he’d be jiggered. Still, he could always get the registration of the car and try to track her down later.

  A bitter winter wind whistled round his ears. Len turned up the collar of his coat, stamped his feet on the ground and rubbed his hands together. A minute passed and then another. What was she doing in there? If he had to hang around much longer, he’d be frozen to the pavement. He stared longingly towards the soft golden light escaping from the windows of the pub. What he wouldn’t give for a warming shot of brandy. For a moment he was tempted – this business with the girl might come to nothing – but he knew better than to let a God-sent opportunity slip through his fingers. It might only be a hunch but his hunches had served him well in the past.