The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  ‘What was going on with her sister,’ I suggested.

  ‘I’m more interested in her parents’ relationship problems,’ Derwent said. ‘Divorce is a decent motive for Kennford.’

  Godley looked amused. ‘Still barking up that tree, Josh? See what you can find out, Maeve, but don’t push her too far. She might not want to reveal family secrets at this stage, and her mother is dead, remember. I don’t expect her to say anything negative about their marriage, or her mother, until she gets used to the idea that she’s gone.’

  ‘We obviously need to know what she saw last night,’ Maitland said. ‘If anything.’

  ‘And why she’s not dead. That automatically makes her a suspect in my book.’

  Godley’s mouth twitched. ‘Brutal as ever, Josh. And still you’re surprised I don’t want you going along to meet her. But you’re right, we need to know if she was left out deliberately or if she was just out of the way at the right time.’

  ‘Or whether she was supposed to die in Laura’s place.’ Una looked around the table, blinking behind her thick glasses.

  ‘I’m not following.’ It must have cost Derwent quite a lot to admit that, I thought. He certainly said it through gritted teeth.

  ‘They were identical, weren’t they? And Laura wasn’t supposed to be there.’ She shrugged. ‘We can’t be sure Lydia wasn’t the target all along.’

  Derwent was on my heels as we left the room after the meeting, leaning in close so no one else could hear him.

  ‘Well done. Thanks for getting rid of me.’

  ‘It wasn’t deliberate.’

  ‘Bullshit. I know payback when I see it. You were pissed off about having to search the house properly last night and you got your revenge by making me look like a tit in front of everyone.’

  ‘If you looked like a tit in front of everyone it was nothing to do with me.’ I turned around to face him, keeping my voice low and my expression pleasant. ‘I’m not like you. I don’t bother with holding grudges. And if I’d been pissed off about the search last night I’d have said so at the time.’

  ‘The famous Kerrigan temper.’ He leaned against the wall, always just that little bit too close to me for comfort. ‘I’m still waiting to see it.’

  And that’s exactly why I’ll never lose it in front of you. ‘I’m sorry if you’re disappointed about not interviewing Lydia but it was Superintendent Godley who made that call. And I agreed with you, for what it’s worth. I shouldn’t be seeing her on my own.’

  ‘Yeah, much more fun if your rugmuncher mate comes along for the ride.’

  ‘Talking about me?’ Liv turned around in her chair. Either Derwent hadn’t noticed her sitting near us or he hadn’t cared.

  ‘Must be. You’re the only dyke on the team. As far as we know.’ He turned his head, tracking DCI Burt as she walked through the room with her head down, lost in her thoughts.

  ‘May I ask why I came up in conversation?’ Liv sounded interested rather than offended; she had heard enough remarks about her sexuality to take a bit of slang in her stride, even if it was stridently homophobic. Also, she was one of the most self-possessed people I’d ever known. It would take a lot more than Derwent calling her names to make her lose her cool, I imagined.

  Something – Una Burt, maybe – had made the inspector lose interest in our conversation. He stood upright and stretched.

  ‘Get back to the office by twelve, Kerrigan. We’ll go over to Kennford’s chambers together.’

  ‘Can’t wait.’ I watched him walk away, pursuing his own agenda as usual.

  ‘He seems cheery.’

  ‘Even more than usual.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘We didn’t get much sleep last night.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Liv managed to get a world of meaning into just two words.

  ‘Because of work, obviously. Have you heard about the mother and daughter who got stabbed in Wimbledon?’

  ‘Philip Kennford’s family? Of course. It was all over the news.’

  ‘They weren’t named.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s common knowledge. More than a few people are delighted to pass on the news that Philip Kennford’s involved. Not a popular fellow.’

  ‘Derwent and I spent the night going through the house and found a whole lot of nothing. If you’re free, can you give me a hand with questioning a witness?’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘In Twickenham. She’s at her aunt’s house. It’s the other daughter – I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring her in. And Godley didn’t think it was a good idea to let Derwent loose on someone who’s bound to be feeling a bit vulnerable.’

  ‘Whereas I’m notoriously sensitive, being a woman.’ Liv pushed back from her desk and stood up, straightening her immaculate white shirt. ‘Anything that gets me out of the office is fine by me. This place smells of armpits.’

  ‘That’s man smell,’ DC Ben Dornton said in an ultra-masculine voice from his desk opposite where Liv had been sitting. ‘No wonder you don’t like it.’

  ‘That’s I-can’t-be-bothered-with-deodorant-even-though-this-room-isn’t-air-conditioned smell,’ I said. ‘Not raw testosterone, or whatever you think it is.’

  He braced his hands on the top of his head, airing out his underarms. ‘Breathe deep, ladies. Fresh sweat is a known aphrodisiac and there’s no need to thank me.’

  ‘I’m not convinced,’ Liv said, holding her nose.

  ‘You’ll miss it when you’re gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’ Like a gopher on the prairie, Peter Belcott popped up from behind his computer. Afflicted with rampant small-man syndrome, he was easily my least favourite colleague and I didn’t bother to answer him, or even look at him. I liked to pretend he wasn’t there, not least because I knew it annoyed the crap out of him.

  ‘Out for an interview on Maeve’s new case.’ Liv was logging out of her computer.

  ‘Oh, right. You’ve found something more interesting to do than the gangland shootings. Fair enough. What’s so important about a load of drug dealers being murdered? In fact, why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I’m sure we’ll manage without you.’

  ‘The boss approved it,’ I said tiredly. ‘And given that most of the team is currently working on the shootings, I doubt it will make a huge difference if Liv isn’t here for one morning.’

  It was fatal to attract Belcott’s attention. ‘Yeah, and I noticed you managed to get yourself onto this new case somehow. I’ve been watching for a while, Kerrigan. You’re always the boss’s first choice. Why would that be?’

  ‘Because I’m good at my job.’

  ‘We’re all good. That’s why we’re here. What I want to know is why you’re his favourite.’

  I laughed. ‘Belcott, you’re paranoid.’

  ‘I’ve been keeping track.’ His face had flushed red, which didn’t suit him. ‘You get special treatment. Just makes me wonder if it has something to do with the boss’s marriage being on the skids. Stands to reason he’s gone over the side with someone.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, genuinely confused.

  ‘I’m talking about Godley shagging around. Seems to me you’re a likely suspect. There’s no other explanation for why you keep getting preferential treatment.’

  Dornton looked over his shoulder at Godley’s office, where the blinds were drawn and the door was closed. ‘Keep your voices down, for fuck’s sake. He can probably hear every word you’re saying.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Belcott sounded defiant, something that was calculated to bring out the worst in me.

  ‘I do care, actually. I resent what you’re suggesting and it’s not the first time you’ve made a comment like that, based on nothing except that you seem to be convinced you’re entitled to everything you ever wanted and the fact that you’re jogging along as a middle-of-the-road DC must be someone else’s fault.’

  Struggling to speak, Belcott took a second to reply. ‘Bitch.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that before. It do
esn’t surprise me you couldn’t come up with anything original.’ I jabbed a finger at him. ‘If I hear you’ve been saying that about me to anyone, I’m going to report you for harassment. I’m going to make your life a misery. And I don’t know where you’re getting your ideas about Godley’s private life, but I’m willing to bet you’re way off.’

  ‘You would say that.’

  ‘I’d say it because it’s true.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Princess Perfect.’ Belcott turned on his heel and walked out.

  I turned back to Dornton. ‘What was he trying to imply about Godley’s marriage?’

  ‘The boss has been sleeping here, in his office. Because of the shootings, he says. Better to be on the spot in case there’s another one.’

  ‘That’s no reason for a conspiracy theory. It definitely doesn’t mean he has to have been having an affair. I don’t know anything about Godley’s private life, but I do know they’ve just been away on holidays. That’s not what you do if you’re on the point of breaking up, is it?’

  ‘Keeping it together for the sake of the kid,’ Dornton said wisely.

  ‘The kid is sixteen. I think she could cope.’

  Liv was brushing her long ponytail. ‘You have to admit it’s a bit weird that he’s camping out here. He doesn’t live that far away.’

  Changing sides easily, Dornton said, ‘Not the point. Think about the disruption. Coming and going at all hours. And he’s trying to keep his family out of it, isn’t he?’

  ‘He has good reason,’ I said with a shudder. ‘He’s right in the middle of a fight to the death between two of the most unpleasant criminals I’ve ever come across. John Skinner hasn’t had any qualms about targeting Godley’s family before, and now he’s got a life sentence without parole he has less to lose.’

  ‘He’s got nothing. Nothing at all. And Godley was the one who put him back inside for good, so he must hate him.’ Dornton shook his head. ‘Makes you wonder why he’s bothered with fighting a turf war against Ken Goldsworthy again.’

  ‘Because Goldsworthy is up for it,’ Liv suggested. ‘He can tell he’s close to winning and Skinner can’t back down. Last time, Goldsworthy didn’t have a hope in hell of coming out on top and that’s why he ended up having to make do with a corner of Hertfordshire while Skinner got most of London. But Skinner was in Spain then, not cooling his heels in prison.’

  ‘The last time I saw Ken Goldsworthy he was charming the pants off Mrs Skinner,’ I reminded Liv. ‘Literally. I bet that’s the sort of thing that would motivate Skinner to keep fighting, and doing it across our patch makes it Godley’s problem, so there’s an added incentive.’

  ‘It’s pride. And force of habit.’ DS Maitland had been tuned in to the entire conversation. Now he leaned across Liv to nick a pen off her desk. ‘You know and I know that Skinner should give up now and enjoy his retirement at Her Majesty’s pleasure, all the comforts of home supplied as and when required. But he never knew when he was beaten before, so he’s not going to walk away from a fight if he still has one dog to bark for him.’

  ‘And that’s about all he’s got, as I understand it,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. He lost a few of his best and brightest when he was looking for his daughter.’ His daughter, who had led him to act so recklessly that he had essentially walked into custody after years on the run. His daughter, who had turned up dead in spite of everything he’d sacrificed for her. ‘Recruitment isn’t so easy when you’re stuck in prison. It’s not as if he has a lot to offer. Come and work for me and I can guarantee you a quick death and no share of the profits because there aren’t any.’

  ‘But if he wins––’

  Maitland shrugged. ‘Then he gets the lot. And he’s not in a position to enjoy it, so whoever’s been on his side is quids in. Hence the new agreement.’

  ‘New agreement?’ I looked to Liv for an explanation.

  ‘The latest we’re hearing is that he’s gone in with some immigrants. We don’t know much except that they’re supposedly Eastern Europeans, which could mean anything from the Baltics to Afghanistan. The word is, they carried out the last killing – the two lads who were dumped behind the ice rink in Streatham. They’re not on our radar so far so I can’t tell you any more than that.’

  ‘And luckily for us they’re not on Ken Goldsworthy’s radar either, so we’ve had a couple of nights off. Not that it’ll last.’ Dornton finished off with a cavernous yawn.

  ‘You don’t seem too bothered,’ I said, amused.

  ‘I just can’t get that worked up about a load of drug dealers and scumbags killing each other. I know the tabloids are screaming for us to do something, but I don’t see them making any useful suggestions.’

  ‘It’s all window dressing, isn’t it?’ Liv said. ‘Godley needs us to look busy so the Chief Constable will leave him alone. We can chase around from crime scene to crime scene, but the truth is we’re always too late to do anything useful. By the time we find whoever did the last murder, they’re usually bleeding out on a pavement somewhere in Peckham or Tooting.’

  ‘Rough justice, but it works.’ Dornton shrugged. ‘You might as well go off and do something more useful with your time, Liv.’

  ‘While “London descends into chaos”.’ I turned around the newspaper that was lying on Liv’s desk so Dornton could read the headline. He snorted in disgust.

  ‘Give it a rest. There are thirty or forty possible targets for Skinner and his boys – more for Goldsworthy, probably, now that these foreign lads are in on it. Someone else is going to die, and soon, but there’s fuck all we can do about it.’

  Liv nodded. ‘All we need is for John Skinner and Ken Goldsworthy to agree their territories and the killing will stop.’

  ‘It sounds so simple when you put it that way. I can’t imagine why we haven’t done it already.’ Godley walked past us without waiting for Liv to respond, which was probably a good thing as she looked too mortified to speak.

  ‘That’s the sort of thing that usually happens to me,’ I said once he was well out of earshot.

  ‘Well, it’s true.’ She grinned at me, recovering fast. ‘Good thing he didn’t come along a bit earlier, isn’t it?’

  ‘Like when Belcott was accusing me of sleeping with him? He is the only person on this team who could put two and two together and come up with sixty-nine.’

  ‘There’s more of it about than you’d think.’ Dornton caught my eye and ducked down behind his computer, muttering something about having work to do.

  ‘Well, if you hear anyone else saying it, Ben, you know what to tell them. Besides, it’s not as if the Kennford case is fun. If it was up to Derwent, we’d be working on the gang shootings.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. He used to be on Godley’s task force dealing with organised crime. He’s got the background and the experience but for some reason he’s not involved. He feels he’s been sidelined in favour of DCI Burt, and it kills him that he’s lost out to a woman.’

  ‘Is that his problem?’ Liv asked, fascinated.

  ‘I’d say it’s one of the many.’

  ‘Did he tell you all that?’ Dornton’s eyebrows were hovering around his hairline.

  ‘No.’ I smiled condescendingly at him. ‘But a woman knows.’

  ‘So that’s why you’re top of the boss’s list. Feminine intuition.’

  ‘That’s right. It’s just our natural advantage. Don’t worry. One day you men will start being given the same opportunities we enjoy. Until then, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to work harder than us to get the recognition you deserve.’

  ‘Very funny, Kerrigan.’

  ‘I’ve never been more serious.’

  ‘You could try and make yourself look a bit better too. Smarter. Do something with your hair,’ Liv suggested. ‘And tidy your desk.’

  ‘Good idea. A few fresh flowers would make a world of difference. Little masculine touches add a lot to the workplace.’

  Dornton glowe
red at me. ‘I hope you’re better at being detectives than comedians. Go and do your interview, for God’s sake, and leave me alone.’

  ‘Back soon,’ Liv trilled. ‘Try not to miss me when I’m gone.’

  ‘I’ll be counting the minutes.’

  I headed for the door, the smile on my face fading as I started to focus on what I was about to do, on the fact that I was responsible for running an interview that could make all the difference in tracing the killer of two people, one still a child. When it came down to it, office politics didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting a result, and if I didn’t, I’d only have myself to blame.

  It was no consolation to know there’d be a queue of people ready to do the same.

  Chapter Five

  WHATEVER ELSE THEY had in common, Vita and her sister both had an eye for expensive real estate. Renee Fairfax’s home was far more traditional than the house I had searched the night before: a detached, white-painted Georgian property with extensive gardens that ended in a particularly pretty bit of the Thames. Polished antique furniture, silver knickknacks and gilt-framed pictures gleamed in the rooms I could see from the hall. That was where Liv and I had been left to wait for the housekeeper to find Renee herself. I felt most definitely out of place and couldn’t tell if Liv felt the same way.

  She had been scanning her surroundings with interest. ‘What do you think Mr Fairfax does for a living?’

  ‘Something that brings in big money to afford a place like this. It makes the Endsleigh Drive house look basic.’

  ‘Not too shabby, is it?’ Liv ran her toe over the fringe of the oriental carpet. ‘I feel like I’m on a film set.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Even the flowers were perfect, great vases full of red roses that stood on two matching half-moon tables on either side of the hall. I wandered over to one to inhale their sweet scent, noticing in passing that there were two tiny drops of water on the table. I wiped them away before they could leave a mark on the varnish. When I turned to go back to Liv, she raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You look perplexed.’

  ‘I am, I suppose. These flowers are fresh. They were put here this morning.’