The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  Reminding myself why I was there, I stopped gawping and introduced myself, aware that everyone in the lobby was trying their hardest to eavesdrop. I had been expecting a diva but what I got was a serious young woman who seemed a little anxious, fiddling with the cuffs of her long-sleeved top.

  ‘I’m sorry this took a little while to set up. I know it’s really important. I’ve been really busy for the past few days.’

  ‘It’s just a chat,’ I found myself saying, wanting to reassure her. ‘No need to worry.’

  ‘Is it okay for Zoe to come in with me? I think she would be really helpful.’

  ‘I’m sure that would be fine.’ If she needed her assistant to remind her of dates and times, that didn’t surprise me. The celebrity lifestyle had to be a confusing one. I led the way to the interview room, noting as soon as I opened the door that it stank of aftershave. It didn’t take a super-sleuth to trace it to its source, which was a nervous DI Derwent, rubbing his right hand on his trousers to dry it before extending it to Savannah.

  ‘Miss Wentworth. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ He pumped her hand enthusiastically as she murmured something that might have been ‘thank you’ and sank into one of the stained plastic chairs. Zoe sat down in the corner behind her, unnoticed. She was probably used to being ignored when in Savannah’s company.

  ‘Thank you for coming in to see us today.’ Derwent was still laying on the charm for all he was worth.

  ‘I thought it was best to get it over with when I was free this afternoon. I’m hard to get hold of. I travel a lot.’

  ‘Part of your job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Not my favourite bit, actually.’ She crossed one long leg over the other, swinging her foot. ‘It has its moments, though. I’ve just come back from South Africa. Beautiful place.’

  ‘When did you get back?’

  ‘Last Saturday.’ She looked over her shoulder to Zoe, who nodded agreement. ‘I did an editorial shoot for a new magazine on Monday, all day. Since then, lots of meetings and a bit of downtime. It was good that I wasn’t supposed to be travelling, given what happened to Vita and Laura. You’d never have tracked me down.’

  ‘When did you find out about it?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘My mother rang me on Monday as soon as she heard about it.’ Savannah bit her lip, looking frail and anguished. I recalled that a lot of modelling was basically playing a part, and wondered how deeply she really felt about them. ‘It was such a shock. I mean, I didn’t know Laura very well, but I’d seen her and her sister grow up, off and on. And Vita – she wasn’t my favourite person in the world, but I wouldn’t have wished her harm.’

  ‘When did you last see them?’

  ‘A couple of years ago, maybe? I’m not totally sure.’

  ‘From what I understand, she was the reason you fell out with your father,’ I said. Derwent being reverent was amusing up to a point, but we couldn’t let Savannah walk out without finding out more about her relationship with Kennford’s second family, even if it made her angry.

  Anger, however, did not seem to be the dominant emotion. Savannah’s expression changed from one second to the next, the sorrow replaced by mocking amusement. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Gossip,’ I admitted.

  ‘Well, your source was a bit off on that one. I mean, I’m sure she wasn’t weeping into her pillow about it, but I don’t think she was particularly bothered about the real reason Dad didn’t want to talk to me any more. I thought it was all coming from him, from the way he reacted.’

  ‘What was the reason, then?’ Derwent demanded.

  ‘I don’t want it to go outside this room.’

  ‘You have my word.’ It certainly sounded as if he meant it, and at the time he probably did. He would have promised a lot to get the inside story on Philip Kennford.

  Savannah looked again at Zoe, turning around in her seat to do so. Zoe nodded, her expression neutral.

  ‘Dad found it impossible to accept that I prefer women to men.’

  ‘As in …’

  ‘As in I sleep with women. I am a lesbian. A dyke.’ Savannah’s voice had risen and Zoe leaned forward in her chair to put a hand on her shoulder. The model covered it with her own hand for a second, then released it. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t shout.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ I could almost have felt sorry for Derwent, whose face seemed to have frozen in an awkward half-smile. Since he didn’t seem to be capable of speech, I went on. ‘That’s a well-kept secret, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s no one else’s business.’ Savannah spoke tartly and I saw her father’s personality in her for the first time.

  ‘Who knows about it?’

  ‘You. My parents. Zoe. My agent. No one else.’ She hesitated. ‘Having said that, I presume Dad told Vita but I asked him not to tell anyone else.

  ‘Why’s that? Do you think it would be bad for your reputation?’

  ‘No. At least, I don’t think it would be. My agent found out by accident – it wasn’t as if I went and told her to see what she’d say. She wasn’t bothered but she agreed not to talk about it to anyone.’

  Derwent leaned back in his chair, recovering his composure a bit. ‘Can’t see why you need to make it into a big secret in this day and age. People are used to that sort of thing. It wouldn’t be much of a scandal.’

  ‘I just didn’t feel I needed to tell the world, that’s all. There are some things that are better kept private. And my job is all about how I look. People can make me into anything they want. The less they know about the real me, the more intrigued they are. I don’t do press interviews. I don’t give quotes to magazines. I keep my personal life to myself. It makes people focus on the image, not the reality, and that works for me.’

  ‘Don’t you owe your fans the truth?’

  The blue eyes were ice-cold. ‘Just because I make a living out of being famous doesn’t mean everyone is entitled to know every detail of my private life.’ She turned to me. ‘I bet you don’t tell everyone at work what you get up to behind closed doors.’

  Derwent got in before I had a chance to reply. ‘She doesn’t need to. It’s common knowledge.’

  I glared at him. ‘There are no secrets on the team, but it would be nice if there were some.’ To Savannah, I said, ‘I can see your point.’

  ‘Well then.’ She looked from me to Derwent and back again, not really understanding what either of us meant. ‘What happened with me and Dad was that I came out to him last year and suddenly he wasn’t so keen to boast about how I was his favourite daughter. It was ironic, really, because you’d think fancying women would be something we’d have in common.’

  There was a world of hurt in her voice but she would have died rather than admit it.

  ‘He’s pretty open about it,’ I said.

  ‘Has he tried it on with you? No? Give him time.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘No one’s safe. He made a pass at my teacher once, at a parent–teacher meeting, in front of Mum. That didn’t go down too well. Other people’s mothers at parties and school concerts. When I was older, friends of mine, too. Teenagers, I mean. It’s gross, when you come to think about it.’

  ‘Did he ever do anything? Try it on with someone underage?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘Nothing illegal. But he’d make comments. You know – you’ve turned into a very lovely young lady, someone’s going to be lucky to get you. He thought it was charming.’ She shuddered. ‘You get a lot of that in modelling, when you’re young. Clients and photographers, mainly. You get used to it, but it’s never nice. I wouldn’t have liked it, and I’m sure it pissed off my friends. He’s just an old creep, when you come down to it.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’ I asked.

  There was a long silence. ‘I miss the person I thought he was. Nothing has disappointed me so much as his refusal to respect me and my identity. I always made allowances for him. I believed in unconditional love, no matter how angry I was about things he’d done. I always tried to see the good in him. I
accepted the fact that he was a womaniser and no one was off-limits. I forgave him for leaving my mother, even though she was really hard work when I was growing up.’ Savannah’s eyes filled with tears, which she blinked away. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise. This must be difficult for you,’ I said gently.

  ‘It’s all old news.’ She sniffed a couple of times before Zoe leaned forward again, this time with a tissue. ‘I met Zoe last year and fell in love, and Dad couldn’t deal with it. He wouldn’t even meet her when I asked him to. And Zoe was really looking forward to getting to know him too.’

  I looked at Zoe, who had a strictly non-committal expression on her face. It wasn’t usually the girlfriend or boyfriend who was too bothered about what the parents thought, whether they were gay or straight. I had a suspicion it had been Savannah’s idea all along.

  ‘Still, I don’t regret any of it.’ She blew her nose loudly, somehow managing to look elegant rather than a pink snotty mess, as I would have been. ‘He didn’t seem to understand that it doesn’t matter to me that Zoe’s a woman. She could have been anything. I fell in love with the person, not her gender. You can’t help who you fall in love with. It’s about a mental and spiritual connection, not a physical one. And Zoe and I were meant to be together. We’re soulmates. When we met, it was like I was looking in a mirror and seeing Zoe look back. We had so much in common it was crazy. I couldn’t have stopped myself from falling for her even if I’d wanted to.’

  Derwent was looking frankly sceptical. I hurried to get in before he could say anything awful. ‘Was your dad shocked, do you think?’

  ‘Repulsed. I’d had boyfriends before, you see. I didn’t think I’d ever be attracted to a woman.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m still not. I always feel like a fraud when I say I’m a lesbian, and that’s why I don’t want anyone making a big deal out of it or labelling me. I just love Zoe.’

  Zoe herself was looking remote, as if she’d tuned out. I wondered how she felt about Savannah’s comments. Her sexuality was none of my business, but I found it strange that she didn’t seem to be at ease with it, for all her anger with her father. Savannah seemed to be trying to say that she didn’t even see Zoe as female, which struck me as borderline insulting. The woman was ultra-feminine, despite the piercings and the hard-edge haircut. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to find yourself attracted to a member of the same sex, but I thought of Rob, and the physical effect of being close to him – that knee-quivering, heart-stopping excitement that hadn’t diminished over the months we’d been together – and I couldn’t separate that from the emotional side of our relationship. It certainly wasn’t unimportant to me. I wondered if it was the strength of her father’s reaction that had made Savannah Wentworth so defensive and secretive about her romantic life, or if she was inclined to be protective of her privacy anyway.

  ‘How did your mum react when you told her?’ I asked.

  ‘Predictably. No grandchildren, poor me.’ Savannah grinned. ‘Firstly, I wasn’t exactly broody before. Secondly, you’d think she hadn’t ever heard of sperm donors. It’s not an insurmountable issue.’

  ‘But she wasn’t as upset as your father.’

  ‘It’s different, I think. She was pretty unmoved. I imagine she thinks it’s a phase and I’ll grow out of it. Anyway, she’s too wrapped up in herself and her own world to have the energy to think about me. He didn’t like the fact that I was turning my back on men. He was always proud of people fancying me – which I’m not even going to try to pick apart because I personally think he needs years of therapy for various reasons and it would take a professional to understand that particular little quirk. Also, I don’t know this for sure, but he might have been worried I’d be a bad influence on the twins. Tempt them away from the straight and narrow path.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s stupidly strict with them. I never had any of the rules they have to obey. No boyfriends, no social life to speak of. I’d have kicked off massively if he’d tried any of that shit on me.’

  ‘Why do you think he didn’t?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘He wasn’t around for my rebellious phase. He had already got together with Vita and the twins were really young. He just didn’t get the chance. Or he didn’t mind either way and the discipline was all from Vita.’

  ‘Tell me about Vita. What was she like?’

  ‘The ice queen. She didn’t care about anything except really uncomfortable interior design and the twins. She didn’t like me. Too much competition for her girls. Like I say, I don’t think she had anything to do with Dad not wanting to talk to me, but I don’t think she was sad about it.’

  ‘She stopped him from going to your catwalk shows, I heard.’

  Savannah raised one eyebrow. ‘Same source of gossip as before?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘It’s more accurate this time. She didn’t like him being away from home for no good reason, and I quote. I started doing the European fashion week shows – that’s London, Paris and Milan – when I was sixteen. I was a baby, really. My agency looked after me okay, but it meant a lot to have someone in the crowd who was there to see me. He’d take me out for dinner and tell me how great I’d been.’ She looked vulnerable now, her bottom lip quivering. ‘It was the one thing that gave me security, knowing he’d be there, in the audience and afterwards. And he hadn’t been around for so long, it was like meeting him for the first time when he started to show up. I remember thinking, I really like him. He’s my dad and he’s really cool.’ She grimaced, embarrassed. ‘I was young, like I said. Too young to find it shameful that my dad was trailing me around Europe trying to cop off with pretty young women.’

  ‘Was that why he was there?’ Derwent asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I could be being cynical. I think he genuinely got a kick out of seeing me in the spotlight. It just so happened that he got to take advantage of where I was and who I was with. He loved the attention he got in restaurants and clubs when he turned up with two or three girls, never mind that one of them was his daughter.’

  Derwent shook his head. Almost to himself, he said, ‘The more I hear about him, the more I wish I had the chance to give him a good slap.’

  She laughed. ‘You don’t want to listen to me. He’s not that bad, really. I’m just a bitter cast-off. Not one but two cuckoos in the nest meant there was no room for me.’

  ‘Did you resent the twins?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. Massively, at first. I sulked for months after they were born. But they were cute little things and they won me over. They were like little monkeys when they were small. Sweet little scrunched-up faces. Hard to believe when you think how grown-up they are now. Or were.’ She looked stricken. ‘I can’t actually believe that Laura is dead. And what I’ve read about it makes it sound as if she died in a really horrible way.’

  ‘There’s no good way to die when you’re fifteen.’ Derwent was right but that didn’t make it any less brutal. ‘Where were you on Sunday night, Miss Wentworth?’

  ‘At home, which is in the middle of the middle of nowhere in Sussex. I was catching up on my rest after being away. I slept for fourteen hours that night. I must have been shattered.’

  ‘Were you alone?’

  ‘Zoe was around.’ She turned to address her. ‘You were working, though, most of the time.’ To me, she said, ‘Zoe designs jewellery. She has a studio beside the house, on the other side of what used to be the stable yard.’

  ‘So she wasn’t with you,’ Derwent said heavily.

  ‘I was thirty yards away.’ Zoe’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was definite. ‘Savannah didn’t go anywhere on Sunday night. I’d have heard the car.’

  ‘She couldn’t have missed it. And I’d have needed the car to go anywhere. It really is the back of beyond. It’s down a mile-long track that isn’t paved. No one would know the house was there unless they knew, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ I commented.

  ‘
It is. Too big for the two of us, really, but we like it.’

  ‘I’d have thought you’d need to be a bit closer to the centre of London.’

  ‘Not really. It’s forty minutes to the M25 from where we are. Manageable. And I always stay in a hotel in town if I’ve got an early start.’

  ‘Nice for some,’ Derwent said.

  ‘One of the perks of the job. It’s like being a footballer, though; it doesn’t last for ever. I have to make the most of it while I’m at the top.’

  ‘I suppose we should let you get back to it.’ Derwent looked at me. ‘Anything else? No? Thank you for your time, then, Miss Wentworth. Miss, er?’

  ‘Prowse,’ Zoe said. ‘Zoe Prowse.’

  Savannah put her hands on the table, her fingertips beating a soundless tattoo on the wood. ‘Look, there was something I wanted to ask you before we go.’

  ‘Fire ahead.’

  ‘It’s Lydia.’ The fingers tapped. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s doing okay,’ I said, which was sort of true.

  ‘I doubt that. I doubt she’s coping well at all.’ Savannah’s eyes were fixed on me and I felt she could read the truth from my face.

  ‘She’s struggling a bit. But I think she had difficulties before the murders took place. They just won’t have helped.’

  ‘That and you lot interrogating her, I imagine.’

  ‘We’ve been doing our best to be sensitive,’ I said quickly.

  ‘The best thing you could do is leave her alone.’

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t. Not yet. We need to talk to her again about what happened.’

  ‘Why?’ Savannah demanded.

  ‘Because we can’t find out what we need to know about Laura and her mother from anyone else.’

  ‘What about Dad?’

  ‘He’s helped as much as he can.’