The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what kind of person cares about having fresh flowers on display in her home less than twenty-four hours after her sister’s brutal murder?’

  ‘Maybe it was the housekeeper’s idea. I can’t really believe they have servants. I thought that kind of thing went out in Victorian times.’

  ‘Not if you’re very, very rich.’

  ‘And these people definitely are. Where do you think the money comes from?’

  ‘Inherited, I’m sorry to say.’ Unobserved by me, a tall red-haired woman had emerged from the shadows at the back of the hall. Renee, I presumed. She was lean to the point of emaciation, her white cotton shirt and narrow pink jeans hanging off her frame. I tried to remember what I’d just been saying about her and her family, and whether it had actually been offensive or just speculative.

  She advanced towards us, moving into the light. She was nothing like her sister in appearance, but striking in her own way. A long necklace of jade beads and gold links was looped twice around her neck and hung inside her collar, the green startlingly dark against paper-white skin. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was blow-dried to perfection and she had elegantly arched eyebrows over cold green eyes. It was the classic redhead colouring and I thought it was all natural, even to the darker brows and lashes. She had been unlucky to get the delicate com plexion that traditionally came with red hair – unlucky because it showed her age cruelly. Wrinkles fanned out from her eyes and curved around her narrow mouth. Her forehead was smooth and shiny, like soap, and I recognised the signs of an expensive Botox habit. Her voice had a metallic quality, which contributed to the impression I had formed, more or less immediately, that she was pure steel.

  ‘I’m DC Maeve Kerrigan. This is DC Liv Bowen.’ Renee folded her arms as I introduced myself so I abandoned any attempt at shaking her hand. ‘We’re investigating the deaths of your sister and your niece.’

  I was deliberately brutal in how I phrased it to see if I would get a reaction of any kind, which I did not.

  ‘I gathered that. I’m afraid I’m not sure how I can help.’ She was too composed. It was either a way of disguising her grief or she simply didn’t feel any.

  ‘I’d just like to ask you a couple of questions, if I may.’

  ‘Such as?’

  No point in starting small. ‘Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill your sister?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ She seemed to find the very idea an insult. ‘This entire situation is completely grotesque.’

  That was one way of putting it. ‘It must be very shocking.’

  ‘Naturally. It’s been extremely traumatic.’ Renee did not look particularly traumatised. However, she was hugging herself as if she was cold, which was surely impossible on such a hot day.

  ‘Did you see much of your sister? Speak to her often?’

  ‘We spoke. Not daily. A normal amount.’ She shook her hair back. ‘We were on good terms.’

  It was a fairly formal way of putting it, but I let it go for the moment. The truth about how people related to one another tended to come out, whether they wanted to hide it or not.

  ‘Would you have known if anything was worrying her?’ Liv asked. ‘If she was frightened, for instance?’

  ‘I imagine she would have said something if she was frightened, though I can’t imagine what would have made her feel that way. As for anything worrying her – well, she had plenty of things to be concerned about.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Family issues. Mothers always worry about their children. Some wives worry about their husbands. Vita had good reason.’

  ‘What do you mean, Mrs Fairfax?’

  ‘I mean that Philip was not a good husband and teenage girls are not straightforward. Vita found it hard to deal with the three of them. And when Philip should have been backing her up, he was always away, working.’ She sounded deeply scathing.

  ‘He does seem to be a busy man.’

  ‘Busy playing around. He is consistently unfaithful.’

  It fitted in with what Derwent had said about him. ‘Is that a recent development?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s always been the same. He married her for her money, as I always told her. Having got his hands on it, he had no further use for her. I hope he’s on your list of suspects because I wouldn’t trust him in the slightest.’

  ‘Did he ever threaten her, do you know? Any violent incidents?’

  ‘No.’ She sounded regretful.

  ‘Would you have known about it if there were any incidents of that sort?’ Liv asked. ‘Very often victims of domestic violence hide it, even from those who are close to them.’

  ‘The only thing he ever threatened her with was leaving her.’

  ‘And she didn’t jump at the chance? He doesn’t sound like the sort of person you’d want to stick around.’

  ‘She believed in marriage,’ Renee said coldly. ‘She believed in her vows, even if he didn’t. And she wasn’t cut out to be a single mother. She managed to persuade him to stay.’

  ‘Did you think that was a good idea?’

  ‘She’d made her bed.’ Zero warmth; zero understanding.

  ‘Did she have any enemies?’

  Renee laughed. ‘She wasn’t a character in a soap opera.’

  ‘Ordinary people have enemies too, Mrs Fairfax.’

  ‘Not people like Vita.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I insisted. ‘Wealth and privilege don’t exempt you from other people’s envy. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘I’ll have to try to remember that,’ Renee drawled, and I felt myself blush. I very much disliked being made to feel inferior because of my accent or my job or the fact that I was clearly impressed by my surroundings. Class was still an issue and only those who never needed to worry about it in the first place thought it wasn’t. I had to make a special effort to keep myself from sounding nettled.

  ‘Can you think of anything that might help us find your sister and niece’s killer?’

  ‘Hard work?’ She arched an eyebrow, then shook her head, becoming almost human before my eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist being flippant. I just don’t think there’s anything I can suggest. I’m at a loss.’

  ‘I understand.’ To be charitable, she was probably in shock. And she had apologised. I was prepared to be magnanimous, if not friendly.

  ‘Can you tell us about Vita’s wealth? How much was she worth?’

  ‘I don’t know to the nearest pound. A considerable amount, though. The money came from banking, originally. My grandfather had his own. He made a fortune in the Far East in rubber and mining interests.’

  ‘Ethical?’ Liv asked with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘It was the thirties. No one cared about that kind of thing then.’ And it didn’t look as if Renee cared much now. ‘He was one of the richest men in the world at the time, but after the war, his investments had lost a lot of value. My generation inherited the last of it – a few million.’

  ‘Each, presumably,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. But that’s all there is. It was up to each of us to find a way of using the money to start a business and make it a success.’

  ‘So Vita set up an art gallery. According to Mr Kennford, it lost money.’

  ‘Too risky. She was gambling with her inheritance.’

  ‘And that’s not your approach.’

  ‘I’m an investor in the past. I deal in antiques. I know the market and my buyers know I only acquire the very best pieces, so the risks are small.’

  ‘And the profits?’ Liv asked.

  ‘I set the prices; I decide the profit. And I run my own interior design business too, so I can always find a home for what I buy. I’m risk-averse.’

  ‘But Vita didn’t mind taking a chance.’

  ‘She could be impulsive.’ Renee’s mouth was drawn tight with disapproval. ‘She never learned to look before she leapt.’

  ‘Is there anything else you think we should know?’
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br />   She shook her head and I looked at Liv to check whether she had anything else to ask. I got a no.

  ‘In that case, perhaps we should speak to Lydia now.’

  Back to the steel. ‘I don’t understand why you need to bother her today.’

  ‘We weren’t able to get an account from her last night because she was under sedation, but that makes it all the more important we get to hear what happened and what she saw as soon as we can.’

  ‘Well, she won’t talk about it with me. Won’t talk about anything. The girl’s practically mute.’

  They were bony shoulders to cry on, I thought. Renee Fairfax wasn’t overflowing with sympathy and kindliness. I wouldn’t have confided in her either, but diplomacy suggested I should find a tactful way of putting it.

  ‘It’s sometimes easier to talk to someone you don’t know rather than a family member. Lydia won’t want to upset you by talking about what happened to her mother and sister, especially if you were close to them.’ I paused to let Renee tell us about her relationship with her sister, but the narrow mouth remained firmly closed. ‘We never met Vita or Laura so we’re neutral. She doesn’t have to protect us from what she saw.’

  ‘We’re trained to talk to young people in difficult situations,’ Liv added, using her most dove-like tone of voice, a low murmur that was infinitely soothing. I tried to imagine Derwent doing the same, and failed. On the other hand, his brand of macho tough talk might have made Renee go weak at the knees. It had its own strange appeal, I could imagine, if you weren’t used to being treated that way. Maybe Godley had been wrong to stop Derwent from coming with me. So far, Liv and I weren’t having much luck.

  ‘I still think you should leave her alone. It can’t help to go over it now, while she’s still getting used to the idea they’re gone. I can get in touch with you when she does feel able to discuss it.’

  ‘That’s just not possible, I’m afraid. We need her to think about what she saw while it’s still fresh in her mind. And we are looking for a very violent murderer, so we don’t have the luxury of waiting until Lydia feels ready to talk to us.’ I waited to see what Renee Fairfax would come up with in reply. A shrug, it turned out.

  ‘I can’t be there while you talk to her, if it’s going to take a while. I’m far too busy – I’ve got a meeting in half an hour. So if you need her to have a guardian-thingy––’

  ‘That’s up to you. If you need to work and she wants to speak to us in the presence of an appropriate adult, we’ll have to find one. But that shouldn’t be a problem.’ I sounded more confident than I felt. I needed to get this interview done and head back to the office before Derwent lost patience entirely and threw me off the case, which I had little doubt he would if I gave him the excuse. I definitely didn’t need a delay while we scratched about for a court-appointed social worker to sit down with us and hold Lydia’s hand.

  The gamble worked. Renee’s shoulders dropped a half-inch. ‘Oh, well. If you must. She’s in the garden. I sent her out to get some fresh air after breakfast.’

  Because breathing deeply would make up for half her family being savagely murdered. ‘That’s fine. We can speak to her there.’ I looked past her, to where French windows gleamed greenly at the back of a drawing room. ‘Is this the best way to get out there?’

  Renee might have been on the ropes but she had a punch or two left in her. ‘The best way for you to find her’ – the emphasis was subtle, but definitely there – ‘is to go back outside and follow the path around the house. She’s down by the river in the teahouse.’ A long hand fluttered vaguely. ‘You can’t miss it. It’s painted Chartwell green.’

  I had no idea what that looked like but I was damned if I was going to admit that to Renee. I nodded confidently and headed for the front door before she could come up with any other reasons why the interview couldn’t go ahead.

  Liv hung back for a moment. ‘And are you coming with us?’

  ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  What she actually meant, it transpired, was that she would cut through the house and take a shortcut to the teahouse, a small, pretty wooden pavilion on the edge of the water, open-sided to take advantage of the breeze from the river, painted a muted shade of blue-green. By the time Liv and I had trekked around the house and hacked through the shrubbery to find it, Renee had been able to talk to Lydia alone for a couple of minutes. Preparing her, I assumed, but the body language was strained. The older woman was leaning over her niece, her arms still tightly folded, her head poked forward like a hunting bird. She was turned away from us so I couldn’t see her face to make a guess as to what she had been saying, but I doubted it was anything I would consider helpful. Lydia’s head was bent over a sketchpad. She was shading a drawing, a delicate sketch of some peonies that nodded in a water glass on the table in front of her. Her expression was stubborn. She was as pale as she had been the night before, and on a day when the temperature was comfortably in the high twenties by mid-morning, she was wearing a black long-sleeved top that hung down over her hands and swamped her tiny frame. She wore jeans, loose rather than fitted, and heavy boots. I had lost touch with teenage fashion but I was pretty sure grunge was still out. If anything, most young girls seemed to wear as little as possible, especially in the middle of a heatwave. I wondered with a vague sense of disquiet what Lydia had to hide, then chided myself for jumping to conclusions. There was nothing to say a fifteen-year-old had to dress like a stripper just because most of them seemed to.

  Renee turned at the sound of our feet on the steps and announced, fairly unnecessarily, ‘Here they are now.’

  Lydia didn’t look up. Nor did she respond in any way to our greetings, concentrating instead on her drawing. I sat down opposite her, on a bench that ran around the inside of the teahouse, and Liv sat beside me. Renee perched on the railing and took out a pack of Sobranies. Her hand shook a little as she fitted the black-and-gold cigarette between her bloodless lips, and I waited for her to light it with a dainty silver lighter before I began.

  ‘Thank you for talking to us today, Lydia. I know this must be hard for you, so we’ll try to keep it short.’

  No response.

  ‘We met last night. I’m DC Kerrigan. This is DC Bowen. If it’s easier, you can call us Maeve and Liv.’ Again, there was no answer.

  ‘That’s a lovely drawing. You’re very talented.’

  Slowly and deliberately, she turned over the page of her sketchpad to hide the flowers she had drawn. In their place, she began to draw a random pattern of jagged angles and dark squares, filling the white space with practised ease.

  ‘I didn’t see any art in your bedroom.’

  That got me a glare for a second. You were in my room, looking through my stuff.

  ‘Your room was bare compared to Laura’s.’ She flinched and leaned her head on one hand, pressing her ear against her palm to block me out. ‘Would you say you had a lot in common?’

  ‘You’re obsessed with people’s relationships,’ Renee commented, her voice husky. Smoke was drifting in Lydia’s direction and she fanned it away from her. ‘That’s all they asked me, Lydia. Whether your mother and I got on.’

  ‘Our job is all about people,’ I said simply. ‘What they were like. How they got on with others. Who loved them. Who hated them.’

  ‘Why should you care?’ Lydia was looking at me again, this time holding my gaze. She spoke quietly but there was a challenge in her tone, something that reminded me of her father.

  ‘Because finding out how people lived can tell us why they died.’

  ‘Do you think what happened is Laura’s fault? Or Mum’s?’ Her eyes were suddenly full of unshed tears.

  ‘The only person who is responsible for what happened is the person who brought about their deaths. Neither of them is to blame, and I really do mean that.’ I leaned forward. ‘But Lydia, to find out who killed them we have to find out why they died, so we need to know what was going on in their lives. We don’t yet know what happened last
night and we need your help to work it out.’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything.’

  ‘You can tell us what you saw and what you heard.’ She was shaking her head already. ‘You might not think you saw anything useful, but you were there and we weren’t. Just tell us what happened yesterday.’

  ‘Start at breakfast and keep going,’ Liv suggested.

  Lydia almost smiled. ‘We didn’t eat breakfast together.’

  ‘What happened instead?’

  ‘Dad got up early. So did I. He fried sausages and Mum gave him a bollocking when she came down for leaving the dirty pan on the cooker.’

  ‘What were you doing while he was cooking?’

  ‘I went out for a run.’

  ‘Before breakfast?’ I pulled a face. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘It’s not that bad once you get going.’ She was fidgeting with her sleeves, pulling them down over her hands. ‘I like to go out early.’

  ‘Before it gets too hot.’

  ‘Yeah. And it’s good when there aren’t too many people around.’

  ‘You’re quite into sport, aren’t you? Running in the morning, swimming in the evening. When I was your age I just lay around the house all day watching TV.’ It was a casual comment but Lydia reacted to Liv’s remark as if she’d been slapped. She tucked her chin into her chest, physically withdrawing from the conversation. I shot Liv a warning glare. Lydia’s tiny frame, the clothes that effectively disguised her body, the exceptional neatness of her room and her obsessive exercising made me wary of commenting on her appearance or her routine. She was certainly a perfectionist, maybe something more than that, and my instinct was to leave the subject well alone or risk losing her trust completely.

  ‘Right, you came back from your run and your dad was in trouble with your mum. What time was that?’

  ‘Half eight, I think? I don’t wear a watch.’

  ‘Where was Laura?’

  A half smile. ‘She was in bed. She didn’t get up until lunchtime.’

  ‘Was that her usual habit?’

  ‘On a Sunday. She was out on Saturday night – she didn’t get in until after three.’