The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  There was something tremendously uplifting about drinking champagne for no particular reason, especially on an empty stomach. I got the giggles halfway through the first course, and Rob didn’t help by speculating about the couples dining around us.

  ‘They’ve had a row. This is a make-up or break-up dinner, and I think – yes, it’s going to be a break-up.’ The blonde three tables over dabbed at her eyes, smearing mascara. Her dining companion was staring at his food, obviously wishing he was somewhere more private. His ears were scarlet. ‘Oh, there she goes …’

  The blonde was threading an unsteady path between the tables.

  ‘Maybe she’s just going to the loo.’

  He shook his head. ‘She threw her napkin down on her plate. She’s not coming back.’

  The man she had been with summoned the waiter.

  ‘Ordering dessert for both of them,’ I suggested.

  ‘Getting the bill.’

  ‘Damn,’ I said softly, watching the waiter print it out. ‘You’re good at this.’

  ‘People are people.’ He leaned towards me, dropping his voice as he indicated the next table to us. ‘They haven’t had sex yet but he’s pretty sure tonight’s the night.’ An ultra-posh boy in a pink polo shirt was pouring wine for his date, who was all tousled hair and lip gloss. ‘She’s not going to let him near her, but she’ll send out all the signs that it’s going to happen. He has at least two more dinners left in him before he gives up hope.’

  ‘What makes you say that, you cynic?’

  ‘He’s scrawny, he has no chin whatsoever, his signet ring is the real deal and he’s wearing a pink shirt without irony. He must be rich. She, on the other hand, is not only well off but a bit of a looker under the make-up and hair. She can do better. In fact, she’s probably only with him to meet his mates.’

  ‘What about them?’ I indicated an older couple who were drinking coffee, holding hands across the table.

  ‘Married. But to other people. Tonight is their one chance to be together.’

  ‘How sweet.’

  ‘Is it?’ He shook his head. ‘They’re hurting the ones they’re supposed to love the most.’

  ‘Only if they find out, surely.’

  ‘Whether they find out or not, it’s still wrong.’ His mood had changed and I wasn’t really surprised that the next thing he said was, ‘How’s work?’

  ‘You asked me that already.’

  ‘You said you’d hit a dead end.’

  I told him what had happened that day with Lydia, and at the end of her father’s interview. ‘Funnily enough, Kennford didn’t hang around to see if Derwent was all right.’

  Rob grunted. ‘I would have wanted to put a couple of miles between me and him too.’

  ‘He took it well, actually. He made a big deal out of how it hadn’t been a fair fight and Kennford had taken him by surprise.’

  ‘Oh, because it would never have happened if he’d been on his guard.’

  ‘No, he’s far too good at fighting for that.’

  ‘I would have loved to see him go down.’ Rob sounded almost dreamy as he imagined it.

  ‘It made my day – that and Godley telling Derwent he wasn’t allowed to arrest Kennford for assaulting him because it was his fault in the first place. Even better, the commotion attracted the attention of anyone who was in chambers, so on my way out I bumped into a barrister I’d met before. I didn’t know he was at Kennford’s set, but he’s been there since he qualified, apparently.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Kit Harries.’

  ‘I know him. Good bloke.’

  ‘He’s one of the only ones who does any meaningful prosecution work there. He said there’s not much competition for it so he gets his pick of what comes in. He’s being monitored for Treasury Counsel.’

  ‘Ooh, fancy.’

  ‘I hope he gets it.’ Treasury Counsel prosecuted the majority of serious crimes – murders, terrorism, the big stuff. Kit, who was fair and round-faced and misleadingly young in appearance, seemed an unlikely choice for them. But he was good at his job, I’d found, and I’d liked him a lot. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t really talk to him while the senior clerk was watching, but he mentioned he was going to be at the Old Bailey tomorrow. I thought I’d drift along and see if he had any inside information on Kennford.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I trawled through my salad, picked up a baby new potato on the end of my fork and examined it critically. ‘You know, my mother would say this wasn’t fit for human consumption.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘According to her, potatoes this small are pig food. She hasn’t really accepted that they’re considered a delicacy now.’

  ‘And given that we’re talking about your mother, I imagine she never will. Eat up, piggy. But make sure you leave room for dessert.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can manage it. Coffee, though.’

  ‘Keep you awake.’

  ‘It would have a job.’ I yawned. ‘Sorry. I’m not bored. Just tired.’

  ‘Didn’t you sleep earlier?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Now I feel even more of a heel for passing out.’

  ‘You needed it.’ I hesitated before I went any further. Something warned me to tread carefully. ‘Is everything okay at work?’

  ‘Fine.’ One word, no detail. I ploughed on.

  ‘It’s just that you seemed so worn out. I haven’t seen you like that – ever, actually. And I’ve seen you busy before, you know.’

  ‘It’s a different kind of work. Lots of watching and waiting. It’s all right when it works out, but when it all goes to shit you don’t have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve got the bad guys. And we didn’t, today.’

  ‘Bad intel?’

  ‘Bad op.’ He shrugged. ‘You know how it is. Sitting in the back seat, you can see how it should be done. When you’re the one calling the shots, things aren’t always so clear.’

  ‘Your boss got it wrong?’

  ‘Basically. Picked the wrong moment to try to arrest the wrong people. We blew our cover and got nothing.’

  I sipped my champagne. ‘What’s her name again?’

  ‘DI Deborah Ormond.’ There was nothing to read into his tone, which was matter of fact.

  ‘Is she nice?’

  ‘She’s okay.’

  ‘She’s supposed to be good.’

  ‘Not today.’ He put his knife and fork together. ‘I’ve forgotten, did you want dessert?’

  ‘No.’ I wasn’t going to be put off. ‘Are you enjoying it, Rob?’

  ‘What, work? It’s fine.’

  ‘Are you sorry you left the team?’ I had to know, even though it was basically my fault he’d gone. I was the one who’d revealed, without meaning to, that we were a couple. And we’d both known the rule: relationships were not allowed in Godley’s team.

  Rob knew what I was getting at. His eyes were steady as he reached across the table and took my hand. ‘I’m not sorry about us. Not even a little bit. The new job will be okay once I’ve settled in.’

  So it wasn’t okay now despite what he’d said. I smiled anyway, or tried to, and joined in the discussion with the waiter about which dessert involved the most calorific intake. After Rob had absorbed something involving near-lethal levels of chocolate and I’d had an espresso that put a stop to the yawns for the time being, we walked back to the flat. We didn’t say much on the way, but Rob’s arm was around my shoulders and we walked in step with one another, in harmony.

  Over the remainder of the meal I had talked myself out of being worried. There were bound to be problems with settling in to a new team, plus Rob had to get used to being a DS and all the extra responsibility that involved. He was working long, irregular hours, living off crap food and dealing with different levels of stress and frustration than he was used to. Of course he was a bit ill at ease. And he knew I would blame myself if he wasn’t happy. He was too fair – and too nice
– to let me torture myself about it. That was enough to make him cagey about work. I couldn’t force him to talk. I just had to be there for him, I decided, and avoid adding to his problems by pitching a fit about never seeing him, and him not trusting me, and anything else my paranoid mind suggested.

  Rob’s flat was on the third floor so we’d been able to leave the windows open. Even so, the air was like soup when we got back and a mosquito was whining in our bedroom.

  ‘Do you think it’ll rain?’

  ‘It should.’ Just as Rob answered me there was a low growl of thunder. ‘Too far away.’

  ‘Miles,’ I agreed. ‘Do you think we can leave the window open, then?’

  ‘If we don’t we’ll die.’

  I got ready for bed while Rob stalked the mosquito, hunting it around the room with single-minded determination. It had been doing a fine job of lying low but made the mistake of flying past him and he caught it in his hand.

  ‘Ha. Look at that.’ The insect was a black smudge on his palm.

  ‘My hero.’

  He lay down and turned out the light. ‘At least I caught something today.’

  I was halfway to dozing already. ‘Well done.’

  He laughed and leaned his cheek on the top of my head for a second. ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘Any second now.’

  But I was aware he was still awake as I fell asleep. And at four, when the rain finally came, he was at the window by the time I woke up enough to remember it was open.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, fuzzy with sleep.

  ‘Never better.’

  ‘Come back to bed.’

  ‘I will. Go back to sleep.’

  I did, and maybe Rob did come back to bed for a while, but when I woke up in the morning I was on my own. The flat was quiet. He had already left.

  Chapter Eight

  AT THE OLD Bailey I did my own version of a stakeout, loitering outside the robing room for an hour until I saw a familiar round face emerging. He was rigged out in full court regalia, his gown billowing as he walked, but his horsehair wig was squashed on top of the stack of pages and books he was carrying. Like most younger barristers he only put it on at the last minute rather than parading around in it. I couldn’t imagine having to wear a wig to do my job, let alone the Batman cape, but it lent him a certain dignity that Kit desperately needed. He had to be in his late thirties but his face had all the hard edge of a particularly sweet-natured choirboy.

  ‘Mr Harries.’

  ‘DC Kerrigan.’ He grinned. ‘Why am I not surprised you’ve turned up here?’

  ‘I just thought we could have a coffee, if you had time. It was a little bit hectic at your chambers yesterday and I’d really appreciate a quiet word.’

  ‘You want the dirt on Philip.’

  ‘That’s a very negative way to put it. If there’s no dirt, there’s nothing to tell me.’ I grinned. ‘Mind you, if there is dirt, I’d like to hear it from someone I trust.’

  ‘And that’s me, is it?’ He laughed. ‘Flattery will get you a long way, Maeve, but I don’t think it would be very loyal of me to tell you all about Philip’s private life.’

  ‘Loyalty is something you earn, not an entitlement.’

  ‘Who’s to say Philip hasn’t earned it?’

  ‘Has he?’

  Kit shook his head, looking amused.

  ‘This is all making me even more suspicious,’ I pointed out. ‘If there wasn’t anything to tell me, you’d have said so.’

  ‘Expertly done. If I don’t tell you what I know, I’ll be making things worse for him, but if I do tell you, I’ll be breaking his confidence.’

  ‘Did he ask you to keep secrets for him?’

  ‘Not specifically.’ He blew out a lungful of air. ‘You know, nothing I know is a secret really, but I can imagine he wouldn’t want me to talk to you about any of it.’

  ‘That’s sort of why I need you. If he was prepared to be more forthcoming, I’d feel a whole lot better about him. As it is, I have my concerns.’

  ‘I doubt they’re justified,’ Kit said instantly. ‘He’s not the most ethical of men when it comes to relationships, but that isn’t a crime.’

  ‘It might help me to understand why his wife and daughter ended up dead, all the same.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it.’ Kit went silent for a second, his eyes cast down as he considered whether or not he could trust me. The good humour had gone, and with it the impression he gave of being a lightweight; for once I could see the agile mind at work. By the time he looked up again, though, the mischievous expression was back. ‘If I did talk to you, it would have to be conditional on complete confidentiality. If he found out I’d been talking about him, I might end up like your colleague.’

  ‘Oh, he deserved it. It’s been a long time coming.’ He was coming round to the idea, but he wasn’t there yet. I would give it one more shot, I decided. ‘Look, I’m not asking you to give evidence against him. I just want to know the truth about him, because at the moment I’m going on rumour, prejudice and gut instinct. That’s just not good enough, so I need your help.’

  Kit looked over his shoulder, checking to see if anyone was close enough to hear us. He nodded to an older barrister who stumped past us, staring at me with open curiosity. I had deliberately cornered him in a very public part of the court building. Pretty much everyone who passed us knew who he was, and could guess what I was. And I wasn’t going anywhere until I got a definitive answer, yes or no.

  ‘Fine. I can’t talk to you now – I’ve got a bail app in a murder in ten minutes and then I’ve got to talk to the CPS about another case. But I should be free around half past eleven.’

  ‘Do you want to meet in the canteen?’

  ‘I’d only meet you there if I wanted the world to know about it.’ He thought for a second. ‘Do you know the New Bridge Café? It’s around the corner from Blackfriars station, by the bridge, unsurprisingly.’

  ‘I can find it.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  With that he was gone. I had an hour and a half to kill, so I went for a wander through the City. It wasn’t my sort of place – too many people making too much money for doing nothing more than shuffling paper. The Square Mile was crowded with businessmen and tourists and in spite of the ancient monuments and churches dotted about the place I couldn’t get any sense of the history of the area. There were just too many glossy office buildings jammed into too small a space.

  It was another scorcher of a day and instinctively I headed for the water, crossing the river on the Millennium footbridge. The Thames oozed below my feet, the water level low. It smelt of brine and something unwholesome reeking from the mud at its edges. From the centre of the bridge I watched the shadows moving under the surface of the water, nameless things passing through the heart of London on their silent journey to the sea. It wasn’t unusual for the river police to find bodies in the river – accidental drownings or suicides or murder victims. And every time I heard of one, I couldn’t help thinking of the bodies and body parts they missed, the ones that slid down the vast estuary and into the North Sea without anyone knowing they’d been there at all.

  A girl laughed near me and I jumped, brought back to myself. I had been staring at the water for too long, drawn further and further over the edge as I lost myself in dark thoughts. Dizzy, I leaned back from the railing, looking up at the flawless sky, then back at the water. There wasn’t a breath of air, even in the middle of the river, and the sun was cruelly hot on my head. Light sparkled on the surface of the Thames, glinting on the ripples that spread out from the small boats that motored up and down it. To my left, a group of teenagers were posing for pictures, the dome of St Paul’s behind them. To my right, a family had stopped to watch the boats. The youngest in the group, a boy of perhaps two, kicked his heels against his pushchair in delight. They were looking at a different city, a different world. I couldn’t see it that way any longer, i
f I ever had. Soberly, I slid out of my suit jacket and kept walking.

  On the South Bank I followed the path to the Tate Modern where the Turbine Hall was dark and blessedly cool, home to a temporary exhibition of sculpture that I couldn’t quite bring myself to like. I wandered around some of the galleries wondering what made modern art good or bad. Vita had known, or thought she knew, but her husband and sister had both been scathing about her ability to spot talent. There was a room of tapestries that reminded me of the one in the Kennfords’ hall, the colours jarring to me, the textures strange. Kennford had been offhand about his wife’s art collection. He would probably sell it once he was able to take possession of his house again. Would he redecorate to suit his own more traditional taste? Would he bother? I suspected, meanly perhaps, that it depended on how the next Mrs Kennford felt about it. She was probably lined up already, solving his housekeeping and childcare problems in one fell swoop.

  There was no getting away from it: I might have cheered him on when he tackled Derwent, but I wasn’t a fan of Philip Kennford. I couldn’t say for sure if he was a murderer, but the more I saw of him, and the more I heard about him, the more certain I felt that he was just not a good person.

  ‘He’s not a bad person.’

  It was practically the first thing Kit Harries said to me when he’d negotiated his path through the crowded café to the table I had found at the back. The Bridge Café was a greasy spoon, I’d been delighted to discover, full of builders and scaffolders eating their third breakfast of the day. I’d ordered tea, which came in a thick white mug, already milked. It was the colour of teak and tasted like there were at least twelve teabags in the pot. I was turning into my mother, I mused, ordering tea on a hot day, but there was something refreshing about it – probably the overdose levels of caffeine and tannin.

  Having made his pronouncement, Kit stowed his bag beside our table and sat down. He had changed out of his bands into an ordinary collar and tie, but he still looked out of place in the down-to-earth environment of the Bridge. The elderly Italian waitress looked ecstatic when he appeared, though, and from the greeting he got I guessed he was a regular.