The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  ‘Your usual, darling?’

  ‘Why not, Maria. Why not.’

  His usual was a bacon sandwich on white bread, oozing ketchup, and a tea to match mine. It arrived in minutes and he laid into it as if he hadn’t seen food for a month.

  ‘No one else from chambers would come here.’ It was as if he’d read my mind. Between him and Rob, it looked as if I needed to work on my poker face. ‘This is strictly for the proles.’

  I had to resist the urge to shush him, ducking my head down and taking a sip of tea instead. His voice was particularly carrying, an asset given his profession but not ideal in his current surroundings. I had already got a very expressive look from a workman at the table behind Kit before he returned to reading his paper.

  Cheerfully unselfconscious, Kit carried on, clear as a bell. ‘They don’t know what they’re missing. This place is a gem. So much more character than the chain coffee shops, and the food is better too.’

  ‘I like it,’ I said truthfully. It hadn’t been redecorated since the early sixties, at a guess. The walls were pale green and hung with faded colour photographs of the Italian Riviera. If the ceiling lights were chipped and the tabletops stained, that didn’t take away from the character of the place, and it was perfectly clean. ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘I collect caffs, the bleaker the better. And this happens to be halfway between chambers and the Old Bailey, so it’s perfect.’ He leaned on the table. ‘Look, I don’t mind talking about PK, but it’s all strictly informal. You didn’t hear any of this from me.’

  ‘Kit who?’ I grinned at him.

  ‘Exactly.’ He hesitated. ‘What sort of thing do you want to know?’

  ‘I’m not looking for evidence. I just want to get a better idea of who he is and what he does.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Between you and me, my inspector is convinced he’s the greatest shagger that ever walked the earth and everything he does is motivated by his cock. My impression of him is that he’s a cold, uncaring individual who should never have been allowed to breed. He seems to be a good lawyer, from what I can gather. And he doesn’t seem to be altogether keen on helping us to find out what happened to his family.’

  ‘He doesn’t trust the police. That’s the first thing.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He did a couple of cases where the defence was police brutality, and won. If it was true, the coppers involved were thoroughly nasty pieces of work. If it wasn’t, every officer in the Met should be gunning for him for ruining their reputations.’

  ‘He’s not popular,’ I admitted, thinking of Derwent’s instant reaction to the news that we were in his house. ‘But he’s not thick. He must know that Godley isn’t like that. And he’s a victim, isn’t he?’

  ‘Just because he’s paranoid doesn’t mean you aren’t out to get him.’ Ketchup squirted out of the back of Kit’s sandwich and splattered on the plate, bright red droplets that he dabbed with a piece of bread. I was blindsided by the memory of the white carpet in Kennford’s house and looked away, glad I hadn’t ordered food. Kit’s forehead crinkled. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude about your boss, or you. He’s just wary.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind about Kennford’s opinion of us. What do you know about his private life?’

  ‘Now there’s a subject we could spend hours discussing. Do you want to know what I know or what I’ve heard?’

  ‘Both, obviously.’

  ‘He’s not the sort who likes to be tied down to one woman. He’s got a flat in Clerkenwell – did you know about that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘He probably has a different girl there every night of the week. Keeps them from getting too serious, he says. Mind you, that only works if they’re prepared to share. If not …’ Kit whistled meaningfully.

  ‘Bitch fights in Middle Temple Lane?’

  ‘And worse. The trouble is, they all know about each other. He’s lazy about going to look for new talent. Currently, there are at least four junior members of chambers who can tell you all about Kennford’s sexual prowess.’

  ‘How junior?’

  ‘One pupil. The rest were qualified.’

  I raised my eyebrows, surprised. ‘Isn’t that against the rules? Sleeping with a pupil?’

  ‘Massively.’ Kit shrugged. ‘Alan turned a blind eye and the heads of chambers aren’t very hands-on. I haven’t seen Pelham Griggs this year.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Her pupil master took him aside and had a word. Kennford didn’t care. He said she was old enough to know what she was doing and that she hadn’t seemed to have any complaints. She was older that the usual pupil, thank God. She’d already been a teacher for a few years, then decided on a career change.’ Kit folded the last bit of bread into his cheek and chewed for a moment. ‘Not the first time he’s done it, either. There’s a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, Jodie Finlay. Stunning looks, very bright, very hardworking. Specialises in sex crimes these days and does very well at it too, when we all know it’s not an easy gig. Kennford slept with her when she was a pupil at Three Unicorn, about fifteen years ago. She was young, straight out of college, and no money whatsoever – she’s from the arse end of Cornwall and got where she is on scholarships. Kennford wanted her as soon as he saw her and spent a fortune on persuading her to sleep with him. He bombarded her with presents and kept taking her out to dinner until she felt obliged to give something back. That was how he described it to me, by the way – he wasn’t under any illusions about how she felt about him. It gave him a thrill to coax her into bed when she had turned him down so many times. He’s that sort of person – can’t resist a challenge. And Jodie was a challenge, because even though she was young and impoverished, she was still a feisty one. If you ask me, the whole thing was a power struggle and Kennford declared himself the winner once he’d slept with her, more or less against her will.’

  The cook tossed something into a frying pan that made a noise like a million angry snakes. Suddenly the café seemed a few degrees hotter. My hair was damp against my skin and I shifted in my chair, struggling to concentrate.

  ‘Hold on, he didn’t rape her, did he?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. Nothing like that.’ Kit looked shocked at the very idea. ‘He put her under so much pressure she didn’t feel she could say no, but he didn’t force her. It was still her choice to do it, but she made it clear it was a one-off.’

  ‘I imagine she regretted it.’

  ‘Instantly, I should think. The first thing he did was tell everyone he knew that he’d managed to sleep with her, and that it hadn’t been worth the effort.’

  ‘Not very gentlemanly.’

  ‘He didn’t like being turned down,’ Kit said simply. ‘Bad for his reputation. She should have been begging for a repeat performance, Kennford felt, but she wasn’t having it. Anyway, she’d have walked into tenancy with us but she didn’t apply for it. She got the hell out and went to another set.’

  ‘How do you know all this? Presumably it was before your time.’

  ‘The bar’s a small world and I’ve heard both sides.’ He waved at the elderly waitress to get another mug of tea for himself. I was nursing mine. It seemed to get stronger as I got closer to the bottom, and the sides of the mug were stained dark brown. I could only hope my teeth weren’t the same colour. I asked her for water instead. It came lukewarm, in a short, stubby glass rimed with scratch marks. I drank it in one go.

  ‘The first time I was up against her in court, Kennford came and found me so he could tell me not to be intimidated by her. He told me to remember she’d acted like a whore.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Very much not and I didn’t find it particularly helpful. She won, which was right and proper. I got to know her a couple of years later, when we were doing a big trial in Sheffield, both defending. One night we ended up having a few drinks and she gave me her version of what happened. She’s never forgiven him for any of it, but I think the real problem was that she couldn’t fo
rgive herself.’ Kit looked embarrassed. ‘Bit of amateur psychology there for you.’

  ‘It seems like a fair assumption.’ I shook my head. ‘Honestly, Kennford sounds vile.’

  ‘In matters of the heart, absolutely. He’s unscrupulous and undiscriminating. If someone takes his fancy, he goes after them, regardless of who they are or whether he’s committed elsewhere.’

  ‘Or whether they’re young and vulnerable.’

  ‘That just piques his interest. That and the unattainable woman. The world is full of aggrieved husbands who found out the hard way that Kennford couldn’t be trusted with their wives.’

  ‘How aggrieved? Angry enough to want to get revenge on him?’

  ‘I can’t imagine any of them wanting to kill his wife and daughter, if that’s what you’re getting at. Much more likely to have wanted to sleep with one or both of them, I’d have said, for the full eye-for-an-eye effect.’

  ‘Did Vita sleep around? Was that how she coped?’

  ‘I have no idea. I didn’t know her – I saw her once at a memorial service for an ex-head of chambers, but that was all. Kennford never brought her to chambers functions. The potential for scene-making was epic. He said she wasn’t interested in his work, and maybe she wasn’t.’ Kit shrugged. ‘She didn’t seem that interesting to me. She had to be a bit of a doormat to put up with his behaviour. It’s not as if she didn’t know.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Well, she was told on a couple of occasions. Once by someone I know, a very stroppy redhead who wanted to get back at Kennford for bringing their relationship to a close, so she called Vita and told her about the affair. She said she couldn’t live with the deception, although she’d managed perfectly well for the previous three months while they were actually shagging.’ Kit’s upper-class drawl was perfectly suited to making bitchy comments. I quickly glanced around – I wasn’t the only one in the café who was hanging on every word.

  ‘I take it she didn’t get anywhere.’

  ‘Vita said she wasn’t interested in hearing about it and put down the phone. There may have been repercussions, but I never heard about them.’

  ‘You said a couple of occasions. Who else talked to her about it?’

  ‘A Lithuanian lunatic.’ Kit shuddered. ‘Even Philip would admit she was a mistake. He’d been defending her on money-laundering charges – part of a much bigger gang trial, so she was just an added extra. He got her off at half-time for lack of evidence. She was a stunner – amazing figure and the face of an angel.’ Kit shook his head. ‘He still should have kept his distance.’

  ‘But he didn’t.’

  ‘No. He started up a relationship with her. Totally unprofessional but then he wasn’t in the trial any more, and neither was she, so he wasn’t working for her. He can always justify these things, even if they’re morally unjustifiable.’

  ‘But you said it was a mistake. Did he get in trouble for it?’

  ‘With her, he did. She was determined to get him to leave Vita. She wanted to go straight and an English barrister seemed like a good means of supporting herself. That’s PK’s version,’ Kit added.

  ‘Her version was different?’

  ‘True love. And he’d promised her the moon and stars too. She moved into his flat and wouldn’t move out again, so he got some heavies he knew to pack up her things and evict her with maximum force. That would have been fine if she hadn’t had her own army of hooligans at her beck and call. They broke in and trashed the place – caused thousands of pounds worth of damage. Kennford might have managed to cover it up, but he had to ask Vita for the money to fix it. She went to inspect the flat and bumped into Niele – that’s the girl’s name – on the doorstep. Niele lost no time in telling her what had happened. And this is the kind of luck Kennford has.’ Kit shook his head, unwillingly admiring. ‘Vita made it quite clear to Niele that she wasn’t going to split them up, and that she didn’t care to know the details of the affair. She got rid of Niele for him when he didn’t think he was ever going to be able to shake her loose. He said he wished he’d thought of sending Vita round instead of the heavies because she’d have done a better job.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Why would Vita do his dirty work for him?’

  ‘To protect her family. She was the typical mother tiger, apparently. I mean, that’s why Kennford lost touch with his first daughter.’

  I blinked. ‘His what?’

  ‘The first one. From his first marriage. Savannah.’ Kit leaned back. ‘Can it be possible you didn’t know about her?’

  ‘He never said. He told us about his first wife – Miranda, isn’t it? I assumed they didn’t have any children.’

  ‘Just the one. But what a one to have.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘Savannah as in Savannah Wentworth. The model. Supermodel, I should say, although that word’s debased currency these days. She’s always in the newspapers and celebrity magazines. “Steal Savannah’s Style” – that kind of thing.’

  ‘I don’t really read celebrity magazines,’ I said apologetically.

  ‘I read my girlfriend’s and I’m not ashamed.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, even if you haven’t heard her name, you’ll recognise her face. She was all over every second bus in London last Christmas, advertising some high-end perfume or make-up.’

  Last Christmas I had been pretty thoroughly preoccupied with hunting a vicious serial killer. What was being advertised on the buses had been fairly low on my list of things to notice. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell for me, but that doesn’t mean much.’

  ‘You will recognise her when you see her,’ Kit insisted. ‘She’s always on the covers of magazines.’

  ‘One of the twins had a load of fashion magazines in her room,’ I recalled. ‘It was the one who seemed less interested in fashion. Maybe she had them because she wanted to find out more about her half-sister.’

  ‘If she did that was probably the only way she had to do it. He hasn’t been in touch with Savannah for a while, he told me. I’m involved with a charity that helps Aids orphans. I wanted to see if we could persuade Savannah to donate a dinner date for a charity auction. Not via him, was the answer.’

  ‘That’s a bit cold.’

  ‘What was cold was moving out when she was nine or ten and not really seeing her from then until she made it big as a model. He got pretty excited by the glamour. He used to go to Paris to watch her do the big fashion shows there. Then Vita got jealous so she put a stop to it.’

  ‘Jealous? Because it brought him back into contact with his first wife?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. Believe me, Philip didn’t regret leaving Miranda for a moment. She was pretty high maintenance, even before she got sick. One of those people who’s never happy, no matter what you do for her. Philip wasn’t the best husband in the world as he’d be the first to admit, but he didn’t make the mistake of marrying someone like that again. He wanted someone who would put him first and Vita was more than happy to oblige. No, Vita wasn’t jealous for herself. It was all about the twins being neglected while he went gallivanting around the world.’

  ‘She was worried about the twins being overshadowed.’

  ‘They weren’t model material, either of them. They looked a bit strange when they were younger – one was fat and the other one was scrawny and they both looked more like their mother than Philip. Besides, they were far too short.’ He twisted in his seat so he could address the builder at the table behind. ‘Excuse me, my friend, but can I borrow your paper for a second?’ I was sure he would say no, but as if he was hypnotised, the man closed his newspaper and handed it over to Kit, who beamed. ‘You’re a gentleman.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed.

  Kit was thumbing through the paper. ‘Looking for the showbiz section. She’s always in it. Ah, here we are.’ He tapped the page as he turned it around so I could see. ‘That’s Savannah.’

  The picture was in colour, but smu
dgy as newsprint often is. It was a paparazzo picture of a tall, very slender young woman with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Her mouth was open, as if she had been talking to the photographer and was caught mid-word, but even in a candid shot she was utterly beautiful, with high cheekbones and delicate features. She was also exceptionally like her father.

  ‘She’s the image of him.’

  ‘Exactly. And he’s an egotist. Seeing her triumph because of her looks was a mixed pleasure for him. On the one hand, he thinks she should be making more use of her brains, because by all accounts she was very bright – certainly clever enough to go to university. On the other hand, he loves the fact that she gets paid a fortune for looking pretty. And, incidentally, for looking just like him.’

  ‘He does think highly of himself, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Number one fan.’ Kit smiled wryly. ‘It’s not that uncommon at the bar.’

  ‘It’s not that uncommon in the Met.’ I was thinking of Derwent.

  ‘He told me once that Savannah was his favourite child, and his one regret about leaving her mother was that he had to leave her behind too. He didn’t think he’d done very well by her.’

  ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.’ He hadn’t done that great a job on Laura and Lydia, it seemed to me, and he’d technically been around for their entire childhood. ‘Do you think Vita was the reason he fell out with Savannah second time round?’

  ‘She might have been. But I think there was something else too. You’d have to ask Philip. Or Savannah.’

  I had been reading the caption for the photo, which listed the designer clothes Savannah was wearing, down to her handbag and earrings. ‘It says here she’s just back from a modelling trip to South Africa.’

  ‘Nice work if you can get it.’

  ‘I wonder if she was in the country on Sunday.’ I said it to myself, not really intending Kit to answer. He looked shocked.

  ‘You can’t think she was involved.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s too …’

  ‘Pretty? Glamorous? Thin? Come on, Kit, you know better than that. I’ll have to get her to come in for an interview. I’ll probably need to put guards on the door to stop my colleagues from bursting in to have a look at her.’ I folded the paper and handed it back to Kit, who slid it across the table to the builder with a loud ‘Thank you’.