The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  ‘You’d like to know, wouldn’t you? Moving me around won’t stop it, that’s all I’ll say.’

  ‘What will?’

  ‘I don’t know. Made any arrests? That might help.’

  ‘We’re pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.’ Godley stopped himself. ‘What do I sound like? You know we’re a long way behind. Everyone I want to arrest is already dead. Or in prison.’

  ‘Might as well be dead.’ He didn’t sound troubled by it, but the words were bitter.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you. I’ve come to ask you to put a stop to it.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘The war. You and Goldsworthy. Dead bodies all over South London. Any of this ringing any bells?’

  ‘I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t know why you you think I’d be able to stop it.’ There was a surpassingly sly expression on Skinner’s face. He was enjoying this, I realised.

  ‘Because you set it in motion. There’s too many of them, John. Too many young kids.’

  ‘You know I can’t do anything about it. I’m in here.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you’re not in touch with it. You knew about the deaths this morning before I did, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I’d heard something was coming.’ He looked at me again. ‘Where do I know you from, sweetheart?’

  I had to clear my throat to answer. ‘The investigation into your daughter’s disappearance.’

  ‘You were in the interview room. And the flat, before that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Now I’ve placed you.’

  The hairs were standing up on the back of my neck. I tried to look unconcerned. I wasn’t usually intimidated by criminals, especially ones who were locked up on a whole-life tariff, but Skinner had a well-earned reputation for taking revenge on people who crossed him. And that included Superintendent Godley.

  ‘What’s your name, darling?’ Skinner’s expression was pleasant but his eyes were cold.

  ‘Leave her alone. She’s not important.’ Godley’s voice cracked through the room like a whip before I could even draw breath. I wouldn’t have dared to answer Skinner even if I’d wanted to.

  ‘But I’d like to know more about her. She must be good or you wouldn’t have made her come along. Or is she just here for decoration?’

  ‘She’s a junior member of my team and not likely to be of interest to you now or in the future. She happened to be free to join me. That’s all.’

  I kept my face neutral, watching Skinner’s reaction. He didn’t look convinced, exactly, but I could see his interest was waning. It was another way of yanking Godley’s chain, that was all, a cheap trick to divert attention away from Skinner’s murky dealings. But the boss wasn’t so easily distracted.

  ‘Three of them dead this morning, John. Three young lads. Different backgrounds, different families.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Gone.’

  ‘Very tragic. They must have picked the wrong side.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as the right side in this mess. No one’s winning. Not you. Not Ken.’

  ‘Ken’s doing all right for himself.’

  ‘I doubt that. He’s desperate for this to end. Has he reached out to you?’

  ‘He tried.’ Skinner looked pained. ‘I told him what I’m telling you. I can’t stop this now, and I don’t want to.’

  Godley shook his head. ‘Do you really hate him that much?’

  ‘He’s been knocking off my missus.’

  ‘That’s personal. You’ve never confused personal issues with business before.’ Godley leaned on the table. ‘You’re making mistakes, John. These Eastern Europeans you’ve brought in – they need stopping. It’s time to give them their marching orders.’

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Charlie. I don’t employ them. It’s a bit of freelance work they’re doing. Speculative stuff.’

  ‘They can’t kill everyone who’s associated with Goldsworthy.’

  ‘Kill enough of them and no one will want to be associated with him.’

  ‘Is that what you told them to do?’

  ‘Not exactly. They worked it out for themselves.’ He stretched. ‘I’m not in touch with them, whatever you think. I don’t make the decisions. I may have pointed them in a certain direction, but what they do is their own business.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘No one you’d know.’

  ‘Where are they from? We know they’re European, from one of the former Soviet bloc countries, according to my sources.’

  ‘Your sources don’t know shit, if you’ll pardon my French.’

  ‘We’ll find out who they are. We’re getting close.’

  ‘That’s the nice thing about subcontractors – I don’t have to care. If you catch up with them, fair enough, they’re fucked. But as long as you don’t, they’re doing a good job at pissing Kenny off, and pissing you off, and that’s fine by me.’

  ‘They’re out of control. They’re not playing your game. They’ve got one of their own running.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re right, they are out of control. And they’re not going to stop until they’ve got what they want, which is everything Ken has and then some.’

  Godley shook his head. ‘Not good enough, John. You can’t let it go on. You’ve got to step up. You started this, you have to finish it.’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  The two men stared at one another for a long moment. Eventually, Skinner looked away.

  ‘You haven’t made it clear to me why I should bother. What’s in it for me?’

  ‘My undying gratitude.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There’s no deal to be done, John. I can’t make your sentence go away. You pleaded to some very serious crimes and you’ve got to take the consequences. I can get you moved out of here to a more up-to-date prison, probably, but I can’t guarantee that you’ll like it.’ Godley’s forehead wrinkled. ‘To be honest, the whole situation confuses me. I can’t see why you would want to hand over everything you’ve worked for. I can’t see why you’re happy to let it all go. Someone else is going to take advantage, if you’re not doing your business and Ken can’t, whether it’s these Eastern Europeans or someone else. I can understand you hating Goldsworthy, and I can understand you not being particularly interested in making money any more, given that you won’t get to spend it. But I can’t understand the logic in standing back to watch your territory burn, just because you’re banged up, and you’ve always been logical, John. We’ve always had that in common.’

  ‘I’m welling up.’ Skinner brushed away an imaginary tear. ‘It’s still logical, Charlie, even if you can’t see it. I want chaos. I want fighting. I want deaths. I don’t care about the money or the power – I never did. I just want to know that my enemies and their mates are fucked, and my new associates have been doing an excellent job.’

  ‘If you say so. But it’s time to stop.’ Godley got up and knocked on the door. ‘I’ll be in touch, John. Make contact with them in the meantime. Tell them you’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘They’re not good listeners.’

  Godley’s face was grim. ‘Then they need to learn. Find a way to make them hear you.’

  I couldn’t stop myself from turning to look at him, wondering if I’d heard correctly. Find a way to make them hear you … It was the sort of thing I’d expect to hear on a surveillance tape, one criminal speaking to another.

  ‘You’re the boss.’ Skinner was smiling again, definitely amused by his own private joke.

  The superintendent drew in a breath as if he was going to say something in reply, but he settled for banging on the door again, harder this time. We left Skinner sitting in his chair, still with that strange smile on his face, and I didn’t care if I never saw him again.

  Godley had parked under a tree across the road from the prison, but the time we had spent with Skinner had cost us the shade. The sun had raised the temperature inside to the point where I
recoiled on opening the door.

  ‘We’ll wait. Leave the door open and let some fresh air in.’

  I did as I was told, then leaned my elbows on the roof for no longer than a second. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Careful. Don’t burn yourself.’ He was back to his usual self, civilised and pleasant. I refused to be charmed.

  ‘What were you asking him to do?’

  ‘You were in the room. You heard.’ His eyes were steady on mine.

  ‘I didn’t like what I heard.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘It sounded like you want the people who are responsible for these killings dead, if there’s no other way they can be stopped.’

  ‘I want them brought to justice.’

  ‘With respect, sir, that’s not what you said to Skinner. You more or less asked him to have them killed.’

  ‘With someone like Skinner, you have to speak the language they understand. He is a killer, not a lawyer.’

  ‘So you weren’t saying they should be murdered.’ I sounded uncertain, even to myself.

  ‘Of course not. Why would I?’

  I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it. ‘What do you think he’ll do?’

  ‘Intimidate them. Warn them off. Maybe persuade them to leave the country.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Maeve. I’m sure no harm will come to them.’

  ‘Why did you want me there?’ The question burst out of my mouth before I had time to think about the wisdom of asking it. Godley’s eyebrows drew together.

  ‘Would you have preferred to be doing the house-to-house?’

  ‘No, obviously not. But I don’t understand why you needed me to be there. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t contribute anything.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘I’m not a child. I don’t need to be praised when I haven’t earned it.’

  ‘You earned your place there.’

  ‘How?’ I demanded.

  ‘I needed someone to be there to vouch for me. Someone to say I didn’t do anything illegal or suggest that something illegal done by Skinner’s men.’

  ‘You should have brought a tape recorder.’

  ‘I prefer the personal touch.’ He was watching me, his eyes bright and guileless in the sunshine. ‘You can vouch for me, can’t you?’

  ‘I can say what I saw and what I heard.’ I sounded priggish, but I couldn’t help myself. ‘I’m still not sure what that amounted to.’

  ‘Anyone would think you weren’t pleased to be included.’ I didn’t say anything and Godley smiled. ‘I have a lot of time for you, Maeve. I think you have the makings of a great police officer, no matter what anyone says.’

  The last part stung. ‘What do they say?’

  He looked away. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a bit busy at the moment. I don’t have time to give out career advice, or gossip with you, just because you’re quite good at what you do.’

  Quite good … ouch. I was wounded by Godley’s remark, and angry with him for dragging me into his vendetta against Skinner – if that was their relationship. There was something about it I couldn’t quite understand, some nuance that I was missing. ‘Speaking of being good, why isn’t DI Derwent on this case?’

  ‘He’s busy.’

  ‘We’re all busy,’ I pointed out. ‘But Derwent is one of the only people on the team who has experience of gang killings. He should have been at the scene this morning.’

  ‘He doesn’t need that kind of stress.’ Godley sounded as if what he said was final, but I pushed some more.

  ‘He thinks he does. He thinks he’s being sidelined deliberately.’

  ‘Well, he might be right.’

  ‘Why? Why would you do that?

  Godley got into the driver’s seat instead of answering me straight away. I got in on my side and looked at him expectantly.

  ‘I didn’t want him involved, Maeve.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For his own good.’

  From the way his mouth tightened, that was all Godley was prepared to say on the subject. I stared blindly through the windscreen, too confused to ask anything else as we drove away.

  I was pretty sure I’d just been done over, but I couldn’t for the life of me work out why.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘I DON’T KNOW why you even bothered to show up, to be honest with you. It’s not as if I can’t manage on my own. Besides, you look like shit.’

  Derwent was in a foul mood, and taking it out on the nearest person came naturally to him, especially when that person was me.

  ‘The reason I look like shit is because I had three hours’ sleep,’ I said patiently. ‘The reason I bothered to show up is because I wanted to meet Gerard Harman.’

  ‘Think he’s a credible suspect? A man in his sixties? A widower whose dead daughter never got justice, thanks to Philip Kennford? Think he’s capable of slaughtering two people?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll wait until I meet him.’ We were sitting in the car outside Harman’s address, a small bungalow near Reigate that wasn’t quite far enough from the M25. With the windows down, the traffic noise was constant and constantly jarring, too loud for it to turn to background sound no matter how long we sat there. ‘He had every reason to feel bitter about Kennford. And there’s a certain poetic justice to killing his daughter, isn’t there?’

  ‘He’s an old man.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter how angry he is. I don’t think he’d be able to chase down Vita and stab her multiple times once she’d seen him kill Laura.’

  ‘Plenty of men in their sixties are strong and fit. If he was active––’

  ‘No fucking way. This is another wild goose chase.’ Derwent was tapping the steering wheel, obviously edgy.

  ‘You’d rather be somewhere else.’

  ‘I’d rather be doing something useful, yeah.’ He glanced at me. ‘At least you got to do something this morning. And got an invite to the boss’s latest big idea, which sounds like bullshit to me. Asking Skinner to stop killing people is like asking a fish to stop swimming.’

  ‘I was a bit surprised by it.’

  ‘“I was a bit surprised by it”,’ he repeated in an idiotic voice. ‘Well, I was a bit surprised to hear you were there in the first place.’

  He had been snappy since I’d found him having lunch alone in the team’s room, takeaway hot dogs slick with grease and onions. The food smelled like warm coins. By dint of patient questioning and perseverance I gathered he had spent the morning at Southwark Crown Court giving evidence, so I hadn’t missed anything in the Kennford case. Not that that made up for my being asked to attend the North Clapham crime scene, it was quite clear. It was almost a relief that he was prepared to talk about it – he had absolutely refused to ask me anything up to now, contenting himself with glowering at me and being as rude as only Derwent could be.

  ‘I don’t know why Godley wanted me there. I don’t know why you didn’t get a call to the crime scene this morning. It seems to me you’re the one person who should be involved in the gang murders, and it doesn’t make any sense that you aren’t. But the person you need to ask about it is the boss.’

  He snorted. ‘Brilliant suggestion. I have.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Fuck all.’

  ‘Really? He told me it was for your own good.’ I could have bitten my tongue out as soon as I said it.

  Derwent looked at me, his expression unreadable. ‘You asked him about it?’

  ‘Briefly. After we’d met Skinner.’ I was staying very still, taking the line that Derwent was basically an animal, so sensing my fear might make him attack. Please don’t notice how scared I am.

  ‘It’s none of your fucking business, is it?’

  ‘It is my business when the boss isn’t using the resources at his disposal effectively. It is when you’re being sidelined for no reason that I can see.’

  ‘Thanks for caring.’

  ‘Look, you might not like
it but I do care. It’s frustrating to see you being left out. This Kennford case is a weird one but anyone on the team could investigate it and do just about as well as we’ve been doing. The drugs murders are different. You have the experience of dealing with them before. It doesn’t make sense that you’re not involved.’

  ‘Well, you know why that is, don’t you? I’m not enough of a lady.’ Derwent’s voice dripped sarcasm. ‘Una Burt, on the other hand, is technically female, so she gets the go-ahead to run the investigation as Godley’s number two.’

  ‘He’s being pretty hands-on, if it’s any consolation.’

  ‘It isn’t, really.’ Derwent was calming down, his anger fading out to puzzled disappointment, the dog chained up in the yard barking himself to silence. ‘I shouldn’t have to find that kind of thing out second-hand because I should be where Burt is.’

  It would have been wise just to be glad he was cheering up. I certainly shouldn’t have said anything to provoke him. Somehow, though, I couldn’t stop myself from pointing out the obvious, even though I knew there’d be trouble. It was more of the stupid loyalty I felt to Una Burt, just because she’d managed to succeed as I hoped to.

  ‘DCI Burt is senior to you, though. It’s not like you’re equals. She might still have been Godley’s second-in-command even if you’d been on the case. You’d have been reporting to her.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know she outranks me? I know all about taking orders from people I don’t like and don’t respect – I was in the army for long enough, and there were plenty of ignorant arseholes queuing up to put me down.’

  ‘Must have been tough.’

  ‘It was the making of me.’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ I said promptly, not wanting to give away what I’d been thinking, which was no wonder you’re such a tosser. ‘But things are different in the police. You’re a senior officer too, not a private. I bet you were pretty young when you joined up.’