The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  He wasn’t wrong. I felt as if I’d been up for days. I was jittery from lack of sleep and spoiling for a fight as a result, but I made myself talk to him civilly about my day, and his, and what I had missed by getting to the pub a bit late. I was fairly sure he hadn’t noticed anything wrong when he offered to introduce me to his colleagues. Of course, it was sod’s law that the first person we encountered when he led me to the corner table was Deborah Ormond, who turned to look at me with a wry, red-lipsticked smile that I longed to smack off her face.

  ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘This is Maeve, my girlfriend. She works on Charles Godley’s murder squad.’

  ‘So you’re the reason Rob left and came to join us.’

  ‘One of them,’ I agreed.

  ‘Then I suppose I should say thank you.’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’ I smiled thinly. ‘Rob made up his own mind to go.’

  ‘He knows his own mind,’ she said with a quick look at him that I couldn’t quite interpret. His face was unhelpfully neutral when I glanced at it. I swallowed down the hard knot of anger that was threatening to close my throat and agreed with her with a little laugh that made me sound like I was a total airhead.

  ‘Well, I’d better not monopolise you.’ She made it sound like the excuse it was. I knew what she meant. This conversation is boring me and you are too gauche for words.

  ‘That’s right,’ Rob said easily. ‘You’ve got to meet a lot of people, Maeve. They’ve been asking about you.’

  ‘You’d better tell me what you’ve been saying.’ I smiled at him again, ignoring DI Ormond as she stepped sideways, out of our path, but I was acutely aware of her scanning me from head to toe, and doubtless being unimpressed with what she saw. I had already noted her very good highlights and expensive haircut, not to mention the fact that enough buttons were undone on her shirt to show off more than a hint of lace underneath. I had also noticed that she had been pretty and was still very attractive, but that there were crow’s feet around her eyes and lines around her mouth. Somehow, that didn’t help me as much as it might have. She was older than me, true, but she had experience to show for it, and assurance. Maybe Rob wanted something different. Maybe he was hoping to get found out so I would take the hint and leave him his freedom. And maybe the photographs had been someone’s way of tipping me off.

  I met five or six of his new colleagues and talked to them without taking in a single name or anything they said. I drank another gin and tonic and laughed at jokes I hadn’t heard or understood, and everyone seemed to think I was delightful. Every time I looked at DI Ormond she was deep in conversation with someone, or checking her phone. We never made eye contact but I had the impression she was watching me all the same. And Rob never let go of me, keeping one hand in the small of my back or wrapped around my waist, which wasn’t his usual style at all.

  ‘Another one?’ A brick-faced DS pointed at my glass and I realised it was empty.

  ‘No. I’m going to hit the road.’

  ‘Really?’ Rob sounded surprised. ‘So soon?’

  ‘I know. But I got so little sleep last night.’ I yawned, not actually pretending to be tired. ‘If I keep drinking I’ll fall over sideways.’

  ‘More booze for you, then,’ the DS said with a loud laugh.

  ‘Seriously, I’m going to head off. I have a long day tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Rob put down his pint.

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’re having a good time. You don’t need to escort me home.’ I squeezed his arm affectionately. ‘Stay.’

  ‘It’s no big deal.’ He was frowning a little. I made a bigger effort to look as if I didn’t have a care in the world apart from being a bit short on sleep, and lowered my voice.

  ‘You don’t want to get a reputation for being on a short lead, do you? What would the boys say if you left now?’

  ‘Who cares?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve never worried about that kind of thing before.’

  ‘Well, it’s a new team. New rules. And I don’t want to be the reason you get a bad reputation. I feel guilty enough as it is.’

  ‘I keep telling you, it was my choice to go.’ He sounded irritated, which was good. There was a far better chance he’d let me leave alone that way, and all I wanted was to be alone so I could think. Not to brood, I assured myself. Just to review the evidence and decide if I was being paranoid.

  ‘I know. But I still worry about it. Even though your new colleagues seem lovely.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ He grinned. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’

  ‘Absolutely. I have stuff to do, and you’re having fun.’ I leaned over and kissed him, resisting the urge to look around halfway through so I could check if DI Ormond was watching. ‘Try and find out who sent the pictures, if you haven’t already.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I’ll see you later on.’

  He was still holding my hand as I walked away, but I broke free and didn’t look back.

  Once I was out of the pub, in the fresh air, I began to regret leaving him to Deborah Ormond. I had no doubt that she would talk to him about me. Say something patronising, probably. That seemed to come naturally to her. I plunged down into the hot, airless Underground and got a seat this time, changed trains without thinking about it and emerged for the walk to Rob’s flat hopping mad. She was a very attractive woman, if you liked them on the weathered side of experienced. Maybe it was a power thing for him, sleeping with an older woman. Reducing her to shivers of pleasure. Taking her breath away. I wrapped my arms around myself, fighting back tears I really didn’t want to shed, and when I found myself on our street I couldn’t remember how I’d got there.

  I let myself into the building and stopped by the post boxes to collect our letters. Another catalogue slithered out of the box, fat and glossy in its shrink-wrap. Bloody mailing lists, I thought, taking the stairs three at a time.

  The really annoying thing was that I hadn’t wanted to believe Rob was like the others. I’d wanted to believe he’d meant what he said, and I’d thought it was my problem that I couldn’t accept he loved me. The triumph of self-doubt over years of experience of disappointing or lying or cheating men. Or men who did all three at the same time.

  ‘Never ignore the bad feeling. Never pretend everything’s okay.’ I said it out loud as I let myself in and let the door slam behind me. It was all very well to focus on the good things, but that didn’t mean ignoring the bad ones. That didn’t make me a pessimist, I told myself, putting my bag down. It didn’t make me impossible to love. It made me sadder and wiser than most.

  I started to sort through the post, listening to the messages on the phone at the same time. Two from Mum featuring thinly disguised nagging, as usual; one from an old friend, Aisling, to let me know she was both engaged and pregnant. I paused in the act of ripping open a fat envelope addressed to me. It looked like business post, the label typed and coded, but there was no company name on the stationery.

  ‘… which I know is completely the wrong way round but I can’t honestly say I’m sorry about it. We’re just so happy.’

  She sounded it. I tried not to think cynical thoughts – and I was genuinely pleased for her – but I decided not to phone her back for a few days. Just until things had settled down. And they were bound to settle down soon, one way or another.

  I turned the envelope sideways to tip the contents out onto the kitchen table. ‘Shit.’

  With the end of a pencil, I spread it all out, sifting through the pile of slippery photographic paper so I could see everything laid out in black and white. It didn’t get any better on closer inspection. In fact, it was a whole lot worse than I’d thought.

  And I had no idea what to do.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘YOU CAN’T KEEP me in suspense.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ It was the same conversation Derwent and I had been having since he got to work. After fort
y minutes in the car in morning traffic, it was really starting to grate on me.

  ‘You just need to let it out. Talk it over with an objective listener.’

  ‘If I wanted to do that, I’d find a better listener than you.’

  Derwent looked wounded. ‘Who’s a better listener than me?’

  ‘Almost anybody?’

  He considered it for a second. ‘Fair point.’

  The one thing I’d decided the previous night was I wasn’t going to let Derwent know anything more than I had to.

  We had been heading towards Twickenham, but suddenly Derwent pulled across the road into a McDonald’s.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ I said over the blare of a truck’s horn. Derwent hadn’t left as much space to make the turn as the Highway Code – or sanity – recommended.

  ‘I’m hungry. I want a coffee.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ I said sourly. ‘At least your discretion means you got an early night and no hangover.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’ The keys jangled as Derwent pulled them out of the ignition, as if I’d just leave him there and drive off if he didn’t pocket them before he got out. The idea was tempting now that I came to think about it. ‘Come on. I want the details. You look tired. What time did you leave?’

  ‘None of your business.’ I looked tired because I hadn’t come close to sleep the night before, but that wasn’t from worrying about what Rob was getting up to. I had far bigger problems than that, not that I intended to discuss them with Derwent. Or anyone else, until I’d worked out the best course of action. Even thinking about it sent a chill over my skin, a faint sense of unease that shivered over me like a breeze on water.

  ‘You’re not hung-over.’ He sniffed. ‘Weather like this, there’s no hiding the booze sweats the morning after.’

  ‘I didn’t stay that long,’ I admitted.

  ‘Not having fun?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Did you manage to winkle your boyfriend out of the pub or did you leave him there?’

  ‘I went home alone. By choice.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘It’s true. I didn’t want to spoil his evening.’

  ‘You seemed to be set on doing just that when I left you.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not like that. I didn’t want him to leave early because I didn’t want his new team thinking I was clingy and controlling.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s not you.’

  I couldn’t tell if he meant it or if he was being sarcastic, but sarcasm was always a good bet with Derwent. ‘Look, I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?’

  ‘Okay. I get it.’ He opened his door. ‘You didn’t tell me he was working with Debbie Ormond.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would mean anything to you.’

  ‘Oh, it would have meant a lot, believe me.’

  I knew he was being cryptic on purpose to annoy me, but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Know her? Better than most, as it happens. I know her very well indeed.’ He gave me a big, raised eyebrows grin, lots of teeth on display, and got out of the car before I could ask any follow-up questions. He sauntered into the McDonald’s and spent an eternity scrutinising the menu, then chatted to the teenage cashier while he was paying and stopped to read the headlines on a discarded newspaper on his way out. I wasn’t even slightly mollified by the fact that he returned to the car with two coffees stacked in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

  ‘Croissants?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  I took it from him without saying thank you.

  ‘No need to be sulky, Kerrigan. It’s not like you to shoot the messenger.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if the messenger actually passed on some information instead of pratting about.’

  The grin again. ‘Got on your nerves, did it?’

  ‘As you intended.’ I sipped my coffee, which was far too hot to drink and burned the tip of my tongue. ‘Ow.’

  ‘Come on. You want to know about Debbie Ormond, and I want to know if it all kicked off after I left. Fair exchange.’ He peered at me. ‘No visible scarring or bruising so I’m guessing it didn’t turn violent.’

  I ignored him. ‘It’s not far to Renee Fairfax’s house. I’m not going to talk about it in front of Lydia.’

  ‘Wouldn’t expect you to. She is a minor, after all, and I don’t want Philip Kennford to accuse me of trying to lead her astray by discussing dirty adult things.’

  I wavered. I did really want to know what he knew about DI Ormond. ‘You can have the short form if you want.’

  ‘I need details, Kerrigan. I can take a detour.’ He raised his cup. ‘Got to drink this before I can face Renee, anyway, so we might as well take our time. They’re not expecting us for half an hour.’

  ‘And I bet Renee would be just as cross if we were half an hour early rather than late.’ I sighed. ‘Look, let’s stay here so we can have breakfast and I’ll tell you all about it. But you have to go first.’

  ‘You mean you want the sordid details of my fling with Debs?’

  ‘For once, yes. Not in too much detail, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Nothing that would make your mother blush. Okay. Can do. Food, please.’

  I passed him the bag. ‘You can have both of them.’

  ‘I shouldn’t. But I’m doing a ten-mile run later, so I can burn it off.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can run in this heat.’

  ‘You don’t notice if you’re going fast enough and you stay out of the sun. It’s when you stop you have to watch out. You can overheat like that.’ He snapped his fingers.

  If it had been anyone else in the car with me I might have made some mordant comment about how life was like that – you thought everything was okay while you were too busy to consider it but as soon as you stopped to think about it, it was actually a disaster. All in all it was a good thing I was stuck with Derwent, who wouldn’t be inclined to give a stuff about my newfound life philosophy.

  ‘Tell me about Deborah Ormond.’

  ‘Well, she was Debbie when I knew her.’ He examined the chocolate croissant he was eating. ‘I think this is stale, you know.’

  ‘That’s tragic. When did you meet Debbie?’

  ‘My first posting after training, in Kentish Town. We’re the same age, same length of service more or less. She was in the intake before mine at Hendon.’

  ‘And?’ Derwent seemed to be more interested in his breakfast than in talking.

  ‘And I shagged her a few times. Or rather, she shagged me. I didn’t stand a chance once she decided she was going to have me.’

  I managed to keep from wincing even though the words stung. ‘You don’t sound too distressed about it.’

  ‘I was a young lad and horny as hell at the time so it suited me fine to be used and abused by Debbie. She had a thing for public places, I remember – back seat of the car if it was dark enough, or in offices in the station with a chair jammed under the door handle.’ He grinned. ‘She liked a risk, did Debbie, and I never minded. But she also liked getting her end away and when I wasn’t free she’d call the next person on the list, or the one after that. She didn’t really care who she slept with. I know she broke up one marriage while I was there, a DS whose wife had just had twins. Never thought twice about sleeping with him despite his personal situation.’

  ‘I can’t stand people like that.’

  He shrugged. ‘I asked her about it. According to her, she was a free agent so she could do what she liked. It was up to the guys if they wanted to say no. She didn’t force anyone to sleep with her. Not that you had much choice if she decided she wanted you.’

  ‘None of this is making me feel better,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Hold on, I’m remembering more stuff, if it was her.’ He thought for a second. ‘Yeah, that was Debbie. She was double-jointed so she could get herself into insane positions. It was like a party trick. Bet she
hasn’t lost that, even though she’s put on a bit of timber over the years.’

  ‘She’s getting on a bit,’ I said bitchily. ‘And she definitely hasn’t kept up with applying eye cream, whatever about her fitness.’

  ‘She always liked the sun. Used to go to nudist resorts on holidays so she didn’t have any tan lines.’ He sighed. ‘Tell you what, I haven’t thought about her in years, but she used to bang like a shit-house door in a hurricane.’

  ‘Again, more detail than I need. What happened in the end?’

  Derwent sipped his coffee, hiding a smile against the edge of the cup. ‘I’m not sure I want to admit this.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘She got a bit much for me. A bit too demanding.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘She doesn’t sound like the type to want a commitment.’

  ‘Not that. It was all about the sex. She always wanted to try something new, or she’d raise the stakes by making it more risky. When she started pestering me to do a threesome with her and another colleague, I backed out.’

  ‘That’s not like you. I’d have thought it would be a dream come true. Unless the other colleague was a man.’

  Derwent was blushing. ‘I mean, I’m as open-minded as the next person. But I didn’t even like talking to the bloke.’

  ‘You are not remotely open-minded.’ I grinned at him. ‘I’m still a bit surprised you didn’t try it.’

  ‘Fuck off.’ He was still red.

  ‘I just mean that it’s not that unusual, is it? Two men and one woman? It wouldn’t have meant you were gay or anything.’

  Derwent completely missed the irony in my voice. ‘Yeah, but it wasn’t just us doing her. She wanted to watch us. Being together.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She sounds lovely.’

  ‘She was well pissed off with me for dropping her.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘I had to request a transfer in the end.’

  ‘You ran away?’

  ‘Fast as my little legs would carry me. Why do you think I got into running marathons?’ He grinned. ‘I haven’t seen her since, to be honest. The Met’s big enough to avoid someone like that. Hadn’t heard she’d joined the Flying Squad. I wonder when that happened.’