The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because people want to please you. Or they want you to live up to their fantasies.’

  ‘That’s it. They have expectations.’ Savannah frowned. ‘How do you know?’

  I hesitated. ‘Let’s just say I know all about unwanted attention and leave it at that.’

  ‘Unwanted attention? I really doubt you do know about it. I’ve had ten or twelve stalkers in the last year alone. Proper, serious, police-involved harassment.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’ I wasn’t going to compete, even though I could have tried.

  ‘Comes with the territory, like I said.’ She laughed humourlessly. ‘That’s why I’d like to be normal, really. Do an ordinary job; look ordinary, even. So I didn’t have to put up with that kind of thing.’

  ‘I hate to break it to you but plenty of ordinary people have to cope with being harassed. And most of them don’t have your resources. They can’t afford to hide away in rural splendour with their secret girlfriend.’

  ‘This wasn’t my idea, actually. Zoe suggested it.’

  ‘Really?’ That wasn’t the impression I’d had.

  ‘Look, I grew up not knowing one end of a cow from the other. I’ve never lived in the country. I can’t get used to how quiet it is out here, or how far you’ve to drive to get a pint of milk. This is completely not my kind of place but I like it. It makes her happy. And that makes me happy.’ She shook her head. ‘How did we get on to talking about this?’

  ‘Because I wanted you to be aware you may need to keep an eye on Lydia.’ I opened the door, checking that she was still downstairs.

  ‘Keep her away from sharp knives, you mean?’ Savannah bit her lip. ‘God. That sounds as if I think she did the murders. I don’t, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I agreed.

  ‘But there’s no way she could have, is there? I mean, the injuries she had – they weren’t from a fight.’

  ‘I don’t believe so,’ I said carefully. It intrigued me that Savannah was bothered about it. ‘Why do you ask? Do you have concerns about her being involved?’

  Savannah shifted restlessly. ‘I don’t know. Not really. I mean, she’s just a kid. But it was something that Zoe said to me that made me wonder about it. And now you say she had a serious cut on her arm and it makes me edgy. I just thought I’d ask.’

  ‘I’m a bit surprised you didn’t think about it before you asked her to stay with you.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t.’

  ‘Are you still happy to have her here? Because if you want us to take her away––’

  ‘No! I want her here. I really do.’ Savannah wriggled again. ‘Besides, what’s the alternative? Back to Renee?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘There’s no way.’

  ‘What do you have against her?’ I asked, curious.

  ‘There’s no warmth in her. No caring. The only thing that worries her is her reputation. And her precious family. She was the one who made Vita tell Dad to cut me off.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He told me. I only met her once. I thought she was a witch, and I was right. You know, I asked Dad once why Vita stayed with him. He told me she asked him for a divorce a couple of years ago, then backed down on Renee’s instructions. Renee told her she’d made her choice and she had to live with it. Not what I would want to hear from my big sister, if I had one.’

  ‘Me neither. I did wonder why Vita stayed in the marriage.’

  ‘I think it was her obsession. That and the girls. But it was Renee who guilt-tripped her into staying with him through thick and thin. She basically gave him a licence to behave as he wanted and he took full advantage. You’d think she liked him or something.’

  ‘Not the impression I got.’

  ‘Maybe he shagged her and then never called.’ Savannah’s eyes widened. ‘Hey, you don’t think––’

  ‘Lydia’s coming back.’ It was with genuine regret that I called a halt, but there were things Lydia didn’t need to hear about her parents, and it was all pure speculation anyway. From the thumps and bumps and low-pitched swearing, she had recruited Derwent as a porter.

  ‘You need a lift.’ He shouldered the door open and threw the bag at the bed, just missing Savannah. ‘This is all right, though.’

  ‘Thanks. I’d have thought it was a bit girly for you.’

  ‘And I’d have thought it was a bit girly for you.’ He swivelled on the spot. ‘Where’s the TV?’

  ‘No TV.’

  ‘You need a little plasma-screen job just there.’ He pointed to a space on the wall near the bath. ‘Sit in the bath with a cold beer, watching Man U getting thumped – I’d die happy.’

  ‘As long as you died, I wouldn’t care how.’ Savannah wasn’t bothering to hide her feelings for Derwent any more. ‘Is there anything else I can do for the two of you or are you prepared to leave us in peace?’

  ‘Couldn’t make me stay.’ He looked at me. ‘Ready, Kerrigan?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Derwent and I took our leave of them with varying degrees of politeness, Derwent making no attempt to be subtle as he double-checked Zoe’s story about the car. I sat in the passenger seat waiting while he lay full-length on the ground, searching every inch with his torch. Zoe and Savannah watched without comment. Lydia had wandered over to stand by the gate, accompanied by the dog who seemed to have adopted her. When Derwent eventually got into the car, the look on his face was pure triumph.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘And that’s good news.’

  ‘Well, objectively no.’ He had the grace to look mildly ashamed. ‘It does mean Lydia may be in danger, I suppose.’

  ‘But more importantly, you were right.’

  ‘That’s where I was coming from, yeah.’

  ‘You’re a prince among men.’

  ‘Finally, you’re prepared to admit it.’ He started the engine and nosed forward, giving Lydia time to unlock the gate. ‘I knew I’d wear you down.’

  ‘But if you think they’re lying––’

  ‘To be honest, if I thought she was in danger I’d have her out of here in a heartbeat, but I can’t see it. I think these ladies thought we needed there to be an alibi and cooked one up, just to reassure us. The physical evidence says they’re lying about it, but that doesn’t mean the clothes-horse is a murderer.’

  ‘Give it a rest.’ I put my hand on Derwent’s arm. ‘Just stop for a second.’

  He braked beside Lydia, enveloping her in a cloud of dust. ‘Whoops.’

  I put down my window and handed the coughing teenager a card. ‘Sorry about the dust. I just wanted to tell you to put my number in your phone, since you do have one after all.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You know how to add someone to the contacts, I presume.’

  ‘I’ll work it out.’

  ‘And use it if you need it.’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You know where to find me.’

  She ran back to the gate, closing it behind her so we were shut out again. Beside me, Derwent stirred, putting the car into gear.

  ‘It was interesting about the phone. Would you have picked her for a liar?’

  I didn’t need to stop to think about it. ‘Actually, I would.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because it seems to run in the family.’

  Derwent grunted his agreement. The car bumped slowly down the track while I watched the house getting smaller in the mirror and thought about deceit, and suspicion, and family secrets, and whether anyone really wanted us to solve this case at all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘OKAY, WHAT’S WRONG?’ Liv plumped down on the edge of my desk.

  ‘Do you mind? Those are important.’ I extracted a sheaf of forms from under her rear end.

  ‘Come off it. It’s not like you to be pissy about paperwork. What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’ve been staring into space f
or the past twenty minutes.’

  ‘Thinking.’

  ‘There’s a little puddle of drool there.’ She pointed. ‘Brain activity close to nil, I’d have said. What’s up?’

  I put my face in my hands and groaned. ‘Take your pick.’

  ‘Is it work or personal?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘The worst.’

  ‘I was going to offer to buy you a can from the vending machine to cheer you up. This sounds a bit more serious.’

  ‘You’re not wrong.’ I checked the time. ‘Too early to hit the pub, unfortunately. The vending machine it is.’

  The one major advantage of the machine was that it was located in a small alcove two floors down from the team’s room. That and the fact that the refrigeration unit was as noisy as an oil rig made it possible to have a private conversation there without attracting too much attention, provided you kept it brief. We rattled downstairs in silence, by mutual consent, and Liv did the honours. Two cans clattered down into the slot and she fished them out.

  ‘Spill the beans.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Rob may be having an affair with his boss, Derwent and I possibly just put a key witness in danger, and something really, really bad happened last night.’

  Liv blinked rapidly. ‘So the first two don’t count as really, really bad?’

  ‘Not in the context of the third.’ I popped the ring-pull and sipped orange fizz, wincing at how sweet it tasted. ‘God, this is rank.’

  ‘It’s all that was left. I can’t believe they haven’t restocked the machine. It’s not like we’re in the middle of a heatwave or anything.’ Liv hadn’t opened hers yet and was holding it to the back of her neck, trying to cool down. ‘You’d better start with the third thing, then, although I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about Rob.’

  ‘I wish I was.’ I squeezed the sides of the can, flexing the thin metal. ‘Do you remember Chris Swain?’

  ‘As in your creepy stalker, Chris Swain? As in the guy who lived in your building and filmed you and Rob––’

  ‘Shagging. Yes. And keep your voice down.’

  A man I didn’t know was walking towards us with a preoccupied air and a handful of coins, but just because I didn’t know him I wasn’t prepared to assume he didn’t know me. We fell silent while he in his turn discovered the lack of choice, struggled with his disappointment and also settled for orange. As he disappeared around the corner, I turned back to Liv. ‘Swain’s been out of sight since Belcott and Vale found the wiring in my old flat. He disappeared before they got a chance to interview him.’

  ‘I remember that. They did a pretty thorough job looking for him.’

  ‘Yeah, Colin Vale doesn’t do any other kind of job, and Belcott was just insanely curious. They put in the hours all right, but they didn’t find a trace of him anywhere – his passport hasn’t been used since, nor have any of his credit cards, and there was no activity on any of the accounts he had in his name. I don’t think it’s safe to assume he killed himself from shame and we just haven’t found the body.’

  ‘He was ready to go underground, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Had it all planned.’ I drank a little bit of orange, regretting it as it fizzed up in my sinuses. ‘Anyway. I was starting to think he was gone for good.’

  Liv’s eyes were round. ‘He didn’t turn up.’

  ‘Not in person.’

  ‘How, then?’

  ‘I’ve been getting weird things in the post at home. Underwear catalogues, that kind of thing. I thought I’d got on a dodgy mailing list.’

  ‘That happens. It’s a bit weird, but it does happen.’

  ‘Yeah. It does. But there were pictures, too, of Rob and his boss. Not doing anything in particular,’ I added quickly, seeing the look on her face. ‘Just looking a little bit more friendly than you might expect. Rob passed it off as a prank, but I don’t suppose he thought it was Chris Swain’s work either. I wouldn’t have put two and two together if I hadn’t found an envelope with our post when I got home late last night.’

  ‘From him?’

  ‘I think that’s a safe assumption.’

  ‘What was in it?’

  I set the can down beside the drinks machine, suddenly nauseous. ‘Photographs.’

  ‘Of you, presumably.’

  ‘Mostly. And other people. Pictures of me at work the other night, in Clapham, at the crime scene. Pictures of me and Rob that were taken in the street and with a long lens looking into our flat. He’d cut Rob out of them, Liv. I mean physically cut out his face.’

  She was looking disturbed. ‘That’s so creepy.’

  ‘It’s worse than that, isn’t it? It’s a threat.’

  ‘Or he just wanted to swap Rob out and put himself in. I presume these were intimate moments he’d captured. You know, your face here, that kind of thing.’

  ‘There was a note.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘“You’re worth more. If you can’t see that, let me show you the truth about him. If you still don’t have the wisdom to get rid of him, he’s a dead man.”’

  ‘Is that word for word?’

  ‘For some reason it stuck in my head,’ I said wryly.

  She shook her head. ‘Maeve, it’s not worth worrying about. He’s a run-and-hide kind of weirdo. A peeping Tom. He’s not going to attack anyone. Just get some decent blinds and try to persuade Rob not to wander around naked any more.’

  ‘It’s not just him I need to worry about, and he’s plenty of trouble on his own. Remember the website he was running? There were tons of freaks on it who wouldn’t think twice about doing his dirty work.’

  ‘Rob can take care of himself.’

  ‘Can he?’ I winced. ‘I don’t know. And I don’t know if I want him to take the risk anyway if he’s cheating on me.’

  ‘You can’t believe he’s cheating.’ Liv’s voice was flat. ‘You’re not going to take a stranger’s word over his, are you? A stranger with a hell of an agenda to boot? You can’t let him dictate what happens to you. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? You’re just playing into his hands if you do break up with Rob.’

  ‘What if he is having fling with his boss?’

  ‘Well, this is how I know you’ve lost the plot completely. What are you talking about? How could he be having an affair?’

  I filled her in on what I’d seen and what Derwent had said about DI Deborah Ormond. Liv’s response was immediate.

  ‘Talk to him.’

  ‘But––’

  ‘You know better than to jump to conclusions without actually knowing what’s going on.’

  I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. ‘I just think it might be for the best to walk away. Just draw a line under it and move on.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’ Liv raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s your usual way out, as I understand it.’

  I shook my head. ‘We did things too fast. We moved in together because I needed a roof over my head, and then I lost him his job.’

  ‘You didn’t. Godley found out about your relationship because of Swain spying on you, not because of anything you did wrong. And Rob chose to leave. You were halfway out the door too, as I recall.’

  ‘But Rob was the one who ended up going. He’s not the sort to kick me out even if he’s fallen for someone else. He’s waiting for me to notice there’s something wrong and act accordingly.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Rob.’

  ‘Why else would he invite me to the pub when he knew Deborah Ormond would be there? Why else would she maul him in front of me? Someone was sending a message.’

  ‘And it didn’t occur to you that it might be Rob showing DI Ormond that he’s taken? Proving to her that he’s got a stunning girlfriend already and is off the market?’

  ‘It’s possible that he wanted to warn her off somehow.’ I admitted it grudgingly.

  ‘Is it also possible that the pictures and the note were sent by
someone other than Chris Swain?‘

  ‘Who else would bother?’

  ‘A certain nymphomaniac DI trying to freak you out? Someone playing a practical joke?’ Liv tilted her head back to drain the last of her can. ‘I think you’re way off, for what it’s worth. You’re getting in a state about nothing.’

  ‘About Chris Swain or Rob?’

  ‘Both,’ she said crisply.

  I checked the time. ‘We’d better head back. Thanks for the support, by the way.’

  ‘I am being supportive. I just don’t think you should be in a panic.’ Liv’s eyes were troubled, though, and in any event she ruined the effect of her careful nonchalance with her next question. ‘Am I right in thinking you don’t want to mention the letter and photographs to Godley?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘You should tell as many people as possible. Make a fuss. Get it investigated. Scare off whoever thinks it’s funny to freak you out, and get some reassurance at the same time. At the very least you should tell Derwent because he’s the one who’s with you most of the time. He’s most likely to see someone hanging around if Swain is following you at work.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to say anything to anyone until I know more. If you’re right, and I’m wrong, it’s not worth worrying about. And if I’m right––’

  ‘Then by the time you find out, it might be too late.’

  ‘That’s not what you said just now.’

  ‘I was trying to reassure you so you didn’t freak out.’

  I pushed open the door into the stairwell. ‘Tell you what, Liv, next time you think I need cheering up, don’t bother.’

  She crossed her arms, nettled. ‘Charming.’

  ‘I wasn’t looking for a lecture,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I wasn’t trying to give you one.’

  ‘That’s how it sounded to me.’

  ‘I’m surprised you could hear anything over the voice in your head that tells you you’re right all the time.’

  ‘Ladies, ladies. Please.’ Ben Dornton jogged past us, heading up the stairs. ‘There’s no need to fight here where no one can see you. Take it to the team’s room so we can run a book on who’ll win.’

  ‘Piss off,’ I said.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ Liv called after his retreating back.