The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

  ‘Lovers’ tiff?’ echoed down the stairwell.

  ‘Definitely not,’ I said, earning myself a glare from Liv.

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘That’s what Derwent said too. For the record, I don’t think either of you are attracted to me. Does that help?’

  ‘Profoundly.’

  I leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted. ‘Oh, shit, Liv. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ She was still looking annoyed, but less so. ‘I still think you need to talk to Godley, but start with Rob. Is he around?’

  ‘He should be back by late afternoon.’

  ‘Perfect. Tell the boss you’ve got a headache and you need to go home early.’

  ‘No word of a lie. But I don’t think he’ll be too sympathetic.’

  ‘What are you talking about? He loves you.’

  ‘Not any more. I’ve blotted my copybook.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Standing up for Derwent. I know, it doesn’t sound likely.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t tell me he’s starting to grow on you.’

  ‘Like mould.’ I sighed. ‘When am I going to learn that doing the right thing isn’t always the right thing to do?’

  ‘When it’s chiselled on your gravestone.’ She patted my shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s disappoint the lads by being friends again, instead of needing to mud-wrestle to settle our differences, or whatever it was Dornton had in mind.’

  ‘I don’t want to think about what Dornton had in mind, thank you.’ I followed her up the stairs, though, feeling better and worse at the same time. She hadn’t laughed it off, and that bothered me. But it bothered me even more that I couldn’t tell if I could trust Rob or not.

  I knew there was someone in the flat as soon as I pushed open the door. There was some disturbance in the air, something too subtle to be a noise. I stood on the threshold, listening, every sense straining. It had been a jumpy enough trip back from work; I hadn’t been able to stop myself from looking around every time the train stopped and people got on or off. Walking back to the flat, I found myself taking a circuitous route, one that had lots of sharp corners where I could stop and wait to see if anyone was following me. I hated the paranoia; I hated the fact that it was justified.

  At the flat, I had just got as far as thinking about where my CS spray was (my locker at work, unfortunately) when the bathroom door opened. I knew it would be Rob but my heart still jumped and the look on my face must have been the opposite of pleased because he stopped a couple of feet away.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I forced a smile. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Why are you standing there?’ He reached out and very gently pulled me into the flat. ‘I thought I heard your key in the lock, but then you didn’t come in.’

  ‘I was trying to work out if you were here or not.’

  ‘Here, but going out. I thought I’d head to the park for a run, as you might have guessed.’

  ‘I noticed the gear.’ I put my own belongings down and blew my hair off my forehead where it was sticking to me. ‘Rather you than me. It’s too bloody hot.’

  ‘I’m sick of being stuck indoors. Besides, I didn’t think it was as bad today. And I won’t notice when I’m actually running.’

  ‘Just when you stop, Derwent says.’

  ‘Does he indeed? Well, he’d know.’

  ‘You need to drink lots of water. And don’t run in the sun.’

  ‘I’ll be under the trees. Plenty of shade. Plus, it’s late enough that I don’t think the sun is too strong at this time of day.’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘What’s wrong, Maeve? You’re talking like you’re on autopilot or something. Did anything happen at work?’

  ‘No. Not at work.’ I didn’t know how to start talking about any of it but I was suddenly, unhelpfully angry with him.

  ‘Cagey.’ He went into the sitting room and I followed, watching him lace his trainers as he sat on the edge of the sofa. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘I was sort of hoping you might start.’

  He frowned, twisting round to look at me. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Does this ring any bells?’ I leaned forward and began to run my hand up and down his back using the approved Deborah Ormond technique.

  ‘Knock it off.’ He leaned away. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You seemed to like it when your DI was doing it. I thought I’d have a crack. If there’s anything else she does for you that you want me to try, you only have to ask.’

  He stood up. ‘Are you talking about DI Ormond?’

  ‘The very same. I saw her mauling you in the pub.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about it last night.’

  ‘I didn’t get the chance. I wasn’t going to raise it in front of her.’

  ‘Maybe you should have. Then she could have told you the same thing I’m going to. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’ His eyes were wary.

  ‘Have I? Derwent got the same impression. He saw her too.’ I laughed. ‘You must think I’m blind, or stupid, or both. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice there was something going on?’

  ‘There’s nothing going on.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘I promise you.’

  ‘I know what I saw, and it wasn’t just me, it was Derwent too, so you can’t claim we were both mistaken. I just don’t know why you’d bother to deny it.’

  He ran his hands through his hair. ‘Look, it’s not what it looked like.’

  ‘Finally, we’re getting somewhere. You’re prepared to admit there was something to see.’

  ‘I’m prepared to admit nothing,’ he snapped. ‘But what I will say is that DI Ormond had been drinking for a while that night. She’s on the tactile side even when she’s sober, and when she’s boozed up she gets grabby.’

  ‘I spoke to her, remember. She wasn’t boozed up. She was absolutely sober.’

  He laughed. ‘Really, she wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, obviously I don’t know her as well as you do. But I didn’t hear her slurring her words and she didn’t seem to have any trouble focusing.’ I took off my shoes and stalked into our bedroom. Over my shoulder, I said, ‘I also didn’t see her touch anyone else while I was there.’

  ‘Maybe you weren’t looking.’

  ‘Again, not blind, not stupid.’ I was getting changed, pulling off clothes and yanking on whatever was closest to hand without much regard for the overall effect.

  ‘Pig-headed, though.’

  I turned around. ‘Look, why are you bothering to deny it? You got caught, Rob. Either you hadn’t briefed her to leave you alone in front of me, or you didn’t care about me realising what you’ve been up to. I would have expected a bit more in the way of honesty and courtesy, but I can promise you I won’t break down if you just tell me the truth. I can take it.’

  ‘You’ve made up your mind about this, haven’t you?’ He sat down on the end of the bed. ‘You don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Well, try telling me.’ I leaned against the wall. ‘Come on, Rob. I know there’s been a problem since you started your new job. You haven’t been yourself. I thought you were just finding it hard to settle in, but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’

  ‘That was part of it.’ He dragged his eyes up to meet mine. ‘What did you notice?’

  ‘You haven’t been sleeping well, for starters.’

  ‘No one sleeps well in this weather.’

  ‘Come off it, Rob. You haven’t been around much, but when you’ve been here you haven’t been what I’d call chatty about work. Not as much as you should have been if you were enjoying it, anyway. I thought it was because you didn’t want me to feel guilty about you having to transfer out of Godley’s team, but I was way off, wasn’t I?’

  ‘It wasn’t the work. Or not exactly.’

  ‘It was her.’

  ‘It was DI Ormond.’

/>   ‘You can call her Debbie if you like. I gather that’s how she prefers her boyfriends to address her.’

  ‘I don’t call her Debbie.’ He said it flatly. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘Derwent. He’s her ex.’

  ‘One of many, from what I’ve heard. Bit of a coincidence, though.’

  ‘Not really. It seems she goes for anyone she works with – always has. And she’s been around for long enough to get through a fair proportion of the Met.’

  He sighed. ‘Look, I didn’t want to tell you about it because I didn’t want to worry you and I didn’t want you to be upset on my behalf and I didn’t want to even mention it in case you thought it mattered, but she’s been doing her best to make my life difficult since we both joined the squad. She’s got a nasty reputation for playing favourites and picking on anyone who doesn’t go along with what she wants. And I wasn’t prepared to go along with what she wanted.’

  ‘Because what she wanted was you.’

  ‘Basically. From the first day she laid eyes on me, and not because of anything I did or said, before you jump to any conclusions. And I wasn’t going to cooperate.’

  ‘Well, how laudable.’

  He stood up. ‘I didn’t ask you for a medal. I wasn’t even going to tell you about it, remember?’

  ‘Until you got caught out.’

  ‘If I’d really been worried about keeping the two of you apart I would have come up with some reason for you to stay away from the pub the other night.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering why you didn’t.’

  ‘Because I didn’t have anything to hide.’

  ‘So hiding it was just for practice.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bitch.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘It’s not like you to throw names like that around.’

  ‘It’s not like you to be so unreasonable.’ His eyes were as hard as flint. ‘Seriously, Maeve, get over yourself. You know I didn’t lie about anything important. You know I was keeping it from you for good reasons, and not because I was trying to play the field.’

  ‘Good reasons being that you didn’t trust me not to overreact.’

  ‘Well? You’re not proving me wrong.’

  ‘Fucking marvellous.’ I started to walk out of the room and he stepped in front of me.

  ‘Don’t leave. Don’t just walk away. This is too important.’

  ‘It is important. You need to start treating me like an adult. Like your equal, even.’

  ‘That’s how I see you.’

  ‘It’s not how you treat me. You’ve always been the one who acted like you were in charge. Even saying that you loved me – that was your way of distracting me from what was really going on.’

  ‘You cynic.’ He frowned down at me. ‘What else is going on? What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘Don’t turn this around on me.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’ It was my turn to be on the back foot.

  ‘It’s never nothing with you.’ He was still staring at me. ‘There’s more to this than you overreacting about DI Ormond. You’ve got something else on your mind.’

  ‘Oh, stop with the telepathy, for once. There’s no more to this than the bare fact that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were having problems at work. And that’s no basis for a relationship in my book.’

  ‘You’re not breaking up with me over this,’ Rob said softly. ‘Don’t even pretend it’s enough of a reason.’

  ‘It sounds like reason enough to me.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, this conversation isn’t over, but I don’t see the point in prolonging it now. I’m going to go out and run until I don’t feel like murdering you any more. You can do what you like, but I suggest you meet me in the park – say at the café by the lake in about an hour – so we can talk about this like human beings. Being in here doesn’t seem to be doing either of us much good.’

  It was a good suggestion, better than he knew. I had just been about to ask if we could go somewhere else to talk. If my stalker was staying true to form, the flat could be bugged if not wired for video, and I didn’t want to let Chris Swain know too much if I could avoid it. What I wanted was for him to believe Rob and I were finished, and it was starting to look as if it would even be true. I just wished I could be more pleased about it. It was for Rob’s sake, I reminded myself, and made myself go on.

  ‘All right. I’ll see you there. I’ll even buy you a bottle of water. But I don’t think a change of scenery is going to bring about a change of heart.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ He picked up his keys and his phone, and checked the time. ‘Right. One hour, or thereabouts. I’ll see you there.’

  I listened to him go, wincing as he slammed the door. He kept his emotions on such a tight rein that it was the only sign of how upset he was.

  Doing the right thing had never felt so hard.

  Chapter Twenty

  IF I DIDN’T quite enjoy the walk through the park, I was still able to acknowledge that it was a lovely place to be. Battersea Park suited the long warm summer evening, with children playing under the tall plane trees and locals strolling hand-in-hand down avenues of beeches. There were dogs everywhere, all kinds from pedigree to pure mongrel, mostly up to no good. Most of them seemed to have been in the lake at one point or other, and some of the owners looked more than a little damp around the edges.

  The park had been planned with rambling in mind and I took advantage of that on my way to the café. The lake was surrounded by lush planting and featured islands covered in what was apparently wild woodland. I took my time wandering around, watching teenagers squabble in hired rowing boats while the ducks looked on sagely from the banks, staying well out of it. Romantic champagne picnics seemed to be in fashion; almost every bench had its cooing couple. I wondered how many of them would end up staying together for the long haul. I wondered how many of them were lying to each other. I wasn’t really in the right mood for lovebirds, understandably enough.

  I crossed a humpbacked footbridge onto one of the islands in the lake and found a free bench at last, just opposite the café. The great table-legs of Battersea Power Station’s chimneys stuck up behind it against the fading sky, a reminder that London in all its grime wasn’t too far away despite the acres of trees and grass that surrounded me. There was no sign of Rob, who was presumably pounding his regular route around the outskirts of the park. The path bordered the Thames on one side and it would be a nice place to run at that time of evening, I thought, with the best chance of a breeze. Certainly there was no breath of air on the lake. The leaves hung limply above me and the grass was piebald brown where the sun had scorched it during the long summer days. Dragonflies and midges shimmered above the surface of the water and I sat and watched them, thinking about the Kennford case, and Rob, and whether a glass of wine would help with our forthcoming conversation. The café was busy; most of the tables outside were full. The hum of conversation was audible from where I sat, and the setting sun cast a golden light over the scene, making everyone look ten times more glamorous and beautiful than they deserved to. A London summer at its best, you could say, if you didn’t mind the heat or could avoid it during the days. It was one of the curses of being a police officer that we were out in all weathers. Bodies never seemed to turn up on temperate days, early on in a shift, when there was light and time to deal with them. Murder was not a convenient speciality but I was increasingly aware that it was all I wanted to do. I had been warned by one of the older detectives on the team when I joined it that it was the professional equivalent of a smack habit. ‘It’ll break your heart and take everything you value in your personal life but you won’t be able to quit.’ Typical old CID hyperbole, I had thought at the time. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  A jogger ran past – not Rob. Then another two, women running together, talking about weddings. One was lean and slim-hipped; the other profoundly pear-shaped and out of breath but pounding along with good grace. A pe
rsonal trainer, I thought, with a highly motivated bride who still had a bit of work to do. A cyclist sped past, a vision in emerald-and-white Lycra and fly-eye sunglasses, his wheels whirring like the insects in the undergrowth. Another jogger, this one stocky and perspiring heavily. On the far shore I saw a figure in blue shorts and a dark top. It could have been Rob and I squinted, watching his arms and legs move in a steady but fast rhythm, as measured as engine pistons. He was running off his temper, I recalled. He would be moving quickly.

  A prickle at the base of my skull made me look around; it was that feeling of being watched that I had learned not to discount. How it worked, I didn’t know, but I had been right too many times to think it was a fluke. At first, I couldn’t see anyone. There was a homeless man in the shrubbery behind me, a bundle in dark woollen clothing that I hadn’t noticed before I sat down. He was probably the reason the bench had been unoccupied, but he was far enough away for me to ignore him, and anyway, he was asleep. I scanned the trees and bushes around me, feeling ridiculous but also feeling my heart thud in my throat. I edged my mobile phone out of the pocket of my jeans, just in case. Nothing on the right, I was sure. I turned my head and looked to the left, very casually, as if I was just taking in the scenery.

  He was on the bridge, fifty yards away, and he had a camera. The cyclist who had passed me earlier, anonymous in shades and his helmet. Now that I saw him again I knew who it was, even without seeing his face. He had grown a heavy beard but I recognised the sandy hair and the narrow build. The giveaway was the lens that was pointed straight at me. From that distance I couldn’t hear the click as he took pictures, but I had no doubt he was doing more than look through the lens. I turned my head away again and peered at my phone, flicking through the contacts, choosing a name.

  Please pick up.

  It rang.

  Please.

  Another long ring. Another two and I’d get his voicemail.

  Maybe he wouldn’t answer. Maybe he would be too angry, still, or he’d wonder why I was bothering him ten minutes before we’d arranged to meet.