The Last Girl

by Casey, Jane

In the high childish voice she’d used before, Lydia said, ‘Everything was lovely this morning. We were having fun. Then I was in my room and Zoe came and got me. She said she’d lied to the police because Savannah asked her to. She said Savannah killed Mum and Laura. She told me I had to get revenge for them. I owed it to them. She said Laura would have done it if she’d lived and I’d died.’

  Zoe took a step towards Lydia and I put my hand out to stop her. I was distracted by Lydia’s story but I had enough awareness of what Zoe was doing to notice her bending down. I looked back as she straightened up.

  And the lighter wasn’t on the floor any more.

  I didn’t even think as I stepped forward; I certainly didn’t hesitate. I smacked her hand as she lifted it, as hard as I could, hitting it underneath so the lighter flew up, and over her shoulder, and out into the open air. It spun and disappeared into the grass. I heard Derwent swear; I was aware of an exclamation from Philip Kennford and of Ben Dornton going outside to retrieve it.

  ‘What the hell did you think you were going to achieve?’ I demanded.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do anything.’ Zoe glared at me. ‘You overreacted.’

  ‘You panicked. You didn’t want Lydia to say what she’s about to say.’ I turned back to the girl. ‘Go on, Lydia. Tell us what happened.’

  Lydia had closed her eyes tightly, and kept them closed as she went on. I wasn’t even sure she’d noticed the interruption.

  ‘She took me into the room and she showed me where to put the knife, but I couldn’t do it, so she stuck it in first and then made me do it too. I thought Savannah would wake up, but she didn’t. She just died. Zoe went and showered, and got changed, but I just stayed with Savannah. I thought I should have hated her, but I couldn’t. She was so nice to me. I couldn’t understand how she could have killed them, but I didn’t know what else to believe.’

  Kennford said something under his breath, something I didn’t quite hear. His face was sheet-white.

  ‘Then Zoe said I had done the right thing, but no one else would understand and she would get the blame if they knew she’d been here. She said I was to say Savannah confessed everything last night. Then I took the opportunity to kill her today, while she was asleep. And then Zoe hugged me and she left.’

  ‘Why did you try to kill yourself?’ Derwent asked gently.

  ‘I was scared of going to prison. I was so sad about Savannah, too.’ She covered her face. ‘I wasn’t any better than her once I’d killed her. I’d seen the petrol in the garage, and I knew there was a lighter in the kitchen. I got it, and then took the petrol and came in here. I was ready to do it, but I wasn’t brave enough.’ The high-pitched voice broke and faltered. ‘I wanted to be a sacrifice. I wanted to make everything right again. But I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘This is total rubbish.’ Zoe’s voice was strained and shockingly loud after Lydia’s quavering recitation. ‘You can’t possibly believe it. She’s murdered her family, she’s killed my girlfriend and now she’s trying to frame me. Look at her. She’s crazy.’

  I did look at Lydia, whose teeth were chattering. Her hair was tangled around her face and her eyes were wild. I had included her in my list of possible suspects but I’d never truly believed she was capable of murder. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘It’s time to tell the truth, Lydia.’ Her father sounded stern. ‘Not another story.’

  ‘I am telling the truth.’ It lacked conviction, and over her head Derwent’s eyes were grim.

  Zoe put her hands up to her face. ‘I don’t believe Savannah’s gone. How can she be gone?’

  ‘So you weren’t there,’ Godley said. ‘Lydia’s lying.’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t.’ She took her hands down and glowered at me again, her eyelashes stuck together with unshed tears. ‘I didn’t know about any of this until I came back. I can’t believe you’re even willing to consider I might have been involved.’

  I was still holding on to her arm. ‘Look, we need to investigate it properly. Examine the evidence.’

  ‘It’ll show that she killed her and I wasn’t there.’ Zoe was trembling. ‘This is a nightmare. How could this have happened?’

  ‘Stop lying,’ Lydia shouted. ‘Tell them I haven’t made any of it up. Tell them!’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘It’s a fabrication. It’s insane. She’s insane. I knew we shouldn’t have taken her in.’ She looked at Philip Kennford pleadingly. ‘I know she’s your daughter but you can’t take what she says at face value. She’s trying to frame me. She’s evil.’

  ‘No,’ Lydia said, her voice raw. ‘No.’

  Zoe spread out her hands. ‘Why would I want to kill Savannah? Why would I even think of it? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  And my phone rang. I caught Liv’s eye and she came forward to take my place by Zoe’s side as I stepped away. I took two deep breaths of air that was free of petrol vapour once I got out of the barn, as I hooked my phone out of my pocket.

  ‘Kerrigan.’

  ‘It’s Colin Vale.’ I’d have recognised my colleague’s nasal voice straightaway, but he was the sort to introduce himself; I was lucky he hadn’t given his rank and badge number too. ‘Your DNA results from the Kennford case have come back from forensics and we’ve got a match on the system.’

  I felt my heart jump. ‘Go on. Does it come back to Savannah Wentworth?’

  ‘Nope. Hannah Clarke, who would now be … let me see … aged twenty-six.’

  ‘Who?’ I shook my head, baffled. ‘I have no idea who that is.’

  ‘She has convictions for shoplifting, theft, that kind of thing. Mainly from a few years ago.’

  ‘Is there a description?’ I listened as he ran through it. It was from a few years before; it would be out of date now. ‘Any distinguishing marks? Scars?’

  ‘Upper left arm, there’s an inch-long scar in the shape of a teardrop.’

  ‘That helps.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘It might.’ I hesitated. ‘Did they confirm this Hannah Clarke is related to Laura Kennford?’

  A roll of thunder echoed across the hills, and I almost didn’t hear Colin’s response.

  ‘Same father, looks like.’

  ‘Same father,’ I repeated. ‘Christ.’

  ‘Is it starting to make sense now?’

  ‘Of a sort.’ I thanked him and hung up, then retraced my steps to the barn door. Zoe was still standing beside Liv but she had crossed her arms.

  ‘Can I see your upper left arm, please?’

  ‘Why?’ She cupped a hand over it.

  ‘I need to see if you have a scar there.’ I was aware that everyone was listening to our conversation. ‘I need to know if you’re Philip Kennford’s daughter.’

  A confused babble broke out; I was aware of Kennford expostulating, of Zoe laughing hysterically and above it all, Derwent’s voice.

  ‘That’s fucking twisted, that is. You do realise that would mean she was shagging her sister.’

  I ignored it all, peeling her fingers off her arm and holding her hand with as much force as I could muster. She was tall, and strong, and she wanted to fight me off, but she must have known she couldn’t win.

  Halfway down her left bicep there was a pale scar shaped like a teardrop. It was about an inch long. Unmistakable. Undisguisable.

  And she stopped laughing.

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘Zoe Prowse, also known as Hannah Clarke, I’m arresting you for the murder of Vita Kennford and Laura Kennford, and the murder of Savannah Wentworth. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

  No answer.

  Then again, I hadn’t really expected one.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  ‘THE THING ABOUT DNA is that even the thickest juror can understand it.’

  Zoe stared at the opposite wall of the interview room,
her expression stony. It was the same room we’d used to interview Lydia and Seth Carberry, provided by Sussex Police without us needing to do more than ask, and we’d been there for an hour already.

  ‘You can’t deny your relationship to Philip Kennford, Zoe. It’s there in black and white.’ I slid the page across the table. ‘To be honest, I’m not the best at interpreting scientific information, but I won’t have to in court. There’ll be experts. They can prove your connection to the Kennford family. Or to Philip, anyway.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Don’t you want him to know who you are? Don’t you want him to acknowledge you?’ I leaned in. ‘Isn’t that what all of this was about?’

  A flicker of irritation passed over her face.

  ‘You wanted him to acknowledge you, but you couldn’t get a toe in the door.’

  Derwent had turned a chair around and was straddling it. ‘We had a word with Vita’s sister Renee. She’d mentioned one of Philip Kennford’s illegitimate kids turning up last year, but we didn’t know she meant an adult. We assumed she was talking about an infant. It was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘And Vita wouldn’t give you the time of day. She just wanted to protect her family and keep you out of their cosy little world.’ I flipped through my folder of notes on Zoe, hastily pulled together from various official sources. I still couldn’t think of her as Hannah, even though it was her real name. ‘You didn’t have what I’d call a privileged childhood, did you? Lots of time in foster care. Lots of trouble with the police, social services. And then your mother died when you were twelve.’

  The composure wavered for a split second, an unguarded expression on Zoe’s face. I knew Derwent had seen it too. It was the first real reaction we had had. A way in, possibly.

  ‘What was it – drugs?’ To me, Derwent said, ‘I bet it was drugs.’

  ‘She took an overdose.’ It was as if Zoe couldn’t stop herself from saying it.

  ‘Topped herself?’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘She was a druggie, though. Had to have been for you to be taken off her. Do you know how hard it is to get the courts to take a kid away from a parent?’

  ‘Not hard enough.’ Zoe glared at Derwent. ‘She was doing her best.’

  ‘Coralie. Pretty name.’

  ‘He still couldn’t remember her.’ Zoe sounded bitter, understandably. It was Philip Kennford who had demanded to know Zoe’s mother’s name back in the barn. I thought it was probably a moment she had dreamed of all her life, but his response fell quite a long way short of what she might have wanted.

  ‘Sorry. Not ringing any bells.’

  Coralie Clarke had been eighteen when he met her, Zoe told him. She had been pretty – very.

  ‘You slept with her a few times. I don’t know how many.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He had looked sorry, too. ‘Do you know any more details?’

  ‘Mum wasn’t very good with details.’

  ‘I just don’t recall a Coralie.’

  Zoe’s eyes had been huge, unwavering, fixed on Kennford’s face. ‘She never forgot you.’

  ‘I suppose she had you to remind her. I never knew about you.’

  ‘She told you. She wrote, twice, and she waited for you on the street when you were coming out of court once. She told you,’ Zoe repeated.

  ‘None of that happened.’

  ‘Would you remember?’ I had asked, curious. ‘You’re not very interested in that kind of thing, it seems to me.’

  ‘I think I’d remember a child.’

  ‘You didn’t care about Niele’s baby.’

  ‘I never had to care about it. It was never going to become a reality. Niele wasn’t maternal.’

  ‘Nor was my mother.’ It was the last thing Zoe had said, clamming up while we made the arrangements for her to be transported to the police station. She had stared at Philip Kennford for as long as she could see him, as if she was learning his face. It was the first time she had spoken to him, I reminded myself. And presumably not in the circumstances she had intended.

  ‘It must have been hard for you to see what Philip Kennford’s other daughters thought of as a normal life,’ I said now, hoping she would keep talking. ‘The things they took for granted.’

  ‘Life isn’t fair.’ She said it with a tight smile.

  ‘That wasn’t a lesson Laura had learned, was it? She was born to privilege. Money. The best of everything.’

  Zoe shrugged.

  ‘And Lydia had the same. But she didn’t make the most of it, did she? She spoiled it for herself by not eating and hurting herself. She invented problems for herself.’

  ‘Poor Lydia.’

  ‘Poor Lydia who according to you is trying to frame you for murdering Savannah.’ Derwent leaned his head on his folded arms. ‘You must know that’s not going to work.’

  Zoe looked irritated. ‘You can believe what you like. I can’t make you take my word over hers.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell us your version?’ I checked the time. ‘You know he’s probably at the hospital with Lydia. Sitting by her bed. He’s made his choice already.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what you’ve done for him. The sacrifices you’ve made.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘I don’t have any kids, but I’d love to think someone might care about me some day the way you care about Philip Kennford. You’ve earned his love. Lydia had every opportunity to impress him and she blew it, time and time again. And yet he’s still there with her.’

  Zoe stared down at her hands, pressing the palms together. ‘I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work.’

  ‘We’re just trying to help. Trying to get you to tell us why you got involved with Philip Kennford’s daughters in the first place.’ I sat back in my chair. Keep her calm …

  ‘What came first? Meeting Vita or meeting Savannah?’

  ‘Vita,’ she said reluctantly.

  ‘From what I know of her, she could be quite hard work. Especially if she thought her family were threatened by something.’

  ‘By me. By my very existence.’ She blinked back tears. ‘I just wanted to say to her, I didn’t ask to be born, you know? Same old story – punish me for existing.’

  ‘What did you want?’

  ‘To meet him. To get to know him. To have a family.’ She shrugged. ‘It was stupid, but I thought he’d be proud of me. I’d gone from having nothing to getting my life on track. I’d worked fucking hard to get somewhere – to make something of myself. I thought he’d admire that. I wasn’t asking for money, or much of his time, or anything more than a chance to talk to them.’

  ‘And Vita wasn’t having it.’

  ‘She was a racist bitch,’ Zoe spat. ‘She didn’t want anyone to know he’d slept with a black woman. She couldn’t stand the idea of me being part of her world.’

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘Not in so many words, I suppose.’ A single tear slid out of her right eye and she rubbed it away. ‘I could tell. She said I wouldn’t fit in. The girls wouldn’t know what to make of me, and nor would her husband.’

  ‘Did she offer you money?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A thousand pounds.’ Zoe’s mouth twisted. ‘Not a lot, really. She must have thought I’d be cheap.’

  ‘She misjudged you,’ Derwent said. ‘Underestimated you. Made you angry.’

  ‘I wasn’t angry. Not then. I was hurt.’

  ‘All right. You were hurt. But you weren’t going to give up.’

  Zoe sighed. ‘I knew about Savannah. I knew she was his daughter, and a famous model and I wangled an invitation to a London Fashion Week party she was going to.’

  ‘Did you plan to start a relationship with her?’

  ‘No.’ She looked shocked. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You wanted to get to know her,’ I said. ‘Another of your sisters. You could have told her who you were, once you’d got to know her a bit.’

  She nodded. �
�That was the idea. I never even thought we could be real friends, but I thought there might be a connection there.’

  ‘That was an understatement, wasn’t it?’ Derwent ran a hand over his face. ‘I don’t know how you could do it, you know. Sleep with her. Your own sister.’

  The blood rushed into her cheeks. ‘Don’t judge me. It wasn’t planned. She made all the running.’

  ‘She had a boyfriend,’ I said quietly. ‘She dumped him for you. You must have given her the idea her attentions were welcome.’

  ‘It wasn’t cynical. It wasn’t.’ She looked stubborn. ‘It happens. Genetic sexual attraction, it’s called.’

  ‘Incest,’ Derwent said.

  ‘It’s not like that. It happens to people who didn’t grow up with their families. They meet as adults and they’re alike because they’ve got the same genes, and there’s an emotional bond that feels like love whether they understand they’re related or not. It can be mothers and their sons, or fathers and daughters, or siblings, or half-siblings, like me and Sav.’

  ‘You’ve read up on it,’ I observed.

  ‘I didn’t know what was happening to me,’ she said quietly. ‘I couldn’t understand the feelings I had for Savannah. I thought I was sick in the head. I saw a counsellor and she explained it.’

  ‘Savannah described meeting Zoe as being like finding her soulmate. She said it was like looking in the mirror and seeing Zoe look back,’ I said to Derwent. ‘People do fall in love with people who are like them.’

  ‘If you say so. I still think it’s twisted.’

  ‘Your mind is as broad as a cat hair, though.’ I rolled my eyes at Zoe, inviting her to laugh at Derwent, and managed to get a watery smile. I wanted her to like me. I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to keep talking. ‘You know, I should have realised you and Savannah were related. I thought you looked alike the first time I met you. Both tall. Both like your dad, features-wise. The same shape of hands and ears.’

  She nodded. ‘I think if Mum had been white we’d have looked really similar. As it was, Sav had to keep her weight down and I’m more athletic, so that made us look a bit different.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed a likeness,’ Derwent said.