The Last Girl (20 page)

‘The main thing you gave away was the fact that he has another daughter, and arguably he should have told us that himself.’

‘Maybe he thought you knew.’

Or maybe he didn’t want us to know. I said goodbye to Kit and watched him lug his bag out of the café. From what he’d told me, it was pretty clear Philip Kennford had a ruthless streak a mile wide. It made me wonder if his first daughter had inherited more than just his looks.

Chapter Nine

IT WAS ALWAYS
well worth interviewing ex-wives in my experience. They had intimate knowledge of the person you were interested in, and generally no loyalty to them whatsoever. The only reason to be wary was if they were so shrivelled with bitterness that you couldn’t trust what they were telling you was the truth. It helped that I was prepared to believe the worst of Philip Kennford, because Miranda Wentworth was equally prepared to dish the dirt.

‘Philip’s trouble is that he always thinks he knows best. He can’t imagine that he might be wrong, and he doesn’t put anyone else’s needs ahead of his own, even those of his children. He comes first, always. That and his inability to keep his flies done up make him a very unreliable husband.’

‘You found him so,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes. Desperately unreliable. And Vita did too. I hope he hasn’t been trying to sell you a version of their marriage where it was all roses and champagne because that was far from the case, let me tell you.’

Beside me, Derwent stirred. ‘Sorry, Miss Wentworth –
Ms
Wentworth, I mean.’ He’d been corrected twice already and her china-doll blue eyes had just flashed with irritation again. He was finding it hard, I knew, to come to terms with the knowledge that the luscious Savannah Wentworth was Philip Kennford’s daughter, and that he had managed to avoid telling us about her existence despite our best efforts at interrogation. Derwent’s pride was hurt and his interest was piqued; he was quite a fan of
Savannah,
he had confided in me earlier when I told him what I had found out.

Aware he had lost ground, he tried again. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but how could you possibly know the state of your ex-husband’s marriage? From what he told us about your current relationship, he wouldn’t be inclined to confide in you, would he?’

‘Not him. He never did when we were together, so why would he when we’d split up?’

‘That’s sort of what I was wondering.’

‘It was Vita who told me about it herself.’

‘Vita did?’ I couldn’t hide the surprise in my voice. ‘Why would she talk to you about it, Ms Wentworth?’

‘Because I’m one of the only women on the planet who doesn’t represent a threat to her. Philip wouldn’t touch me now – he doesn’t like going back over what he would consider to be dead ground.’ She smoothed the blanket that was spread over her knees. ‘He’s not attracted to failure or weakness or ill-health. I represent all three.’

It was multiple sclerosis, she had explained to us within minutes of our arrival at her Hampstead flat to find her sitting in an armchair, unable to get up. She had become ill around the time her marriage broke down, and I had the impression she blamed Philip Kennford for her poor health. ‘The stress didn’t help, according to my specialist,’ she had said as her carer put a tray down on the table in front of her. ‘It encouraged the illness to progress more quickly than it might have at the beginning. But there have been some times of remission since then, so I imagine it all evens out. Tea?’

She wasn’t the sort of woman you could pity – too strong-willed for that, and too defiant. I had watched her struggle to manage the heavy teapot, not daring to offer to help, and thought even less of the man who had left her for a rich woman after she had been diagnosed with a progressive illness.

‘It just seems strange to me that Vita would talk to you – and that you’d talk to her. I’d have thought she would be the last person you’d want to know.’

‘Because she stole my husband?’ Miranda blinked at me, all innocence. ‘But there was a certain fascination in it, don’t you see? I got to see the scales fall from her eyes. She worshipped him – absolutely adored him in every way. It’s not a good basis for a marriage.’

‘And you had a ringside seat,’ Derwent said. ‘Must have been satisfying.’

‘It was, in a way. But it was sad, too. She was very much in love with him and she came to me in a state of desperation to ask for my help. I mean, she had to be desperate, didn’t she? She said she didn’t have anyone else to turn to. She couldn’t admit to anyone else that he was being unfaithful to her. She didn’t have any friends, and whoever she’d confided in hadn’t been very sympathetic or helpful. They just told her to get on with it and pretend she hadn’t noticed. Which was essentially what I said too, but more diplomatically.’

‘What did she want you to do?’

‘Tell her what I did wrong so she could avoid it.’ Miranda dimpled with a smile that made her extremely attractive; you could see how a daughter of Philip Kennford and this woman was well placed to win the genetic lottery. ‘She told me she’d pay me for my advice. Treat me like a counsellor rather than a friend, or someone she knew. I told her straightaway I didn’t want to be friends with her and she accepted that.’

‘What else did you tell her?’

‘To tidy herself up. She was a mess.’ She said it without heat, stating a fact. ‘She’d had the twins by then and she was very overweight. She didn’t have time to exercise, she told me, and I just laughed. “Make time.” That was what I said.’

‘Is Mr Kennford that shallow?’

‘Of course.’ The blue eyes widened as they met mine. ‘Darling, all men are. That’s why you have to look after yourself. Pay attention to grooming, even though most of them wouldn’t notice a nice manicure or an expensive haircut. They’d notice the opposite quickly enough, let me tell you.’

Miranda herself practised what she preached, her hair a shoulder-length brown bob without a hint of grey, her mouth painted coral and still plump. Her nails were varnished shell pink, a colour that matched her cashmere cardigan. She was slim, her legs narrow under the blanket on her lap, but looking at old photographs of her which were on display around the room, it wasn’t solely the frailty of ill health. She had always been slim. The room where we sat was small, but nicely furnished with antiques and art. It looked both expensive and tasteful, though I couldn’t guess if it was her supermodel daughter who paid for it, or if Philip Kennford’s remuneration to her covered it all. She didn’t work, we had established at an early stage. She never had. She had married Kennford when she left school, his child bride.

‘So you advised her on her appearance.’

‘I told her to spend her money on herself, not on paying people to share their common sense. A regular facial, massages, proper cosmetics that she knew how to apply. The poor thing had tried but she looked like a clown, all red lipstick and smudged nail varnish.’ Miranda looked down at her own hands complacently. ‘I could only lead by example, but I think it helped that I was careful of my appearance. I also told her to get involved in the local community. Join the tennis club and meet the wives. Make contacts so Philip could circulate among people he thought were worthy of his attention. He’s a terrible snob. I used to have little dinner parties so he could entertain important people, not being rich enough to make friends with their wives myself. People can be so judgemental if
they
think you’re a social climber,’ she added without any apparent irony.

‘Do you think Vita tried to live up to you?’ I asked.

‘Of course. Philip and I had been together for a long time. I had been able to make him happy until she came along.’

‘So she should have felt superior to you, arguably.’

Miranda laughed. ‘Far from it. She persuaded him to sleep with her – which was never difficult with Philip – had the luck to get pregnant, and with twins to make doubly sure he’d be interested, and had enough sense to tell him she had sufficient money to make all his dreams come true. She kept building her little walls around him with whatever bricks and mortar she could find, but he still wasn’t committed to her.’

‘He obviously wasn’t committed to you and your daughter either,’ I said.

‘We both got over the hurt that caused us.’ She blinked at me, daring me to challenge her. The skin around her eyes was soft and unlined, possibly because she rarely allowed her face to move. Possibly it was expensive plastic surgery. I had a feeling that if I got a look at her dressing table she would have a collection of creams and lotions to rival Vita’s own.

‘So you advised Vita on her appearance. What else?’

‘I told her to leave him alone – let him do what he liked. She was running a risk that someone wealthier than her would come along and seduce him, but I never made the mistake of trying to control him and it gave us more than a decade of marriage.’

‘You think money would have been the motivation?’ Derwent asked.

‘It was in my case.’ The coral mouth tightened, then relaxed. ‘I’m not saying I was perfect, you understand, but I knew what Philip wanted.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Freedom. Decent food ready when he wanted to
eat
it. No domestic worries whatsoever. A wife he could show off when he wanted. And preferably one with the skills of a highly trained whore so he could have the same pleasures at home as when he played away.’

I jumped, surprised in spite of myself at what she was suggesting. Derwent laughed.

‘Was that the secret? Being a bit filthy now and then?’

She looked exceptionally demure. ‘It never hurt to try. Of course, poor Vita wasn’t very interested in sex. Love, yes, but sex wasn’t her thing, she told me. I told her, you’d better make it your thing. Read up on it. Learn about it. Practise. Treat it as a project, like losing weight or learning to play tennis.’

‘I suppose that explains the box,’ Derwent said to me in an undertone. ‘Homework.’

‘What else did you tell her to do?’ I sounded stunned, even to myself.

‘Learn to have a thick skin. Learn to take whatever she was offered and pretend to like it. Get rid of anyone who seemed a genuine threat, whatever the reason. She had money so she had power.’ Miranda shrugged. ‘It wasn’t an equal struggle when Philip met her. If it had come down to a straightforward comparison of the two of us, I’d have won in every category. Even Philip admitted that to me. The only place where she was ahead was the size of her bank balance.’

‘You didn’t have family money.’

‘Me? No. And I wasn’t earning anything. Money was always important to Philip. I couldn’t compete with that, and I knew it.’ She shrugged. ‘Some people are born to privilege. They take what they can get, no matter who it belongs to. Vita was one of those. She’d never known what it was to want something and not be able to have it, so the thought of losing Philip was especially hard. I was used to not getting what I wanted. And of course, by the time he walked out I was glad to see him go. He wasn’t the man I’d
fallen
in love with.’ She amended it instantly. ‘Maybe it was more that I hadn’t realised what he was like in the first place. Anyway, I didn’t want to hold on to him if he wanted to leave. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I fought him in court and got as much out of him as I could. I deserved it.’

‘I just don’t know why you’d help her,’ I said. ‘I’d want to tell her all the wrong things to do and watch her marriage fail too.’

‘It wasn’t in my interests.’ Miranda leaned back in her chair. ‘Oh, my first instinct was to tell her to get out of my house and never come back. I thought it was a cheeky thing to ask, in the circumstances. But then I looked at it from another perspective. If he stayed with her, she paid for everything. He was able to give me a lot more money than he would have been if he’d been supporting his new family. I didn’t have to worry about anything. If he left her, he might have gone back to court and got a different judge to agree to cut my payments.’

‘That would have been a disaster, I take it,’ Derwent said.

‘Absolutely. I was having private treatment for the MS – I didn’t see why I should have to slum it on the NHS when Philip could afford to pay for the best medical care. Savannah had expensive hobbies and I didn’t want her to have to give them up just because her father had walked out.’

‘So Vita’s money must have helped too.’

‘Everything helped.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘You might not understand but I wasn’t too proud to take it.’

‘Were you still in touch with her, Ms Wentworth?’

She shook her head. ‘I hadn’t spoken to her for years. Hadn’t wanted to, either. She’d got what she needed from me. Vita wasn’t the sort of person to keep in touch once I’d outlived my usefulness, and I didn’t care to hear about her family life anyway. We parted without regret.’

‘So you don’t know how things were between them at the time of her death.’ Derwent sounded disappointed.

‘No. I can only guess. Philip won’t have changed; he has never known how to be a good husband. Vita just learned how to be a perfect wife instead.’

‘What sort of father is he? How was his relationship with Savannah when she was growing up?’ I asked.

‘What relationship?’ She gave a little laugh. ‘He didn’t stay in touch with her after he left – not properly. I reminded him about her birthday. I even bought her the bloody presents sometimes, and faked his writing on a card. There was nothing I could do to pretend he was there when he wasn’t, though. He’d promise to take her out for the day and then never turn up, and I would have to ring Vita, and ring chambers, and try to find out if his phone was off because he was in court or because he’d switched it off to be out of range. Savannah got used to being disappointed.’