The Last Girl (28 page)

It was almost a relief when a phone shrilled by our bed in the middle of the night, jerking me out of a dream about doing mountains of ironing in a hot, steamy room. I was sitting up before I realised I was awake, aware of Rob doing the same thing beside me.

‘Yours.’

‘I know that,’ I snapped, checking the time and clearing my throat before I picked it up. The screen glared blue in the dark of the bedroom and I squinted at the name, wondering why DS Maitland was ringing me at three in the morning.

‘Kerrigan.’

His voice was loud and cheerful. ‘Sorry to wake you, but your presence is required. There’s been another shooting.’

‘Whereabouts?’ I scribbled the address on the pad Rob had handed me, and the detail that it was close to Clapham North tube station. ‘Who’s been shot?’

‘Three lads. More of Goldsworthy’s boys.’

I felt my heart rate begin to drop. ‘Sorry, Harry. I’m not on that case.’

‘You are now. Godley wants everyone there. All hands on deck.’

‘I’m busy with the Kennford murders,’ I objected.

‘Tell it to the boss, not me. Anyway, those bodies are cold. They’re old news. Get over here while these ones are fresh. The blood’s still wet.’

I felt my stomach heave and shut my eyes, trying to think. ‘Has anyone called Derwent?’

‘No idea. But you’re on my list, and now I can cross you off. See you soon.’

I stared at the phone for a second, reading ‘Call ended’ without really taking it in.

‘Trouble?’ Rob switched on his light.

‘Three shot in Clapham.’

‘More of your gang stuff?’

‘So it seems.’ I got out of bed and discovered I was aching as if I had been lying on the floor all night. I stretched, joints creaking. ‘God, I’m too old for this.’

‘You’re not even thirty.’

‘I feel about a hundred years old.’ I was opening and closing drawers, looking for a clean top. ‘Fuck. I really need to do some laundry.’

‘I’ll put some on.’

‘You don’t have to do my washing.’

‘I’m not going down to the river to scrub it on a rock. It’s not a big deal.’

I had found something that would just about do, a sleeveless top with tiny forget-me-nots embroidered around the neckline. It wasn’t what you’d call hard-edged, but it was subtle enough that I thought I’d probably get away with it. And the blue would match the shadows under my eyes, so it was a winner all round. ‘Turn off the light and go back to sleep. It’s the middle of the night.’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘I do. You need your sleep.’ I gathered my things together and headed for the bathroom to get ready. ‘I want to hear snoring when I come back, okay?’

There was no reply, which I took to be agreement. About which I was quite wrong. By the time I got back from the bathroom, carrying my shoes in case I disturbed him, Rob was dressed and standing in the hall.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I thought I’d give you a lift. Saves you trying to find someone else to pick you up on their way since you don’t have any transport of your own.’

My own car, my beloved Fiesta, had died an ignominious death on the hard shoulder of the M1 a couple of months earlier and I hadn’t been able to replace it yet. For work, I could use the unmarked cars at the station, but I’d been
planning
to take a taxi up to Clapham as it was so close. ‘I can manage.’

‘Come on, Maeve. Let me drive you. It’s not far, it won’t take long.’

I was torn between being pleased and suspicious. ‘Is this just because you’re missing the murder squad? You want to get a reminder of what it was like to get three hours’ sleep and then look at dead bodies?’

‘Something like that,’ he admitted. ‘Is that all right?’

‘I won’t stop you.’ I grinned at him, suddenly glad of the company, happy to be leaving with him rather than leaving him behind.

Outside, the roads were quiet. The sky was still dark, the air warm enough that I didn’t need to put on my jacket. It was the dead time, after the midweek drinkers had abandoned their carousing and before the first workers had left home. An occasional night bus blasted along, empty but for the driver, not needing to stop anywhere along the route but having to run it anyway. I sat beside Rob and chatted, thinking about other things. Specifically thinking that it could have been like that all the time if we hadn’t been forced to admit our feelings for one another, if Rob hadn’t had to leave the team. The two of us had been at enough crime scenes together for it to feel entirely normal that he was at the wheel, and it was a whole lot more pleasant than going anywhere with Derwent. I wondered again about whether he had been told what was going on. I’d have expected the inspector to call me, not Maitland. I knew he was fed up about being kept off the gang shootings. He had probably been so excited about this lot that he’d forgotten to call me, or hadn’t wanted the delay of driving via Battersea to pick me up. Or he’d thought I’d make my own way there, which I should have as it was extremely close, but as Rob had predicted I might have struggled at that time of night.

It was a nice enough area, Clapham North – not as
gentrified
as some parts of the common’s hinterland, but a popular middle-class enclave nonetheless. And everyone had a car, but nowhere to put it. The streets near the shooting were sealed off with blue and white tape, and inside the cordon ambulances and police cars spun their lights, jostling for access with unmarked cars. Outside the cordon, the residents had filled all of the spaces on both sides of the street. Rob pulled up half on the pavement, in a spot that was wholly illegal.

‘At this time of night, I think I’ll risk it. I won’t be staying for long.’ He stuck the ‘Police on Duty’ card in the windscreen anyway, and we headed for the barrier together.

It was a young and pretty PC who let us through, her hair in a tight bun that sat under the rim of her cap like an illustration from the Met uniform regulations. She had a gap between her front teeth and it gave her a very slight lisp.

‘You need to go down the street as far as the carpet shop, then take a right down the alley beside it. They’re in the open space at the back of the premises.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re most welcome,’ she said, and I glanced at her in time to see her eyeing Rob with interest. I didn’t bother to look at him; he was used to that kind of reaction from women, and I was used to seeing him ignore it. I couldn’t help listening, though, and heard him follow me without breaking his stride. I didn’t know why I’d been worried about it; it wasn’t as if he was stupid enough to flirt in front of me. To cover myself, I asked, ‘Are you coming all the way to the scene?’

‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘No. Of course not.’ I stopped, aware that as we got closer to the alley, our chances of being interrupted increased. ‘I just wanted to know.’

‘Well, I was planning to. I wouldn’t mind a chat with Godley.’

‘What about?’

Rob hesitated for a second. ‘He put in a good word for me with DI Ormond. I just thought he might have heard whether she’s happy with my work or not.’

‘Are you worried?’

‘Always. I live on my nerves.’ He grinned at me, looking superbly unconcerned.

‘All right, then.’

‘I’ve got your permission, have I?’

‘To turn up at my crime scene? Yes. But it reminds me of how my dad used to pick me up from nightclubs when I was seventeen.’

‘All credibility with the door staff completely blown?’

‘About two seconds after he got chatting with them,’ I confirmed. ‘The fake ID only ever worked once.’

‘Well, you don’t need to worry about that this time. Since I’m the one that’s not supposed to be here, I’ll keep a low profile. Lead on, Kerrigan.’

I did as I was told, passing houses with the blinds drawn, the occupants apparently unaware of the upheaval nearby or the emergency vehicles that snaked down the middle of the road. It wasn’t difficult to find our way. There were only six shops on the street, an odd assortment gathered together about halfway down. Presumably the residents made good use of the newsagents and heavily shuttered off-licence but I wondered how the specialist upholsterer survived, not to mention the tiny travel agents and the picture framers. The carpet shop looked as if it was on its last legs, the paint around the window flaking away in hand-sized curls. It was a big premises, though, double-fronted, and the alley at the side was wide enough for delivery vans.

If I had been unsure of my route, the presence of DCI Burt at the end of the alley would have been a decent enough signpost. She was on her mobile but waved hello with a surprising degree of enthusiasm.

‘New DCI?’ Rob murmured in my ear.

‘What gave it away?’

‘Your description of her didn’t do her justice.’

‘Don’t be mean.’ I felt protective of DCI Burt for reasons that escaped me. She was well able to look after herself – she had risen through the ranks with apparent ease and speed, after all. And I certainly didn’t identify with her just because she happened to be a woman. It was probably as simple as the feeling I had that she was well disposed towards me, or at least not actually hostile. She had stood up for me in the briefing when Derwent was determined to tear me down, so I’d stick up for her when I got the chance.

The alley was surprisingly long and not well lit, and my torch batteries were starting to go. The space at the end was brightly illuminated with arc lights that ran on noisy generators, and the contrast made it even harder to see where I was going. I picked my way down it, glad that it was a carpet shop that stood next door and not a takeaway. Even so, I managed to avoid a broken milk bottle that glinted in the light but stepped in a burst plastic bag that reeked to high heaven. I could smell it over the diesel fumes from the generators and the cabbage smell of bins that pervaded the air.

‘Oh, bollocks.’

‘I’m definitely not giving you a lift back now.’

‘If you were a real gent, you’d be going first.’

‘Doesn’t fit with keeping a low profile. Sorry.’ He sniffed. ‘What even was that?’

‘A cooked chicken, I think. Once upon a time.’ I scraped the worst of it off on a convenient doorstep, the back exit from the carpet shop. ‘Hideous. Give me good clean dog poo any day.’

‘Plenty of that around if you want it.’

‘Well, obviously I don’t.’ I straightened my clothes and my shoulders, bracing myself for what lay around the
corner.
Three dead in a gang shooting. It wasn’t going to be pretty. ‘Come on.’

‘Technically, you’re the one that was holding us up, but okay.’

We rounded the corner together and found a small square yard, the walls high and topped with broken glass set in concrete. ‘No parking’ signs were on every flat surface but the driver of the shiny black Range Rover that sat in the middle of the yard hadn’t cared. He also hadn’t cared what happened to the car, I surmised, or he wouldn’t have allowed someone to shoot out all the windows to the rear of the vehicle. The glass on the ground was pure black, so heavy was the tint on the windows, and the blood that splattered across it was, as Maitland had promised, still wet in places.

I had no idea when the car had been discovered, but someone had pulled strings to get every decent SOCO in South London to turn up, and most of the team to boot. That someone, I assumed, was Godley, who was watching them work with his arms folded. He was wearing a grey suit that looked as if it had just come back from the dry-cleaners, every line of it sharp and unrumpled. His tie was perfectly knotted, his shirt a clean white. His hands were buried in his pockets and the look on his face was bleak. He glanced up and saw us, and for a moment his expression lightened. Rob detached himself from my side and went over to him, shaking hands and leaning in to say something to him that I couldn’t catch. I didn’t get much of a chance to stand around and watch, either, before Maitland bore down on me.

‘House to house. We need to cover the buildings that the car might have driven past on the way to this yard, and that’s hundreds of them. Someone must have seen something, or heard it.’

‘And you’re expecting them to cooperate?’

‘No one likes gang violence in their neighbourhood. They’ll do their duty.’

‘And no one likes being intimidated either, which is what they can expect if they’re prepared to be witnesses.’

‘Well, don’t tell them that now, will you? Make it look as if we’ve got this under control.’

I nodded at the car. ‘What happened? What do we know?’

‘Three victims. Happened around half past one but we don’t have a specific time because the person who called it in – anonymously, of course – said they’d waited for a while in case the gunmen were still around. They’d seen the car come down the alley and hung around “in case it was thieves planning to do a ram raid on the shop”.’ Maitland’s thick fingers raked the air to indicated the quote marks. ‘I think someone’s been watching too much television.’

‘They were right about it being criminal activity,’ I pointed out.

‘Well, they weren’t much use, even so. No idea how many people were in the car when it went down the alley. No idea how many people came back out, but he did say they got into a silver saloon car before driving away. No model, no index plate, no descriptions, no further details.’