The Last Girl (48 page)

‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to make a fuss about nothing.’

‘What happened?’

I described the events of the previous few days and the photographs and wound up with Swain’s phone call.

‘How did he have your number?’ Rob asked.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t give it to him.’

Godley shook his head. ‘That’s the sort of thing he could find out in his sleep. I’m not surprised about that. What I do find surprising is that he would show his hand like this.’

‘Maybe he’s got bored with hiding,’ I said.

‘Maybe he thought you were looking too happy,’ Derwent suggested. ‘When he found you, I mean.’

‘Or he thought it was worth it to tell you what was going on between me and my new boss.’ Rob caught Godley’s eye. ‘Which is nothing, by the way.’

‘I’m beginning to understand why you were asking me for a reference the other night.’

I turned to look at Rob, eyebrows raised. ‘A reference? Moving on?’

‘Considering my options,’ he said evenly.

‘I know Debbie Ormond of old, mate, and I can understand you needing an escape route. You’d chew your own leg off to get away from her.’ Derwent shoved
his
hands in his pockets, his feet wide apart to demonstrate just how much space his balls needed to air themselves. ‘You might need to, as well. Once she’s got you in her sights, you’re fucked.’

‘I’ve managed to avoid getting too close so far. Swain seems to have picked up on it somehow – he took photos of me with DI Ormond that looked borderline compromising. I assumed it was my new colleagues’ idea of a prank.’

‘And I accepted that story,’ I explained. ‘I didn’t have any reason to think they’d been sent by anyone else. It was only last night when I got the other pictures – the ones that were defaced – that I started to think differently.’

Godley frowned at me. ‘You still should have said something.’

‘To one of us, at least,’ Rob said. ‘Instead of trying to sort it out on your own.’

‘You didn’t even say anything to me.’ Derwent sounded genuinely wounded.

‘I do try to leave my personal life out of our day-to-day work.’ Not to mention that Derwent was still the last person I would ever confide in. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, feeling chilled in spite of the warm evening. ‘I know I should have done things differently, but I had a lot of other things to think about, and it’s not as if the team isn’t busy at the moment with the gang killings, and the Kennford case.’

‘So?’ Godley’s eyes were cold. It had not been tactically wise to mention the gang investigation. I hurried on.

‘So I accept I got it wrong but the main thing I’d like to know is what I should do now. He made a threat against Rob, even if it wasn’t anything specific we can act on. He knows where we live. He knows where Rob works. It seems pretty obvious to me he has grown in confidence since the last time I encountered him. I wasn’t scared of him before – pissed off at having my privacy invaded, and
angry
that Rob had to leave the team, sure – but I didn’t feel scared.’

‘Scared is a step forward in my book.’ Rob put an arm around my shoulders. ‘You’re too willing to risk your own safety.’

‘Oh, and are you prepared to start watching your back? Change your routine? Do you want to move to another part of London and start again?’

‘I will if I have to.’

‘What would make you do that? Because I heard the way he talked about you. He’s not your biggest fan. And if he’s prepared to come out of the woodwork for the sake of making sure I get the message about you and DI Ormond, he’s prepared to take risks to get rid of you permanently.’

‘You told him you were breaking up with Rob, didn’t you?’ Derwent looked at him meaningfully. ‘You might like to start working on dropping the public displays of affection for a while, if there’s a chance he might believe her.’

Reluctantly, Rob took his arm away again. ‘He said it didn’t make any difference to him if we were together or not.’

‘He said a lot. It might help.’ I looked at him beseechingly. ‘I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you because of me.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen.’

‘Still, there’s no point in putting yourself in harm’s way. I definitely don’t want either of you staying in that flat at the moment.’ Godley looked at Rob. ‘I’m not your boss any more, but I want you to take my advice and stay in a hotel for the next couple of nights. Don’t make it easy for him to attack you.’

‘I don’t like doing what he wants us to do.’

‘Well, I don’t like picking up the pieces when a tragedy’s happened and I want you to review your security arrangements. New locks. Consider getting an alarm
system
if you don’t have one. I’d recommend fitting one with a personal attack button. That’s if you’re determined to stay.’

‘I like my flat,’ Rob said mildly. ‘And you do too, Maeve, don’t you?’

‘It’s a nice flat.’ And I wasn’t making any promises about staying there. ‘I do think it’s a good idea to stay out of it for a while, though. Work out what we need to do. Maybe they’ll catch Swain while we’re away.’

‘We’ll do our best.’ Godley looked from Rob to me. ‘You need to take this seriously. Don’t think that you’re immune just because you’re serving police officers. You bleed just as easily as anyone else.’

Rob nodded. ‘I take your point. The thing is, sir, I’d really rather like the chance to talk to Chris Swain.’

‘Talk?’ Derwent looked sceptical. ‘I don’t think you’ll be doing a lot of talking.’

‘Not as such, if I have anything to do with it.’ The expression on his face belied the calm words; I had never seen Rob look so completely dangerous before.

‘Let’s not talk about that now.’

‘Fine. As you say, we do have other things to worry about.’ Godley gave me a thin-lipped smile. I wasn’t completely forgiven yet, I could see.

‘Any developments in the drugs shootings, sir?’ Rob asked.

‘All quiet so far.’

‘It can’t last,’ Derwent said helpfully. ‘It won’t have burnt itself out yet.’

‘Thank you for your valuable insight.’ Godley turned to me. ‘Can you sort yourselves out for tonight?’

I nodded.

‘Right. Well, I’d better get back. Do you want a lift, Josh?’

‘Might as well.’ He caught my eye and obviously realised I was wondering what he was doing there in the first place. ‘I
was
in the team’s room when the boss came steaming out of his office and said you were in trouble. Thought I’d come along for the ride, if it was going to be exciting.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘That’s okay.’ He started to head for the car, then turned back. ‘I’m glad you’re all right, you know.’

‘How touching.’ But I was grateful to him for riding to the rescue even if he wasn’t my idea of a knight in shining armour.

I turned back to Godley. ‘Thank you for coming out. I’m sorry I made a mess of things.’

‘I can understand why it happened. But don’t let it happen again, will you?’

‘Definitely not.’

The phone in my hand came to life again and I smothered an exclamation, staring down at the screen. Not a number I recognised. I was peripherally aware of Rob leaning in to see it, of Godley stopped a few steps away and Derwent with one foot in the car, one on the road, all frozen as if they were playing Grandmother’s Footsteps.

‘Answer it, for fuck’s sake.’ It was Derwent who said it, inevitably, but it was what I needed. I did as I was told.

‘Kerrigan.’

The voice at the other end was faint – so weak I could barely hear it. ‘Please …
please
…’

‘Who is this? Hello?’

‘Please.’ It was barely a whisper. ‘Help us.’

‘Lydia?’ I looked up to check that Derwent was paying attention, which he was, concern in every line of his face. ‘Lydia, is that you?’

‘Yes.’

All of the hairs were standing up on my arms. ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

Silence, a silence that seemed to last forever. Then, two words, but they were more than enough.

‘He’s here …’

Chapter Twenty-one

THE INITIAL INSTINCT
to rush to the rescue was one thing; reality was another. It was Sussex Police who responded to Lydia’s cry for help, not us. Godley drove us back to the station so we could pick up a car, politely but firmly declining to drive us to Sussex once he knew the situation was under control. He did drive at top speed to make up for it and made a valiant attempt to run every red light between Battersea Park and the nick.

‘I want to get there alive, boss.’

‘Stop whining, Josh.’ Godley looked at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘All right, Maeve?’

‘I’m okay.’ It lacked conviction, as he noticed immediately.

‘There’s no need to worry about Lydia’s safety.’

‘I’m not worried about her. Well, I am, but only because I think she hasn’t been honest with us so far.’

‘Worrying about Chris Swain?’

‘A bit,’ I admitted. And about Rob, but I wasn’t going to say that. He had gone back to the flat to pack bags for us; he would let me know, he said, where he found to spend the night. I could join him if and when I got back from Sussex. Or not, presumably.

‘What do we know about the individual in custody?’

I repeated what Sussex CID had told me over the phone when I’d got hold of them. ‘He’s nineteen. It’s Seth Carberry.’

Derwent turned in his seat to give me a look. ‘Who’s that?’

‘He’s the brother of a Laura’s best friend. He let us into the house when we went to interview her – remember?’

‘Not in any detail,’ Derwent said grumpily. ‘What was he doing down in Sussex?’

‘From what Lydia said, I think we’re about to confirm the identity of the boy from Laura’s camera.’

‘The mysterious boyfriend.’ Godley’s knuckles shone white as he gripped the steering wheel and I could have guessed what was on his mind before he said it. ‘If I found out my daughter was up to that sort of thing, I wouldn’t be answerable for what I did.’

‘This is a good reason to keep Philip Kennford in the dark about it.’ Derwent sighed. ‘It would all make so much more sense if it was the boyfriend and the girl who’d died, and Kennford who’d done it. Why would Carberry want to kill his girl and her mother?’

‘And why is he hanging around her sister?’ I added.

‘How did he know where to find her?’ Godley asked.

‘Good point. We only drove her down to Sussex today. No one should have known she was there except her dad, her aunt and the two ladies and I don’t think any of them would have told him where she was.’

‘No one could have followed you, I take it.’

I could answer that one. ‘Definitely not. It’s down a dirt track a mile long. Anything moving leaves a cloud of dust behind it. It’s flat countryside, and we got lost so we doubled back on ourselves. No way were we followed.’

‘Well, that’s your first question for him.’

‘The second is whether he’s been in Twickenham recently,’ I said.

‘Renee’s stranger?’ Derwent nodded. ‘That would make sense.’

‘If he found her in Twickenham, that leaves Savannah
and
Zoe out. They didn’t know she was there until we told them.’

‘Yeah, well, the obvious person to tell him where she is is Lydia herself.’

‘She was terrified,’ I pointed out. ‘She rang me in hysterics.’

‘Doesn’t mean she didn’t bring him to her door.’ Derwent looked back at me again. ‘She’s an attention-seeker, isn’t she? Not eating, cutting herself – that’s all her way of getting people to focus on her instead of her sister. Calling you in a panic fits in with that. She must have known we wouldn’t be able to help her directly. She should have been calling 999, not you. And getting him to follow her around fits too. She gets to take over from her sister, step into her shoes. Be the popular one for a change.’

‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you didn’t talk to her. She sounded genuinely scared.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘All right.’ I looked out of the window at streets that were familiar, not really seeing them except to register that we hadn’t far to go. Almost to myself, I said, ‘There is another reason she might have been faking.’

‘Go on,’ Godley said.

‘If her accomplice had just got nicked, I imagine Lydia would have wanted to be very clear that he was nothing to do with her. There’s no better way to distance herself from him.’

‘You think they were in on it together?’ Derwent asked.

‘I don’t know. I can’t imagine Lydia killing her mother and her sister, but we don’t know that she didn’t. Or that she didn’t set it up.’ I tore at a nail that had a ragged edge, suddenly irritated by it. ‘I mean, she survived. She wasn’t harmed at all. Even Philip Kennford got a mild concussion out of what happened last Sunday night. We’ve been pussyfooting around her because of all her issues but, as you say, they’re all part of the same thing – wanting
attention.
This is pretty much the best way to make sure she’s number one on her father’s list, isn’t it?’