The Last Girl (49 page)

‘Because she’s the only one?’ Derwent shook his head. ‘You’re a cynic.’

‘It’s been said before.’

‘Do you really believe Lydia was involved in the killings?’ Godley asked.

‘I’m not ruling it out, that’s all.’

‘Then I won’t either,’ Derwent said. ‘Not if the famous Kerrigan intuition says I should be suspicious.’

‘She’s been right before.’ Godley pulled into the yard and stopped near Derwent’s car. ‘Do you need to get anything from the office before you go?’

‘Probably, but I can’t think what.’

‘Don’t worry, Kerrigan. We’ll manage with what we’ve got.’ Derwent was sounding almost kind, I thought, off my guard completely. It was, as usual, a mistake to relax. ‘All you really need is a notebook and a pencil so you can take notes for me. I bet even Sussex CID can rise to those.’

They had taken Seth Carberry to the nearest police station to Savannah Wentworth’s house, in a small market town. Derwent spent the drive down there speculating on whether it would be a thatched building, or if there would be more than one cell, and was pleasingly bemused to discover it was an extremely modern building bristling with phone masts with the latest in BMW response cars outside.

‘I’d say they can afford a pencil all right,’ I observed, and got a glare.

‘This is just window dressing. Reassuring the community by looking slick. Don’t be fooled. They’re all bumpkins.’

‘Have a heart. We’re still in the Home Counties.’

‘These are all coppers who wanted to join the Met. Wait
and
see. We’re going to get shit off them like you wouldn’t believe, just because they wish they were us.’

‘We certainly will if you go in with that attitude.’ I looked at him curiously. ‘Do you really think every police officer in the world wishes they worked for the Met?’

‘Why wouldn’t they? Best force around. Best resources. Best crimes.’

‘That’s debatable.’

‘Fittest female officers, too.’ He grinned. ‘I’m only joking. Fittest police dogs, I meant to say.’

‘You’ll never change.’

‘Better hope not.’ He got out of the car and stretched, then strode into the building with a swagger, the big copper down from London to show the locals a thing or two. I followed more slowly, wishing I was there with someone else. Anyone. On my own, even. He was a liability at the best of times and a pain in the arse at all times, and I was starting to wonder if I’d be better off working with someone else. DCI Burt, for instance. She seemed sensible, pleasant and professional. Derwent fell into the ‘none of the above’ category.

By the time I made it inside, Derwent was leaning on the counter doing his level best to charm the receptionist. She was very young, wore her fair hair long and straight, and showed off a mouthful of metal when she smiled or spoke. I anticipated the smile would decrease in wattage the longer Derwent spent with her.

‘Don’t imagine you’re usually this busy on a Thursday evening. Lots of people coming and going tonight.’

‘It’s about the same as normal.’

‘Really? Even with ugly mugs like ours turning up from the Met?’ He leaned on the last two words for extra emphasis. Remarkably, she didn’t seem to be impressed.

‘We get officers from all over.’

‘From London?’

‘From abroad, even.’ She widened her eyes at him,
feigning
awe. Not the pushover she looked, I thought, and wanted to give her a round of applause. I settled for joining Derwent at the counter and showing her my ID.

‘Do you know if Lydia Kennford is here?’

The response came from behind me. ‘She’s in one of our interview rooms.’

He was a thickset man with a weather-beaten square face, middle-aged but with a mop of dark curly hair that seemed to belong to a younger man. It gave him a curiously mismatched appearance.

‘DS Saunders. Barry Saunders.’ He shook my hand, a brief but agonising squeeze. I watched, fascinated, as Derwent struggled not to react when it was his turn. ‘I spoke to you on the phone, I think, if you’re DC Kerrigan.’

I had already recognised his voice and the soft burr of the local accent. ‘You did indeed. Thank you for reassuring us about Lydia’s safety.’

‘We made good time. He didn’t have much of a chance to do more than look through the windows. And then one of the girls on the farm overpowered him. Had him all trussed up waiting for the response team to take him away.’

‘Was that Zoe?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine Savannah tackling anyone.

‘That’s right. Zoe Prowse. Nice girl.’

‘I bet that’s not what Mr Carberry thinks.’ I could see Derwent was itching to tell the other detective that Zoe was a lesbian and therefore not such a nice girl after all. I pitied the person who had done his diversity training. There was nothing you could teach him about respecting other people’s lifestyles, race or sexuality. I liked to think Barry Saunders might be a little bit more enlightened.

‘He says she overreacted.’ He pulled a face. ‘Not sure I would blame her. Three young women living miles from anywhere, and a lad comes wandering around the house uninvited. He parked his car well away from it, too. Didn’t
want
anyone to know he was there, I’d say. Until he was good and ready at least.’

‘Did you search him?’ Derwent demanded. ‘And the car?’

‘Of course.’ Saunders let that response stand for a moment, before relenting. ‘No weapons on him but there was a knife in the car.’

‘What sort of knife?’ Derwent’s voice had gone up an octave, all the way to hysteria in the space of a single sentence. So much for being the cold-as-ice detectives from the awe-inspiring Metropolitan Police.

Saunders looked amused. ‘A small one. Two-inch blade – something like that. It was in a toolkit in the boot. It was on a multi-use tool – screwdriver, pliers, scissors, that sort of thing. He said he’d never noticed it was on there.’

‘Nothing to get excited about, then.’ Crestfallen was not the word for Derwent’s demeanour.

‘I wouldn’t bother getting in a state about it, no. Like I said, the car wasn’t near the house – twenty minutes away on foot, so if he was planning to use the knife, you’d think he’d have brought it with him.’

‘We’ll still take it. Get it checked by our forensics guys. You probably don’t have access to a police lab, do you?’

‘We use a private one. Only for the most serious crimes because of the cost. This probably wouldn’t count, given that he didn’t actually intrude on the premises.’ There was a quirk to Saunders’ mouth that made me think he wasn’t taking Derwent entirely seriously, which was good, because if he had been inclined to be offended we could have been in serious danger of getting thrown out. ‘But you’re more than welcome to run whatever tests you like. Have a look at the rest of his belongings before you speak to him. You might pick up on things someone like me would miss, not being familiar with the case.’

I cut in before Derwent could say anything else
undiplomatic.
‘What we’d really like to do is talk to Lydia first, then Seth Carberry.’

‘I’ve got her waiting for you.’

‘You didn’t arrest her, did you?’ Derwent asked.

Saunders looked genuinely surprised. ‘Why would I? DC Kerrigan mentioned that you’d like to talk to her so I invited her to come and wait for you. She seems like a nice enough kid.’

‘Is she on her own?’ I asked.

‘She’s got her half-sister waiting with her, I believe.’

I looked at Derwent. ‘Will Savannah do for an appropriate adult? Because I don’t fancy your chances of getting Renee to turn out tonight, and you didn’t want to involve her father if you could help it.’

‘We’ll make it work. She’s just giving us a bit of insight, isn’t she? We’re not treating her as a suspect. At the moment.’

‘What could you suspect her of? If you don’t mind me asking.’ Saunders’ broad face looked baffled. ‘Doesn’t seem the sort to say boo to the proverbial.’

‘We’re not sure. Maybe nothing.’ Derwent narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice, trying to impress the detective. ‘Maybe murder.’

‘Is that right?’ Saunders shrugged. ‘Takes all sorts, doesn’t it?’

It wasn’t the response Derwent had been hoping for, but he went with it, striding down the corridor. ‘Let’s have a look at her, anyway.’

‘It’s this way, actually,’ Saunders called after him, pointing in the other direction. ‘But if you want to take the long way round, don’t let me stop you. That might be how you do it in the Met. I wouldn’t know.’

It was the second time I’d seen Savannah in a police station and for the second time I was struck by how she managed to transcend the dingy surroundings. Slender in khaki
shorts
and a white top, with her hair scraped back in a ponytail, she was leaning against the wall when we went in. Lydia was sitting at the table, her head buried in her arms, and Savannah raised one finger to her lips.

‘She’s asleep.’

‘Too bad. We’ll have to wake her.’

‘Give her a minute. She’s exhausted.’ Savannah stood up straight and stuck her hands in her pockets, tilting one foot so she was balanced on the edge of it. She looked coltish and very young, and I was quite prepared for Derwent to go along with whatever she asked. To my surprise, he dragged a chair out from the table, the legs shrieking on the tiled floor. I glared at him but it was too late; Lydia had lifted her head and was staring at us blearily.

‘How are you?’ I asked.

‘Okay.’ She whispered it. Her face was pale, her eyes red, and I wondered if she had been crying or if it was just how she looked when she’d woken abruptly.

‘Let her wake up.’ Savannah spoke sharply. ‘Don’t interrogate her until she’s ready to talk.’

‘No one is interrogating anyone. We just want to find out a bit more about what happened tonight.’ I said it as much for Derwent’s benefit as for Lydia’s. He needed to keep in mind that we had no evidence against Lydia – nothing that would be a reason to arrest her. Without evidence we were relying on her cooperation, and while I couldn’t imagine Lydia flouncing out of the police station in a huff, I could certainly visualise Savannah doing just that.

‘Then you should speak to him. That
freak
. Creeping around, terrifying us.’

‘I gather Zoe dealt with him pretty effectively.’

Savannah’s face lit up. ‘She frightened the life out of him. I don’t think he even tried to fight her. By the time he knew he’d been spotted he was face down with his hands tied behind his back.’

‘So she wasn’t injured?’

‘Not at all. But we agreed it was better for me to come to the station with Lydia so she had someone from the family with her. Moral support.’ She looked past us. ‘Is Dad coming?’

‘We haven’t informed him of the events of this evening yet. We wanted to know what happened ourselves before involving him.’ I looked at Lydia. ‘Did you want him here?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘She’d have liked him to show he cared, I think.’ Savannah’s mouth was incapable of looking thin-lipped but it came close at that moment.

‘I’ll get in touch with him when we’re finished here. Probably tomorrow, at this rate. It’s getting pretty late, after all.’ I smiled at Lydia, who was looking a little less wan. ‘Do you need anything, Lydia? A drink, or something to eat?’

‘No. I’d just like to get back and get some rest.’

‘We’ll try not to keep you for long.’ Derwent leaned across the table, crowding her a little bit. ‘But you need to do some talking, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How did he know where you were? Not just this time. When you were in London too.’ Derwent tapped the table with one finger, more or less under the girl’s nose. She leaned back to get away from him. ‘You had to have been in touch with him, Lydia. You told him where to find you.’

Her face crumpled and for a couple of minutes there was no sound in the room except for sobbing. After a while Savannah moved over and stood beside her, patting her shoulder in a slightly awkward way. It might have helped; certainly Lydia got herself under control and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.

‘All right. You’re right.’ She was barely audible.

‘You were in touch with this Seth Carberry all along.’

‘He got in touch with me.’

‘How?’

‘Laura’s phone.’

‘You had it,’ I said softly. She nodded. ‘Where is it now?’

I hadn’t noticed it but Lydia had a bag on her lap, a small satchel. She opened it and took out an iPhone, then slid it across the table to me.

‘The password is one two three five.’

‘Thanks.’ I turned it off without looking at it.

‘Don’t you want to see what’s on there?’ Savannah asked.

‘I do, but it has to go for technical examination.’ I shrugged. ‘They don’t like us fiddling with the evidence. I’m not an expert. I might lose something important.’

‘Or add something. You couldn’t trust her.’ Derwent grinned at me. ‘Only joking.’

‘What did Seth want with you? And what did you want with him?’ I asked Lydia, ignoring Derwent.

She looked revolted. ‘I didn’t
want
him.’