The Last Girl (56 page)

‘I think it was recent. She’s still warm.’

I checked my watch; we had been there for almost twenty minutes, no more than that. ‘The back door was unlocked. Could have been an intruder.’

‘Could have been.’ Godley sighed. ‘Glen is going to get
here
as fast as he can, and I’ve asked Kev Cox to come too. We might as well keep the same team on it on the assumption that we’re looking for the same killer.’

‘But are we? It’s a different kind of injury. Probably a different knife too.’

‘I’d like to hope there aren’t two murderers running around picking off members of the Kennford family, if that’s all right with you.’ He sounded deeply irritable and I stepped away from the bed, confused, to look into the ensuite bathroom for the sake of having something to do that would take me away from him. The glass walls of the shower cubicle were streaked with water and I opened the door a crack, using my pen to pull on the handle. Warm air greeted me, scented with flowers. I peered at the tiles, then crouched down to examine the shower tray.

‘Find something?’ Derwent was leaning over me.

‘Maybe.’ I pointed. ‘That’s blood, isn’t it?’

There was a watery streak down one tile in the corner, dripping over the edge and onto the shower tray where it dissolved and disappeared. It was very faint and pale pink rather than red.

‘You could be right. Well done, hawk-eye.’

‘Safe to assume the killer showered, then.’

‘Seems likely.’

‘And changed his or her clothes.’

‘Or did the job while they were naked, got dressed afterwards. Easier to clean up, and some of them love the feeling of the blood on their skin. Especially when it’s fresh.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘That’s murderers for you.’ He straightened up. ‘We need to know what time Lydia and Zoe left.’

‘And where they were going.’ I rubbed the back of one gloved hand over my forehead, sweating again in the oppressive damp heat of the bathroom. ‘She just said shopping, but it could have been an out-of-town shopping
centre
or the nearest market town or somewhere big. I didn’t ask.’

‘Give her a call.’ Dornton leaned into the bathroom to join in.

‘I did. No answer.’

‘I don’t like not knowing where she is.’ Derwent was looking concerned.

‘Me neither.’

‘Did you check the rest of the house?’

‘I did.’ Dornton again. ‘No sign of anyone up here. Which room did she have?’

‘The one at the end of the corridor.’

‘Unmade bed but otherwise tidy.’

‘That sounds right.’ Derwent nodded. ‘She was neat as anything in her own house.’

I sat back on my heels. ‘Remember her bed though? Hospital corners and you could bounce a tennis ball on the coverlet, it was so taut. Leaving her bed unmade doesn’t sound right.’

‘Maybe she was in a hurry to go.’

I stood up and edged past Derwent, careful not to touch any surfaces. ‘It didn’t sound as if they were rushing when I spoke to them. She was just having breakfast.’

‘We found dishes in the sink downstairs,’ Derwent said, following me down the corridor.

‘So they had breakfast and didn’t wash up, which is possible, I suppose.’ I went into Lydia’s room and frowned at the rumpled bed. The pillows and cushions were mostly on the floor and the duvet was slipping sideways. I checked the bathroom. ‘Her toothbrush is wet.’ There was a faintly bitter smell in the room that I traced to the lavatory. The water had a gauzy quality, as if there were tiny particles floating in it. ‘I think that’s where breakfast ended up, but Kev could confirm it.’

‘Are you actually sniffing the toilet?’ Derwent looked disgusted.

‘I’m trying to work out what happened this morning. She came upstairs, she threw up, she brushed her teeth. Ready to go shopping.’ I walked back into the bedroom. ‘Something happened. Something made her stop what she was doing. Look at the pillows. She was in the middle of making the bed when something interrupted her.’

‘This is her bag, isn’t it?’ Derwent held it up. ‘She’d have needed that for shopping.

‘You’d have thought.’ I looked at him, troubled. ‘What happened here?’

‘I don’t know. But Zoe’s car wasn’t in the yard.’ He shrugged. ‘Not worth getting too excited over it, is it? It probably took Lydia longer to upchuck her porridge than she’d bargained for.’

‘And her bag?’

‘It’s heavy. Maybe she had a smaller one, or she just took her wallet or something.’

‘She’s a teenage girl. She would want all her clutter.’

Derwent was rooting in the bag. ‘Fuck. Here’s her wallet.’ He opened it. ‘Cash card. Money. Her phone. All right, that is a bit strange.’

‘More than a bit, surely.’ I went back into the corridor and peered through one of the dormer windows. There were too many trees between me and the garage for me to be sure of what I was seeing. ‘I can’t see inside the garage, but I think the doors are open.’

‘You’d leave them open if you drove out.’

‘Yeah.’ I stared at it, troubled. ‘We need to search the property.’

‘Dornton and Liv are doing the yard at the moment.’

‘Let’s try out the back, then.’

‘Make sure the car isn’t there.’

‘Exactly.’

Derwent was silent as we cut through the house and stepped out of the back door. The heat was incredible, the
air
crackling with tension as the clouds massed overhead, heavy with rain. I had a headache already, a tight band around my forehead that no painkiller would touch. It was fear, fear and not knowing what we had missed. Savannah was our suspect, and Savannah was dead. Which meant that there were two killers, or we had been wrong about her. ‘But she fitted the DNA profile.’

‘What did you say?’ Derwent demanded.

‘Thinking aloud.’ I went ahead of him along the path towards the garage, which was more trampled than it had been the previous time we’d been there. Something moved in the grass beside the path, something big, and I stopped.

‘What now?’

‘Nothing. Just the dog.’ My heart was beating erratically; for the second time that day Beckett had terrified me. He was hardly stealthy, crashing through the undergrowth at the same fast pace that we were keeping, looking up over the feathery tops of the wild grass now and then to check that we were still there. Up ahead of us, the garage door banged.

Derwent gave me a tight smile when I looked around. ‘Just the wind.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’ There was a breeze but it was hot air that didn’t refresh me in the least. ‘Dornton thinks there’s going to be a storm.’

‘Does he?’ Derwent managed to get precisely the same lack of interest into his voice that I had shown earlier, and I blushed, concentrating on keeping my footing on the last part of the path. The door banged again as we came around the side of the garage, which was empty.

‘They’re gone.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’ Derwent said it like he meant it.

‘She still hasn’t had the oil fixed.’ I pointed at the floor, where the puddle had grown and spread.

‘Something stinks.’ Derwent frowned. ‘Petrol.’

‘They had a can of it on the shelf. Must have been running low.’

‘I wouldn’t keep petrol around the place. Not if I had a garage made of wood.’

‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a health-and-safety type.’

‘Just common sense.’ He backed away. ‘Didn’t she say there was another building?’

‘A barn. Behind here.’

‘I’ll go and have a look there.’

The door banged again. I went to look at how the catch worked and found that it was straightforward, a metal bolt that slotted into the ground. It would inconvenience Zoe a little bit to have to open it again when she got back, but she would have other things on her mind, I thought. She would see the cars in the yard and know that something had happened, even before someone got to her to tell her the news. I hoped it wouldn’t be me.

The door fixed, I wandered into the garage, waiting for Derwent to get back. The stuff on the shelves had to have been left by the previous owner, or the one before it; there was some extraordinary stuff. I paused over some tongs that looked like medieval torture equipment but were probably veterinary tools. Next to them was a coil of barbed wire, and beside that a tin of paint that was surely never going to be usable again. The lid was crusted on with dried paint and the sides of the tin were streaked with rust. From the style of the logo, it dated from the 1960s. There was being thrifty, I thought, and there was being a hoarder. I passed on to the back wall of the garage, which was tools and spare car parts, mainly. And stopped, my head cocked to one side, listening.

Derwent was saying something. The window above my head was broken, explaining why I could hear him even though he still seemed to be in the barn. He sounded calm, conversational even, but I couldn’t hear a reply.

He spoke again.

Someone else was in the barn with him. The dog, possibly. Beckett had disappeared when we came close to the garage, nose to the ground. I was not going to get overexcited for a third time that day about a sheepdog, no matter how nice his nature.

On the other hand, it wasn’t like Derwent to bother talking to an animal.

And there was no harm in looking to see what he was doing.

Once I was outside the garage, I saw the others gathered at the back of the house, heads together. I waved and Godley broke away from the group, shading his eyes to see what I was doing. I pointed to the side of the garage and he nodded. They would have finished the first search down at the house. They would be waiting for Glen Hanshaw, or for Zoe to return. The house would be off-limits until the crime scene specialists had checked it over. We had trampled around enough already, I thought, hacking through nettles and tall cow parsley to get to the barn door. I wasn’t used to being the first responder at a murder. The response teams were better at it, the uniformed officers who spent their time racing to answer 999 calls or being despatched to concern-for-safety calls, where someone hadn’t seen their elderly neighbour for a few weeks, actually, and the TV was on all hours of the day and night, and they were just worried there might be a problem …

Derwent sounded especially calm. I was walking softly. I didn’t want to startle the dog. Or Derwent. Or even reveal to him that I had heard him saying, ‘It’s okay. Really, it’s all right. You’re not in trouble. Everything is going to be fine.’ He was a soppy git under all the bluster, as I had always suspected. I was half-smiling as I stepped into the barn, which was dark and effectively derelict. The roof was nothing more than bare rafters in several places, and pigeons had colonised the space completely. The smell of old straw and damp was pungent.

And overlaid with another smell.

Petrol.

It was easy enough to see where it was coming from, when my eyes got accustomed to the light – easy, and terrifying. Derwent was facing me, leaning against a wooden partition that had somehow remained sound enough for it to take his weight. He had his arms folded and one foot crossed over the other, totally relaxed in his posture, the strain only showing around his eyes. He didn’t look at me because his attention was fixed on the person who stood between us, but he lifted his index finger very slightly.
Wait
.

Lydia was tiny in her oversized T-shirt and floor-length skirt, drowning in black. It didn’t show the blood that streaked her arms, but blood would be there when the forensics experts examined her clothes. I was more interested in the fact that she was soaking wet, and not with water. Her hair was drenched, droplets oozing from the ends. In one hand she held the petrol can, loosely so it dangled down by her side. In the other hand there was a pink plastic lighter, held tightly in her fist, which was shaking. I couldn’t see if she had her thumb on the wheel, ready to strike the light. I couldn’t see how much danger she was in. Enough, I thought, edging sideways to avoid standing with the light behind me and sending a telltale shadow across the dirty floor. More than enough.

‘You don’t want to do anything stupid, do you? It’s been a tough day already. You want to go and have a shower. Get cleaned up.’ He was speaking in a low, soothing voice that was almost hypnotic, and what he was saying was far less important than the tone. All he got in response was a muffled sob that was barely a noise.

‘What can we get for you? What would make you feel better?’

An infinitesimal shake of her head. Her teeth were chattering, a low-level rattle that I could hear over the
flutter
and coo of the birds in the rafters. I had never seen her in short sleeves before, and the scarring on her arms was wicked. Years of work had gone into making the marks, and they ranged in colour from pearly white to an angry red that had to be recent. The blood that smeared her skin was streaked and patchy because of the petrol, but I was fairly sure that she herself wasn’t bleeding, and I was fairly sure whose blood it was too.

I moved forward a step, and then another. Derwent kept up the soothing babble, raising the volume very slightly to cover the sound of my progress. I had my eyes fixed on her right hand. I couldn’t decide what to do. If I tried to grab her and her thumb was on the wheel, the shock might make her strike a flame by accident as her hand clenched. If she dropped the lighter, it could still spark, and a spark was all it would take. It was petrol vapour that ignited, I recalled, not the liquid; she was surrounded in a cloud of it and I would be well within range if it went up. And it was seriously unstable. You weren’t even supposed to use a mobile phone at a petrol pump, not that anyone paid attention to that particular rule. How often had a mobile phone generate a spark when it was used? Not often, in my experience. Mine was on, in my pocket. Derwent’s, too.