The Last Girl (25 page)

Niele Adamkuté lived in a narrow street of terraced houses near Canning Town tube station. It was an area that had benefited from the development of Canary Wharf, the giant huddle of skyscrapers in the middle of the East End that exerted its own gravitational pull on the surrounding neighbourhoods. People converged on it from all over London every weekday and abandoned it at weekends, and most of them never set foot in the heart of Poplar or Limehouse or any of the other places where property prices had spiked on a promise of new wealth in the area. The recession had delivered a sharp correction, but there were still plenty of people trying to make a fortune as property developers, turning a bargain buy into a des res for yuppies. Shetland Street, where Adamkuté lived, was halfway to being gentrified, which meant most of the houses didn’t look their best. Skips sat on the road outside three of them. A couple of others were swathed in scaffolding and tarpaulins, and half-naked builders sat on the front steps of another two, smoking and soaking up the sun. Houses with neatly painted woodwork and immaculate front gardens butted up against ones that looked unoccupied, the windows dark and fogged with dirt, rubbish piled high inside the front gate. Adamkuté’s house had all the hallmarks of a rental property: ugly double glazing, overflowing bins outside and a front garden full of gravel, the cheap no-maintenance solution to outside space. I rang the bell. Inside the house, just visible through the frosted glass of the front door, someone passed through the hall and ran up the stairs.

‘Friendly.’

‘I rang to make the appointment. She knows we’re coming.’ I leaned back to peer in through the front window, seeing bare walls and a minimum of furniture. ‘I don’t think that was her. It looked like a man to me.’

‘And me. But I don’t have high hopes of Miss Adamkuté. Kennford would fuck a hole in the ground if it was all that was available.’

As he said it, the front door darkened, as if someone had been standing just beside it, hidden from our view. She couldn’t have failed to hear what Derwent said, but when Niele opened the door, her face was composed. She looked at me.

‘You are DC Kerrigan?’

‘Yes. This is my colleague––’

‘Josh Derwent.’ He lunged forward with his hand out. ‘DI Derwent.’

The rank didn’t seem to impress her any more than the hand he was offering her. She looked down at it as if she didn’t understand what he wanted, then stepped back. ‘Come in.’

‘Thanks for agreeing to see us at such short notice,’ Derwent babbled, following me into the sitting room while Niele waited patiently to shut the front door. I could under stand why he was flustered, because she was all I had been told and more. She was quite stunning – tall, reed-thin apart from a very well-developed bosom, elegant in tailored black trousers and a cream silk top. There was more to it than just good looks, although she certainly had those. She had a quality of stillness that was unusual, a reserve that was more intriguing than off-putting. Her eyes were incredible, slanting and green under arched eyebrows, and her hair was dark and glossy. A beauty spot high on one cheekbone was the only thing that marred the perfect symmetry of her features and it gave her face a touch of character it might otherwise have lacked. I knew that she was thirty-one but I wouldn’t have
guessed
that she was a day over twenty-five, and I had a feeling Derwent would make an exception to his rule if he thought he had a shot. Her English was good, almost unaccented and idiomatic. She stood in the doorway while Derwent and I got ourselves organised, and I couldn’t interpret the expression on her face. Not quite hostile, but definitely guarded, I decided. And the first words she said confirmed it.

‘You’re here to find out what happened between me and Philip Kennford, is that right?’

‘More or less. We’re trying to build a picture of his life and that means speaking to people who know him.’ I hesitated. ‘And who knew his wife.’

‘Her? I didn’t know her. I met her once.’ The faintest trace of amusement was visible on her face for a moment. ‘We didn’t get along too well.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘And I heard she’s dead.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it? You’ve heard that we had an argument and you want to know if I am responsible for killing her.’

‘Well, are you?’ I was amused and a little surprised by how direct she was.

‘Of course not. It was months ago that I argued with her. I haven’t seen him since then and I don’t want to.’ The pretty mouth snapped closed in what could only be described as a pout.

‘You understand that we have to ask you about it, don’t you? We need to find people who disliked Vita Kennford – who might have had a reason to kill her, and her daughter. And you do have a motive for murdering the first if not the second.’

She laughed. ‘Why would I have waited until now?’

‘Maybe you didn’t have the opportunity before. Maybe you needed to plan.’

‘What is there to plan? You know people who can take
care
of that sort of thing, or you don’t.’ An expressive shrug. ‘Of course, I don’t.’

‘Of course,’ I agreed. All charges had been dropped halfway through her trial, I reminded myself. But that had been lack of evidence and some creative arguing from Kennford rather than being because of her shining innocence. I’d reserve my judgement for the time being.

‘And of course I didn’t want her to die. But if you are looking for people who disliked her, you will have to make a list of everyone she met. She was not a pleasant person.’

‘Where did you meet her?’ Derwent asked, not having been privy to Kit’s description of their encounter. He had chosen a low armchair and now looked as if he regretted it since Niele hadn’t sat down. She had taken up a position leaning against the wall, looking like a
Vogue
model.

‘At his flat in Clerkenwell. She threw me out.’

‘Were you staying there?’

‘He’d asked me to move in with him.’ She gave a tiny shrug. ‘I should never have said yes. I thought it would be better than sharing a house.
He
thought it would be better than sharing a house. He said this was like being a student again and he’d left those days behind him.’

‘Do you have many housemates?’

‘A few.’ On cue, footsteps thudded across the floor upstairs, just over my head. ‘They come and go.’

‘Who are they?’ Derwent asked.

‘Why do you care?’

‘I’m curious.’

‘Curiosity kills the cat. That’s the expression, isn’t it?’

‘I’m more of a dog man.’

The amusement was back in her eyes. ‘They’re people from home. This is a good place to stay when you first come to the UK. Then they find work, move on.’

‘But you stay.’

‘It’s convenient.’

‘It’s a nice area,’ Derwent lied.

‘Not really. But it suits me.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I don’t expect too much.’

‘A girl like you should expect nothing but the best.’

Derwent was looking soulful. I suppressed my gag reflex for long enough to ask, ‘How long have you lived here?’

‘Three years, off and on.’

‘So long?’ I was surprised. The room was stacked with cardboard boxes in one corner, and the walls were bare. The furniture didn’t match and there wasn’t a lot of it anyway. It had the feeling of a temporary arrangement. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone’s unpacked properly.’

‘It doesn’t bother me. I’m not interested. I spend a lot of time out, at work or seeing friends.’

‘What do you do for a living, Niele?’

‘I’m an administrator.’

‘What kind of administrator?’

‘Office manager, I suppose.’

‘What’s the office?’

‘I’m not working at the moment. I’m looking for a new position.’

Convenient
, I thought, not believing her in the least. She was about to learn that evasive answers generated more questions. ‘Where was the last place you worked?’

‘It closed down. Very sad. Lots of people lost their jobs.’

‘What was the business?’

‘A Lithuanian one.’

‘Selling …’ I prompted.

‘Transporting goods across Europe. Freight.’ She looked bored. ‘I don’t really know much about that side of things. I just looked after the office.’

‘How are you managing for money if you’re not working?’

‘I have savings. And I do temping.’

‘With an agency?’

‘It’s casual work. Now and then.’

‘What do you do in the evenings? I can’t imagine you like to hang out here.’

I resisted the urge to glare at Derwent but I wasn’t satisfied that I’d heard anything like the full story about where she had worked and what her job had been, and if it had been up to me she wouldn’t have been allowed off the hook so easily. Then again, I wasn’t as concerned with her social life as my boss apparently was.

‘I do whatever I choose.’ She looked around the room. ‘But I don’t stay here, you’re right. I prefer to go out.’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘Frequently, yes. But not at the moment.’

I was waiting for Derwent to ask her out but belatedly he remembered what we were supposed to be doing there.

‘How many people live here?’

‘At the moment, five.’

‘How many men?’

‘Why do you care?’

‘Routine question. How many men?’

‘Four.’

‘You’re the only woman?’

‘Yes. But that doesn’t bother me.’ I waited to see if she’d say it. I could have mouthed it along with her, even if I couldn’t have managed the sensuous movement of her body that accompanied it. ‘I’ve always got on better with men.’

‘Any romances?’

‘I prefer English men.’

To give him his due, Derwent only blushed a little bit. ‘Can you give me your housemates’ names?’

‘I could. Do I have to?’

‘It’ll make us a bit suspicious of them if you don’t.’

‘I can’t help your suspicions.’ She allowed herself a tiny smile. ‘But I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble.’

‘They’re not in trouble. I just want to know who lives here.’

‘Curious again?’

‘It’s an occupational hazard.’

She shook her head. ‘I thought this was about Philip Kennford.’

‘It is.’

‘So why are you asking me about the people I live with? Ask me about him.’

There was a very good reason for us to ask her about the people she lived with; we were sitting ducks in her small front room if any of them wished us harm. I didn’t like not knowing who else was in the house and I could tell Derwent felt the same way. We were on their territory, at their mercy, and Niele Adamkuté had certainly known criminals, once upon a time. The others who were on trial with her had been convicted. I was pretty sure that if the person stomping about upstairs didn’t have a criminal record, that was nothing more than an oversight on our part.

Derwent wasn’t about to give any of that away. Instead, he gave her the little-boy cheeky grin. ‘I suppose it’s just force of habit, but we do like asking questions.’

‘Ask me about Philip.’

‘We’ll get to that.’

‘That’s all I’m going to talk about.’ There was something very stubborn about the set of her jaw that told me she meant it. Derwent spotted it too.

‘Okay. Mr Kennford. Tell us about him.’

‘He took advantage of me. He made a fool of me.’ It would have been more convincing if she had been more like a victim, but Niele Adamkuté didn’t strike me as anyone’s fool.

‘When was this?’

‘Last year. Nine – no, ten months ago.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I hadn’t thought it was so long, but it was.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘I was arrested and charged with money laundering because of some work I did for a friend. It was all a big mistake.’

‘Of course.’

‘My friend was very sorry that I was in trouble because of the work I had done for him, so he didn’t want me to have legal aid. He got me a very good solicitor who hired Philip to represent me in court because he was supposed to be the best person for the job.’

‘But from what I’ve heard, it worked out all right. You got off,’ I pointed out.

She shrugged. ‘There was no evidence. That was all he had to say, that there was no evidence. He sat there in court for days during the prosecution case and he didn’t do anything. Then he stood up and told the judge I had to be allowed to leave, and the judge agreed. He got thousands of pounds and he did nothing.’

‘At least you weren’t paying.’

She made an extraordinary noise, pure contempt. ‘There is always a payment, even when someone does something for you as a gift, or because they feel an obligation.’

‘Sounds sinister,’ Derwent observed.

‘Not at all. It’s how the world goes.’

‘So you weren’t impressed with Kennford’s work – but you ended up having an affair with him and moving into his flat. How did that happen?’

‘I was stupid.’ She looked grave. ‘I was so pleased to be let go free, I went out for dinner with him. It was a very nice restaurant, very smart. Lots of celebrities go there. Hollywood stars, not TV.’ I appreciated the fine distinction. ‘And I drank a little bit too much. Besides, he is very charming when he wants to be, no?’