The Last Girl (33 page)

‘The jury acquitted Stokes. And you can’t be sure it wasn’t a genuine accident.’

‘Can’t I?’ Harman’s mouth twisted with something like amusement. ‘Do you know where Stokes is now?’

Derwent looked at me but I didn’t know either. ‘You’d better tell us.’

‘Prison.’

‘Why?’

‘He was convicted of attempting to murder the girlfriend he had after Clara. He fractured her skull. She’ll have some degree of physical and mental impairment for the rest of her life.’ Harman’s voice was harsh. ‘She was an estate agent, before. She owned her own home. Now she’s in sheltered housing so there’s twenty-four-hour support available for her, and she’ll probably never work again.’

‘Okay. That is horrible.’ I could see Derwent struggling not to tell Harman how he really felt. With an effort, he said, ‘But you can’t hold Kennford accountable for what his client did after the trial was over. That’s up to him.’

‘I agree. I don’t blame him for Stokes being a killer. But I do hate him for the fact that he helped to free him without a thought for the consequences. And for the way he did it.’

‘Hate is a strong word,’ I said, disturbed.

‘Not strong enough. Kennford lying about who Clara was and how she lived killed her all over again.’

An awkward stillness settled over the room. I hadn’t the heart to ask any more questions, and Derwent seemed to be lacking in the killer instinct too. The dog barked in the kitchen and collided with the door again with a solid thump, followed by silence. I wondered if he’d knocked himself out.

Harman cleared his throat. ‘Are you finished? I should really take Pongo out. He’s been waiting for a while.’

Derwent looked at me but I shook my head. As close to shamefaced as he ever got, he said, ‘I might as well ask, what did you do to Kennford’s car?’

‘I scratched a word into the bonnet with a chisel. It was easy to do. He left it parked in the Temple, near his chambers. It’s an area where the public can come and go relatively freely during the day. I didn’t have anything better to do once the trial was over, so I watched him for a few weeks to make sure it really was his car – a green Jaguar, a lovely one – and once I’d confirmed it, I bought a ticket for a concert in Middle Temple Hall. Baroque music. I had no intention of going, of course. The ticket got me past the guard and gave me access to the whole of the Temple when it was dark and more or less deserted. It didn’t take me long to find the car and do it.’

‘What was the word?’

‘Liar.’ Harman shrugged. ‘Short and sweet.’

‘How did they know it was you?’

‘I went to the police the next day and handed myself in.’ Another wry smile. ‘They handed me straight back out again. Criminal damage isn’t as serious as I thought it was.’

‘Why did you do that? They’d never have traced you if you weren’t on CCTV.’ Derwent sounded almost disappointed that he hadn’t put up more of a fight.

‘You probably think it was guilt, but it wasn’t.’ Harman
looked
down at his hands. ‘I went to a pub after I’d done it and had a tot of whisky – knocked it back – but it was more because I felt I should be in a state of shock than because I actually needed it. I felt fine. It didn’t make me feel better, of course. Nothing was going to do that. But I just didn’t care about what I’d done. I’d never even got a parking ticket before, but I was behaving like a master criminal or something. Clara would have laughed at me.’ Harman laughed a little too.

‘So why did you go to the police?’ I asked.

‘Well, then I got to thinking about it, and I realised there was no way Kennford would know why I’d done it or what I’d meant by it if he didn’t know who had done it. That just wasn’t good enough. He needed to understand why it had happened. So I went to my local police station and told them what I’d done. Pleaded guilty at the trial. And the bastard had the cheek to tell the judge to go easy on me. He asked for my emotional state to be taken into account. I said I didn’t want any special treatment, especially at his bidding, but maybe it did make a difference. I don’t know.’ He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. ‘I was glad I didn’t have to go to prison, when it came to it. I’d made my point, I thought. It got in the papers – a human-interest story, they told me. So at least he was publicly shamed.’

‘Were you satisfied with that? No other thoughts of revenge?’ Derwent asked.

‘Of course I wasn’t satisfied. It felt like an empty gesture, and it was, but I couldn’t think of anything that would make up for the way he robbed me of justice for my daughter. Not to mention that poor girl who Stokes injured next.’

‘Did Kennford represent him at that trial, do you know?’

‘No, he didn’t. He only likes cases he can win.’

‘So you don’t think it was because he felt bad about representing him the first time round,’ I said.

‘I wish that were the case, but no, I don’t think so. Even at my trial, you could see he had almost forgotten about Stokes. My daughter was part of history as far as he was concerned. He said to me afterwards, “I hope you can put this behind you and move on.” The man couldn’t understand I could never put Clara behind me, or move on. But I don’t know what would have taught him that lesson short of killing his daughter and letting him see what it’s like.’

I shot a look at Derwent, who was sitting very still. I took that as an indication that I could do the honours. ‘Do you know why we’ve come to see you today, Mr Harman?’

He looked bewildered. ‘Following up?’

‘No. Not that.’ As gently as I could, I explained to him what had happened to Philip Kennford’s family, and the fact that he was one of the barrister’s known enemies. ‘It did get quite a bit of coverage.’

‘I don’t watch the news or read a paper, you see. I listen to the radio sometimes, but not always. I find it upsetting.’

‘That’s understandable.’

Derwent had had enough of being sensitive. ‘Where were you on Sunday evening, Mr Harman? Between six and midnight, let’s say.’

‘I was here.’

‘Alone?’

‘Except for Pongo.’

‘Speak to anyone? See any neighbours?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise. I just have to ask. Doesn’t matter to me if you don’t have an alibi.’

‘I had no idea I’d need one.’

‘Course not.’

‘The poor woman, though. That poor girl.’ The dog made a strangulated noise, halfway to a howl, and Harman turned his head to listen. ‘I really should get on, I’m afraid.’

‘Is that it? Your greatest enemy gets what’s coming to him, and you’re worried about walking the dog?’

Harman turned his pale, watery eyes to Derwent. ‘How else should I be? Did you want me to celebrate? Or weep for him?’

‘I was expecting a reaction of some kind.’

‘It’s too late for that.’ Harman shook his head as he put his hands on the arms of his chair, ready to lift himself up. ‘It’s much too late for that.’

‘What happened to your arm?’ I asked sharply. The movement he’d made had pulled the sleeve of his shirt up, the cuff sliding over a bony wrist to reveal a long angry gouge in Harman’s skin. He looked at it as if he’d never seen it before.

‘Brambles. In the garden. I was cutting them back. Why?’

‘Can I see?’

He unbuttoned his sleeve and pulled it up a couple of inches. The scratch was long, livid, and flanked by two others further up his arm.

‘That looks nasty,’ Derwent observed. ‘When did you do that?’

‘Sunday.’ He pulled his sleeve back, leaving it to flap loosely around his hand. ‘Now, if that’s really all I can do for you, I need to go.’

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ I murmured automatically, my mind elsewhere. ‘Thank you for your time.’

Derwent added a slightly confused thank you as we headed for the door. The two of us stepped outside and, as one, headed around the corner of the house to look at the garden, which was neat and orderly without being particularly enticing. Shrubs had grown tall around a strip of lawn that was as perfect as a bowling green. We walked back to the car in silence. I waited until Derwent had shut his door.

‘No brambles that I could see.’

‘Not even anywhere they might have grown.’

‘What did those scratches look like to you?’

‘They could have been from anything.’

‘I’ve seen fingernail scratches that looked like that. The parallel lines.’

‘Think he was lying, then?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said truthfully.

We watched as Harman let himself out of the house, the dog leaping and grovelling in excitement. He set off down the road without acknowledging us, though he must have seen us sitting there. One leg dragged very slightly; if I hadn’t been looking for it, I might not have noticed.

‘We should follow up on his medical history. Find out if he really did have a stroke or if it was just a story to make us think he wouldn’t be capable of killing them.’

‘This fucking case.’ Derwent shook his head. ‘I’d just like to be able to cross one person off the list, you know?’

‘But why would he say that about killing Kennford’s daughter if he did it?’

‘To throw us off the scent? Who knows? Who gives a shit?’

‘Did you like him?’ I didn’t really know why I was asking, but I wanted to know.

‘As a person? Yes. I did.’ Derwent sounded surprised at himself. ‘I thought he was a decent old bloke. Lonely, probably. Loves his dog.’

‘The dog’s all he’s got.’

‘At least Kennford’s still got one daughter.’

‘Two, if you include Savannah.’

‘That’s right.’ Derwent perked up at the thought. ‘Any luck getting hold of her?’

‘None so far. Her agent keeps promising me she’ll get in touch.’

‘Bugger.’ Derwent stared out through the windscreen, back to morose.

‘The thing is, none of our current suspects is really a
serious
contender. None of them seems to be angry enough to kill anyone, let alone a teenage girl and a defenceless woman.’ I stretched, easing tense muscles in my shoulders. ‘We’ve got this list of Kennford’s supposed enemies, but when it comes down to it, they’re all just grudges and issues about his professionalism.’

‘What about our lovely Lithuanian? She had access to pretty seedy gang types who wouldn’t think twice about teaching someone a lesson by snuffing their nearest and dearest for the most trivial reasons. Some of the stories I’ve heard about the Lithuanians would make your hair curl.’ He eyed me. ‘Scratch that. Maybe they would make yours go straight.’

‘Very funny. You’re right, Adamkuté could have set up a contract killing, probably without leaving her house. I just don’t see why she would have wanted to. She gave me the impression she was glad to be out of her relationship with Kennford. A lucky escape, basically.’

Derwent looked at me pityingly. ‘You don’t think we’re getting the full story from any of these people, do you? They’re hardly likely to tell us how they really feel when we’re running a murder investigation and they count as possible suspects.’

‘Harman didn’t even know about the killings.’

‘So he said.’ He shook his head, marvelling. ‘You really did come down in the last shower, didn’t you?’

‘No, but I believed him.’

‘Because he was so open and honest? Fu-u-ucking hell.’

‘Look, I’m pretty good at spotting when someone’s lying to me, okay? And I didn’t get that feeling from most of what Gerard Harman said. The thing that bothers me is that we’ve been focusing on Philip Kennford because he’s a high-profile target and we could see someone being pissed off enough with him to want to harm him, probably because we’re biased against him ourselves. We haven’t found out anything about Vita except that she was hard-nosed,
wealthy
and apparently liked dirty sex. Or didn’t, if you believe what Miranda Wentworth says. And we haven’t scratched the surface with Laura. Either one of them could have been the real target, as I’ve been saying all along.’

‘Do you really think this isn’t to do with Kennford?’

‘No. I mean, I think he must be a part of it. I just can’t see how.’

‘I think it’s more likely that Kennford ran across the wrong person in his professional life than that a rich, dull housewife got herself into a relationship with a homicidal maniac.’

‘A relationship that was so secret no one knew about it.’

‘Did she have any friends? Anyone she confided in?’

‘None I’ve been able to trace. Acquaintances at the tennis club don’t really count. I have tried,’ I said lamely, seeing Derwent’s frown. ‘I spent a couple of hours on it yesterday. I talked to a few of her phone contacts, but they weren’t what you’d call friends. She didn’t have any hobbies, she wasn’t in any book groups or clubs apart from tennis and the gym, she didn’t go out. She was completely wrapped up in her family.’ I hesitated for a second. ‘I know you don’t like him, but I still can’t see a motive for Kennford to kill his wife, you know. It does seem to me he was telling the truth – she was far more use to him alive.’

‘Unless she was planning to divorce him.’

‘There is that. But why would she bother? She’d dealt with his pregnant Lithuanian mistress – that doesn’t leave a lot that she would regard as a deal-breaker.’