The Last Girl (53 page)

Bradbury was fast becoming one of my least favourite colleagues, and there was competition for that slot. I stepped away from the bed. ‘They did what they came here to do, did it well, and made sure you found out about it sooner rather than later. After you, I bet they tipped off the media.’

‘They were here not long after we arrived,’ he admitted.

‘I’d feel a bit manipulated if I were you. You’re just tidying up someone else’s mess.’ Bradbury opened his
mouth
to argue but I raised my eyebrows. ‘Next one?’

It turned out the pathologist was still with the last victim, so we were allowed to glance in and duck out again having denied all knowledge of the man in question. He was young and fair-haired, with a crucifix around his neck on a gold chain, and he had been naked and asleep when his life ended. There was something vulnerable about him, something that reminded me of the boys who had died in the Range Rover in Clapham. I shook my head as I turned away.

‘What’s wrong?’ Derwent asked.

‘He’s too young to be dead for a row that probably wasn’t anything to do with him.’

‘Don’t be fooled by the pretty face. He was probably a violent thug.’

‘You’d like to believe that.’

‘I would. I wish all murder victims were criminals. It would make it that bit easier to do this job.’

‘Finding it tough?’

‘Today, yeah.’ Derwent looked exhausted, I thought, his eyes puffy from lack of sleep. ‘And I could do without the fucking tour guide.’

Bradbury had lingered in the room behind us to ask the pathologist a few questions about the fifth victim, receiving monosyllabic answers. He joined us in the hall.

‘Ready to see Niele’s room?’

‘About half an hour ago.’ Derwent rolled his head around his shoulders, stretching his neck. ‘I told you that would be a waste of time.’

‘You never know.’

‘Bullshit. I knew it before I started. Do you get paid by the hour or something?’

‘There’s no harm in being thorough.’ Bradbury pointed past Derwent. ‘That’s your witness’s room in there.’

‘Finally.’ Derwent barrelled through the door, then stopped. ‘All right, guv?’

‘Josh.’ I recognised Godley’s voice before I saw him, leaning over an open drawer with a couple of T-shirts in his gloved hands. The room was spotless but not luxurious in any respect. The bed was iron-framed and narrow, and the walls were bare, painted white. It was austere in the extreme. I remembered that Kennford had described it as being studenty, and felt inclined to agree with his opinion.

Derwent didn’t seem to have noticed anything except the superintendent. ‘What are you doing here? How did you even know about it?’

‘It seems to be gang-related. I was informed about it as a matter of course, given the other investigation.’

‘Who informed you?’

Godley frowned. ‘I fail to see why it matters, Josh.’

‘Sorry, we haven’t been introduced.’ The DS oozed past me. ‘Andy Bradbury. I know who you are, of course.’

‘Good.’ Godley looked at him without enthusiasm. ‘Are you running this case?’

‘I’m in charge of the crime scenes. I’m here to make sure everything is done properly.’

‘That sounds like a fine and important job. Please, don’t let us distract you from it.’ Godley smiled pleasantly, but he wasn’t going to let the other officer stay and Bradbury knew it. Muttering something about checking up on the pathologist, he left, not bothering to say goodbye to Derwent or me.

‘Thank Christ for that. I bet they did leave him here to mind the crime scene. I’d put him in charge of counting the paperclips if I had to work with him.’ Derwent stretched up like a meerkat to peer at what Godley was doing. ‘What have you got there?’

‘Nothing much. I’m just searching the room.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘This and that.’ Godley must have been aware that his reply fell a bit short of the politeness for which he was famed. ‘A phone, mainly.’

‘Isn’t it downstairs?’ I frowned, trying to remember what had been on the kitchen table. It was like a parody of the party game where you have to remember what was displayed and what’s gone missing. I was sure the phone had been lying beside the bottle of varnish on the table.

‘There was one. Not the right one, though.’

‘Do you want any help?’ I asked.

‘By all means.’

I started to check the bed, lifting pillows and the duvet to make sure it wasn’t hiding anywhere obvious. Derwent stood for a moment, watching us, then left the room without further comment. I heard him going downstairs and wondered what he was doing. Behind me, Godley had moved on to the wardrobe and was opening bags.

‘Is this a business phone or something?’

‘Could be.’

‘Do you know what model it is?’

‘Not a clue.’

I ran my hands under the mattress, sliding them along. It would be near the edge, I thought, recalling Niele’s immaculate manicure. She wouldn’t want to go digging for it every time it rang. At the foot of the bed, I touched something metal and drew it out carefully.

‘Bingo.’

‘You found it?’ Godley put out his hand. ‘Good girl. Give it to me.’

‘Shouldn’t I bag it up?’ I stared up at him. ‘It’s evidence now, isn’t it?’

‘I need to check something. Make sure it’s the right one.’ His hand was still outstretched and I couldn’t see a way to say no without fatally harming my career prospects. I put the phone into his palm and watched as he pressed buttons. ‘No password. Good stuff.’

He turned away from me then, hiding the phone from me with his body. I looked past him to the mirror that hung on the wall and watched him running through
menus.
It was the address book he wanted, it transpired, and I could feel my eyes getting wide as he checked through the list of contacts, deleting two. My boss or not, there was no way I wasn’t going to challenge him.

‘That’s not right, is it? You shouldn’t be doing anything to the phone.’

‘Don’t worry, Maeve. It’s fine.’ He tucked it back where I’d found it.

‘Are you leaving it there? Why aren’t we recovering it? It’s evidence.’

‘Let’s leave it for Bradbury’s team. They get depressed if they don’t find something.’ He put his hand under my arm and guided me out of the room, towards the stairs. ‘Good work, Maeve.’

‘Was it?’ I pulled away. ‘We didn’t exactly finish, did we? I hadn’t looked in the bedside table.’

‘Leave it for Bradbury,’ Godley said again. ‘It’ll do as it is. Besides, I’ve got to go.’

I dearly wanted to demand to know what he had been doing, and why, but I knew I wasn’t going to get a satisfactory reply. We collected Derwent on our way out and the two of us stood to watch Godley’s departure. The Mercedes had been double-parked, as if Godley had been in too much of a hurry to find a proper space. He nodded to us before driving off, and I thought he seemed pleased with his morning’s work.

‘We should go too.’ Derwent’s face was expressionless.

I frowned. ‘Is that it?’

‘What more do you want?’

I waved a hand in the direction Godley’s car had taken. ‘That was odd, wasn’t it? I mean, not usual.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘What do you think––’

He interrupted. ‘Don’t ask me. Don’t mention it to me again. It didn’t happen.’

‘What didn’t happen?’

‘I don’t know. And neither do you.’ He walked away, chewing gum aggressively, and none of the journalists outside the final cordon were stupid or desperate enough to attempt to draw him into conversation.

Chapter Twenty-three

IT WAS A
frankly toxic journey back to the office, made worse by the morning traffic. The delay didn’t bother me as much as it might have, and nor did the silent rage emanating from the seat beside me. With nothing to do but mind the map I could sit quietly and rest, half-asleep as the sun streamed into the car. I was chronically short on sleep, not functioning at anything like my best, and I assumed Derwent was in the same condition. We stopped for petrol after travelling a mile in just under an hour, and Derwent came back to the car with a bottle of aspirin.

‘Fucking childproof cap.’ He wrestled with it, spinning the top ineptly.

‘Give me that.’ I twisted the cap off on my first attempt, having actually looked at the bottle and worked out how to do it. ‘How many do you want?’

‘What’s the maximum dose?’

‘No idea.’

‘Read the label, then. Whatever it is, double it.’ He started the car and pulled out of the petrol station, using the entrance instead of the exit. The traditional volley of horns and shouted abuse followed.

‘If you ever get tired of being a policeman, why don’t you set up as an unlicensed minicab driver? You have all the skills.’

‘Because I don’t like the smell of those little air fresheners that look like Christmas trees, and I can’t stand drunk people when I’m sober.’

‘No need to drive sober, is there? I’m sure most of them have a drink or two before they start work.’ I was skimming through the instructions. ‘I don’t think it would be safe to double the dosage. Headache?’

‘No thanks, I’ve got one already.’

‘Along with a cracking sense of humour.’

‘That’s me. Funny and clever and handsome. It’s not right that one man should have so many advantages in life.’

‘They sit lightly on you.’ I gave him two pills and a bottle of water. ‘Drink the whole thing. You’re probably dehydrated.’

‘I’m not hung-over,’ he snapped.

‘I didn’t say you were. It’s a hot day.’ I looked at him curiously. ‘Did you have a drink last night when you got back?’

‘One.’

‘It was late for that.’

‘It helps me to sleep. I bet you found your own way to relax, didn’t you? Nothing like sleeping in a strange bed to make you feel frisky.’

I could feel myself blushing despite wishing quite fiercely to remain unmoved. ‘Sorry. You’re way off.’

‘Am I? I don’t think so.’

‘I should call Philip Kennford.’ I said it more or less at random, to change the subject. ‘I promised Lydia and Savannah I’d let him know what happened last night.’

Derwent groaned. ‘Don’t involve him. He’ll just want to give me a bollocking about something or other. I can’t be arsed, honestly.’

‘We should talk to him about Niele too.’

‘I’d rather stick my bum in a beehive.’

‘He might know something.’

‘About what, exactly?’

‘Why she died.’ I shrugged. ‘How do we know he’s not a viable suspect?’

‘It doesn’t connect.’ Derwent was scowling. ‘For one
thing,
no one is mad enough to wipe out five people for the sake of shutting up one who had already spilled her guts to the police. If Niele was the sole target, she would have been the only one to die. There was no reason to kill anyone else when they were all tucked up nice and quietly in bed. Anyway, I had a chat with one of the other detectives while you were upstairs with Godley. The word is that Niele’s house was the headquarters for the Eastern Europeans Skinner recruited to do his dirty work.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Not at all. That’s why Godley was involved.’

‘You mean those men killed the Clapham boys?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not involved in the investigation, remember?’ He relented a little. ‘Probably. They’re going to try to match the ballistics. The weapons are the right calibre, so that’s a start.’

‘So who killed them? Ken Goldsworthy’s lads?’

‘If he has anyone that slick on his team, which I doubt.’ Derwent’s forehead was furrowed. ‘It looked familiar to me, that crime scene. I’ve seen killing like that before. Cold, clinical, detached. Not getting excited, even though there are five of them to slot. I went to a crime scene in Shepherd’s Bush once that was just like this – straight shooting, no messing. Three dead that time.’

‘Did you catch the killer?’

‘Couldn’t put a case together, but I was pretty sure who’d done it.’

‘And it was?’

‘Someone who worked with John Skinner. A guy named Larch. Tony was his first name. One of those people who looks like a killer – mad eyes, the bloke had, ice-blue and staring. He was bald by choice, I always thought to avoid shedding hairs at crime scenes, but also because it made him look like a hard bastard. He wasn’t a big lad but he scared the crap out of me. When Skinner moved to Spain, Larch left the UK too. He spent a bit of time in South
America,
then the Caribbean, and then we lost track of him. Kept his nose clean so we didn’t really have a reason to follow him around, more’s the pity, because he had good taste in holiday destinations.’

‘Do you think it’s worth finding out if he’s back in the country?’

‘Probably. But it’s not my case, remember? Anyway, why would one of John Skinner’s associates take out his new partners in crime? I can’t see him doing Goldsworthy’s work for him.’

‘Maybe because Skinner’s lost control of them and even he’s worried about it.’