The Last Girl Read Free Page A

enough. Let’s have a crack at him.’
    ‘Crime scenes first.’ Godley led us across the hall. ‘I want you to get a look at them so you know what to ask.’
    ‘Scenes? So they weren’t killed in the same place?’ I asked.
    ‘No, Vita and Laura died in here.’ Godley pushed open the door. ‘But they weren’t the only ones who were attacked.’
    I wasn’t really paying attention to the superintendent any more. I was fully occupied by scanning the room, seeing the before and after, order and disorder, life and death. The pristine chill that I’d noticed in the hall was here again, the pale colours and lack of ornament, except for the art on the walls. It was a large room and minimally furnished – a couple of designer chairs that looked more like sculpture than seats, black lacquered tables on either side of the fireplace, chrome and glass lamps. Modern, expensive, to my eye over-designed – and now disturbed. Two huge rectangular sofas faced one another at right angles to the fireplace, but one of them was pushed out of alignment and its cushions were scattered over the floor. A body lay in front of it, on carpet that was saturated with blood. She was on her back, her head tilted to stare blindly at the fireplace, which was itself painted with arterial spray. One leg was thrown negligently onto the sofa so her legs were splayed, but her clothes didn’t look as if they had been disturbed. She was lying as she had fallen, as if maybe she had been curled up on the sofa and had toppled off during the attack. The angle of her head was so extreme that I couldn’t see her face, but from the skinny jeans and camisole top, I thought it was the younger victim. Laura. Laura, who had evidently had her throat cut, right down to the bone. Laura, whose killer had only just stopped short of decapitating her. Laura, whose hair was matted with blood, whose clothes were soaked, who had died horribly. Laura, who had been fifteen. I swallowed and looked away, searching for the other victim.
    She was at the other end of the room, at the centre of chaos. Vita had made it further than her daughter, probably trying to escape through the French windows that led to the garden. The curtain pole had come down on one side, the heavy silk material pooling under the body. I walked towards her, leaning to see. I had only spotted one injury on Laura’s body but Vita’s was a different story: multiple slashes and stab wounds that Dr Hanshaw was busy annotating. As far as I could judge, Vita had been slim with bobbed fair hair. Her trousers and top had once been pure white, linen and silk respectively. One of her shoes lay on its side by my feet and I bent over to look at it. A caramel-coloured suede loafer with a gold snaffle. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to see it was made by Gucci.
    ‘Blood.’ Derwent’s nose was wrinkled. ‘Like a butcher’s shop.’
    I had been trying to ignore the smell, breathing shallowly through my mouth. It was exceptionally strong, and somehow worse for being fresh. The room was saturated. There was a trail leading from Laura’s body to where Vita lay, in scattered droplets and in small pools. A table lay on its side, the lamp that had been on it shining an oval at the opposite wall where a constellation of blood spatter gleamed. The base of the lamp had broken and porcelain shards littered the floor. Vita had fought hard for her life, and lost.
    Derwent had wandered off and was now prowling around the room, whistling tunelessly and inspecting the fittings, generally acting as if he was there to look at the house with a view to buying it. Godley beckoned to Hanshaw and Kev Cox, one of our regular crime scene managers. ‘Talk us through what happened. Josh, come here. I want you to listen to this too.’
    I had to hide a smile at Derwent being called to heel like a badly behaved dog. I didn’t hide it quickly enough.
    ‘Why don’t you ask Kerrigan what she thinks?’ There was a glint in Derwent’s eye as