The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (34 page)

“Oh, Tom, can’t two old friends get together and chat?”

“We are not old friends. If that’s all this is, then I’m off.” He kicks his chair back with a squeal like fingernails on blackboard.

“Please sit down, Detective Superintendent Bevans, and you will learn something very much to your advantage.”

He remains standing. “Just spit it out, Ke—” He dries up as Candy skips back with the plate of biscuits.

“Thank you, Candy,” Keyson says with his night-time DJ voice. Candy oohs a bit, then leaves.

“I did not come here to watch you flirt with waitresses.”

“No, but you did come.” He smiles, knowing he has all the aces. “I have been retained by Patricia Lancing. You do know Patricia Lancing, don’t you, Tom?”

Tom feels the skin tighten on his scalp. He sits back down.

“Her daughter was murdered and … well, you know all that, don’t you?”

Tom remembers the two of them lying on the floor next to each other, heads almost touching. He remembers how good it felt to finally tell someone about Dani.

“You told me the story of your one true love—do you remember?”

Tom is silent. He looks coldly into the other man’s eyes.

“The night, I believed, we became real friends.” His eyes flash a deep anger. “If I recall correctly—she studied at Durham. Classics, wasn’t it?”

“You know it was.”

“You never told me her surname but … fancy her mother coming to me to look into her death. To help solve the twenty-year-old mystery.”

“Marcus …”

“Of course, it could have been a coincidence, there may be many murdered Danis—but I told her I’d look into the case and I did. I went to Durham.”

Tom’s eyes widen. “You were there as a child. The coroner …”

“Yes. I shared that with you, didn’t I? My mentor, my second father.”

Tom breaks eye contact.

“I hadn’t been back since his death. More than ten years but I still had contacts—he had been much respected. It wasn’t difficult to get to see the case notes.”

“Those are sealed—active officers only.”

“Your name appears all over her case notes.” He pulls a folder from the pile, Tom snatches it and leafs through. He recognizes his handwriting on most pages.

“I could charge you for having these.”

“Possibly. You’re probably right. I shouldn’t have them.”

“Here we are at last. These’ll warm you up.” Candy reappears with the drinks and places them down on the table. She seems not to notice the bubbling tension between the two men. She has unbuttoned her blouse a little.

“You are a treasure, Candy.” Keyson winks.

She blushes and walks off.

“Excellent.” Keyson picks up a biscuit and dunks it into his coffee. “Named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, you know.”

“The man who unified Italy in the nineteenth century—I know.”

“Tom—”

“Detective Superintendent Bevans, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay. Fine. Detective Superintendent. I have been retained by Patricia Lancing to help expose the killer of her daughter, Danielle Lancing, in February 1989. I have ascertained this is the same Dani you claimed to have loved—”

“Damn you, Marcus.”

“Claimed would have married you—which was news to her mother.”

Tom just catches himself in time—his fist balls and he wants, so much, to send it into this man’s face. This … Calm, he must stay calm.

“Patricia Lancing has entrusted me with photos, newspaper
clippings and authorized me to access her daughter’s case notes. I also have the coroner’s report …” He pauses theatrically, relishing the flames of unease that lick across Tom Bevans’s face. “And his examination notes. His personal examination notes.”

“Where the hell did you get those?” Tom asks, angry to be so wrong-footed by Keyson.

“Oh, Tom, and you’re one of the bright ones. I don’t think that’s actually important—what is crucial in finding the man responsible for your Dani’s murder is discovering why the final report and the initial notes vary so much.” He dunks another biscuit. “Because the funny thing—and it genuinely is a funny thing—is that these notes are full of inconsistencies, inaccuracies and blatant mistruths.”

Tom sits there feeling himself shrink, little by little. He wants to say something but his mouth is parched and no words form.

“I have been able to piece together some of the story, the true story. I spoke to a retired sergeant, Ray Stone. You knew him a little, I believe. He ran the Durham evidence store back in 1989. Fascinating man; he has throat cancer and talks out of his neck with a stick. He said to say ‘hello.’ ”

“Don’t remember him.”

“Tom!” Keyson wags a finger as if at a naughty schoolboy. “You have got to work on your poker face. How did you get where you are today?” He grins.

Tom gulps, he thinks the same sometimes.

“So you don’t remember Sergeant Stone? Well, he remembers you.”

“That’s nice. If you have his address I’ll add him to my Christmas card list.”

“Oh good idea—then you’ll need more stamps—I have another name to add. Journalist. Ben Bradman. Ring a bell?”

“Bradman,” Tom whispers.

With a single finger Keyson slides one of the newspaper clippings around to face Tom. He recognizes it immediately as Bradman’s
News of the World
story. Out of Tom’s left eye slides a single tear.

“We talked for quite a while, he and I. He had a lot to say about you, Detective Superintendent Bevans, none of it complimentary. You know he didn’t do well in prison, don’t you?”

Tom says nothing. He knows that Bradman was sentenced to seven years and spent four years and eight months in prison before he was paroled. He knows, from reading the governor’s reports, that he’d been beaten and sexually abused there. Tom lowers his eyes, not wanting Keyson to see the shame burning in them.

“I know nothing about him. I only met him the once.”

“Quite a meeting, though. I should think every one of his nightmares ever since features you. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, Tom. You devil.”

Tom feels bile rise in his throat. “You know nothing about me, Keyson.”

“But we were such good friends,” he says with a frosty smile.

Tom wants to deny it and yet … and yet. “You betrayed that friendship.”

“Me?” Keyson’s face turns scarlet. “I betrayed you? Liar—you destroyed me. You dragged me through the mud and had me fired.”

Tom stands quickly, pushes himself away from the table, scared.

“You threw away your career, Marcus, you did it to yourself.”

With a squeal, Keyson pushes the table away so nothing stands between the two men—he reaches out to grab him by the throat.

“Is everything okay?” Candy is by Keyson’s shoulder looking concerned. “Do you need …?” She places her long fingers on his arm. Keyson pulls his arm away like it’s been burned and turns—snarling at the interruption.

“Get the fuck back to—” He pulls his arm up to swat her away.

Candy screams and shrinks back afraid.

“I’m sorry. So sorry. I—” He is immediately a civilized man again, but too late—she scampers back to the kitchen. A second later the chef emerges, a cleaver in his hand in case of trouble.

“Misunderstanding, nothing more. Sorry about that. We’ll leave immediately. Maybe the bill?” He smiles his most winning smile. The chef grunts and walks back into the kitchen. Keyson swings back to Tom.

“No more time for niceties. Patricia Lancing, the mother of your one true love, came to me to help find her daughter’s killer.”

Tom nods. “Changes in DNA profiling. The potential for matching samples with—”

“Oh drop it, Tom. DNA technology—don’t make me laugh. I don’t need a fucking microscope to solve this mystery. I just need to look past the cover-up.”

“What do you—”

“I’ve done it, Tom. I’ve found the killer of Danielle Lancing.”

The blood drains from Tom Bevans’s face.

Marcus Keyson smiles. “You killed her, Tom.”

Monday, December 20, 2010

She watches them sleep. Her parents. It probably crosses a line, to sneak into the bedroom and watch them—Dani isn’t sure her moral compass is so accurate these days. She sighs. They’re both fully clothed. Her mother is wrapped in a blanket. She’s drawn her legs up into her stomach, like a baby in the womb. Her father lies on the outer edge, almost falling off the bed, but his legs curl against Patty’s and they hold hands.

“Did you know that otters sleep holding hands?” Dani remembers telling her parents that fact one day when she was five or six. For a long time afterward, at bedtime, she was an otter and her dad would hold her hand while she fell asleep.

She reaches out to their entwined hands—maybe she could. She holds her hand just above theirs—it looks as if the three hands are joined—but they aren’t. She cannot grasp them and her hand slips through … she pulls it back. She can’t feel, can’t touch. Just watch. She knows she should be happy—if her parents could be together again, it would make her dad so happy. But what would it mean for her? Would he need her? He is her only link to the world—would she fade for him? Might she be completely alone? The thought fills her with dread. It’s hard enough at night, being alone while he sleeps and having nothing to do but watch over him and blow the cobwebs of fear from him when the nightmares come. If he turns
his back on her she will have nothing. Will she even exist with no anchor to life?

She looks out of the window. Snowflakes turn in the air once more. It will be dawn again soon—a new day. She closes her eyes and stretches out her hand to the glass; it slides through. She rises on her toes and leans—leans—leans forward and … she is through the glass and outside, in the air, falling? No, floating. Slowly she turns in the air like the snowflakes, twisting down, gravity has no effect on her, nor does the icy wind. She floats softly in the sky. A shooting star. There is a flash in her head—an explosion. She feels arms on her, holding her down—feels immense weight on her hips—something snaps. She hears a scream of pain—it must be her own voice. Hands squirm all over her, sharp pain in her arms—her wrists—smells of sweat, beer, sick. Her flesh is twisted, mouths bite her, suckle from her—a tongue forces into her mouth. White-hot, searing pain. She is violated. She falls through the air. The snow catches her. Her limbs and joints scream out—she burns. She opens her eyes. A face, a form.

“Tom?”

But he isn’t there. Just a memory.

“Jim. I killed a man.”

Patty’s words ricochet around his head. Alongside him she sleeps. It took a while to fall under after her confession. She wept, she curled in his arms and wept. He feels guilty but it made him happy. To hold her again.

He has no idea what the time is, but can see a dim light seep through the crack of the curtains. His body would appreciate more sleep but his mind is doing star-jumps. Patty killed a man.

He heads downstairs. In the kitchen he opens cupboard after
cupboard—desperate for coffee. It’s a kitchen with a lot of storage, but it’s mostly empty. There isn’t even any salt or pepper.

“Oh, thank you, Saint Java,” he exclaims when he finally strikes gold. In a scrunched up carrier bag, stuck down the back of the sink, he finds an old, half-empty jar of Nescafé. It’s nestled in the bag alongside a pile of individually wrapped plastic cutlery, a mound of sugar sachets and about twenty little ketchup pots and a mayonnaise dip with a sell-by date that passed three years ago. He pulls out the coffee jar and, with some effort, unscrews the lid. Inside the granules are congealed into a solid lump. He tries to hack some out with a plastic knife but it just snaps. So he boils some water—in a saucepan—and pours it into the jar. The granules start to dissolve and he pours them into a cup. He sips at the coffee—it’s disgusting, but he still drinks it.

“Jim. I killed a man.”

“Slow down, Patty. Tell me slowly.”

“Tom came to see me.”

“Tom … Tom Bevans?”

“He told me that Dani’s case would be reviewed—that there was a new way of analyzing evidence samples.”

“Hang on, Tom told you. Was he talking as a policeman, was it an official visit?”

“Yes, it was official. He said he wanted to do it himself rather than send some family officer.”