The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (40 page)

“There he goes.” Grant Ronson pulls the binoculars from his eyes and slips them into his pocket. He bloody loves this. He grabs the bag and makes for the door, shouting back as he heads out, “You were brilliant—bloody Blofeld. We have information, Meester Bond—classic.”

“Remember what we are looking for, Mr. Ronson.”

“Mr. Ronson—classic.”

“A small leather book—not a regular published book, the spine will almost certainly be blank.”

“Got it, Ernst Stavro.” And he is out of the door and gone.

Marcus Keyson watches him go. An idiot. But loyal and good in a scrap—that was Keyson’s assessment of his employee. But it was the “idiot” bit that worried him at the moment. The last time he had asked Ronson to break into a house to recover something, he had taken far longer than he should, as he’d been raiding the wife’s lingerie drawer and leaving her a “present.” They had an hour maximum. They had to be quick.

Jim was only at the end of the road when he realized he didn’t have his phone. Patty might need him. He turned and rushed back to the house. He knew exactly where it was. He would grab it and still be at the Royal Observatory in time to meet the mystery voice.

As soon as he opened the front door he knew something was wrong. It wasn’t any kind of sixth sense. Someone was upstairs, opening drawers, moving furniture and whistling
The Dam Busters
theme very loudly. What should he do? Not confront the man—he should back out and call the police—but his phone was just inside the kitchen. He could get it in a few steps, then get out and call the police. The intruder upstairs was making too much noise to hear him. He couldn’t see a second man. Jim moved as slowly as possible. It was twenty paces to the kitchen. He got the phone in his hand, flipped it open—dialed 99 …

Jim crumples from the blow to the top of his head. The phone spills onto the floor. Keyson retrieves it and turns it off. He looks down at the unconscious man.

“I am very sorry, Mr. Lancing. This shouldn’t have occurred.” He steps over the body. “Ronson, you idiot,” he screams up the stairs.

He feels his head move—not that he did it himself. No, someone is holding it and … “Shit. Shit. Shit.” A finger pokes into his skull and everything explodes. Sticky and wet. Jim feels sticky and wet.

“Jim. Jim.”

There is a voice from somewhere. Jim tries to open his eyes but …

“Too hard.”

“Jim. Here.”

Something pressed to his lips. Water. At least he thinks it’s water. He manages a sip.

“Need sleep.” Jim starts to slip away again.

“Jim!”

Water hits his face.

“Try and talk,” the voice says again. Jim attempts to open his eyes to see who’s talking. He thinks it may be God or an angel.

“Jim,” God says with a slap to his face.

“You are an angry god,” Jim croaks.

“Jim, you’ve been cracked on the head. There’s a lot of blood but I don’t think it’s serious.”

You don’t expect that sort of talk from God.

“Jim. Can you understand me?”

“Who are you?” Jim asks, beginning to think it isn’t God.

“Jim, it’s Tom. Tom Bevans. We need to talk.”

Jim forces his eyes to focus. “Tom. It’s good to see you. I might pass out again.”

“No, you don’t. Come on, walk around—have you got any painkillers?”

“Kitchen.” Tom helps him to his feet and walks him into the
kitchen. Jim sits at the table—pointing to the drawer with painkillers. Tom finds them and gets a glass of water.

“Thanks.” Jim takes the ibuprofen and swallows them down. “What time is it?”

Tom looks at his watch. “Eight o’clock. When were you hit?”

“Erm … one-ish. I think.” It all seems very hazy. Jim opens his eyes to see he is in the living room but the room has been demolished.

“Patty.” Jim suddenly starts to panic. “Where’s Patty?”

“You’ve got a few texts.” Tom hands over Jim’s phone. “I hope you don’t mind—I read them. Patty’s fine but she isn’t coming home tonight. She says she’s got a hotel room—there are things she needs to think about. But …” Tom pauses. “She isn’t going to confess, she says. What do you think she means, Jim?”

Jim looks into Tom’s face. He has not seen the younger man for a few years. He tries to keep his expression neutral. “I have no idea, Tom.”

Tom sighs. “Oh, Jim. I know all about Duncan Cobhurn.”

Jim looks Tom in the eye—but he doesn’t feel scared.

Tom sighs again and holds his hands palms up. “Patty is safe from me. I’m not here as a policeman, but I don’t know how safe she actually is. She’s in trouble, Jim.”

“Why?”

“She’s got involved with a nasty piece of work. Do you know who hit you?”

“Didn’t see him. Someone was upstairs, pulling things apart and whistling
The Dam Busters
.”

“That’ll be the charming Grant Ronson.”

“Who?”

“He’s listed as a private detective, but really he’s an errand boy
used for your more unpleasant jobs. He’s been most recently in the employ of Dr. Marcus Keyson.”

“Hang on …” Jim fights the swirling broken thoughts in his head and tries to piece his memory back together. “Patty saw him—he’s a pathologist.”

“He’s a psychopath.”

“She hired him—he was helping her.”

“Helping himself, more likely. Look, he and I have some history and, take it from me: he is not a good guy.”

“And that’s who could be trouble for Patty?”

“He’s trouble for all of us.”

“So why was he ransacking the place here?”

“I think he wanted something you had.”

“Had?”

“I assume he found it.”

“What?”

Tom hesitates; his eyes fall away from Jim’s gaze. “Dani’s diary.”

“There are lots of diaries, she always kept a …” Jim trails off. “You mean her university diary?”

Tom nods.

“But, how did he know about it? You told me you’d wiped all trace of it from the files.” Jim starts to panic.

“I did. The investigating officers never saw it but … I missed something. I never changed the evidence sheet from the crime scene. I mean, nobody ever goes back and looks at those.”

“But this Keyson obviously did.”

“He has the entire file. I don’t know how he got it, but he has. He’s got the original log. All you have to do is compare the two and see the diary was logged in at the crime scene but never made it to the evidence list.”

Jim closes his eyes and desperately thinks back. That day at the morgue, Tom had disappeared to do some paperwork with a hatchet-faced officer. Afterward, they’d waved something in his face to sign. Later Tom gave him a small bag.

“Here. Don’t look now, just take it home. We can’t leave it here for the investigation.”

Jim hadn’t realized what he had at the time. It was only when they were back in London that he looked. There, in the bag, were two small diaries. He’d been excited at first, hoped it might tell him something—even have clues as to who had killed Dani. But of course there was nothing. The diaries only reached the end of that first miserable year. Nothing to do with her death but told of that dreadful time with …

“So he knows all about Seb Merchant?”

Tom nods.

“Has he told Patty?” Jim asks, worried.

“I have no idea.”

“Hell,” Jim feels a sharp pain cycle round his head. He tries hard to concentrate again. “So who is this Keyson? What does he want?”

Tom looks across at the older man; he’s worried about his head wound.

“First, let’s give that head some attention. We can talk while I clean it. Do you have iodine?”

“Bathroom—under the sink.”

Tom nods and walks away. He returns shaking his head. “This stuff is five years past its sell-by-date.”

“Wouldn’t worry.”

Tom takes a small cloth and tips the iodine into it and then dabs at Jim’s bloody head. Jim winces but says nothing.

“Marcus Keyson—he worked with us—he was the pathologist allocated to Operation Ares.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Sorry, Jim. I forget you aren’t a copper. Operation Ares is a special task force, a unit within the Serious Crime Division. I head it up—we investigate sexual murder where we think there are multiple victims or there’s some unusual element to the case.”

Jim nods slowly. It was a bigger memorial to Dani than he could imagine.

“You save lives? Punish the wicked?” Jim asks.

“We try.” Tom sees Sarah Penn’s face. The photo from Ibiza and her dead face morph together. Three years dead. She’s waiting for him in the dark somewhere with the others, needing his attention and help. “I try.”

“So he worked with you?” Jim tries to get Tom back on track.

“Yeah … Keyson was our pathologist—a brilliant man. Quite honestly there are two murderers—at least—who we would not have caught without him.”

“So why did he hit me over the head if he’s a good guy?”

“Oh, I don’t think Marcus Keyson’s a good guy. But I didn’t think he was a bad guy either.” Tom stops to concentrate as he cleans into the deepest part of the wound. “He was kicked off the force. Dishonorable discharge, no pension, no consultancy, no references—nothing. He was lucky he wasn’t arrested; they just kicked everything under the carpet.”

“What did he do?” Jim asks.

“He took bribes to tamper with evidence. Not on any of our cases, but others he worked on. There were two cases in particular. In the first he was caught changing drug results on a hit-and-run drink-drive. They found Keyson was sleeping with the wife and daughter in payment to get the father acquitted. There was another big case: a woman was driving over the limit—she plowed into three children on the pavement. Two dead, one in a wheelchair
for life. He purposefully contaminated the evidence against the driver—at trial it all fell apart and she walked away scot-free.”

“But I don’t understand what this has to do with us.”

“I …” Tom looks ashamed. “I’m the reason he was investigated. He was my friend. I was at his house one night after work. I dropped by with a bottle, out of the blue. The wife of the defendant was there and I recognized her. I called the DPS. I sold him out and got him kicked off the force.”

“So he hates you.”

“Pretty much. He certainly blames me for everything that’s gone wrong for him.”

“But why was he at my house?”

Tom hesitates.

“I told him about Dani—years back, when we were still friends. Told him she was murdered and I loved her. Then, a couple of months ago, Patty went to see him to ask him to investigate Dani’s death. It was a freak coincidence that she found him. She mentioned me and he saw it as a way to get his revenge, to hurt me.”

“How, how could he hurt you?”

Tom’s eyes flash for second. “He knows I … he knows I withheld evidence from the reports on Dani.”

“I see. He got kicked off the force for tampering with evidence and he wants you to get the same treatment.”

Tom nods. “But … there’s something else.”

“Something to do with Dani’s death.”

“Something I did that I’m ashamed of. If he makes it public it will ruin me, my work, the team will be disbanded. Those girls … they need to be remembered.”

Jim nods. “I need to get to Patty.” He tries to take a step but is still woozy. He staggers and Tom catches hold of him.

“I’ll drive,” Tom tells him. “It’s a while since I’ve been to Durham.” He almost smiles.

The front door slams into place as they leave. As Jim walks away from the house he thinks he sees a slight shape inside. He holds his hand up and waves awkwardly. Dani waves back; his chest flares, he is so happy to see her again. He puts his lips to his mouth and blows her a kiss. He needs her to know she is loved.

“Jim?” Tom is at the car. He turns, unsure of what Jim is doing.

“Coming, Tom.”

From inside, Dani watches the two men get into the car and drive off. Tears trickle down her cheeks. She didn’t know a ghost could cry before this. She does now.

She is scared for them. And for herself. Slowly her pale face fades from the room until she is gone.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The widow is alone. After the morning’s funeral Lorraine brought her home. She would not go to bed and so her daughter made a daybed for her in the sitting room. On the table there is a sandwich, untouched. Cold tea sits there too, a scum formed on the top. Audrey had tried to lie down but she felt nauseous and sat up. For a long time she has just stared out of the window, but she feels a need for … Lorraine has gone through the room removing anything and everything she thought might trigger her mother’s grief. Normally the room is awash with family photographs—but now they are all packed away somewhere. Audrey feels a deep desire to see his face again.