The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (30 page)

She’s dead.

He doesn’t actively think, “I’ll break my orders,” but he looks at his watch at 5:30 a.m. and is aware that he should be telling Patty and Jim that Dani is gone. He pulls the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and slides the button down. He croaks into it.

“Sarge?”

“Bevans?”

“I’m heading over to the Lancings’.”

“Oh fuck, Tom, don’t do that. The brass’ll be there in half an hour or so. Let them deal with it.”

“Sorry, Sarge. I’m not in uniform, I’m off-duty and a family friend. I won’t say anything about hearing the news from you. Sarge … Jack, I am very grateful.” Tom drops his finger off the call button.

“Bevans. Bevans … Fuck.”

Tom turns the volume down low and puts it in the bag with his uniform. He knows his sarge is right, but this is his duty. The DS from Durham can deal with the shit from the press. Tom can’t think about that, all he knows is that two people are in pain. And, it strikes him only now, that it’s two people he loves. Sort of, certainly two people he has become close with, cares about. Is that love? He stands and swings his bag onto his shoulder. Then he heads out.

“What the hell are you doing? Do you know what they call you? ‘The pup.’ Stupid love-struck pup. She says you follow me around drooling like some lost dog.” He hears Dani’s voice in his head.

It had been his third visit to her in Durham, the third term of her first year. He’d gone for the weekend and right from the start she’d been eager to pick a fight. He’d said something about Patricia—
something nice—and Dani had blown up. Tom hadn’t risen to the bait; he could see what was going on. A lot of their friendship had been born out of each of them moaning about their mothers. Dani liked to riff on her absent, career-obsessed mother and Tom would tell stories of his mother’s drinking, offensive boyfriends and the beatings. Then his mum died.

It was the middle of Dani’s second term, that first year. Dani hadn’t come to the funeral. He had hoped she would, had asked her to, but she was busy and had tests. It was a dismal turnout. An aunt he barely knew. A woman who said she knew her from bingo and three drinking mates who sat in the back row and raised cans of Special Brew to their lips as a parting toast.

Tom sat alone, in the front row. He wore his uniform. He wasn’t sure why but it helped keep him strong—it was unseemly for a copper to blub in public. He sat there waiting for the vicar, wishing for the day just to be over. Then someone slipped in beside him and a hand gripped his. He looked over and it was Patricia. She didn’t say anything, just winked at him.

After the funeral they walked together, around the cemetery. There was no wake. No sandwiches starting to curl in the back room of a pub somewhere. Instead, the young policeman and the mother of his love walked and talked. Well, she smoked and he talked. He talked of his mother—but it wasn’t the complaints and horror stories he might have told Dani. Instead it was tales of laughs, fun and shared happiness: the time when this happened, that broke, they got lost going there, she used salt instead of sugar … good times. And under the outstretched wings of a stone angel, in a field of the fallen, Patricia folded Tom into her arms and stroked his head while he cried.

“Poor pup,” she had said, comfortingly.

Of course, the minute he’d heard that Dani was missing, he had gone to them. “What can I do? What do you need?” Patricia and Jim appreciated it. They weren’t being taken seriously in Durham, they said. They wanted him to check out the progress from inside the force. That was his mission—if he chose to accept it. He did.

After Dani had been missing for seven days, Tom was at the Lancings’ every evening for an update. On his days off he went to Durham and talked to the police there. He went alone, even though he knew Patricia was going too—sometimes with Jim, but other times alone. He liked spending time with Jim, but often Patricia scared him. He had no idea what drugs the doctors had prescribed for her, but he thought no human being should be that tightly wound. Her grief scared him. It felt like a violent cloud that hung over anyone that came close to her. In her presence he felt frustrated—like a child furious at the injustice of the world and yet unable to do anything to change it. At least with Jim he could put a hand on his shoulder, connect at some level. With Patricia, she was inside some private bubble, waiting and waiting and waiting for her daughter to come home.

“Oh, Jesus.” A sob convulses him. She isn’t coming home. Not for them and not for him.

“Dani!” he howls, filling the park with pain.

For a second he’s outside his body looking in, watching some old, old man weep for his lost love. The pain screws his face until it shatters like fine porcelain in a fire. Then the wind changes and he’s stuck like it. The Sad Man is born.

Jim stands in Dani’s bedroom and looks out at the encroaching day. He likes to be in there; it still smells of her: coconut shampoo and menthol cigarettes. She’d been home for just two disastrous days at Christmas. They had rowed and … they hadn’t had enough time. They hadn’t even spoken to her on her birthday. The first time … but he mustn’t think like that. She’d be back soon and the room—her room, was ready. He’d changed the bedding only a few days before and bought a new toothbrush and the toothpaste she likes. When she’s found, she’ll need to be looked after, be in comfort and safety. That’s their job, their only … Through the window he sees Tom enter their road, walk a little way and stop on the corner. Jim feels his stomach churn. He can see the young man batting at his face, like a wasp is buzzing around. Then he realizes Tom is crying.

Jim’s throat closes up; he finds it hard to breathe.

“Patty.” He thinks of his wife next door, asleep for the first time in days—even if it is purely due to sedation. Tom will be here, will knock in about a minute. Why is he crying?

Jim is out of the front door as quietly as he can. He’s in the street before he realizes he’s still in his pajamas. He looks down the road—Tom’s still where Jim last saw him—was that good news? He walks toward Tom, each step becomes a wish, a prayer. “Let her be alive. Found alive. Found alive.” Hope.

Tom sees him approach and tries to pull himself together. He remembers the first time they ever spoke, after they both watched Dani run. He even remembers the stupid thumbs-up he gave him that day. The pain spasms the policeman. Jim sees the pain and slows. There is no good news. There is no hope. Their eyes lock like two gunslingers facing off at dawn. Tom shakes his head and the tears stream. With a cry, like he’s been shot, the pajama-clad man falls to the ground.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Marcus Keyson sees the way her hand shakes. After a while he discounts nervous energy and decides she has Parkinson’s, probably early stages, and isn’t fully managing her medication yet. While she talks he watches her. She looks like a runner, very thin but muscular, powerful. She could have been a looker when she was young; she has the bone structure for it. Her eyes are the real point of attraction, they actually seem to burn as she talks about her daughter. Though, truth be told, he’s pretty much zoned out of her story, just the odd nod here and there. Something she said early on sent his mind spinning.

Finally she stops talking and looks at him expectantly, like a puppy. He nods slowly; that always seems to put people at their ease.

“Mrs. Lancing, I will need to look into this further. I have ex-colleagues I can talk to, I have a relationship with the Durham coroner’s office. But just to recap, you mentioned Detective Inspector Tom Bevans—he’s an old friend—was he involved with the original investigation?”

“No, not really, just by … he … he was Dani’s friend.”

“Friend?”

“He … does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He was … he loved her.”

“She loved him?”

She pauses. “No, not in that way.”

Bingo.

After she leaves, he googles her. Award-winning crime journalist, first with the
Northern Echo
and then the
Independent
. There are dozens of articles she’d written over the years. Two books, one titled
Wives of the Killers
, which seems to be a series of interviews, and
The Ugly Man
. Both have great reviews and the second won two prestigious awards. There are also press releases and news stories linking her to Lost Souls, a charity campaigning for victims’ rights. Next he googles images of her and there are many: one of her accepting an
Evening Standard
prize, a National Journalism Award for an interview with Sonia Sutcliffe, another of her on a demo and a few at Greenham Common. The best is one of her haranguing Margaret Thatcher. He was right: she had been quite a looker back then. He feels excited, his whole body tingles. The long-dead girl and Tom Bevans. And … something else is pulling at threads in the back of his mind. A long-ago tragedy. He struggles to remember—a note he had seen twenty years before. A suicide note. It spoke of shame, corruption and … lance. Was that it? Lancing? He shakes his head—the thread will not unravel. Instead he turns back to the job in hand and flicks the intercom.

“Can you come in here please, Lauren?” he asks.

A few seconds later his assistant limps in.

“I need you to find me an investigator in Durham. They’re to
find out names and addresses for anyone involved in the investigation of a murder. Danielle Lancing, February 1989.”

Lauren starts to make notes.

“I want to know the name and current address of every copper on the murder team back then. I also want to know who was writing up the notes, and where any samples and evidence are kept. Okay?”

She smiles. Everything is okay as far as she’s concerned.

“And …” He pauses. “Gerald Spurling. I think you’ll find he was the coroner on the case. I’d like to see his reports from the public record.”

“Okay.” She nods.

“And can you check on the state of forensic review with Durham CID, make it sound general but I need to know about this girl, Dani Lancing. Why is her case coming up now, is it just luck or did someone request a review?”