The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (43 page)

“We should go. All the arrangements are made but you need to sign something. Come here and meet one of the senior officers.”

Tom leads him over to the hatchet-faced DI. The three men talk, there’s a document signed. Then Tom guides Jim out of the underworld and back up to the land of the living.

They walk—heading to the station but in a meandering way.

“Do I smell?” Jim asks. He hasn’t washed or shaved in two days, can’t remember cleaning his teeth either.

“No,” Tom answers too quickly. “A little … you could brush your teeth.”

They stop at a pharmacy and buy a toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash. At the station, Jim goes into the toilets and cleans his
teeth. He also washes his face and, as no one else is there, takes off his shirt and cleans under his arms.

On the platform, Tom is in the waiting room. There are twenty minutes until the London train.

“Thank you, Tom,” Jim says, handing him a bar of Fruit and Nut he just bought from a machine.

Tom nods his head—his own graying head. He hasn’t shaved today either and the whiskers are starting to poke through the skin; each one is white.

“She should be in London in a couple of days,” Tom says, chewing a cube of slightly stale chocolate.

Jim doesn’t know who he means for a second—then realizes he means Dani. Dani’s body. The two of them sit quietly for a few minutes, then Tom breaks the silence.

“There will be an inquest, maybe next week …” He pauses. “Certain things will be excluded from the coroner’s report and missing from the inquest.”

“What do you mean?”

“The drug use—it isn’t relevant to the case.”

“Surely the police need …”

“Nothing will damage the police investigation. I just think there are certain things we don’t need made public. Patty needn’t know.”

“Is that possible?”

Tom nods solemnly. “Dani was a wonderful girl, a model student who met a tragic end.”

“That newspaper story?”

“Jim, don’t worry. Ben Bradman retracted that piece of filth and won’t repeat the allegation. Don’t worry. Trust me. And here.” Tom gives Jim a small bag. Jim looks inside—Dani’s diaries.

Jim nods, immensely grateful. Then he slides back into the mire of his thoughts while they wait for the train.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Audrey Cobhurn is sober now. She was pretty sober before she took the silver photo frame from Duncan’s office, undid the small black metal clasps and slid out the photo and mount. The mount had been glued and when she pulled it away, it took small scabs of the photograph with it. Below the mount she could see that the picture had been cut—but she could still see that resting on his arm was a hand, with long fingers that said: “He’s mine.” It was Dani Lancing’s hand.

It’s a little after midnight. All good children should be in their beds. She walks slowly through the dark house. It had been a family home just a fortnight ago, everyone looking forward to Christmas. Now it’s a mausoleum. She reaches the front door and turns to the coat rack. Lorraine’s jacket is there. Audrey pats it until she finds a lumpy pocket. Inside is her daughter’s phone and a small card; she slips both into her own pocket. Taking extra care to be silent, she opens the front door and takes a step outside. It’s a chill night; she wasn’t thinking. She grabs a big duffel coat from beside the door and puts it on. It’s too big—was Duncan’s—still smells of him. She breathes deeply.

“Careful …” a voice from a long way off—was that him?

She wraps her arms tightly around herself—she’s about to pull the door shut but remembers something. She goes back inside and
pats at another of Lorraine’s pockets. Inside is a packet of cigarettes. She takes them and then shuts the door.

She hurries off, not wanting Lorraine to follow if the door woke her. When she’s turned a left and a right she slows down to a normal pace. She pulls out the packet of cigarettes and looks inside. Three left, plus a slim lighter. She takes one and lights it. She sucks the smoke deep down. It’s the first one she’s had in more than ten years. She’d given up for Duncan.

“Those things’ll kill ya,” he’d said.

He gave them up one day, just like that. He didn’t preach at her, but you could see he didn’t like her smoking. She’d carried on about nine months after him and then stopped. But her stopping required patches, gum and a mink coat from Harrods. Even then she fell off the wagon a few times. But now, what’s the point? Who wants to live forever?

She smokes it right down to the butt, maybe even a little beyond. Then she takes the little card and taps the number into Lorraine’s phone. She dials. It takes at least twenty rings but finally it’s answered.

“Patricia Lancing,” a sleepy voice answers.

“It’s Audrey Cobhurn. I realize this is late, but I hoped we could meet.”

Patty rushes, the little heels of her black shoes typewriter-clacking on the paving stones as she heads through the empty marketplace, up to the cathedral and Audrey Cobhurn. Patty steals a glance at a clock on a small church—it’s just before 1 a.m. She puts on a further burst of speed. The path is steep and twists; she has to be careful. She wishes she’d brought her running shoes with her—anything other than funeral clothes. To her left are the gates to Dani’s
college. If she goes up to them she could probably see Dani’s dorm room where they delivered her all those years ago. All … she stops as her stomach twists and sends pain up her back and down her legs. She’s eaten nothing since she left Jim that morning—yesterday morning now. Nothing, except about a dozen assorted pills. She remembers that day so clearly. Freshers’ week 1986. Patty had never been to Durham before Dani applied. She immediately saw how beautiful it was—Dani’s school at the top of the city, nestled in the bosom of the cathedral like Mount Olympus. But she remembers feeling unease—were these children the new gods? They seemed to think they were with ramrod straight backs, ultra white teeth and confidence oozing from every pore of their perfect skin. It was the kind of privilege she had so often complained about … and there was Dani inside it all.

“I’m not just some young version of you, Mum. Your values make me sick. Physically fucking sick.” The words echo through Patty’s head all this time later.

Patty runs on, turns a corner and suddenly it’s there. The claustrophobic feel of the twisting streets breaks into the magnificence of the Cathedral Square dominated by the grandeur of the building itself. It takes Patty’s breath away. Directly in front of the edifice is a rectangular lawn. To the side is an ancient burial ground, stones toppled like steed fallen in battle. Surrounding the lawn, the ground is cobbled, undulated like strafed soil. It’s freezing. Patty can see the breath roll from her mouth and float upward, disappearing into the night. Patty doesn’t trust the cobbles, and walks onto the grass—heading straight to the maw of the cathedral.

“I’m not just some young version of you, Mum. Your values make me sick. Physically fucking sick.” The same words again. Patty remembers them so clearly: she said them to her mother on
the day she left for university. And she never went home again. Did she deserve them—her poor mother? Patty doesn’t really remember. But what is a mother for—to keep you safe and protect you—isn’t that what a mother should do? Her own couldn’t. So Patty never went home again. And Dani?

“Here.” A voice calls out from the shadows.

Patty can just make her out—standing before huge oak doors, almost close enough to touch sanctuary. Yesterday she reminded Patty of a swan—elegant and long but bowed. Grief piled on her head and shoulders and yet she carried it with a great dignity. But in this moonless half-light, Patty’s impression is of a hawk. Her head is hooded yet her eyes sparkle from the shadows, her talons ready to strike. This does not seem the same woman.

Patty walks to her, like a fly approaching a spider. Audrey stands there, in the shadow of the cathedral. Patty can’t see her face, but can see that her arms shake.

“You asked me to come,” Patty calls out.

“Did you kill my husband?” Audrey Cobhurn steps forward, out of the gloom. She is completely altered—her face twitches, writhes as if worms tunnel beneath a mask. She looks as if she is consumed by the hunger to know the truth. Patty knows that look, has seen it on a hundred women at Lost Souls, and on her own face for so many years. She feels sick. This is it: she cannot run, would not want to.

Patty feels herself slice into the hand of Duncan Cobhurn.

“I … cut him.”

All she needed was a few drops of blood. Instead, she cut a river into his hand, through muscle and tendons—down to bone. She caused pain, damage, took revenge; tortured an innocent man. Tears stream down her face. All over, all gone. She thinks of Jim. All she wants now is to hold Jim’s hand, to walk with him down to
the river, kiss him and tell him that she loves him. She wants to live again. But it’s too late.

“Please,” Audrey Cobhurn says in a small voice. “Tell me the truth.”

Patty breathes. So many images flash through her mind. Dani’s face on the missing poster, Jim’s tears when he thought he couldn’t be seen, Tom’s face cracking open with grief, and her own face palsied by loss. The faces of all those students—children really—hundreds of them, saying how they loved and missed Dani. Each one thanking God it wasn’t them. Patty feels the shame and guilt of the countless hours she had wished each and every one of them had been raped and murdered, so long as it hadn’t happened to Dani. Blame and shame and guilt. Blame and shame and guilt. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone—not if she could save them.

“Yes. I killed your husband.”

“I so wish you hadn’t said that,” says Jim-in-her-head.

She sighs, knowing she has lost him now, lost all the love she had known those last wonderful few days.

“I had to, Jim,” she tells the man in her head. “She needs peace. I can’t let her suffer like we have, not knowing. I couldn’t do that to another human being. And the truth is that I killed him.”

“You killed him accidentally.”

“No, I didn’t. I took revenge … I killed him. Please, Jim, let me go. I need to take my medicine.”

Patty closes her eyes, expecting the world to end. Either Audrey will pull out a phone and call 999—come and arrest a murderer—or she will take a carving knife from her pocket and run Patty through. She waits, prepared for either. For what seems like an eternity there is nothing—Audrey Cobhurn merely watching her husband’s killer—but she does not move or make a sound. Then she pulls something from her pocket.

“Here it comes … here it comes … Be brave,” thinks Patty.

“Look,” Audrey says, her voice cracking with emotion. She holds something. Patty stays bowed.

“Look, damn you!” she screams, crossing the distance between them until they are almost nose to nose. Patty opens her eyes, and sees that Audrey holds a photo.

“Dani?”

Audrey drops the photo, it spins to earth—Patty instinctively moves to catch it, like a leaf spilling from a tree in autumn. It lands face up in her hands and she cups it.

“I’ve never seen this picture …” she whispers, more to herself. She does not remember Dani ever being so glamorous, ever looking so grown up and happy.

“Where did you get this?” Patty asks the widow.

With a cruel smile, Audrey produces another picture … no, the same picture, the other half of the same picture. She holds it just by the corner—as if it might burst into flame.

“My husband,” she says, like an introduction at a party.

Twenty years younger, but him. Patty recognizes the man she killed. Audrey hands the two pieces to Patty who puts them together. They fit perfectly.

“I don’t understand.”

“Forgive me,” the widow says.

“What? Why?” Patty’s head is spinning.

“I didn’t mean it to happen, I just couldn’t lose him—I loved him so much, he was my world. I told Lorraine—but she already knew—knew her from university. Knew your daughter, had seen them together.”

“What do you mean, together?” Patty asks but Audrey Cobhurn doesn’t hear the question. She sees the young beautiful woman
again. Sees Dani Lancing, who has listened to all Audrey has to say—all she has to offer and then …