The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (13 page)

“I can do it. I know the short cuts.”

“But she might not even be there.”

“I know, but I have to do something.” Jim smiles at Dani and heads out. He knows she’s right, it’s a long way and the news says there’s no trains or buses—but it’s the only thing he can think to do. He’s tried calling but just gets an answering machine. He has to try to see Karan Noble. As he walks, he tries to remember Karan’s story.

Karan Noble had twin girls, Emma and Tamsin. At the age of eleven they disappeared. It was 1976, the hottest summer for decades, and the girls had been playing in the garden in an inflatable paddling pool they’d been given for their birthday. Karan had called them in for dinner at about six o’clock and there was no reply. No girls. Nobody was sure when they could remember seeing them last. There was lots of media interest initially, pretty girl twins, photogenic and newspaper-selling. But that died away as the reporters came up against a brick wall with the family. Karan shut herself away from the world and left it all to the husband who was a cold fish. With little media attention, the police found the trail quickly became cold. With no prodding from the family, it just all dropped. It was a mystery for seven years. Then, an accident in their street led the gas board to dig up most of the road and some gardens behind the houses. The twins’ bodies were found in the garden of Karan’s next-door neighbors, Ken and Sarah. For Karan, who had almost got her life back together, it was like losing them all over again. Maybe worse—now she knew there was no hope. And she had trusted Ken.
He had been the first person she had called when she found the girls missing. He had led the search around the neighborhood.

“We won’t give up, we’ll find them, Karan. Have faith,” he had said to her on the third day and she had wept in his arms. That memory, after her children’s bodies had been discovered, had made her physically sick.

He was arrested and pleaded guilty. He said he had invited them in for a cold drink and put on a film, a film of men having sex with teenage girls. When they tried to leave he stopped them. The police searched the house and discovered an entire cupboard filled with films and photographs of children being abused. There were photographs of Emma and Tamsin. He was convicted of their murders. Karan’s marriage had lasted just a few months after the girls went missing. By the time their bodies were found, their father was remarried, living in France with a four-year-old son. About a year after the neighbor was convicted, Karan Noble set up the charity Lost Souls. Its agenda was the campaign for stiffer penalties for endangering, harming and killing children, no matter the circumstance. As a secondary goal, it tried to fight for state funding to provide counseling for grieving parents, their extended family and friends.

Karan had passion for her cause, but no real knowledge of how that message could be put across to politicians and the press. Then she met Patty about six months after Dani was killed. In many ways they were made for each other. Patty was both a journalist and activist. She knew how to get stories in the papers and who to harangue. Oh, she could harangue. Karan was someone who could organize and structure. Patty was never someone who was going to build a charity from the ground up, but she could help to shape someone else’s cause. So Karan took on Patty as a kind of manager, to shape policy. Under Patty, Lost Souls became a
lobbying group, a powerful mouthpiece for anyone who had lost a loved one to violent crime. And of course it was Patty who became the public face of Lost Souls. When children went missing or were murdered, she was one of the first to be called by the press or TV for comment. Jim had hated that; he hadn’t liked the friendship that had developed between Patty and Karan. To him it didn’t seem based in support for each other but in a shared spite and pain. It hadn’t surprised him at all when Patty had confided in him, about a year after joining the charity, that Karan regularly paid money to see that the man who killed her children was beaten and abused in prison.

Jim walks without pausing until he reaches the South Bank, directly opposite St. Paul’s Cathedral, snow scattered over its dome like icing sugar. There he stops and leans on the railings. The beauty of it makes his heart soar.

“It’s lovely.”

He turns to see his daughter. He smiles, pleased to see her.

“Do you rem—” he starts.

“I remember you boring me witless talking about Wren and the dome and the flying buttresses.”

He laughs.

“Happy days.” She grins.

Silently the two of them stand by the river and watch London, a thousand years reflected in the shimmer of water.

“Shall we go?” Jim says as the cold sneaks into his fingers.

They push on, cold breath billowing from his mouth like steam. They walk past the National Theatre, toward Big Ben and Parliament. Then over the Thames, as the snow begins to fall once more, hard and heavy as the afternoon light dies.

They stand before the slate-gray building on the edge of Dryden Street and look up at its darkened windows. There might be a faint glow coming from the very top floor, it’s hard to tell. He looks at the run of intercom buttons down the right side of the door; the top two are for Lost Souls. He pushes them both, one after the other. There is a long wait before a weirdly crackling and rather irritated voice asks, “The office is closed. Who is it?”

“It’s Jim Lancing. You might remem—”

The intercom buzzes and the door pops open slightly. He pushes it forward, holding it wide as he turns back to Dani.

“I think it best if you stay down here.”

“Good, I’ll window shop.” She sounds quite excited.

“Okay. I don’t suppose I’ll be that long—an hour at most.”

“Rendezvous back here at seventeen hundred hours?” she asks.

“Fine.”

Dani smiles and turns away to walk toward the heart of Covent Garden.

He climbs three flights of a very steep circular staircase to get to the Lost Souls office. Theater posters adorn the walls of the first two flights. The second floor seems to be home to theatrical agents, though judging by the posters they seem to represent only second-rate ventriloquists, mesmerists, the runner-up in some ancient talent show and a fizzy blonde dance troupe that have had ten years airbrushed off them.

The top floor opens out onto an area that resembles a private dentist’s waiting room. There’s no one there, but there is a sign, propped on a small table. It reads:
PLEASE TAKE A SEAT
.

There’s an old leather sofa and three less comfortable-looking chairs. At the far end is a small receptionist’s desk. He chooses the
sofa and sinks comfortably into it. There’s a coffee table, but all it contains are the glossy flyers and annual reports of Lost Souls. He doesn’t pick one up. He’s seen them many times before and knows that on page four there is a picture of a stricken Patty holding up a photograph of Dani. He’d argued against its inclusion but Patty insisted. “Jim, the charity needs a public face. You need to poke people and show them the reality: loss and grief. Loss and grief sells.”

“Charities aren’t selling anything.”

“What century are you in?” She laughed. “Charities need to sell harder than anyone.”

Of course, deep down, Jim knew Patty was right. But he deeply resented their grief being used like that.

It takes Karan Noble about ten minutes, but finally she appears from a small door Jim hadn’t noticed. She’s a tall, slim woman, somewhere in her late sixties. Her hair is up, which gives her a sense of elegance. This is further enhanced by her plain silver jewelry, which highlights the silver in her hair. Jim has met her twice before. Both times he had felt she didn’t like him, didn’t trust him. Her eyes told him that he was judged. Now he sees something new in her eyes. She’s wary and looks a little afraid. He wonders what’s changed. She walks to the desk and stands behind it, as if it affords some protection to her.

“Mr. Lancing.”

“Mrs. Noble. I was hoping you might—”

“I really can’t help you. I don’t have any information I could share with you. Even if I had, I wouldn’t.”

Jim looks surprised. “I … it’s Patty.”

“Patty has made her own choice. She needed to act and she has done so.”

“What, hang on, what choice?” Jim stands and Karan Noble steps back. “I just want to know about Patty. I’ve tried to call and can’t reach her. I thought you might know something.”

She pauses. Karan Noble knows, she knows everything. She had watched Patty lose hope over the years, watched her anger die. She had even thought it a blessing; no one could live with that much rage. Then suddenly the fire burned again. Patty said nothing but Karan knew only one thing could make the anger return: the chance to catch him. The chance to kill him. She would never betray her friend.

“I don’t. I know nothing, Mr. Lancing.”

“A mobile number, an e-mail she might check.”

She pulls her arms tight around her defensively. “Nothing.”

“Please. Somewhere she might be?”

“I can’t. I would like you to leave.”

“I’m worried about Patty. I’m sure—”

Karan’s face clouds over. “My understanding is that Patty hasn’t seen you for years. That doesn’t sound like a man who cares.”

“That’s not right. I mean, it is years, but … I just …” He feels a headache begin. “This will sound crazy. Out of the blue I suddenly started thinking about her and I’ve been worrying about her ever since. I can’t get her out of my mind.”

Karan snorts a little and starts to shake her head.

Jim continues. “Something is happening and … and I think you know what it might be.”

She raises her eyebrow and then a wry smile creeps across her face. “My husband, ex-husband, had a heart attack two months ago. Not fatal, but serious.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s more than thirty years since he meant anything to me. I mention it because there was a time when I thought that if
anything happened to him—anything at all—that I would know, some intuition or something. But …”

“But everything changes when a partner moves on,” says Jim softly and Karan meets his gaze properly for the first time. She nods.