The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (18 page)

“Oh, hi, Dani. This is cool.”

Except, even he knows that saying anything’s cool would be romantic suicide. Maybe he should keep quiet. And not dance. Christ, it’s really difficult—especially when his heart’s flailing like Keith Moon on a bender.

Under the chair he has a hip flask for them, well, mostly for her, filled with vodka he’s nicked from his mum’s stash under the bed. When she arrives he should say nothing, just hand her the flask and go back to the music. That is wha—

Someone moves in next to him, into Dani’s seat.

“No, that’s ta—”

“Hi, Tom,” the girl shouts, smiling broadly.

“Tash?”

She leans across and pecks him on the cheek, then smiles a little flirtatiously. She’s a girl from their class, not someone he knows well. She’s pretty with a very sharp nose. He’s only ever seen her in glasses before, but she must be wearing contact lenses. Her hair seems glittery too. She has a lot of lipstick on; he thinks he must have a little kiss tattoo from her peck on his cheek.

“Good to see you, Tash. Someone else will be here in a minute though, that’s her seat.”

“No. It’s mine.” She waves the ticket stub at him. “I bought it this afternoon off Dani Lancing.”

“Oh!”

“She said you’d be here. Said you’d look after me.” She smiles broadly. He pulls the hip flask from under his chair and passes it to her. She takes a chug from the flask, cut short as she coughs and splutters from the bite of the alcohol in her throat.

She laughs. “Shit, Tom.”

Later he walks her home. His eardrums still throb and hum. Tash had loved the night. She’d danced, screamed and drunk the whole hip flask. Her face is deeply flushed and she walks with a pronounced sway. She hadn’t been bad company, but Tom was deeply disappointed by the evening. He would have liked to have gone straight home to bed, pulled the covers up over his head and escaped into sleep. Not an option. He couldn’t leave Tash to get home alone, could he? But he was a bit worried about her parents chasing him down the road, screaming that he’d got their darling daughter drunk.

They barely speak on the walk home. Tash doesn’t mind; in fact it helps to build the mystique of this pale thin boy. She has just had one of the best nights of her life and is thinking this edgy young man has earned himself a reward. Just before they get to her road, she stops by a house with a large hedge. The house is dark and the closest streetlight is broken. It’s almost black in that little part of London. She takes Tom’s hand and pulls him toward her. She leans over and plants her mouth on his, her tongue pushing forward through his closed lips and into his mouth.

He kisses her back, eyes closed, imagining it’s Dani. She tastes like vodka. Tash takes his hand and brings it up to her shirt. He cups her breast.

“Nice,” she says and kisses harder, her teeth nipping his lip. The
little dab of pain breaks the spell—it isn’t Dani. Tom takes his hand away from her breast and gently ends the kiss.

“We need to get you home,” he says and draws her out of the shadows, the way you might lead a toddler, and walks her home.

In a small grubby flat above a kebab shop on Streatham High Street, Dani lies on a sofa. There isn’t much light in the flat. What there is shows the walls are covered in drawings, like some primitive cave. The smells of greasy roasting flesh fill the room, mingling cloyingly with a sweet incense of vanilla and sandalwood, both scents fighting against the heavy fug of dope smoke.

Dani tries to get up, off the sofa, but her body doesn’t respond like it normally does. It’s as if she’s floating in treacle. Everything is disjointed. She tries to speak, but slurs, she understands nothing she hears. She feels the joint back at her lips, but she no longer has the ability to suck the smoke into her lungs. There is music from somewhere, plaintive and soulful, but she can’t make out the lyrics.

Her beautiful art student takes a final draw on the joint and holds it there, looking down at the young woman almost comatose on his sofa. Then he leans forward, opens her mouth with thumb and finger, and blows the smoke in, watching it billow around her lips and then up into the air.

She feels the tug but is not sure what it is. Her jeans are pulled down and taken off. Then her knickers. She falls asleep.

Monday, October 18, 2010

A cheeseburger waddles past, waving a handful of flyers.

“Happy Meal?” it asks.

Patty looks blankly at it.

“Okay, have a good day.” It shrugs and ambles away to accost a large group of tourists. Patty turns to the restaurant and peers through the glass; she can see very little evidence of anyone inside feeling any joy. She pushes the door and goes in. The traffic sounds die behind her, to be replaced by the hubbub of twenty different languages fighting to be heard over the noise of deep-fat frying.

She spots Keyson immediately. He sits in the corner. Somehow he’s folded his large frame into a garishly colored booth that seems designed for toddlers. He looks like a giant in a fairy tale, made all the more surreal as he’s surrounded by a group of yelping Japanese exchange students who crowd the tables around him. Patty takes a deep breath, as if about to dive underwater, then she steps forward.

There is ketchup in the corner of his mouth, making him look a little like a vampire—eyes glazed over, sated by his gorging. Then he sees her and a genuine smile creases his face. She crosses the room, avoiding the mustard and BBQ landmines. He pulls his coat from the seat opposite and she slides into it.

“No trouble finding the place?” he asks.

“I used to work close by.”

“I’m giving evidence at the Old Bailey later, so it was a good option to meet here.” He slurps the last of his shake and dabs at his large mouth with a tiny serviette.

Then something shifts and a cloud crosses his face as he slips awkwardly into professional mode. He starts to say something but it’s obliterated by a sudden cackle of Japanese. “Where the hell is Godzilla when you need him?” Patty thinks.

“I missed that, can you repeat what you said?” she asks with annoyance and leans toward him close enough to smell the tang of gherkin and special sauce.

“There was a prime suspect in your daughter’s case, did you know that?”

The world becomes silent. Around her, mouths from across the globe chew the cud of news from home: latest fashions, crazes, diets or plain who-fancies-who and what they did or didn’t do. The world goes on around her, but nothing touches her consciousness. Nothing but Keyson’s words.

“Prime suspect … no.”

Keyson nods sagely as if confirming some ground-breaking theory. “The detective at the time seemed to feel there was a strong case. I’m reading between the lines, of course, but there was a partial print from your daughter’s left hand on the boot of this man’s car.”

He punches her hard, the lip is ripped by the teeth, blood vessels burst bleeding into soft tissue, the bruise blossoms like poppies on her cheek. The blow spins her, balance shifts and she falls sideways—her hand strikes the car just before her hip does. Slam! She is lifted off her feet for a fraction of a second as her head snaps back. Even six years of ballet can’t keep her on her feet as she begins to fall. Her arms start to wave, trying to regain balance but it is too late, she is past the point of no return as she falls. In a second he
is on her, punching her chest, face, shoulder, forehead—until all goes black.

“Patricia?” Keyson waves his hand in front of her face, bringing her back.

“Yes, yes, I’m … please, tell me the rest.”

He hesitates, seeming to be unsure of what to say next. “There is also a sample of …” He stops and looks down to his notes.

“Tell me.” She holds her breath.

He coughs and, in a monotone, continues. “Semen was recovered postmortem. It may be adequate for testing.”

Patty gulps in air. “That’s wonderf—”

“But …” he cuts her dead, “there is no sample from any suspect.”

“I don’t fully understand what—”

“It means that when the police get around to your daughter’s case they can profile the DNA and check it against the national database.”

“And that’s over five million people.”

“Exactly. And you might be lucky and find that the killer is in there.”

“But …”

“The
but
is that your prime suspect may not be in the database—won’t be, unless he’s had a DNA sample taken for another reason.”

Patty nods. She feels the hopelessness spreading around her like ink in water.

“And …” He shakes his head. “I spoke to someone at the DNA database. Your man was right—it will be at least four years before your daughter’s case is opened. I even told them you might be dead before then. They didn’t care.”

Patty wants to roll into a ball. Tom was right: she shouldn’t have got her hopes up. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Well …” He leans in closer to her. “I have a contact.” He stops and chews his lip.

The penny drops; now she understands why they’ve met here and not at Keyson’s office. She’s seen men act like this many times, when they had information to sell to the newsroom. This is about a bribe.

His voice drops as low as it can possibly go. “I can get your daughter’s case file. That would include all samples.”

“But …”

“You’re right, there is a big but. Two big buts. The first is that I would need a pretty hefty amount of money to secure this.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand pounds. That’s for my contact, you understand.”

She nods. “The second but?”

“Do this—get the evidence illegally—and it will destroy any case against the killer.”

“But if the sample matches?”

“Doesn’t matter. If the evidence is out of police control, even for a second, it’s useless.”

“But with the DNA match I could prove it was him, show the results to the news.”

“You could. But he’d still have to give a DNA sample voluntarily. And the publicity would mean he could never be charged. Any legal case would be impossible. You’d never get justice through the courts.”

“Justice …” She wants to laugh at such an outmoded concept. Funny guy. “I’ll get you the money, Dr. Keyson. Thank you.”

She stands and holds out her hand, like shaking on the promise of a new job or the price of a house.

“I’ll be in touch,” he tells her.

“Soon,” she says. “Soon I hope.” She turns and leaves.

He watches her walk to the door. She is swallowed up by the maelstrom of London life. Then he smiles.

Friday, May 4, 1984

Dani holds Tom’s hand tight, almost crushing it. He doesn’t mind. They don’t speak, there’s nothing to say. It was all said last night when she lay on his bed and told him the story.

“I can’t tell them, I can’t, Tom. They’ll be so disappointed in me—I am so fucking stupid.”

“Dan—”

“Don’t, Tom. I’m an idiot, a comedy stereotype: teenage and pregnant. A fucking joke … a joke.” She finishes with a tiny voice, then lies her head back on his pillow and sobs.

The injustice burns in Tom’s stomach like poison. He’s never felt anger like this, sulfuric in his veins. He wants to run out into the night and kill him, to beat him to a pulp. Except he needs to stay here, with her, to hold her and tell her it will be okay. Tell her that he loves her. But he does neither. Instead, he sits and watches as the girl he loves falls apart on his bed.

Even as Dani lies there crying, she knows it’s unfair on poor Tom; she feels so ashamed of how she has treated him. She can’t tell him that it happened on the night she should have been with him at the concert. Of course, had she have been there, she would never have been in this state. She feels so lost, alone and stupid. She loves her parents, but could never tell them what she has done. They would help her, of course. They would love her, of course, but they would always look at her with such disappointment. Her mum would hold it over her—in some weird way Dani thought Patty might be pleased. It would prove forever that her daughter doesn’t have the strength, the moral purpose, the drive that she had. And
her dad … oh, her dad. He adores her and she could not bear to watch the disappointment, even pity, spread across his face for the first time in her life. She could not, would not, be less than the perfect daughter for them.