The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (50 page)

“Is that a—”

“Francis Bacon. Just a little one, for me old age,” Dent winks. At the top of the stairs he walks into the bathroom and opens a cabinet, taking out a sponge bag. Then he goes back onto the landing and knocks on one of the doors.

“Julie.” He waits a moment. “Julie.”

“I heard ya.”

A minute or so later the door opens. Standing there, in a stripey nightgown is a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Blonde and thin, her skin a little acned.

“Dad.”

He stretches out a hand and gives her a test tube, a small pot and a bag of swabs.

“Not again, Dad.”

“Come on, darling. I’ll buy you something nice.”

“You bloody better,” she says and walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Tom feels like he’s in a dream. “Is that your …?”

“Eldest. She’s a good girl.”

They stand in silence for a while and then the door reopens and Julie steps out. She hands the samples back to her dad.

“Thanks, darling.”

“Nice, you promised.”

“Got it, love.”

“Expensive, too?”

“Within reason. Good night, sweetheart.” He kisses her and she goes back to bed.

“Romeo—you need to get out of that uniform.” He leads Tom into a bedroom. It’s stylish, like a fancy hotel. Dent opens a drawer and pulls out jeans and a fisherman’s sweater. He throws them at Tom. “Change—then come down. I’ll find a holdall for the uniform.”

Dent heads back downstairs. Tom puts on the change of clothes, then heads down. The front door is open and Dent is outside smoking. He hands a bag to Tom.

“How did you get here?” Dent asks him.

“What do you mean?”

“From London—I mean, you are from fucking London, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“Train.”

“Well, it’s too late for that now. I’m gonna drop you at an all-night cafe—there you can cadge a ride with a truck. There’s loads heading down at this time of night.”

“I need to go back to the house.”

“No, you don’t. You need to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“I have to say goodbye.”

“Who …” Dent looks lost for a second—then he understands. “To your girlfriend.”

“Dani.”

“She’s fucking dead.”

“She—”

“Christ, Romeo, let me tell you how this works. You are gonna get a truck down south. If you’re lucky you won’t have to suck his cock for the ride. Before you leave you are gonna make a phone call from a public phone to say the police will find Dani Lancing at that house and that she was abducted. Abducted. That will get them looking for signs of a struggle and of forced captivity. You understand?”

“Yes.” Though Tom doesn’t sound sure.

“That house is a known drugs den. If you just call in a tip-off they will send a drugs team in. That isn’t what we want—we need a serious crime team to be called in.”

“Why?”

“Cos it’ll be my fucking team, that’s why.” Dent shakes his head. “They’ll take photos and collect samples—clean samples, from my fucking pocket.”

Tom nods. “The samples from Julie.”

“A prize to the shithead for getting it right. My team will write the report up as abduction and multiple rape. Then the body will get transferred to the morgue—and the coroner.”

“But he won’t—”

“That’s the second thing to do. Remember I said there were two things we had to do to make this right?”

“Bribe the coroner.”

“Are you fucked? Coroners make too much bloody money and they think they’re above all this shit—like they’re doctors or something. No, we don’t bribe him.”

“Then what?”

“Blackmail the fucker.”

“How?”

Dent sucks the last of the cigarette into his lungs and flicks the butt into the darkness.

“His son.” He walks quickly to the car, Tom follows. They get in the car and Dent drives.

“What’s the son done?”

“Took his dad’s car when he was fourteen. Thought he was Sterling fucking Moss. Did a shitload of damage and put two people in hospital. One was serious—the kid begged us to hush it up. He’s eighteen now—university boy whose life would be totally fucked by this. Pretty sure the old man doesn’t know. Well, he will tonight.”

“And he’ll alter his report.”

“Oh yeah—I’ll make sure he does. He doesn’t want his son going down. He’s far too pretty to do well inside. The coroner’s a family man.”

“So his report won’t mention drugs in Dani’s system.”

“Nothing.” Dent pulls onto a stretch of motorway. The car moves through dark to sodium orange and back to dark. Ahead is a transport cafe. Dent pulls into it and up to a phone box. They sit in silence.

“You are gonna get a ride set up for about an hour and make that call just before you leave. That will give me plenty of time.”

“You don’t want me back at the house.”

“You know what I’m gonna do.”

“The brand, you’ll remove it.”

“Yes. And then I am gonna take your girlfriend’s hand and scratch the wall. I’m gonna make twenty-one lines on the floor and then the words ‘Help me!’ Then I’ll tie her wrists and ankles together.”

Tom nods his head with the smallest of gestures. He realizes what must be done—is even grateful in a way to be saved from seeing that room again.

“Then I’m gonna go and visit the coroner.”

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Some of the candles have already burned themselves out, leaving the driftwood sculptures darkened in places. The chapel is quiet and cold while everyone takes in what Tom has told them. Suddenly Tom snorts with nervous laughter.

“Then a couple of days later, when we went to see her, you and me,” he looks directly at Jim, “I thought the game would be up. The report said no drugs—but you had to look at her arms because you knew about Seb Merchant. I thought I was going to die. I thought you were going to be the one to question why it was a murder inquiry, ask about the drugs … but you didn’t.” Tom stops for a second. “I thought someone, somewhere, would work out what had happened—the coroner would stand up to Dent. But no.” Tom looks directly at Patty “I thought you would sink it—make the house of cards tumble down with your questions … but it didn’t. Everybody assumed she’d been killed. You were looking for a killer, Patty—but there wasn’t one to find. There wasn’t a murder, but a dead girl. Just a dead girl.”

“Tom,” Patty’s voice is barely audible. Her eyes closed. “Was it an accident?”

Dani hits her head with her palm. Jim hears it but nobody else. He sees the pain in his daughter’s face.

Tom shakes his head. “There was no note.”

It is not an answer to the question.

Jim remembers the church packed full of people on the day of her funeral, so much love for Dani, for the good girl who had been taken from them. How different would it have been if the truth were known?

Patty nods. “I unders—”

“Bastard.” A fist lands on Tom’s chin and sends him sprawling. Marcus Keyson stands there glowering, shaking with anger. “You fucking hypocrite. You sad little man. All you’ve done, lives ruined by you and because of you. Yet you swan around like a saint, dishing out your moral code and judging others like an Old Testament, petty god. You don’t have the right.”

“Marcus, I—”

“Don’t you dare act like we’re friends. You let that animal Dent loose on a kind and great man.”

Tom is lost for a second and then—the pieces tumble into place; he understands Keyson’s anger. “The coroner?”

“Gerald Spurling was his name. He was the greatest man I knew—the smartest man I will ever know. He was like a father to me and …” He chokes on the words, a tear falls.

“Marcus.”

“For the sake of your fucking dead girlfriend’s reputation—you destroyed him.”

“I did nothing—”

“Your weapon of destruction—DI Dent. He went to an honorable man and he stuck the knife into his guts and twisted it until he broke.”

“I didn’t ask him to …”

“Oh, Tom, take some fucking responsibility. Whatever it took to make your girl look clean. You ruined Ben Bradman’s life and you let Dent pressure an old man into fabricating a report.”

“It was only changing evidence.”

“Only.” Keyson’s eyes flash violence. “Only. What the hell did I lose my career for? Lose my reputation for?”

“That was different.”

“How different? You made a man who was proud of a lifetime of honesty and service to this country lie—and you did it by threatening his family and his way of life. Do you know, he was so ashamed of what he’d done he took an overdose—it didn’t kill him, probably would have been better if it had—it gave him a massive stroke. He took more than ten years to die—ten years of misery. His son, Paul, nursed him all those years. He felt so guilty that a reckless moment as a teenager had been used to destroy his father. When Gerald finally died do you …” Keyson closes his eyes, unable to go on for a second. “Paul hanged himself. Both gone, what a fucking waste.”

“Marcus, I had no idea—”

“No, of course you didn’t. You high and mighty bastard. You use people. Knock down anyone that gets in your way and don’t care what happens to them.”

“Back then—”

“But if anyone else deviates, even slightly from the Bevans code, then you judge them. You are judge, jury and executioner—you judged me and had me thrown out with the rubbish. Yet you—”

“You’re right. I have done awful things, I should pay for it all and I’ve tried. For twenty years I’ve tried to pay for what I did, tried to do right by women like Dani.”

“Like Dani … like Dani.”

“Damn you, Marcus.”

“You already have—you damned me. You sold me out.”

“You slept with women and took bribes to change evidence.”

“No. No, I did not. People came to me to help right wrongs,
men and women who were being failed by the system. I altered evidence to highlight the truth—show it had been presented by liars and cheats. Men with ulterior motives, men like you and DI Dent. I was wronged, I am the victim.”

“Oh, come on. I saw your bank records—I saw the women visiting you.”

“They wanted to say thank you. Who was I to deny them that? It was never about the money—I accepted their gratitude as I had saved them from wrong.”

“You are crazy.”

“And you, DS Bevans, are ruthless. You know nothing about true friendship or real loyalty. You would betray everyone for the sake of the memory of a long-dead girl. How do you sleep at night?”

“Me? What about you, Marcus—you’re here to blackmail us.”

“Blackmail?” Keyson spits. “I need money to keep fighting for truth and justice, to protect society from men like you. You don’t keep the girls safe.”

“That’s not true,” Tom says sadly.

“Oh, my melancholy friend—you need to learn a lesson. I don’t want money anymore. You have destroyed so many lives. I am going to destroy yours.” He turns to Patty. “And you, Mrs. Lancing. Mr. Cobhurn was weak, his wife vicious, but you cannot take the law into your own hands. You can’t take a life—you are not God. I’ve asked Mr. Ronson to deliver your confession to someone who can make good use of it.” Keyson stands above them all—looking down with triumph.

“I deserve it.” Patty starts to shake. The end will be soon.

Tom puts his hand on her shoulder softly, kindly. “There’s no need to bring Patty into it. She didn’t kill Duncan Cobhurn. I did.”

“What?” Patty feels everything shift below her, she almost falls.

“And it’s your fault, Marcus. You came to see me too soon after
Patty hired you.” Tom turns to Patty now. “He’d already talked to the journalist who wrote the
News of the World
piece all those years ago, Ben Bradman, and had sniffed out where I’d altered evidence. He had the case notes from that first night—showed them to you. Even though Dent was good, there were inconsistencies. I knew he could find the truth—that didn’t worry me so much as you digging deeper. I …” He snorts back some tears. “I didn’t want you to know about her death, or my lies. I’m sorry … that’s why I wanted it to be me that told you about the case review. I hoped I could do it in such a way that you wouldn’t get worked up about it …” He smiles a tight smile. “Fat chance of that happening. You immediately got roused, a dog with a bone. I could see it that day.” He looks directly into Patty’s eyes. “Then, after Keyson came to see me, I knew you’d have to follow it up and that Cobhurn was at some kind of risk. I put him on an alert, you and Jim too. Then I decided to visit you again and this time I intended to tell you the whole truth. But, as I got there you came out—in disguise. I followed you to a Heathrow hotel.”

“That was a reconnaissance trip.” Patty sighed.

“When Duncan Cobhurn went missing I guessed what had happened and figured out why you’d gone to the hotel before. So I went to the same hotel; I thought I would find you there with him. Instead, I found him trussed up—he was unconscious, but alive. There was a syringe on a table with phials of Ketamine. I saw red. I remembered what he’d done to Dani. Got her pregnant and … I pumped him up with another two phials, enough to kill him, and then I left.”

“Oh, Tom.”

“I would never have let you take the blame. I tried to find you after—but you just disappeared.”

She nods.

“He destroyed Dani—he should have loved her enough to stand up to me. He should have loved her as much as I did. I would never really have hurt his wife or daughter, it was just a threat, but he didn’t love her enough.”

“Tom.” Patty folds over and begins to sob and sob with relief. The pressure of believing herself to be a killer had been too much. She had been so close to the edge.

“Oh thank God. I didn’t … thank you thank you.”

Jim watches his wife cry tears of happiness—joy that she isn’t a murderer, and then looks to Tom. Jim sees the lie. He didn’t find Cobhurn—he is taking Patty’s crime onto his own shoulders. He can cope with it, whereas it would crush Patty eventually. In that moment Jim loves Tom, sees the hero in him. Not the villain.