The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel

by P. D. Viner

  “You are joking? Oh, Dani.”

  Father and daughter eat their omelettes in silence.

  “The chips were good,” Jim says finally, when both plates are licked clean.

  “Tony’s the cook and owner,” she points at the tall, skinny man. “He double cooks them for crispiness. His lasagne’s great too.”

  “With chips?”

  “Of course—what else do you eat with lasagne?” She smiles.

  “I told your mum I’d be gone till Friday. The plan was to do repairs today, then paint tomorrow and touch up any last-minute things Friday morning before going home.”

  “Duncan’s gone. I told him I’d call tomorrow … maybe we could …”

  “Decorate together?”

  She nods and smiles.

  He remembers the fun they had. There was no more talk of Duncan and there was no more talk of Seb Merchant. They listened to the radio and worked. Mostly Radio 1, but they switched to local stations to avoid Dave Lee Travis. When they were tired, they went out for food and beers, and in the evening they listened to John Peel. It was the last of the good times. After that, there was only that awful Christmas and then …

  THIRTY

  Monday, December 20, 2010

  “Dani. Please, let’s go inside. I’m freezing.”

  “Not until you tell me what happened to Duncan.”

  “He …” Jim shakes his head. “Could he have been responsible for your death?”

  “No.” Her eyes flash. Jim has not seen her angry once in the last twelve years—but she is now. The paleness of her skin is burned away as the anger rises.

  “He wanted to marry me, Dad. You know that.”

  Jim feels sick to his stomach. So many secrets, so much unsaid. “I never told your mum about him. I hoped it would end, that you’d realize he was too old for you.”

  “I loved him.”

  “He …” Jim feels shame creep in on top of the cold. “He was the prime suspect in your murder.”

  “He wouldn’t …”

  “The police didn’t realize you were … lovers.”

  The snow starts again, falling into Jim’s hair—the flakes drift through Dani.

  “Samples were taken—when you died.”

  “From me?”

  “Yes. The man left … anyway, they couldn’t test the samples then. They can now.”

  “The man who …”

  “… could be found. Yes. That’s what your mum was trying to do. She bribed a man to get the samples and then …” Jim stops. He is shaking. “She needed to test them against the prime suspect.”

  “Duncan?”

  “She tied him up …” He doesn’t need to finish—Dani can see where he’s headed.

  “Oh my God!”

  “Dani.”

  “Mum killed him.”

  “She was doing it for you.”

  “Mum killed him.”

  “She didn’t know …”

  “She didn’t know he wanted to marry me,” Dani says in the smallest voice. She looks at her father, so full of sadness. Then she fades.

  “Dani,” he calls, “Dani, don’t go. Please come back. Dani!” But he knows it’s futile. “Dani.”

  She looks at herself in the mirror, remembering the excitement she felt seeing his blood smeared over her face—like a mask, a superhero’s mask. The Red Revenger—when was that, two days ago? Now there is none of that hope, none of that energy. She flew too close to the sun and fell. She has failed.

  In the bedroom she stands and watches him sleep. Jim, the white knight who came to save her. What mess has she gotten him into now? What further misery will she pile on his head? She’d like to lie back down, snuggle into him, let him protect her, just for a day. Or two. But no. He looks so innocent lying there. He looks like Dani. She has failed them both. She slides down the wall, her legs suddenly jelly-like. It should all be over now. Roberta was supposed to confirm his guilt and then—armed with that proof—she was to take her revenge. End his life as he ended Dani’s. And then … then Patty was to leave his stinking corpse, go home, finish the letter on her computer—the story of his crime and punishment. Then … then … then … she can’t even say it to herself. But now? Oh Christ—it breaks on her like a tsunami—she has killed an innocent man. She is as bad as Dani’s killer. She knows there is only one thing she can do, but … Dani will never be revenged. Never.

  “Jim. Jim.” A hand shakes his shoulder. “It’s five in the afternoon. I thought I’d better wake you.”

  He rolls over, opens his eyes—it’s all a bit blurry and dark.

  “Five?” He can’t believe what she said. Something’s wrong—and then he realizes the problem: he slept well. No nightmare.

  “When did you fall asleep?” she asks.

  “I … I don’t know. I went downstairs to look for coffee.”

  “Did you find any?”

  “None that was fit for human consumption.”

  “Oh well, if you’re going to be picky …” She leaves the room.

  He remembers the morning: finding the newspaper, seeing Duncan Cobhurn’s picture. Dani’s pain. He rolls over and walks downstairs.

  He finds her in the lounge—she is staring out the window. “Is this the man you killed?” He holds the newspaper—the same photograph Dani saw.

  Patty nods. “An innocent man.” Her eyes hollow out with the memory of his death—bound and gagged, blood oozing from his hand.

  Jim shakes his head. “Maybe he wasn’t so innocent.”

  “I had his DNA matched with the killer’s—not the same.” She crosses her arms across her chest. “Last night you were great, when I needed you …” She stops. He can see how hard she’s trying to keep herself together.

  “Patty, we can—”

  “I’m a murderer. I need to call the police and confess.”

  “Patty?”

  “Jim. He has a wife. Can you imagine how our lives would be different if the police had found the man who killed Dani? If we hadn’t had all that worry—not knowing why. All that time I searched …”

  “Dani’s death wasn’t an accident—this was.”

  “Was it?” Patty asks, looking frightened. “I almost slit his throat there in the chair. I tied him, cut him and left him with no water or food—pumped up to the gills with horse tranquilizer. How does that sound like an accident?”

  “I …” The brutality of Patty’s words stops him short. “I don’t know. I don’t care. I just don’t want to lose you again.”

  “Jim.” Her eyes flare. She wants to tell him he lost her twenty years ago. Last night was just an echo of something long dead.

  “Patty, don’t decide now. Just spend the day with me.”

  She can’t say no, it’s what she wants more than anything in the world.

  Jim showers first, then Patty. She stays in that stream until the hot water is exhausted. How can a person feel so happy and so sad, all in the same moment? She loves Jim, she has throughout the last forty years, and she can have him back. But at what cost?

  When she gets downstairs, Jim is in the kitchen and the room is filled with mouth-watering smells. He’s run out to the shops, bought a pile of newspapers, fresh coffee and a coffee maker, eggs, bread and cheese. There are these tiny little tomatoes and olives with a box of salad leaves, plus little pre-cooked potatoes with basil. It all looks very year-in-Provence-y. He has the plates warming in the oven like Patty’s mum always did when entertaining guests. Posh.

  “Can I do something?”

  He shakes his head. “Just sit down.”

  “Where? I don’t have a dining table.”

  She goes to her bookcase and pulls out two large coffee-table books, A Pictorial Journey Around the Galapagos Islands and The Bloody Monks.

  “We can use these as trays.”

  Patty watches as he efficiently pulls plates from the oven, flips an omelette and slices it in two. Molten cheese oozes from the wound. He scatters some leaves on the plate and spoon
s quartered tomatoes, olives and pesto-covered potatoes on the leaves.

  “That looks like a painting,” she says, a little awed. “My stomach is growling.”

  He shrugs. “Let’s hope it tastes okay.”

  As soon as the plate is in Patty’s hands, she tears into the food. She eats ravenously.

  Jim watches, amazed. “There’s no more, but I could knock some up quickly.”

  “Toast. I really want some toast. Is there any butter?”

  He nods and starts to rise.

  “No, eat yours. I can make toast.” But even as she says it, she wonders if she actually can. She hasn’t made it in more than twenty years, but surely it’s something you don’t forget.

  She walks into the kitchen and stops dead. She has no idea if she has a toaster. She assumes she doesn’t but looks around, just in case. There’s a sliced loaf on the side, another of Jim’s purchases, and she pulls out two slices and puts them under the grill. The oven came with the house and she has barely used it—just the hob. For years she has literally lived on tea and sandwiches or soup bought from Marks and Spencer. She can’t remember the last time she was hungry—really hungry—craving sustenance. Jim walks into the kitchen to see her finish her fourth round of toast and popping two more under the grill.

  “I can’t stop.” She laughs, as tears run down her cheeks. “I can taste it too,” she says with astonishment. “It tastes good. Better than good. It tastes, I don’t remember the last time I actually tasted something.”

  He says nothing, but pours himself more coffee and returns to the living room. She eats four more rounds of toast before leaving the kitchen to find him. He sits there, sipping coffee and scouring the newspapers for news of Duncan Cobhurn’s murder.

  Patty pulls the paper from his hands and slips onto his lap. She takes his head in her hands—there is a symmetry between this and Duncan Cobhurn—she held his head like this, but then his glassy eyes didn’t look back. Now Jim’s eyes brim with hope and love and sadness and … and … she kisses him.

  “Jim, the funeral is next Tuesday. I need to go.”

  “No. Please, it’s crazy.”

  “A whole week away. I’ll see her, see his friends and family and … decide.”

  Decide whether to confess. It means she loses all this. Loses Jim, and any chance of justice for Dani.

  “Patty …”

  “Jim, let’s have Christmas. We can have a week without any mention of Duncan Cobhurn or his family or—anything. Just us. Then we can talk about this and plan what will happen on Tuesday. But let’s just have Christmas. You can love me like it’s 1979.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Saturday, December 25, 2010

  They walk hand-in-hand through Greenwich Park at dawn. There’s still snow under the trees and frozen leaves crack underfoot. They have had five days together. They went to the zoo, up in the London Eye at twilight and walked the length and breadth of the National Gallery, Tate Modern and St. Paul’s. They’ve eaten Vietnamese and Thai food and, after so many years apart, they made love. They have not spoken once about Duncan Cobhurn—in fact, they have not talked about the last twenty years at all. They have talked about their friends at university, especially Ed and Jacks. They’ve laughed, sung, and people-watched. They agreed not to buy presents for each other, though both have a little something tucked away at home for after breakfast. The last two nights they’ve spent back at the family home, the home they bought together some thirty-five years before. Now they walk. There is nothing to say—they both just bask in the other’s presence.

  At the crest of the hill they stop and look out over the sweep of London. They have always loved this spot, this view over the park into the heart of the city. He feels her hand slip from his, but he is lost in thought. He is thinking about Duncan Cobhurn—about him and Dani. Jim still has not told Patty about those days decorating with Dani. He wishes now that he had told her the truth all those years ago, but then it was Dani’s secret. Just like the trouble with Seb Merchant had been their shared secret. He had not wanted Patty to worry, either time. But knowledge of both worry him. He needs to tell …

  “Aaaaah!” His face is wet and freezing. Patty scoops up another handful of snow and shoves it right in his face.

  “Patty!”

  “No. You were being maudlin. It’s Christmas.”

  “You sound like Noddy Holder.”

  “Do not take his name in vain.”

  They both laugh. Patty scoops up another handful and cups it—pressing the snow into a ball.

  “You dare!”

  It hits him in the chest. “Oh, you asked for it.” He starts to gather his own snowball. It’s war.

  An hour later they reach home. Both are frozen, covered in snow and happy.

  “Go get changed,” he tells her. “I’ll make hot chocolate.”

  Patty goes upstairs and Jim walks into the kitchen. He stands there, quietly, listening. He whispers to the air: “Dani? Where are you?”

  He has not seen his daughter since he told her of Duncan Cobhurn’s death. He misses her. Cannot bear the memory of the sadness on her face. It reminds him of one other time, soon after she came to live with him.

  “Can you tell me?” he had asked.

  She thought for a second, her nose crinkling with concentration.

  “I don’t know what to say, Dad. I don’t remember what it felt like. It just all changed, slipped away and … I think I just winked out from one way of being and then there was something else. I just wasn’t alive anymore.”

  He had nodded at her words, but doesn’t really understand them.

  “I used to see you, just catch a glimpse of you in a crowd.”

  “I kept my eye on you.”

  “Why?”

  “I was worried. You seemed so sad.”

  “Did you watch your mum?”

  “Not really. She was stronger.”

  “It was her that fell apart when you died.”

  “Yes. That surprised me, really.”

  “Then you came back properly. After your mum and I …” He paused, the pain of that time shifting in his chest once more. “Why did you come back to me?”

  “You called me.”

  “Did I?”

  She nodded.

  “I needed you.” He sighed then looked sadly at his daughter. “Was there pain?”

  “Oh, Dad, you keep asking that. If there was I don’t remember, and it doesn’t make any difference now.”

  “And the man who …”

  “Dad!” She dropped her head. They had agreed he would not ask that again. “I told you I don’t know. I can’t remember.” She kept her head down for a while then raised it and smiled at him—that beautiful open smile.

  The memory of her fades and Jim is alone in the kitchen once more. “Where are you, Dani? Have you remembered more?” he asks the air. There is no answer.

  It’s 11 p.m., Christmas night. One hour left of their holiday from life and responsibility. Tomorrow reality will wash back in. Today they have made love, watched twenty minutes of The Great Escape on TV and made a roast dinner. Now, they are back in the park, where the day started. The sky is black, yet the scene is ablaze with lights and the occasional firework that arcs into the darkness above the cityscape. Jim and Patty came prepared for the cold. They have a Thermos of hot coffee and several blankets. Jim puts a bin-bag on the bench and then a blanket. They sit and pile the other blankets on top of themselves.

  “Tomorrow …” Patty starts.

  “Shh. No tomorrow, just tonight.”

  They snuggle together and watch the city lights wink at them until the cold finally sneaks into their bones. Then Jim pulls a bag from under the bench.

  “I was wondering what you had in there.”

  “I hope it still works.”

  Jim pulls out a black case, which he flips open to reveal a little portable record player.

  “Oh my God. The Dansette Transit. You kept it?”

  “I ke
pt everything. Here.” He pulls out a cloth bag and places it alongside the record player, then pulls out a small, shiny vinyl disc.

  “You haven’t—”

  “1963, ‘Heatwave’ by Martha and the Vandellas.”

  “You romantic bastard.”

  “Birmingham University dance hall. You were all Peter, Paul and Mary.”

  She laughs. “And you were all Johnny Cash, Man in Black.”

  “But we danced to Martha and the Vandellas. Our first dance.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re crazy.”

  “And Elvis, the Beatles.”

  “Even Cliff Richard.” She makes a gagging face.

  He puts the needle on the record, and through the hiss and crackle, the song starts.

  “Dance with me?” he asks and holds out his hand. Patty nods and takes his hand, melting into him. In the cold of the wee small hours, they dance.

  When the song ends, Patty lifts the needle and starts it again. They dance six times to the same song, before Jim suddenly stops and pulls out his phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  Jim holds his hand up to quieten her as he listens to the phone ring for ages before it’s answered.

  “Hello. Who’s that?” a sleepy voice asks.

  “Listen to this.” Jim puts the needle back on and places the phone close to the little speaker.

  “Is that you, Martha?” the voice on the other end croaks.

  “What’s going on?” a second voice, more distant, and very sleepy, comes from the phone.

  “Do you remember, Ed, November 1963, Birmingham University?”

  “I remember an old friend from those days who must be fucking dead because he hasn’t called me in years.”

  “Merry Christmas, Ed. Love to Jacks.”

  “I think you owe us at least eight birthdays and Christmases.”

  “It’s almost midnight,” Jacks says, with sleepy annoyance, in the background.

  “Is there a point to this call, Jim?” says Ed. “We could have a pint next week or have you got some horrible terminal disease and you’re running down memory lane before you snuff it tomorrow?”