by P. D. Viner
She buries her head in his neck. “I’m not confessing—I’m not giving in, I want to be with you.”
“You will be,” he tells her.
“I told his wife—she needed to know and I had to tell her.”
“Of course you did.”
“Keyson taped it … me admitting to killing Duncan Cobhurn.”
Jim feels all the blood drain from his face.
“And she told me—oh Christ, she told me something, Jim. She told me something awful and then. Oh God, she killed herself.”
“His wife?” Jim asks.
“She jumped in front of traffic or something—I could hear the truck.”
Both Jim and Patty heard the death of Audrey Cobhurn and Jim saw her body fall. The sight will haunt him for the rest of his life.
“They were lovers—Dani and Duncan Cobhurn. And she was pregnant, Jim. Dani was going to have a baby. That Christmas she was pregnant and I screamed at her, told her she was wasting her life, but I didn’t know. Jim, I didn’t know she was carrying our grandchild.” Patty has tears streaming down her face.
Jim grips her tight, his throat closing up as he thinks of Dani that last time he saw her—the rounded tummy he thought was too many chips.
“Audrey found out and confronted Dani, telling her to leave him alone, and when she wouldn’t … when she wouldn’t …” Patty dissolves in tears.
Keyson kneels down next to Jim. “Audrey Cobhurn had your daughter beaten until she miscarried. I wouldn’t waste a tear on Mrs. Cobhurn if I were you.” Keyson then removes the final pieces of rope from Patty and helps her and Jim up, before dropping a hand onto his shoulder.
“There we go. I am sorry for the inconvenience. Don’t worry that you missed Audrey’s revelation, Mr. Lancing, there are many more to come.”
Keyson walks across to Ronson and whispers in his ear. Keyson gives him the recording machine from his pocket and Ronson walks off.
“Mrs. Lancing, I apologize. You are my employer after all and I really have acted badly—but I think ultimately you will thank me.”
“I can’t see that happening, Dr. Keyson,” Patty says, trying to keep her voice level.
“We shall see, because I am about to tell you who killed your daughter.”
Despite herself, Patty feels her heart stop for a second.
Tom steps forward with his arm outstretched and places his hand on Keyson’s chest, his back to Patty and Jim.
“Marcus, I think this has gone on long enough.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Lancing …” Keyson begins, ignoring Tom.
“Don’t, Marcus.” Tom is insistent.
“… your daughter, Danielle, was murdered …”
“Please, Marcus,” Tom says in a whisper, pleading with his old friend.
“… by Police Constable Tom Bevans.” Keyson steps back. “Now Detective Superintendent Tom Bevans, of course.”
“Tom?” Jim shakes his head. It is unthinkable.
“Tom?” Patty barely manages to get the word out, her face contorting with effort.
From the shadows Dani walks forward and circles Keyson, until she can see into the face of her best friend.
“Tom?” she breathes.
Tom Bevans looks through Dani, and slowly turns to face the parents of the woman he has loved almost his whole life. Tears coat his face. Dani walks over to stand between her parents. The Lancing family waits.
“Did you?” Patty asks.
Tom cannot speak. He nods slowly.
Dani seems to crack, like fine porcelain in a fire—hairline cracks that twist throughout her entire form.
“Oh my God.” Jim steps back, lurching sideways. He walks away, into the shadows and sits on the floor, lost in thought. He recalls the look on Tom’s face when he saw him that morning, over twenty years ago. The look of total distress as they faced each other on the street—how is it possible that he … that he …
“Dani.” Jim holds his head in his hands. He can’t bear it.
Patty watches Tom’s face, sees the tears and the pain that eats him. It’s genuine—she knows the purity of his anguish; he is, after all, the Sad Man. He was transformed by Dani’s death but for the first time she wonders what caused that pain? Is it something more than grief? Is it guilt? Her face hardens—like her heart. Her eyes are ice.
Keyson watches her and licks his lips. From his pocket Keyson takes a knife, sharp like the blade Patty used on Duncan Cobhurn. He walks over to her and bends his lips to her ear and whispers, “Twenty lost years. A life snuffed out. Jim lost to you—your whole life ruined, and you yourself turned into a murderer. Responsible not only for the death of Duncan Cobhurn but Audrey Cobhurn too. And the broken heart of Lorraine Cobhurn. Tom Bevans has done that to you. He made you trust him, he wormed his way into your family and then …” He takes her hands and uncurls the fingers, wrapping them around the knife handle. “He kills the thing you hold most dear, he killed your daughter, Dani.”
Keyson takes a step back. Patty stands there holding the knife before her. Keyson moves to her side and takes her softly and walks her forward.
“He said he loved her but he killed her and left you in anguish for more than twenty years.” Keyson’s voice is seductive as he leads Patty, knife in hand, to face Tom.
“Is it true, Tom? Did you kill her?”
Tom stands his ground, his eyes red and his mouth in constant motion, yet no words come.
“Tell me, Tom!” she hisses at him.
He closes his eyes and breathes. “I did.”
Patty’s jaw clenches; it looks like it could shatter. She steps forward to bring the knife up to his chest, level with his heart. The tip cuts into his clothing and, through them, to his skin. He cries in pain but does not move.
“Do it, Patricia. Do it,” Keyson urges.
“You killed Dani?”
Tom doesn’t answer. His head is bowed to the floor.
“Jesus, Tom.” She pushes forward, feels flesh split, and sees red pool on the knife and start to soak into the cloth. Tom sobs with pain. She moves a hand up to his chin and forces his head up; she wants to see his eyes. The blood pools on the hilt and three drops of blood fall to the ground. Patty looks into his eyes and yells into his face—the sound of deep pain.
Jim looks up, hearing his wife’s anguish, his own pain broken for a second as he watches her hold a knife to the heart of the man who killed their daughter.
Jim sees Dani walk forward. She seems to flare bright like the sun, filling the chapel with daylight. Tears drop from her cheeks, three perfect teardrops that fade into nothing before they hit the stone ground.
“No, Mum,” she whispers, and her light seems to shimmer around Patty for a second.
Patty howls, and throws the knife away. It bounces on the hard stone and skittles along the floor, coming to rest by stone steps close to Jim.
“You didn’t kill her.”
Patty wraps her arms around him and he sags into her—his sobs loud like screams. “Tom, Tom … poor pup.” She strokes his hair.
Dani turns and walks away, the brightness fading once again until she is normal. Normal for a ghost.
Keyson looks like he will spit blood. “What the—You stupid woman. He killed your daughter. What the hell is wrong with you—what are you?”
Patty looks up at Keyson. “A parent. That’s all.” She turns back to Tom, who has calmed a little. “Tom, tell the truth. What happened?”
He whispers so softly that only Patty can hear him.
“I wish you had done it, Patty.” He kisses her lightly on the cheek. Then he begins.
“Dani was pregnant with Duncan Cobhurn’s child. She told me and Izzy that Christmas she came home. She said she couldn’t tell you, didn’t know how you’d react as he was married.”
Patty nods her head, knowing she would have exploded.
“She planned to take a year out—have the baby and then go back to uni. They were going to live together, he was leaving his wife and everyt
hing. I couldn’t …” Tom closes his eyes and lets the memories flood back.
Duncan Cobhurn hurries, his heart beats fast, she is not chasing him—that’s good. It’s hard to rush with the case. He feels so ashamed. Telling Audrey was the hardest thing he has ever done. He loves Dani, will do anything to be with her—but … no, he has made his choices. Audrey will find it tough but eventually she’ll get over it. It will work out for the best, he knows it will. He just needs to get to Danielle, hold her and tell her it will be all right. They can have another baby.
Up ahead in the shadows there is a movement. A policeman who …
“Mr. Cobhurn, Duncan Cobhurn?” He steps directly in Duncan’s way, stopping him dead.
“Yes, that’s me. Do I know you, Officer? How do you know my name?”
“Duncan Cobhurn. Husband of Audrey and father of Lorraine.”
Duncan feels something’s wrong. “I’m on my way to something important, if you’d just let me pass.” He tries to get past the policeman, but he bars his way.
“Sweet kid, your Lorraine. Awful if something happened to her.”
“What the hell are you—”
Tom is quick, he swings his arm and from nowhere a truncheon slides into it. He catches Duncan Cobhurn on the leg just below the knee. An inch higher and the blow would have shattered his kneecap.
“Christ.” Cobhurn falls, grabbing at his leg and rolling on the ground in pain.
“This is no idle threat, Duncan. You are not going to see Dani Lancing again. You are going back to your wife and daughter and you’re going to keep your dick in your pants. If you don’t, Lorraine is going to get a visit from some lads I know and they will fuck her up—do you understand what I’m saying? She will wish they’d killed her by the time they finish.”
Duncan grabs at Tom, but he’s quicker. The truncheon catches him hard on the shoulder.
“Jesus. Why are you doing this?”
“Because Dani Lancing is owned by someone else and they will destroy anyone who hurts her.”
“I love her.”
“You have caused her nothing but pain. Leave her alone, you bastard. In fact—”
Tom grabs him by the collar and pulls him up on his injured leg—Duncan screams with the pain.
“Come here.” Tom drags him toward a phone box close by and throws him inside. “Where are you meeting her?”
“Her home. She’s going there by cab …”
Tom dials the number. “You are gonna tell her you’re finished with her, that she means nothing to you. That you can’t imagine having a baby with her—she’s just a kid.”
Tom pushes the swing and sees the child flash in the air—weeeeeeeeee it cries. Dani waves at them both. “I don’t care that he isn’t mine—I will love you both forever,” he hears himself say. This is my family.
“The baby … she lost the baby.”
“You fucker.” Tom’s truncheon is in his hand again and he smashes into Duncan’s thigh. The older man screams and drops to the bottom of the phone box.
“You will never see Dani again.”
“Please, no …”
“Say it or your wife and daughter will wish they were dead.”
Tom hands him the phone.
In the cathedral, Patty and Jim feel their hearts break. For Dani, for Tom, for the baby … even for Duncan Cobhurn. And in the shadows Dani remembers the emptiness—the pain rushes back into her. She remembers the pit opening inside her soul when she heard Duncan on the phone that night.
“I hate you. You won’t trap me again with your brat—I’m glad it’s dead,” he had told her. Tom had made him say that—how could he? He was supposed to be her friend—he had been her protector and confidant. How could he? And Duncan, her poor Duncan.
She looks to Tom. His head is bowed. She fades from where she is and reappears, floating in mid-air below him, looking directly into his face. Tears drop from his cheek and fall toward her … flaring slightly as they pass through before striking the flagstones. She sees his pain and yet cannot understand how the gentle boy she once knew beat a man and left him broken in the bottom of a phone box. Forced him to break a woman’s heart. How can this man be her Tom?
“Tom?” she whispers.
He looks right through her—there are no answers from him. He stands up and looks back to Patty.
“My plan had been to make him dump her on the phone and then I’d turn up an hour later. I had a cake and flowers. It was just gonna be by chance—on her birthday …”
Dani understands.
“… and she’d be all sad from Cobhurn—but all happy to see me. She’d fall into my arms and realize we were meant to be together. I just wanted her to love me like I loved her. I even wanted to … I thought we could raise the baby. Our baby. I didn’t care that it was his.”
“But?” Patty asks.
“When I heard she had lost the baby I thought she’d need time. I decided to wait for twenty-four hours. Go back the next day. I still thought she’d be so happy to see me that …”
“Tom, I loved you but I was never in love with you,” Dani tells the air.
“I just loved her so much,” Tom repeats.
“I know you did, Tom. I know you did,” Patty says in a tired voice.
“But when I got to her flat the next day—the … the door was open. The place was empty. I sat down and waited. I stayed in her flat all that day and night but she never came back. She never came back. I killed her, Patty. I killed her because I couldn’t let her be with him.”
Patty takes his hand. “Christ, what a mess.”
“Oh Jesus, this is desperate,” sneers Keyson. “Then what are you telling us? That while she was walking around she was taken by a gang and killed a month later? Is that the shit you’re pedaling?”
“No. No, you aren’t saying that are you, Tom?” Jim asks. He has walked out of the shadows. “She went back to him, didn’t she?”
“Who?” asks Patty.
“Seb Merchant.” Jim looks at his wife with, sad, soulful eyes. “In that first year at university, she got involved with drugs. Merchant was the bastard who dragged her into it. She kicked it, though, she was so strong—and I was so proud of her. She promised me she would never go back to him—she promised me.”
“Dad, I am so sorry,” Dani calls to him.
Patty shakes her head. “But Seb Merchant wasn’t in the country when Dani went missing—he’d gone to Australia months before. I found him when he came back to England. I interviewed him and he wasn’t involved.”
Tom shakes his head. “It wasn’t Seb Merchant; I wish it had been. I looked for her for days after that night, but there was no trace. I thought she’d just gone away to think, I was sure she’d call me or Izzy soon. Come home and cry on our shoulders … but nothing. I didn’t know about the trouble she’d been in that first year, she never told me. I kept waiting to hear … then you reported her missing and I just couldn’t believe it.”
“No.” Dani feels so cold.
“I went straight round to you but you didn’t know anything. I couldn’t tell you what I’d done—couldn’t tell anyone. So I carried on searching, kept calling the Durham police—drove up there any time I had off work. Then Ben Bradman’s piece came out in the News of the World—I was so angry I had to confront him. He told me he’d heard rumors about Dani from a jazz musician but he had no name. It took days to track him down.”
Tom finds him in a rehearsal room, alone. Trumpet player, big with a thick neck that oozed gold chains and an enormous crucifix that hung over his heart and danced as he played. In his mid-thirties, shaved head—a large man, but slow, no muscle. Clyde Trent.
Tom pulls the heavy door closed as he goes through. The room had once been an old bank vault, now it’s used for cheap bands to rehearse and make tinny recordings. Dead acoustics.
“I done nothing …” are his first words as soon as he sees the uniform.
Tom pulls Dani’s photo out from his jacket and he holds it
out with one hand. In his pocket his other hand slips inside his knuckleduster. Violence is coming so easily to him now.
“Dani Lancing. Remember her? You told a reporter that you knew her, that she was involved with drugs in a big way.”
“Oh Christ, man.” He makes a break for the door to the outside, but Tom is quicker and bars the way.
“I need to know just what you told him.”
“You got the wrong m—”
“Bradman was very clear. Now we can do this messily, which ends badly for you, or you can tell me what you know and I leave you alone and go back to London. That way nobody but you and me know we had this conversation. Which option do you like?”
Clyde is impassive, but Tom can see that inside the large man the cogs are starting to shift.
“The newspaper paid me,” he says finally.
“Lucky you. I hope you got at least thirty pieces of silver. I am offering you something far more rewarding than money.”
“Shiiiit …” He grinds his teeth and shakes his head. “These are bad men.”
“Then help me save her from them.”
Clyde looks incredulous for a second and then laughs a deep braying laugh. “She don’t want no saving. Man, she chose the gig.”
“What?”
“I know her a while back. She was with some small-time pusher, worked the university—some spliff then on to H, but she could afford it. She didn’t turn no trick. Not then.”
Tom begins to feel everything start to unravel. “Now?”
Clyde hesitates, before he leans forward and speaks softly. “A few weeks back I were at a party, she came looking for her ex but no one seen him. She seem desperate for somewhere to crash and get lost, she make an offer. She was pretty, so she got owned,” he shrugs. “She knew what she were doing.”
Tom feels bile rise in his throat. “Owned,” he repeats slowly. He knows what that means. He thinks of the branded girl at Franco’s.
“One man?”
“A gang.”
Tom wants to be sick but has to keep it all inside. “I need a name.”
“Come on, I can’t …”
“If you don’t, I will list you as an informant and have it leaked to every scumbag in this city. They will nail you to a fucking cross.”
