Fragile Minds

FRIDAY 21ST JULY CLAUDIE



Anger was building in me now like a pressure cooker. I went to the chemist and filled my prescription and then I sat outside Bar Italia in Soho, trying to feel part of something, watching the Friday night revellers, the couples arm in arm, the beautiful boys and the out-of-towners. I kept thinking about Tessa and why she’d picked me. And then I thought of Natalie, and her ringing Eduardo and saying I couldn’t work, and it all started to feel like a conspiracy.

I took one of the pills and eventually my head stopped hurting so much and I fumbled around in my bag for Helen’s book about disassociation. And whilst I was doing so, I found Tessa’s keyring again and I realised I did know what the other keys were; they must be for her flat. And I felt that swell of anger again, and so I paid my bill and I walked from Soho through the busy streets to the quieter environs of Bloomsbury.





No one answered the door at Tessa’s; why would they? I buzzed and buzzed, but no one was in.

I slumped in the doorway. People sneaked glances at me as they passed, the foreign tourists’ curiosity less veiled than the locals, and they all thought I was drunk. It was late, why wouldn’t I be? I buzzed again, one final futile time. Even with the keys, I found I needed a code to enter, and if I’d ever known it, I couldn’t remember it now.

‘All right, love. Been in the wars?’ I turned to see a short, rotund black lady with a strong West Indian accent, carrying her Tesco bags up the stairs. ‘Locked out?’

‘Yes,’ I said automatically.

She puffed in through the door, and I swiftly followed as she pressed the lift button.

‘Cat got your tongue? Or just your cheek?’ She pointed at my graze, grunting with satisfaction at her own joke as the lift arrived. I followed her in. ‘Third floor?’

‘Yes,’ I nodded dumbly. It sounded right.

‘Thought I recognised you. Tessa’s friend.’ She unpeeled a Twix in the lift and took one neat bite, then offered me a bit. I shook my head politely. On the third floor, we got out. She stopped outside 55 and looked at me pointedly. ‘Haven’t seen her for a few days, I been at my daughter’s. Tessa said she was going away though. Anywhere nice?’

She obviously hadn’t heard the news. I bit my lip. I couldn’t tell her now.

‘You know one thing—’

I turned back.

She dropped her voice confidingly. ‘I’m glad that boyfriend’s gone, aren’t you?’ She didn’t wait for a response. ‘Not good enough for her, I always thought.’

She shut the door before I could respond.

A shadow lurked in my brain; something hidden, something waiting to emerge from its corner.

Boyfriend. I racked my brain, turning the key over in my hand.

My hand shook slightly: the key slid neatly into the lock. Why would it not?





I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t behind that door. The flat was light but airless, humid even, overly fragrant. There was a pungent smell of rose in the air and candles everywhere; incense sticks, faded Tibetan prayer flags hanging listless from the ceiling, pale Venetian blinds down to the floor. It was more messy than I remembered.

I went into the bedroom; it was very plain and white and a great wooden Buddha sat in an empty fireplace, dead daisies in front of him. Tea-light candles in glasses. I caught my reflection in the carved mirror on the wall and grimaced; I looked wan and exhausted and my hair needed a good cut. An empty frame stood beside a framed photo of Tessa, her head in part hiding that of a dark, smiling man with a lion’s mane of long hair. Tessa was leaning back into his chest and shoulder, and he was looking down at her, his face partially obscured. I stared at him. It was my acupuncturist, Francis. I’d never realised they’d had a relationship; I thought it was just unrequited love on Tessa’s part. But their stance in this picture suggested that they had been lovers.

On the bed was a suitcase, half-packed, some of Tessa’s clothes trailing from it. There was a pair of gold-dipped pointe shoes on the bedside table that I recognised as Lucie Duffy’s. I remembered her simpering over Tessa the last day of term. ‘Here you are, Tessy,’ she’d lisped, handing them over. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’ And Tessa had looked so pleased and happy that I’d almost felt embarrassed for her.

Where had she been going with this suitcase?

I turned away. On the mantelpiece, beneath a framed photograph of the entire school, a gauzy shawl covered a framed tract:

THE SUN MAY STILL SHINE

BUT IF YOU DO NOT ACT

SOME DAY SOON

THE END WILL BE THINE



Beside it, there was an illustrated nursery rhyme, with a picture of little girls in mob-caps holding hands that formed an arch above it:

Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s.

You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s.

When will you pay me, say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be, say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know, says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Chop chop chop chop, the last man’s dead!



It was the rhyme scrawled on the newspaper article about the bank I found in Tessa’s belongings. And on the floor beneath the mantelpiece, there was a child’s toy: an old steam train.

The room felt airless: I couldn’t catch my breath. I had a memory now, a distinct memory of being at Tessa’s, of sitting in the velvet chair in the corner perhaps, or lying on the bed. Of a voice, soothing and caressing me. Had it been Francis?

I bent down to look at the train, reaching my hand out for it. Ned’s train. It had disappeared months ago, and I hadn’t even noticed. I felt that familiar clutch of guilt. As I pulled it towards me, it knocked against the fireplace, where it upended the heat balloon wedged there to keep out the draught. A cupboard file dropped down, covered in soot, and a load of photos slid out, followed by an envelope marked with some kind of shorthand I couldn’t read, and strips of passport photos. I looked down at them. Tessa and Francis. Then I turned the other photos over. A couple of Rafe and me, taken at that Sadler’s Wells event. I stared at myself; I looked a little like one of the deer that used to run across the dark road around my parents’ village when I was growing up. Huge eyes; startled in the headlight.

And then an old British passport, the blue kind, in the name of Rosalind Lamont. I flipped it open to the front, but the photo was missing, it had been cut out. Still, it must be Tessa’s.

So – Rosalind Lamont. That was her real name, then.

As I stood finally, my eyes met something else. There on the mantelpiece: a note. In my handwriting. Hand shaking, I picked it up.


WHERE ARE YOU?



I DID COME. CALL ME ASAP X



I took the photos of me, and the note, and I left. I slipped the keys into my coat pocket – and then I ran for it. As I passed her flat, the old lady I’d met earlier was carefully parking a plaid shopping trolley outside her door.

‘Off again?’ She looked surprised, and rather excited. ‘You know, I’ve had a note to call the police.’

‘Really?’

‘Something about Tessa. You don’t know—’

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘Got to go, sorry.’ I headed towards the lift. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye then. It’s good to see you look better than the last time anyway.’

‘Last time?’ I turned back.

‘Thursday night. I think it was Thursday. After EastEnders. Last week, before I went to Martha’s. You looked really poorly.’

I stared at her, and then I ran to the stairwell at the end of the corridor, belting down three flights to the street. I thought I might have seen a police car sliding into the space behind me. I didn’t stick around to check.





FRIDAY 21ST JULY KENTON



DS Lorraine Kenton was just about to undo the top button of Alison’s pink spotted blouse and slide her hand inside her lacy black bra for the first time, accompanied by the plaintive strains of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, when Kenton’s phone rang, making both women jump.

‘Bollocks.’ It was work. ‘Sorry, babe, I’ll have to get it.’

Alison smiled, her round face filled with light, and kissed Kenton’s hand. ‘Get it then. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Kenton.’ Kenton leant back on Alison’s rather chintzy sofa, winked at her new girlfriend, who was flirtatiously twisting a lustrous black curl round one finger – and then sat upright as she absorbed what the voice on the other end had just said. ‘Shit. When?’

She was already standing, making the flame from the vanilla candle gutter in the breeze; hurriedly re-buttoning her own shirt and checking the zip on her jeans.

‘What is it?’ Alison looked worried.

Kenton slid the phone into her denim jacket pocket. ‘Girl’s just set fire to herself in the middle of Trafalgar Square.’

‘What? Why?’ Alison followed her to the door. ‘Oh my God.’ Her eyes were round with shock. ‘Is it another suicide bomber?’

They stared at each other for a second. There was something altogether terrifying about acknowledging the world’s atrocities had reached these shores again.

‘I dunno. It’s bloody scary, whatever it is.’ Kenton ran towards the stairs, then turned and kissed Alison’s nose. ‘Sorry, babe. I’ll be in touch.’

And she was gone.





On the way into town, Kenton tried desperately to reach Silver, but his line was unobtainable. Perhaps he was already up North. She was getting sporadic pieces of information over the police radio; the latest was the perpetrator was a white girl, who had been screaming about Berkeley Square. More of the same, it would seem. The girl who had set fire to herself was dead, but no one else had been seriously injured.

Kenton arrived on Pall Mall around eleven. The whole area had been shut off to everyone except the emergency services. Drunk clubbers and frightened foreign tourists thronged the periphery of the area; camera crews and photographers were already collecting. Kenton pushed her way through the crowds and found her boss Malloy, shadowed by Craven, who was chewing on his plastic cigarette. A white tent had already been placed round the remains of the girl and a local constable with big ears and a sweaty, pallid face was explaining to his seniors what he had seen. Beside him two dark-haired students stood, terrified, hand in hand, clutching a camcorder.

‘We all thought it was some sort of joke,’ the bobby kept saying, over and over. ‘Like that – what do you call it? Performance art.’

‘Just tell me exactly what she said,’ Malloy was patient, but his blue eyes were scorching.

‘She kept shouting about the banks and nuclear power and the oil companies and – and corrupters. She kept saying—’ The bobby took his hat off and mopped his brow with a hanky. He had huge sweat patches under his arms. ‘She kept saying “the corrupters shall pay, they shall pay”. And then she was screaming “Get back, get back”, and pouring some sort of liquid over her head and the next minute – boom.’ He looked a little like he might throw up. ‘She went up like a bonfire. Christ.’

‘You’re in shock, mate,’ Kenton was surprised by Craven’s gentle tone. ‘Go and get a cuppa. We’ll talk to you later.’

Malloy beckoned the long-haired students over. They looked terrified.

‘Where are you from?’ he asked, kindly for him, and they looked at each other and then the girl said, ‘Tel Aviv.’

‘And you were filming, were you?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. I wanted to show to my mother the lions. And then this girl, she was here, and so I filmed her for a minute.’

‘We thought it was an – how do you call it. An act?’ the boy chipped in now. His hair was longer than his girlfriend’s, Kenton thought absently.

‘I wish to f*cking Christ it had been,’ Malloy muttered. ‘You’ll have to give me that, I’m afraid.’ He held his hand out for the camera. The couple spoke to each other in Hebrew.

‘When can we – will we get it back?’

‘Look, love,’ Malloy feigned patience. ‘I wouldn’t want to ruin your holiday or anything, but a girl has just burnt herself to tiny little cinders, and we need to understand why – and who she was. OK?’

Kenton took their names and contact details, and the camera.

‘I’ll try and get it back to you as soon as I can,’ she murmured quietly. ‘Just bear with me.’





They sat in the car and watched the footage, all craning to see the tiny screen. The girl was dressed in a long skirt and coat buttoned to her neck, her hair tightly scraped back. She was white, average height, brown hair, snub-nosed, generously-bosomed. She became extremely agitated as she began to chant ‘Corrupters, corrupters.’ She worked herself up into a frenzy and then began to open her coat. She had some kind of canister tucked inside the coat, full of a liquid, which she tipped onto her head, before reaching into her pocket for a cigarette lighter. She appeared to pause for a moment, as if she wasn’t quite sure of what she was doing – and then she screamed ‘The world shall pay the price’ one final time. Her teeth clenched almost in a death mask, she ignited the lighter.

Malloy paused the film.

‘Recognise her?’ Malloy looked at his officers.

‘No, guv,’ Kenton shook her head, disappointed and horribly disturbed by the image. The severed hand hit her memory like a meteorite; she almost ducked.

‘We need to get her photo out there quickly and get her identified. F*ck.’ Malloy hit the dashboard with a fist. ‘This is f*cking craziness. Put the picture out on the wire. Now.’





FRIDAY 21ST JULY CLAUDIE



Will was waiting outside the flat when I pulled up in the cab, his sandy hair all on end.

‘What are you doing here?’ I was exhausted. The last thing in the world I wanted to do now was chat to Will about – stuff.

‘I came to see you were all right,’ he muttered.

‘What, at midnight?’

We gazed at each other. He seemed shifty, and I was struck suddenly by my lack of feeling towards him. He wasn’t the man I thought I’d married, I realised that now, though it had been a painful journey.

‘Can I offer you a drink?’ I said politely.

‘Go on then.’

The front door was slightly ajar, which was annoying. The young Polish guys who lived beneath me often forgot to shut it; they were always in a rush, and I was always politely reminding them, to no avail.

I pressed the light switch in the hall, but nothing happened. The stairwell was shrouded in complete darkness. ‘Bloody hell.’ I tripped over the hall rug.

‘You want to have a word with the landlord.’

Halfway up, on the first landing, I dropped my keys through the banister. I had a sudden urge to run away; I didn’t know what Will was doing here and it was beginning to spin me out.

‘You go on up,’ I mumbled, making my way back down.

As I opened the street door, unsure where I was going, there was a cry from above me, followed by a massive crash. Heart pounding, I was rushing back up the stairs when a hooded figure came flying past, knocking into me so that I smashed backwards into the wall, hitting my head hard, passing so close I could smell garlic on their breath.

‘Hey!’ I shouted, grabbing instinctively at the figure’s hood, breaking my nails in the process on the rough fabric of their top. But they didn’t falter, pushing out into the night. I staggered up and out onto the street but whoever it was had already disappeared into the dusk. As I turned, the glint of silver struck me from the hall’s rush matting. I picked it up; a broken chain with a tiny dove. Where had I seen this before?

I heard a groan from above.

‘Will – are you OK?’ I called frantically, pocketing it and running up the stairs.

By my front door, my husband was staggering to his feet.

‘Yeah I’m fine,’ he mumbled, rubbing his head. ‘Who the hell was that?’

My front door was wide open, and I reached inside and switched the lights on, baffled by the foot-high black letters scrawled on the wall beside the upended book cabinet that lived on the landing. Next to a badly drawn flower was written:

ATISHOO! ATISHOO!

WE ALL FALL DOWN



‘God, I’m bleeding,’ Will groaned.

I saw the blood on the hand he held out before him, and I felt sorry, knowing it was my fault. ‘Oh God,’ I said.

‘I’ll live. It’s a nursery rhyme isn’t it?’ He indicated the wall.

‘I guess so.’ Tentatively I pushed open the door. ‘I’ll fix you up, Will.’

‘Wait, Claudie.’ He pulled me back urgently. ‘I don’t think you should go in there.’

‘Whoever it was has gone.’ Gently I tried to free my arm. ‘It’s OK.’

‘I’m going to call the police.’ Will looked shocked and pale.

‘No!’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t think we need to.’

‘Are you mad?’ He stared at me. I stared back.

‘Maybe.’

‘Some guy’s just punched me in the head, defaced your property and possibly burgled you. I’m calling them.’

‘It’s probably just kids, messing around.’

‘That wasn’t a kid,’ Will snapped. ‘That was a proper punch.’

‘Please, Will.’ I thought about that horrible policeman who’d come here to tell me about Tessa. I thought about being dragged into the back of a police car after I’d sat on the wall outside Ned’s nursery school in the snow for a straight five hours without moving, a month after he’d died; of the policewoman who had eyed me suspiciously when I’d sat alone in the park once watching the children play in the sandpit. I was bereft, not menacing, but she couldn’t see that. No uniforms, not yet. ‘Look. Let me just check if anything’s been taken, OK? Then we can decide.’

Will glared at me for a moment and then he sighed deeply. ‘OK, I won’t call the police if nothing’s been touched. But if even a hair’s out of place, then—’

I turned all the lights on and together we walked through the flat. When we came to the small room where I kept Ned’s things, I let Will look inside alone. Everything was untouched as far as I could see, exactly as I had left it earlier.

‘I think it might have been someone after the Polish boys downstairs.’ I went through to the bathroom to find Will some Savlon.

‘Why?’

‘They keep such funny hours and I’m sure they’re growing weed in there.’ I rummaged in the half-empty medicine cabinet. At the back I found a packet of Tigger plasters I’d kept. Tears pricked my eyes and I swallowed hard. ‘I can smell it in the hallway most days. It’s bloody strong.’

I put the plasters back carefully. Funny how the smallest things can have the biggest effect sometimes. A lump formed in my throat; I couldn’t swallow it down this time.

‘What’s going on, Claudie?’ Will followed me in. ‘You don’t return my calls; Helen rings to say you’ve been missing appointments – and now this.’ He sat on the edge of the bath.

‘Helen rang you?’ I frowned. How annoying.

‘Yes. She wanted to know if you were OK when you didn’t turn up. Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said automatically, finding a bit of limp cotton wool and dabbing pathetically at his wound with it. ‘I just had a bit of a – of a wobble, that’s all. The Tessa thing threw me.’

‘Tessa? From the Academy? Ow!’ He pushed my hand away. ‘I think you’re making it worse, actually.’

‘Probably.’ I threw the cotton wool in the bin. ‘Yes, Tessa from the Academy. She was killed in the explosion.’

‘The bomb, you mean?’ Will leant on the door frame. ‘I’m sorry. That’s terrible.’

‘Terrible,’ I intoned, carefully washing my hands. ‘But it’s not just that she’s dead. She’s also not who she said she was. Can you put the kettle on?’

I followed him out into the sitting room.

‘I don’t understand.’ He filled the kettle at the tap. ‘What do you mean, not who she said she is?’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t really understand either.’

It was as if I was sleepwalking; like I couldn’t get my feet back on solid ground ever since the news of Tessa’s death and her false identity.

‘Why have you come back now, Will?’

‘Your eczema’s bad,’ Will said, looking at my hands. I hid them behind my back.

‘It’s not.’

‘It is. Have you been using your cream?’

‘Don’t fuss, Will. Why don’t you answer the question?’

Will was back in the kitchen, looking for the teabags as I vaguely searched for my hydrocortisone cream on the side. I suddenly saw the frailty in his face that I had started to recognise when Ned first got ill, and I looked away.

‘What’s this?’

I turned absently, still thinking about Ned.

Standing in front of the open kitchen cupboard, Will held the same framed tract I’d seen in Tessa’s earlier, only the glass on this copy was cracked.

THE SUN MAY STILL SHINE

BUT IF YOU DO NOT ACT

SOME DAY SOON

THE END WILL BE THINE



I gazed at it, then up at him.

‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘I really don’t know.’





SATURDAY 22ND JULY SILVER



Silver woke to find his daughter Molly standing beside the bed brandishing a tray. He hadn’t slept well, having taken a call at 3 a.m. from Malloy about the burning girl.

‘I know you’ve got family stuff on, Joe,’ Malloy had sounded exhausted. ‘But this is becoming a nightmare.’

‘Do we know who she is?’ Silver was bleary.

‘No. Had another call from the f*cking Purity lot. Bunch of f*cking no-mark new-age nutters. And Lynne’s lot in Counter Terrorism are coming round to thinking it might be Al-Qaeda’s baby brothers after all, the Al-Jazeen branch, in which case this whole investigation will be taken off us, thank holy f*ck. Burqa-girl from the CCTV is dead. She was a nanny for the Saudi royals; she was on her way to collect the baby from the mother who’d been rushed into the Rushborne Clinic in the early hours. The chauffeur couldn’t get the Merc up the side street because of the roadworks, so he dropped her and the pram in Berkeley Square. Her bad luck.’

‘How did we miss that?’

‘Because the poor cow’s clothes were blown right off her, not to mention her bloody face. Meanwhile the press are on to the fact that we’re still struggling to identify all fourteen dead a week on, and they’re stirring up the shit. The sooner you’re back, the better.’

‘Breakfast in bed,’ Molly said proudly now, launching the tray at him.

‘Woah – careful.’ The coffee pot slid precariously across the carthorse’s face as Silver, lurching up in bed, still half-asleep, grabbed the tray just in time. Next to the coffee was a singed bit of toast with no crusts, a scraping of orange marmalade, and a whole milk bottle containing less than a dribble.

‘Oh, I forgot the butter.’ Molly’s round face fell. ‘I’ll just go and get it.’

‘Don’t worry, lovie,’ he said. He moved up in the small bed to make room for his daughter. ‘This is grand. Here, sit with me. I’m not that hungry yet anyway.’

When Silver had arrived in the early hours of the morning, he’d found his mother-in-law in Lana’s bedroom, so he’d taken the spare. Actually he was glad to avoid sleeping in the room he and his ex-wife had once shared. However relieved he was that they were no longer tearing each other apart, he still found memories of their relationship deeply painful. As they’d stumbled through the divorce process, Silver found it hard to believe that they had once been so close; shared everything from jokes and body fluids to long painful labours and his swift ascent up the career ladder. Somewhere, buried deep, was the knowledge that his job had taken precedence over everything else, that he had sacrificed his wife and marriage for the adrenaline that was chasing down criminals and bringing them to justice. That he started to pour himself ever-larger whiskies each night because of the stress, because that was what he’d learnt from his own father. Lana had followed suit because she had nothing else apart from interminable days alone with three young kids to keep her sane, and a husband who loved those kids but wasn’t interested in hands-on fathering most of the time. Silver held this knowledge inside, and every now and then he would retrieve it momentarily to increase his guilt, before burying it again swiftly.

He’d showered and was about to shave when Anne opened the bathroom door, catching him with only a small towel slung round his waist.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Her neck immediately flushed a deep and mottled red as she slammed the door in her haste to get away. Silver grinned at himself in the mirror. God only knew when Anne had last seen a semi-naked man. He knew he wasn’t a bad specimen for his age; the gym and squash court having replaced the pub and all-night lock-ins he used to indulge in, his old beer-gut replaced by not quite a six-pack, but something a little leaner. He must do something about the bloody stupid tattoo on his shoulder that read Lana though.

Five minutes later, there was a tentative knock at the door.

‘Lana’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you.’

He took the receiver that his mother-in-law thrust round the door, trying not to cover it in the shaving foam that swathed half his face. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he snapped.

‘If you’re going to be rude, Joe, I’ll hang up.’

‘Don’t, please,’ he interjected quickly. ‘Just tell me where you are. Do you want me to come and get you? We’ve been worried sick.’

‘Really,’ she said, but it wasn’t a question.

‘Yes, really.’ He felt his toes curl. No one inspired anger in him more dramatically than his ex-wife. ‘The kids are distraught.’

The kids were sprawled downstairs on the sofa with the Wii, rather less than distraught right now, but she didn’t deserve to hear that. Anne was hovering like a worried poodle in the background, back and forth she went, back and forth.

‘I want to talk,’ Lana said.

‘OK, good.’ He hated ‘talking’ with a passion. ‘Come home, and we can talk as much as you like.’

‘I’m not coming home.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll meet you at the Tea Rooms in Skipton in an hour. On your own. I’m not coming back, not yet.’ She sighed, long and hard. ‘Kiss the kids from me.’

‘Right.’

She’d already hung up.

It took him half an hour to calm Anne down enough to get out of the house. Fortunately Molly was going riding with her best friend Shona so she was distracted, and the boys were playing football that afternoon. He’d hear what Lana had to say and then he’d persuade her home where she belonged. And then he’d go on to see the Malverns.





Within ten minutes of sitting down with his ex-wife, Silver was wondering why he was so daft as to think he’d ever be able to control anything she did, and when he’d ever learn that nothing would ever go to plan when they were together.

Lana had lost weight since he last saw her at Easter, and it didn’t suit her. She’d had such good bone structure, but now her jaw looked thin and overly tense, her neck slightly scrawny, and for the first time ever he could see the older woman she would be in a few years. It shocked him in the way middle age constantly did, sneaking up to surprise him. Her hair was a whiter blonde than normal and it seemed too harsh for her face, which was not as tanned or made-up as usual.

She kept piling sugar into her coffee and when she sat down, he’d glimpsed a packet of cigarettes in her handbag, though she’d given up years ago, before she’d had Matty.

‘What’s going on, Lana?’

‘Did you find Sadie Malvern?’ She ignored the question.

‘Not yet, no.’ His heart sank.

‘Are you still looking?’

‘Yes.’ He took a sip of his own cappuccino. Whoever had invented frothy milk should be shot. ‘It’s not your fault, you know. That Sadie’s disappeared.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ she said flatly. Her manicure was slightly chipped, he noticed, as she curled her hand round the coffee cup. None of this was good, he knew that much. Lana was falling to pieces again before his eyes; the last time she’d let herself go she’d ended up driving the car halfway through the garden fence, semi-conscious on gin.

‘The kids are worried about you, Allana, and your mum’s going spare.’

‘So?’ she said. She wouldn’t meet his eye.

‘Is there—’ He cleared his throat. ‘Is it someone else?’

‘You mean have I been screwing around? Even though I am perfectly entitled to.’ She shoved her mane of hair away, out of her face before she answered. ‘It’s none of your business, but no. That’s been your forte recently, hasn’t it?’

It was a deliberate swipe for which she had no real proof. Still, Silver thought of Julie, who’d been calling incessantly since Thursday night, and of Paige in the hotel yesterday, whom in truth he would have bedded in a flash if he hadn’t been working. He thought of Jane Gregor from Vice and all the women he’d taken to bed during the past few years whose names escaped him. They had provided momentary solace, a pair of arms in the night, human warmth if you liked – and not much more. And none of them had been Allana, whom he had loved so very much since he was twenty-one and they’d met at her cousin’s eighteenth. Allana, shy but self-possessed; quiet but confident of her allure already. Allana, his beautiful, lost wife, whom he’d been completely faithful to until the moment he discovered she’d been seeing Ray Steen. Silver’s first mistress had been the whisky bottle, but he wasn’t going to start arguing semantics now.

‘Lana.’ He tried to take her hand, but she wouldn’t let him. ‘Come back with me, would you, sweetheart? Come and see the kids. I can help you.’

‘Help me?’ Her forehead creased in disbelief. ‘How the hell can you help me? You have never ever been here when I needed you. Why would you start now?’

‘That’s not bloody true,’ Silver asserted forcefully, but just like that other memory he lied about, he knew that it was. ‘I was here after the accident.’

‘You were pissed, you mean.’

‘Not as pissed as you,’ he snapped, and then instantly regretted it. The colour drained from Lana’s face until she was just two staring blue eyes.

‘Sorry,’ he said, but it was too late. She slammed down her coffee cup and got to her feet.

‘I don’t know why I expected you to understand. You don’t understand anything except your precious bloody job.’

‘Lana, please.’ He grabbed her arm and pulled her down again. ‘Explain to me then. Where are you staying?’

‘With a friend.’

‘A man?’

‘Why does it matter?’ She did meet his gaze now. Her left eye was slightly bloodshot, he noticed now. ‘Is it your pride, Joe? Don’t like the fact I don’t need you any more? That I don’t cry myself to sleep every night these days.’

He had a sudden memory of their last night together.

‘She’s out there.’

When he wakes, it takes him a moment to realise where she is in the room.

She stands by the window, looking out; looking down into the garden. It is still dark, the moon a white ghostly light; a light far more hopeful than he feels. He thinks she has spoken but he’s not sure.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice is the voice of sleep, cracked and bleary, it vibrates up through his torso.

‘She’s out there. She’s out there again.’ She turns slightly as she speaks. She looks much younger than her forty-two years. She is wearing a long white nightgown with a high collar that makes her look rather like a Victorian matron, but she is still beautiful. He can see her breasts through the cotton fabric; he looks away. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands; it seems too intimate to see his wife’s body. She is still beautiful but she is no longer robust. She’s fragile now.

‘Who?’ he says, but he knows absolutely who. ‘Who do you mean?’ He holds his breath as if she might not say it.

‘Her.’ She holds on to the long velvet curtain now, she holds it for support. He wonders if she is drunk. He doesn’t say it. She was asleep when he came to bed. The sweet smell of alcohol heavy in the room, cloying and invasive.

‘Don’t be silly, Lan. It’s the middle of the night.’ He lies down again with that thud of relief that means it’s not yet time to rise. He doesn’t know how much more of this he can take. ‘Get back into bed. It’s freezing.’

Slowly she gets back into the bed, folds her hands over her belly, lying rigid and wakeful. He turns onto his right side so he doesn’t have to see her face.

He doesn’t know it now as he drifts off back to sleep, thinking of the transfer meeting in the morning, thinking of his wife’s bereft face. He doesn’t know it right now, but this is the last night they will share a bed.

‘No,’ Silver muttered now, but she was probably right. ‘When did you cry yourself to sleep, anyway?’

Again Lana ignored him. ‘I’ll come back when I’m ready.’

‘And what about—’ He caught himself in time. He’d been about to say ‘What about my work?’ but he stopped. ‘What about the kids?’

‘Do you mean what about their welfare, Joe, or what about who’s going to look after them?’ Lana picked up her bag and pushed her chair away. ‘I’ll ring them. And you, Joe, you can worry about their welfare for once. You’re their dad. Remember?’

And she was gone, leaving a trail of Nina Ricci and despair in her wake.





SATURDAY 22ND JULY KENTON



The call had come in about 9.30, partially confirming the news Kenton had feared. It seemed that the annihilated body in Trafalgar Square was most likely to be that of the girl called Meriel Steele, the third missing student from the Academy. A girl whose parents had believed she was still happily dancing at the Academy and waitressing at the Dorchester in the holidays. She had, in reality, dropped out of the ballet school last year. To do what though? That remained the question. And what the hell was going on at the Academy that linked all these tragic or missing girls?

Kenton gazed at the photograph of Meriel’s broad, sturdy face, her serious dark eyes, and wondered what the hell had happened to drive her to such an extreme act. Someone was going to have to interview Meriel’s family and to get a positive ID, and she had a horrible feeling it was going to fall to her. She looked again at the photo. Where had she seen that face before?

She was also waiting for a more recent picture of Rosalind Lamont from an elderly aunt. Both parents were dead and her sister was apparently unreachable in the Canadian wilds. The aunt was in a home in St John’s Wood, but the matron said she had a chest infection and was currently too poorly for visitors. Kenton was waiting for the all-clear before she could go and visit her.

Craven walked through the office.

‘Busy?’ Kenton called. Perhaps he’d go and see the Steele family for her. ‘I could do with some—’

‘Poor you,’ he smirked and walked on. Kenton gritted her teeth. She pulled the phone towards her, and, muttering to herself, called Silver, wishing for the tenth time today he was back here. Tina Price rolled her eyes at Kenton.

‘Talk about a bloody dinosaur,’ she muttered. ‘I thought his sort went out with the Ark.’

‘Hardly,’ Kenton muttered back. ‘Not the most enlightened place, the Met, sadly. But you’ll get used to it.’

‘I hope not,’ Price pulled a face. Kenton was momentarily distracted by Jo Reid sashaying past in a very tight red dress and seamed stockings.

‘Have you seen poor Gill?’ Price hissed at Kenton as they watched the press assistant lean provocatively over Roger Okeke to give him a message about a press conference later. ‘She’s been completely tear-stained all week.’

‘Don’t blame her,’ Kenton sniffed, but she found it hard to tear her eyes from Reid’s voluptuous behind.

‘I’m surprised they can work together after all that,’ Price scowled at Reid. ‘Look at that, heading straight for the boys.’

Kenton found the Steeles’ home number.

‘Can you call the Academy for me?’ Kenton asked Price, setting her shoulders and dialling the Steele household. ‘We need to speak to the Principal again, asap. Something bad’s going on down there.’

‘Bad?’

‘Yeah, properly bad. I just can’t work out exactly what.’





SATURDAY 22ND JULY CLAUDIE



I let Will stay the night, against my better judgement. He kept on and on about how worried he was about me, and how he wanted to call the police, insistent on taking photos of the graffiti with his iPhone for evidence before I went out and scrubbed it off as best I could, pushing the bookshelves back in front of the faint words. In the end, it seemed the only way to silence him, to stop that 999 call. He slept on the sofa.

There was a single crack of blue in the sky when I woke. It was very early, and I immediately rued the fact that Will was here. I knew he could see into me better than anyone else, and I found it so much easier to be alone these days, shutting myself off from most contact except the necessary. I lay in bed for a while wishing I was back in oblivion, debating my best course of action today. I kept thinking about the man who’d been in the flat last night, and whether it was the same man from St Pancras. For the sake of my friendship with Tessa, I had to make one last-ditch effort to find out the truth – and then I would give up.

I was padding quietly out of the bathroom when Will surprised me in the hall, his hair on end as usual.

‘Morning,’ I said a little stiffly. ‘Sleep all right?’

‘Not bad for a sofa,’ he yawned. ‘St Thomas’s Hospital just rung by the way. Said something about results? The number’s on the side.’ He yawned again, so wide this time I heard his jaw crack. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Oh, that doesn’t sound good,’ I said, nodding towards his jaw. I vaguely remembered some blood test in A&E on the day of the explosion, but it seemed irrelevant now. ‘Do you want me to have a look?’

‘Maybe later,’ he was distracted.

‘What is it?’ I followed his gaze to the door of the small room. Don’t say it, I prayed.

‘I just wondered – why is the telescope in there?’

‘I don’t use it now,’ I shrugged.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I stopped looking at the stars.’ I walked back into the bathroom to clean my teeth. Will had bought me that telescope for my thirtieth birthday five years ago, when I was pregnant with Ned; it was the best present I’d ever received. Before Ned’s birth.

‘Why?’ He was in the doorway behind me. ‘You love all that stuff.’

‘Just. Because.’

‘Because—’ he pushed.

‘Because there’s nothing up there any more.’ I was impatient.

‘There’s still the same stars. And there’s—’ He stopped. I glanced at him; I thought I saw the glint of tears in his eyes.

‘Don’t, Will.’

‘There’s a star I look at – well. Kind of, you know. Heaven.’

‘Oh, come on! You don’t believe that.’ My anger was immediate and white-hot; I felt it pulse through me. ‘You don’t believe that for a bloody minute. That’s crap.’

‘I have to believe it,’ he whispered. ‘I have to.’

I threw the tube of toothpaste onto the basin so hard it splattered against the tiles.

‘How can you be so hard, Claudia?’ He followed me out of the room. ‘It’s so weird. It’s not you.’

‘Don’t, Will.’ I put my hands over my ears. ‘You didn’t care before.’

‘I did care,’ he mumbled. ‘I just didn’t know how to deal with it. When Ned died – and you knew he was going to die – you knew they said he couldn’t get better—’

‘Don’t,’ boiling tears suffused my eyes. That word; I couldn’t bear it still. His little body: the fat tummy, the chubby limbs: the life all gone. So final, so—

‘Don’t ignore me.’ He pulled me round forcibly. ‘You’ve closed down so much. It scares me.’

‘You didn’t want to know. You went to New York.’

‘I wanted you to come.’

‘No you didn’t, not really. And I couldn’t.’ I couldn’t leave my son. His grave. ‘You knew why.’

‘We could have had another baby.’

‘Will. I could barely function. You could barely look at me, let alone touch me. How would we have managed that?’

‘Well, talk to me now. You don’t look good, Claudie.’

‘I can’t,’ I said miserably, refusing to meet his hazel eyes. I couldn’t bear the hurt I’d see there.

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ I wrenched my hands out of his. ‘Because if I let one single little chink of sorrow in, I will go down again. And if I go down again, Will,’ I was practically shouting, ‘I will never ever get up again. Do you understand? I’m still not convinced my life is worth living any more. If I go down again, it will be the end.’

We stood in the centre of the room, glaring at each other, fists balled, until eventually he shrugged and moved away.

‘I’ll get going now,’ he muttered, sitting to pull his shoes on, and I didn’t try to dissuade him. This was why we couldn’t be together any more. We were both so racked by our own pain, so wrapped up in it, that we would only end up killing one another if we stayed together. In our own strange ways, we were both fighting for survival. And a year ago Will had chosen his own over our mutual one.

‘Can I ask you one thing?’ he said quietly, standing now.

‘Go on.’ I stared at the photo of the three of us that was on the kitchen wall. We were all smiling, smiling fit to burst. I didn’t recognise any of us though. That was what scared me most. We had been so happy, and then, in a flash, it was over. Then there was only the two of us left, and an emptiness where Ned had been. Impossible to ever fill again.

‘When you – when that strange thing happened to you—’ he trailed off.

‘You mean when I started splitting?’

‘What did it feel like?’

I contemplated for a minute. ‘It felt like I had gone away from myself. Like I couldn’t remember stuff. Which was a relief, I suppose, at the time.’

‘Did you feel – mad?’

‘No. It wasn’t like madness.’ I looked up at him, at his kind, pleasant face, at his sad eyes. At the weakness around his mouth and chin I had not noticed when we first met. ‘It was like – necessity.’

He zipped up his jacket. He still didn’t understand, I could see. He didn’t want to.

‘You should stop scratching,’ he said quietly, as he left, ‘you’ll scar yourself.’

I looked down at my hands, and I saw that they were both bleeding again.

‘Will,’ I called, as he started down the stairs.

‘Yeah?’ He looked back at me, so mournful, with such a look of – with such a look, that my heart turned over.

‘I’m sorry,’ I bit the tears down fervently.

‘So am I,’ he said.

‘I just—’ Miserably, I trailed off. ‘I still don’t know why it had to happen, Will.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘we’ll never know.’ And he walked out of sight.





Some people, apparently, when they lose someone they love beyond all others, they feel the need to talk about that person all the time. But I was not some people. The only way I could even imagine getting through the rest of my days was by closing down; in public at least. I felt Ned’s presence with me virtually every second; he followed me, I took him with me. Sometimes I would turn around quickly, and I would think I saw him from the corner of my eye, laughing in that uproarious way he had; chattering away to himself across the room, playing with his beloved trains. Yet that was no one else’s business but mine, and no one else would understand. So why share it?

Initially, when I was so traumatised I couldn’t function, and I had to be hospitalised for a while, Will had been scared by my behaviour, by how far away I seemed. When his project in America had got the green light, he had done little to persuade me to accompany him. Later, he tried to help, he spoke to my friends, to the oldest ones like Zoe, and to Tessa and Eduardo at the Academy, and then he found me Helen. Undoubtedly she had helped, but Will had lost my confidence. It was only latterly that he realised I hadn’t been able to help it, and that maybe he should have been more patient. But now it was too late.





In the back of Tessa’s book on African plants, there were various obscure scrawls, lines from nursery rhymes, and the words as you like it followed by lots of question marks written over and again. I also found another clipping from a paper; a tiny picture of Tessa and a man called Ivan Adanov: ordinary, with glasses, slightly balding. They were smiling at the camera at an official ballet function in Paris, sponsored by the Hoffman Bank. I stared at the photo. I had the feeling I might have met this man once. Something escaped me: something just out of reach, constantly there and yet not there: like a fox’s tail slipping round the tree; like the trail of my mother’s dressing-gown whisking out of the door.

I opened the nursery rhyme book I’d retrieved from Ned’s old box.


‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts all on a summer’s day,

The Knave of Hearts, he took those tarts and stole them right away.’





Amanda Curran had said she’d heard Tessa called the Queen of Hearts by the man she’d introduced the girls to. The tarts were the girls, I assumed. But why all these nursery rhymes? And who was going to chop whose head off? My own head was pounding now. It was like some kind of code, and I had no idea how to crack it.

I flicked through her little book again. Somewhere, somehow, there had to be a clue. I pulled out the newspaper clipping. The words ‘Dear Piper’ were written on the back in someone else’s handwriting.

If anyone would know who this man in the cutting was, it would be Mason. It was an audition day, so Mason would be at the Academy. I called the office.

‘Do you know who Ivan Adanov is?’ Mason knew everybody in the ballet world.

‘Of course. He was a benefactor. From the Hoffman Bank. When there was a Hoffman Bank. He’s retired now, I think.’

‘Any idea who Piper is?’

‘Piper? Oh indeed. “Be not another, if you can be yourself”, as Paracelsus said.’

‘Parcel— who?’

‘I mean your friend Tessa. She was such a pretender, Claudie, though it saddens me to say so. Not at all who she made out to be. I’m afraid you were blind to it. She must have had a huge inferiority complex you know.’

‘Why?’

‘I heard her say it. That she was like the Pied Piper,’ she sniffed. ‘Running a popularity contest with the students.’

‘The Pied Piper?’ I stuttered.

‘You know, the Pied Piper of Hamelin. He played a tune that lured the rats away from the town, but it also took all the kids. Tessa used to boast she was like that with some of the girls, that they’d follow her anywhere.’

‘Did she?’ I sat heavily. ‘I never heard her say that.’

‘Well, she certainly banged on about it to me,’ Mason sniffed. ‘Pride always comes before a fall, I warned her, but she took no notice.’

Not ‘Paul Piper’ at all; I’d read it wrong. The Pied Piper, who called the tune, who danced, and they all followed.





SATURDAY 22ND JULY SILVER



The Malverns lived in an ex-council house on the Rothbury Estate. The small red-brick house had a tired air about it, as if everyone who lived there had rather given up on life; the flower-beds empty except for a half-grown sycamore sapling that had been left to seed, and a solitary weed or two. The black front door was faded and slightly peeling, a pink sticker for ‘Gem Radio, West Yorks’ Finest’ stuck in the corner of one pane.

Silver sat in the car outside for a long five minutes. He had not seen the Malverns since he had attempted to attend Jaime’s funeral six years ago, and had been stopped at the church gate by Pete Malvern’s younger brother, Lee.

‘Don’t think it’s a good idea, pal, do you?’ The thickset bouncer had put a hand on Silver’s shoulder, an insistent firmness propelling him backwards. ‘Brenda hasn’t slept for a week; the poor lass is beside herseln. Seeing you is just gonna drive her over t’edge. You’d better get gone, lad. You’re not wanted here.’

And Silver had a sudden recollection now: a memory he’d buried; of little Sadie, who must have been about fourteen but was already sexually precocious, sure of herself, standing outside the church in the driving rain, her arm in a sling, white-blonde curls tumbling over the collar of her navy school coat, dwarfed by her lanky father. She had looked over at Silver from beneath her big, black umbrella, her pretty little face still bruised, and he could have sworn that she smiled. Moments later Silver had done what Lee Malvern asked and had left, heading back to his local pub to drown his sorrows. He walked through the empty Friday afternoon streets in that driving rain. He felt the water on his face and knew he would never be allowed to forget that his wife had killed a girl.

He remembered that there had been a time when he and Lana, on their honeymoon in Scotland in the caravan that belonged to Lana’s granddad, had driven it to the top of a hill in a deserted caravan park and made love all day and night to the sound of the rain outside. At some point, for a mad dare, Lana had run out of the caravan and round the field completely naked, laughing and screeching happily until she was soaked, turning cartwheels, her long wet hair sticking to her back like a mermaid’s.

But Lana hated the rain now. It had been raining that day, the day she rolled the car; it had made the road more lethal. Now it only reminded her of death.

When Silver rang the Malverns’ doorbell, even that sounded muted. There was the yapping of a small dog, and then a woman’s voice shouting at the dog, and eventually Brenda Malvern stood there, holding a Yorkshire terrier, which quivered dramatically in her arms.

Silver was shocked by her appearance. She looked old beyond her years, wearing a tatty pink dressing-gown and furry old slippers with the backs pushed down. Her hair was grey and lank, unbrushed over her sloping shoulders, and the corners of her mouth turned down naturally. The dog growled at him and she peered myopically for a moment then said, ‘Pete’s out. He’ll be back around four.’

She moved to shut the front door and Silver moved forwards himself, and said, ‘Brenda? My name is Joseph Silver. You might remember me from—’ but he got no further because she stared at him with naked horror and began to cry.

‘Silver? As in Allana Silver?’

‘Yes. Please, I’m so sorry. It must be a shock – but I need to talk to you about Sadie.’

‘Sadie?’ She stared at him uncomprehending. ‘You mean Jaime?’

The dog was yapping again now, picking up the tension from the woman, growling and drooling angrily at Silver, droplets of saliva flying as he twisted his head this way and that, trying to escape from his mistress’s arms.

‘No, Sadie—’ he began.

‘My darling baby who that bitch murdered?’ the pitch of her voice was climbing quickly. ‘That bitch who never served a single solitary day in prison?’

‘I’m sorry. We tried to ring but—’ Silver said, cursing his own stupidity. Then he heard footsteps, a young man running down the stairs behind the wailing Brenda.

‘Who is it, Ma?’ the youth said, and he stared at Silver, uncomprehending. He looked like he hadn’t seen the sun for a very long time, and he was badly scarred by acne, his hair cut in a complicated and unflattering boy-band style.

‘I’m a police officer,’ Silver decided to take the other approach. ‘I’m here on business, but I knew your – my ex-wife, Allana Silver, she—’

‘Allana Silver?’ The pale youth eyed him malevolently, placing a protective arm on his mother’s shoulder. ‘Yeah, I know who that cunt is. We all do, believe me. What do you want?’

Silver was wondering why the hell he had thought this was in any way a sensible idea. But he also knew that these people deserved to be told the truth.

‘I’ve come about Sadie.’

The woman paled, if that was possible, her frightened eyes now slashes of distress in her worn-out face. Silver imagined how he would feel if anything happened to any of his children, God forbid, and he realised that to Brenda Malvern, six years was probably nothing; just more dull days stretching out infinitely, laced with grief and pain.

‘What’s happened to Sadie?’ she asked, her voice trembling.

Silver realised that this was going to be far, far worse than he had ever anticipated. The young man looked at Silver, and then he stepped back, making a decision, pulling his mother gently with him. ‘You’d better come in.’

‘Thanks.’ Silver stepped into the hallway, which smelt of wet dog and damp. ‘I won’t take up much of your time.’

‘Let’s go in best room.’ The youth pushed the door open, and they all sat gingerly on a cream-coloured three-piece suite that still had the plastic covers on. They all looked at the shrine to Jaime, framed pictures; seven-year-old Jaime doing gymnastics, grinning toothily, in her uniform with well-brushed bunches. Never got past seven. Silver could hear that bastard Beer practically yelling in his ear. He smoothed his trousers over his knees.

‘Take your shoes off, can you, Colin,’ the woman mumbled, clutching the dog to her like a baby, and Silver was amazed she’d even noticed her son was wearing any.

‘Ma’s a bit house-proud, aren’t you, Ma?’ Colin said to Silver, sliding his trainers off. For the first time, Silver sensed the desperation in the young man’s bearing, and had a glimpse of what it must be like to be left here with this woman’s suppurating pain.

‘I’ve just signed up,’ Colin must have read Silver’s mind. There was a small hole in the toe of his Bart Simpson sock. ‘I’m off to ATC Pirbright next week for six months. Training. Can’t bloody wait. Hoping I get out to Afghanistan.’

‘Good lad,’ Silver nodded at him, inwardly appalled. That was all Brenda Malvern needed. Hopefully by the time Colin had trained, the government might have seen sense and actually pulled out of the deadly war-zone, but the idea of losing another child … Christ. ‘Army needs brave boys like you. But have you considered the police force instead?’

‘So, Sadie?’ the woman interrupted plaintively, as if she had been forgotten.

‘Yes.’ Silver’s heart felt heavy; he felt like he was wading through boggy mud, his feet sinking ever deeper. ‘It’s just – I have to tell you—’

‘Only I spoke to her last night.’ The dog yapped again, and the woman bowed her head and kissed the top of his, shushing him. ‘And she were in ever such a good mood.’

‘Last night?’ Silver stared at her. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I know my own daughter.’

‘Only, we – we’ve been worried that she was missing. Her flatmate Lucie – she—’

‘That little cow?’ the woman sniffed. ‘Wouldn’t trust a word she said.’

‘Ma!’ Colin was embarrassed. ‘Don’t be nasty.’

Silver looked at the lad’s thin flushing skin and his Adam’s apple, sharp as a child’s protractor above the grey t-shirt bearing the legend ‘Terminator lives’. A crush on Lucie Duffy? Only to be expected, he thought, with a girl that obviously sexual.

‘You’ve met her then? Lucie Duffy?’

‘Yeah. Went down to see Sadie’s graduation show last summer. Dead good, it were,’ Colin pulled a funny face, ‘if you like that sort of thing.’

Lucie had definitely said she didn’t know the Malvern family. Silver was right then: she had been lying. Why, though?

‘Right. Well, Lucie was worried that Sadie was missing,’ Silver went on. ‘And another – friend,’ he saw Paige’s cross little face, ‘mentioned a boyfriend. Had a funny nickname. The Prince?’

‘No,’ the woman was firm, unequivocal. ‘She’s not missing, and she’s got no time for men. Not with all the dancing. Not my Sadie. She’s on a, what do you call it?’ She stared at him. ‘A retreat.’

‘A retreat?’

‘Yeah. Something about tranquillity and her – finding her inner – oh, what were it, Col?’

‘Her inner child she said,’ he flushed further. ‘Didn’t make no sense to me.’

‘She were dead happy. And she were with her nice mate from the Academy. Taking a break from the tour of Southern England with that ballet company. Then they’re off abroad. Japan, I think she said. Doing ever so well, she is.’

‘Really?’ Silver was nonplussed. God only knew what web of lies Sadie Malvern had woven about her career. ‘Where? And which mate was it that she mentioned?’

‘What’s her name again, Colin?’ The woman looked at her son. ‘I can’t quite— Was it Mary?’

‘No, Ma.’ The pale-faced youth rolled his eyes at Silver, seeking male camaraderie now.

Silver gave an encouraging half-smile.

‘It were Meriel. Meriel Steele.’