Fragile Minds

TUESDAY 25TH JULY CLAUDIE



I woke in the back of the ambulance and for a moment I thought I was trapped in my own worst nightmare again. Frantically I looked around for Ned; but he wasn’t here; it was me on the bed this time.

Helen was here though. She was sitting beside me, holding my hand as we rattled over speed-bumps. The paramedic was fiddling with something in the corner, and Helen smiled down at me.

‘Nearly there,’ she said. ‘You’ve done so well, my love.’

She bent her head nearer to me. ‘I never thought you’d be so strong. You really have fought it every step of the way, haven’t you?’

‘Fought it?’ I shook my head, the oxygen mask bound to me. ‘The splitting, you mean?’

She gazed down at me. Round her neck was a locket, very similar to the one Tessa had given me. The tiny gold doll I’d seen before hung there, a Russian nesting doll, I’d had a set as a child. And entwined with it swung the locket decorated with a tiny little bird – a pigeon, perhaps, I thought, sleepily.

The paramedic glanced over and smiled at the touching picture we appeared to make.

‘Nearly there,’ he shouted over the engine’s roar.

‘I was just saying how well Claudie’s doing,’ Helen spoke up now.

‘I’m sure she is,’ he nodded in agreement, and looked back at what he was doing. ‘Not long now.’

A dove.

I struggled to sit up, but the blanket was trapping one arm, and Helen was holding the other.

‘I don’t feel well at all,’ I mumbled.

‘No, I’m sure you don’t, my dear,’ Helen smiled and squeezed my hand. ‘Don’t worry though. It’ll all be over soon.’





TUESDAY 25TH JULY SILVER



If the crowd at the Royal Opera House were your typical ballet connoisseurs, then DCI Joe Silver was very glad he was not one of them.

He’d tried to catch Rafe Longley at the Commons, but his secretary said he hadn’t come in today, so Silver had no choice but to go straight to Covent Garden. Okeke pulled in behind a bashed-up white Golf and let Silver out whilst he parked the car.

By the time they met at the front of the Opera House, the place was packed; fur stoles, face-lifts and beige wool a-plenty; Jaeger and Jimmy Choo and everything Lana would have killed for. Okeke was impressed, Silver could sense, as he asked to be taken through to the Green Room where Longley was apparently preparing his speech. But the room was empty apart from a dumpy middle-aged woman with a bush of hair manning the tea and coffee urn. Her name-badge read ‘Miriam’.

‘I’ve not seen him,’ she smiled politely, and Silver shut the door behind him.

He checked the time; this would be an opportune time to catch up briefly with Lucie Duffy. The stage manager was outraged that the soloist was going to be interrupted so near to her performance, but Silver was adamant.

‘Police business can be crucial, kiddo, I think you’ll find,’ he drawled at the irate woman, whose purple crew-cut reminded him of one of Molly’s fuzzy-felt boards. ‘It goes like that, art or no art.’

Lucie Duffy’s dressing room was round the corner from the Green Room. Silver knocked at the door and didn’t wait for a reply. Okeke was standing behind him as Silver opened the door to find the MP for Norwich North with his trousers round his ankles, entangled between a gasping Lucie Duffy’s muscular legs, her stiff snowy-white tutu adrift, at right angles with the floor.

‘Oh my big prince,’ Lucie was moaning. She caught Silver’s eye and smiled triumphantly. ‘You king,’ she murmured again in Longley’s ear.

Tutu must be scratchy, Silver thought.

‘Excuse me.’ Silver shut the door smoothly, hiding his grin. Okeke was embarrassed, on the other hand, deeply embarrassed; he’d already backed about twenty feet down the corridor.

‘Perhaps, sir, we should come back.’

‘No way, Roger,’ Silver shook his head. ‘No time like the present.’

He waited for a minute and then gave a short, sharp knock and reopened the door. Longley had managed to re-zip his trousers, a little red in the face, whilst Duffy looked utterly unruffled as she rearranged her skirts.

‘I always find a few endorphins sharpen my performance,’ she purred, moving to the dressing-table to fix her thick make-up, little tendrils of hair damp against her long neck. She caught Silver’s eye again in the mirror. ‘Don’t you think, Officer?’

‘Mr Longley, I’d appreciate a word.’ Silver stood by the door, watching the MP tuck his expensive shirt back into his suit trousers.

‘Right. Now?’ Longley was sweating slightly, not as blasé as yesterday. Hard to be with Duffy’s make-up smeared across one cheek.

‘Yep. Now,’ Silver nodded, narrowing his eyes at the other man. ‘Prince.’

‘Fine,’ Longley was almost sulky, like a schoolboy. ‘Where?’

‘Don’t mind me.’ Duffy batted her lashes.

‘In private, if you don’t mind.’ Silver smiled pleasantly at the young ballerina, extending an arm towards the door to show he was waiting for Longley.

Longley pushed past Silver, the smell of sweat and Gucci aftershave thick in the air.

‘I have to make my speech in five minutes,’ he grumbled.

‘You were cutting it fine,’ Silver observed mildly. ‘I’ll walk down with you.’

The two men took the back stairs to the auditorium, Longley fumbling for his notes in the inside pocket of his jacket.

‘I hate these bloody events,’ he muttered.

‘Have you ever met a woman called Rosalind Lamont?’

‘Never,’ Longley shook his head.

‘And your girlfriend calls you “Prince”,’ Silver remembered Paige’s words from the hotel. ‘Very noble. So you know Lucie’s flatmate Sadie?’

‘The blonde girl? I met her once or twice.’

Silver stared at him. ‘Screwed her, you mean.’

The man cleared his throat. ‘No.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘I might have – kissed her once.’ Silver met his eye as they took the last corner of the stairwell. ‘She was a very pretty girl.’

‘Was?’

‘Is.’ He was defensive. ‘I don’t disguise my delight in attractive women, DCI Silver.’

‘What was your connection with Tessa Lethbridge again?’

‘None. Met her through Claudie. Have you found Claudie?’

‘Yes. She’s all right.’ Silver thought of the lost soul he’d last seen being escorted into an ambulance. ‘As all right as we’d expect right now, anyway.’

‘Thank God. Where was she?’

‘In a retreat. A messed-up kind of commune.’ Silver smiled icily at the other man. ‘In Norfolk, funnily enough. And you say you have no involvement with the Daughters of Light?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Well, we’re just checking that out now.’

‘Feel free.’

They reached the wings of the stage now. Longley swept his hair back, finding a small comb in his back pocket, and giving it a quick pass through his luxuriant mane with a somewhat sheepish smile. ‘Pays to look one’s best.’

‘Really.’ Silver raised an eyebrow as if he’d never checked his own appearance in a mirror.

The Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House was on the stage now, welcoming the gala crowd, thanking them for their attendance, bowing to the Royal Box where the Duke of Kent sat, and then welcoming Longley.

Longley took to the stage now, explaining fluently the necessity of the arts in today’s society, thanking Sheikh Zayid, Prince of the Emirates and the Chairman of Shell BP for their sponsorship.

‘We know art plays a major role in our lives, but without the money to back it, without the oil that runs through the very veins of our society, we would not be here today.’

Lucie Duffy was behind Silver now, a fluffy fleece wrapped round her sinewy frame.

‘Sadie should be here somewhere, you’ll be pleased to know.’ Lucie unzipped her top, stretched out her feet with great delicacy and removed woollen legwarmers. ‘She’s coming today.’

‘Coming today?’ Silver frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah,’ Lucie nodded, throwing the fleece on the floor next to the rosin box and bending to attend to the ribbons on her pointe shoe. ‘She asked for back-stage passes.’

‘You should have bloody let me know,’ Silver snapped at her. ‘Christ, Lucie, I told you, if you heard anything—’

Recriminations were pointless now; action was necessary. Silver summoned Roger Okeke who was hovering nearby, listening to Longley’s speech.

‘Roger, we need the Explosives team here like yesterday.’

Duffy’s grey eyes widened in shock. ‘Explosives?’

‘Where’s your phone?’ Silver demanded. ‘In your fleece?’

‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘It’s upstairs.’

‘Do you know Sadie’s number?’

‘No. Sorry. No I don’t. What’s she done?’

‘Right.’ Silver was thinking on his feet. He knew his own phone didn’t work in the depths of this great building. ‘We have a problem.’ He snapped a stick of gum in his pocket. ‘A major problem.’

He needed to get everyone out of the Opera House immediately. He didn’t know how much truth Claudie Scott had spoken; there was a fair chance she was suffering some form of delusion, but he couldn’t take the risk. In Norfolk she’d definitely mentioned both a package and Sadie, and that could only mean one thing if Malvern was following the example of the other girls.

‘Would she come in the main doors?’

‘No,’ Duffy shook her head, ‘she’d come up through the artists’ entrance.’ Where they wouldn’t search her.

F*ck. Silver grabbed the stage manager who was gathering Lucie’s cast-off garments. ‘I need to get the venue cleared – NOW.’

‘Are you mad?’ She frowned at him. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.’

On the stage, Longley was wrapping up and the corps de ballet were preparing for their entrance with a last-minute warm-up, bending and stretching gracefully as the orchestra began to tune their instruments.

‘Bloody do it,’ he grasped her arm harder, ‘or I’ll arrest you for manslaughter.’

Okeke ran back down the corridor. ‘Explosives are scrambling now.’

‘OK. Roger, we need to start clearing the—’

Duffy grabbed Silver’s hand, digging her sharp little nails in so hard she drew blood, her face pale beneath the make-up.

‘There she is,’ she pointed into the opposite wing. ‘Sadie.’

Sadie Malvern stood, dressed in a long, mauve dress. She was filthy, her long curls tangled, a beatific smile on her pretty face, a hand-drawn banner slung across her body that read IN BEAUTY WE BELIEVE.

She opened the white shawl she held closely across her breast. Round her slim waist was strapped a badly-made explosive belt.





THURSDAY 24TH JULY KENTON



Kenton yawned widely, deeply frustrated that they’d had to let Francis Watson go for the time being.

‘Nice try, Derek,’ she gave her colleague a thumbs-up as he walked back into the office from seeing the man out. Maybe it was time to let bygones be bygones.

‘Should have left me in there alone.’ Craven pulled his top lip back like an old horse, his teeth like yellowing tombstones. ‘Would have got a result that way.’

Price and Kenton exchanged glances as he wandered off. Price was busy downloading the information on Tessa Lethbridge from the PDF the Australian High Commission had sent, once their records had been checked and the name change registered. Not Tessa Lethbridge at all, of course, but plain Elaine Jensen, born in a tiny village just outside Queensland’s Brisbane forty-nine years ago, with not a formal ballet qualification to her name.

Kenton pulled an A4 bit of paper out of the printer and made a list.

‘Queen of hearts; Daddy’s gone a hunting; Atishoo atishoo we all fall down.’

All nursery rhymes; all some kind of code. Representing people, Kenton was imagining – certainly the first two.

But who was the Queen of Hearts – and who the hell was Daddy?

‘What does “as you like it” mean to you, Tina?’ She glanced over at the young policewoman. ‘Anything? Another kid’s rhyme?’

‘No,’ Tina shook her head. ‘It’s a Shakespeare play. Celia and Rosalind in the Forest of Arden. I did it for A level English. Good play. About hidden identities. Subterfuge and disguise.’

Kenton wished, not for the first time in this investigation, that she’d paid more attention in English Literature instead of mooning over Diana Grills.

‘Homoerotic you could almost say,’ Price was warming to her subject. ‘I think—’

‘Rosalind?’ Kenton sat up. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes, absolutely,’ Tina nodded with some enthusiasm.

‘From the east to western Ind,

no jewel is like Rosalind.’



Kenton’s phone rang. Alison! At last. She felt a shiver of anticipation.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Alison said. ‘I left my phone at my mum’s on Sunday evening, and I’ve only just got it back now.’

‘No worries,’ Kenton breezed. Alison wasn’t to know she’d been praying for her to ring for virtually seventy-two hours. Kenton smiled as she listened to Alison’s story of woe, tucking the phone beneath her ear as she typed As You Like It into the internet search engine. She scanned the first synopsis of the play that came up.

‘Christ,’ she sat up straighter, ‘I don’t believe it. Alison, I’ve got to go.’

Kenton stood, grabbing her jacket.

‘You come with me.’ She flung the phone at Tina. ‘And get me Silver on the phone, right now.’





TUESDAY 25TH JULY CLAUDIE



They left me in a room with only Helen for company, and a policeman outside the door.

‘I’m her psychiatrist,’ she smiled at the nurses when I tried to tell them my fears; but they just thought I was rambling. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll sit with her while we wait for the family. I’m afraid she might have to be sectioned again. She shouldn’t be alone.’

‘Who are you?’ I gazed at her as I struggled again in the bed, but the drips were restraining me. Why did I still feel so damn ill and weak? ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’

‘You can call me Rosalind if you like.’ Helen pulled her hair back, smiled that crocodile smile. ‘You know, I never thought you’d be able to function for so long with all those drugs pumping round your system. Hang on a sec.’ She plumped up my pillow for me.

‘Drugs?’ I couldn’t speak properly; my voice was just a croak.

‘Fentanyl is such a brilliant invention. Over eighty times stronger than morphine. Those “nicotine” patches.’ She smoothed my hair back. ‘It was like giving candy to a baby. Bye Baby Bunting,’ she smiled again. ‘My God, what a stroke of genius. You didn’t know whether you were coming or going, did you, dear?’

‘I feel terrible,’ I murmured.

‘You’re in severe withdrawal, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh God.’ The cramps, the sweating. It made some kind of sense. ‘But why?’

‘God had nothing to do with it – only playing God perhaps.’ she patted my hand. ‘I did hope you’d join the cause but I realised some time ago, you were too far gone. I thought Tessa would have been able to bring you in, but she failed, in your case, quite spectacularly.’

‘The cause?’

‘And then I feared you knew too much. You were an interesting experiment really, my dear Claudie. John said I’d never be able to control you so well, but you just rolled over, really.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I was aghast. ‘Who’s John?’

‘Tessa was not so easy, because she changed her mind. I believe she even tried to contact the police at the last minute. Fortunately they thought she was mad, and it was only luck that the blast still took her. Let the great spirit protect her. But you – you were a pushover, your system is so weak,’ she smiled, and her fair-tipped lashes covered her treacherous eyes as she searched for something in her bag. ‘The Midazolam was a genius stroke after you spoke to Tessa on the Thursday night. Thank goodness you were overheard.’

‘Midazolam?’

‘It’s a powerful drug, my dear Claudie, usually used on anorexics. It causes what we term anterograde amnesia. You had no chance of remembering anything. Of course, Miriam phoned you a few times to check.’

I remembered the threatening phone calls; the voice I hadn’t recognised.

‘Tessa.’ I stared at her. ‘Did you kill Tessa?’

‘No. Tessa killed herself. Trying to stop brave little Anita.’ Helen gazed at me. ‘Or rather, you could say you killed Tessa.’

My worst fears realised.

‘Did I—’ I could hardly force myself to say it. ‘Was I there? In Berkeley Square?’

‘No, Claudie. You were not there. You didn’t make it. You were undoubtedly trying to reach Tessa to help her, but you failed. We removed you from Tessa’s flat and made sure you wouldn’t remember – though you did try so valiantly. You should be very proud of yourself.’ Helen looked less amused now. ‘In fact, you were a complete pain in the backside. Running all over the place, trying to find out what happened to your stupid friend. John was quite angry. With me, actually.’

She shot me a look as she fiddled with my drip now.

‘So how did I kill her?’ All the moisture was leaving my mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You warned me of her fears. In our penultimate session. Don’t you remember? Told me how strangely she’d been acting, and then Anita confirmed it. I realised that Tessa had cold feet; that she might sing like a canary, as they say. I’d only been controlling her by threatening to expose her lies the last few weeks – and then she swiped my old passport from my office and tried to blackmail me. As if she could have.’ She laughed with incredulity. ‘So sad. She’d lost her faith.’

Vaguely I thought about the text message on my phone; of talking about Tessa during the session.

‘But you hardly knew her.’

‘That’s what it suited me to have you believe. But I knew her before I knew you. It was she who recommended me to your delightful husband.’

‘To Will? Don’t tell me he’s involved.’

‘Of course not. But they were sworn to secrecy; Will because he thought he was doing the right thing in a “counselling” sort of a way. That you shouldn’t know you had been discussed by your friends. His guilt manifesting itself, basically. And Tessa, well, she was key to the whole operation. She brought John the girls.’

‘Who is John?’ I asked again. I was nearly crying with frustration now.

‘My husband. Ivan Adanov. He was a celebrated professor of politics back in Russia, where we met – before he was enticed into the capitalist world of banking and clubs. My one-time partner in the cause – though he chooses to take a back seat now.’ Her forehead wrinkled unattractively as she frowned. ‘I fear our paths are diverging now too, and that saddens me deeply.’

‘The cause?’

‘The Daughters of Light. Tessa believed so vehemently at first. My Queen of Hearts, bringing me the tarts. She was that kind of woman, led by whoever was around. Poor plain Elaine Jensen.’

‘Elaine?’

‘Weaving a fabulous fictitious life around herself: deaths, and babies, and drama. Utterly pathetic. And then you. Annihilated by loss.’ She patted my hand. ‘But then,’ she found what she’d been looking for in her pocket, something small and shiny, ‘you did need help.’

‘I thought it was your job to help people?’

‘I don’t care about individuals any more.’ Helen stood now. ‘No one can empathise today. I’m tired of listening to my patients bleat on about their pathetic little lives. Everyone’s so wrapped up in their own mess. But I care. I care about this world that we are so busy ruining. I don’t have the energy to worry about the individual now – I’m looking at the bigger picture, Claudia.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘The planet, the world. That was my original quest, with Michael, until he reneged on it. And if something doesn’t happen soon, if no one takes action, it will be too late forever.’

‘Too late?’

‘For the world. Forever. It’s almost too late, but there is still time.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I croaked. ‘Who is Michael?’

‘Michael Watson. You know him as Francis. My original partner in crime. Before I met my destiny in John.’

I thought of the man in my flat, his guinea-pig beard, his hands on my body. I shuddered. ‘He’s part of this too?’

‘No. No, he has become spineless. Although it was Michael who introduced me to Tessa, albeit inadvertently.’

My head hurt. ‘How?’

‘I visited him last year. I wanted him to join me again; I needed a partner when John wavered in his belief. Tessa and I met in the changing room of Michael’s clinic. We “bonded” immediately. Poor foolish Tessa. Afterwards, I forbade her to tell Michael of our allegiance. It was fortunate,’ she smiled a rather ghastly kind of smile, ‘that she generally did what she was told.’

‘And Franc— Michael?’

She sniffed. ‘He “found himself”, the poor fool, by the time I found him again – he’d quite lost the will to change society.’

‘By killing people?’

‘It wasn’t ever about killing people, Claudie.’ Helen gazed at me and her face had a sheen of perspiration over it. ‘It is about standing up for what you believe in. Making a difference. Blowing the lies open. I chose you, each of you, so weak, so empty. Empty, gaping vessels.’

‘Empty?’ I whispered.

‘Yes. The dancers, broken by years of teaching by terror. Tessa brought them to me and John; she thought she was helping them find a new path. They were easy; never felt they were enough, never good enough, always striving for something. John used them as dancers and whores, and I trained them for the cause. It suited us both. And Tessa, she was easy too. With her pathetic web of lies which I unravelled in two sessions.’

I stared at her rabid face. ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Why did you do it? What broke you?’

A smile flitted across her neat features. ‘I am not broken.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said, looking up at her. I summoned every single last ounce of energy I owned. ‘You most definitely are. That is quite obvious. You reject this apparently narcissistic world – and yet this is absolutely about you. About control, about mirroring your image.’

‘No,’ her voice was shrill now, her serenity dissolving. She stepped back. ‘It’s about saving the world.’

‘Pull the other one, Helen,’ I said. ‘There are better ways of saving the world than coercing young girls to kill themselves for your ideals.’

‘Well,’ she stared at me. ‘We’ll have to agree to differ on that.’

She moved back to the drip, fiddling again.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m helping you on your way. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You gave up a long time ago, I realised that.’ She sat on the bed, and took my hand. ‘I felt for you, Claudia, I did really. I still have my empathy. I saw you were destroyed. Now, you can sleep.’

And she was right. I was destroyed. I tried to pull my hand out of hers, but I couldn’t, it was too heavy. My body was becoming impossibly heavy.

‘It’s too late, Claudie. You rest now.’

‘Too late?’ My mouth hardly moved. It was as if I had been turned into air. I was air.

‘Think about it, my love.’ She stroked my hair behind my ear. ‘There are far far worse ways to go.’

She stood by the door, ready to leave, and I gazed at her. I moved my dry mouth to form words – or maybe I didn’t, maybe I just thought them.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘You are mad, and you will be caught, and I will join Ned. I am more than happy to join Ned.’

My eyes closed.





THURSDAY NIGHT, 13TH JULY CLAUDIE



I get off the bus and I am retching into the gutter, I feel so sick – and then it passes. I sit on a bench under an elm tree and I am sweating and trembling, but the nausea at least has passed. My phone bleeps. It is a text from Tessa.

‘I need to talk to you, Claudie, please. I am terrified, and I have a confession to make. You will hate me – but I need your help. Something very bad’s about to happen and I don’t know what to do.’





I flag a cab down in the sultry evening, and I try to catch my breath. I go to Tessa’s. I buzz the intercom; she lets me up. Only it is not Tessa who opens the door. It is a woman I do not recognise. She has a mass of bushy hair and a horrible snout nose.

‘Tess has had to go out,’ she says.

‘Oh,’ I say. I feel uneasy. ‘Do you know when she’s back?’

‘No,’ she smiles. ‘Soon. Why don’t you wait?’

‘I left something behind,’ I lie, ‘a dress I lent Tessa. I’ll just fetch it.’

I go into the bedroom; I feel as if she might be hiding in here, but of course she’s not. I ring her phone; she doesn’t answer. I scribble Tessa a note.

WHERE ARE YOU?

I DID COME. CALL ME ASAP X



As I prop it on the mantelpiece and walk through to the living room, Tessa calls back.

‘I’m at the Academy. Can you meet me here?’

‘I’m at your flat. Are you coming home? I can wait.’

‘Oh God,’ she says, and she sounds scared. ‘At my flat?’

‘Yeah, in your flat. Your friend let me in.’

‘Claudie,’ and she is whispering, ‘get out of there. Come and meet me here. But get out of there right now.’

I hang up the phone. As I turn, the woman is standing very near me. Too near.

‘I have to go,’ I say, ‘I have to meet my boyfriend.’

‘That’s nice. Does he live near?’

‘Not far.’

She stares at me expectantly.

‘Maida Vale.’

‘In the posh bit?’

‘The new bit. Clifton Towers,’ I say absently. My mind is whirring; what is not right here? Who is she?

With a sense of relief, I open the front door.

‘Oh, it’s lovely there isn’t it? Very grand.’ She grabs her tie-dye bag. ‘I’ll come down with you. I need some cigarettes anyway.’

In the lift, I notice she smells of stale sweat. I try not to wrinkle my nose. My head hurts still. Outside the flats a beaten-up old Golf is parked.

‘I can give you a lift,’ the woman says, opening the passenger door, and I start to demur. She is scrabbling around in her bag now, and there is another figure walking towards us very fast from a huge black Range Rover parked on the other side of the road, a figure I think I recognise from the corner of my eye, I think it is Helen, and I start to turn, to say ‘No, really, thank you, I’m fine’ but the snout-faced woman is stepping right up to me; she has something in her hand, she is bringing it up to my face, and I try to duck my head, hitting my hip on the open car door and then …





FRIDAY 14TH JULY: THE BERKELEY SQUARE BOMB CLAUDIE



When I got off the bus from Rafe’s flat – fell off the bus even, the sirens started. Their electronic drone pierced the air like a screeching choir and God I’d never heard anything like it. Police cars and fire trucks and ambulances. The driver of the bus was being radioed constantly, and the passengers were starting to panic, and mutter, and the bus wasn’t moving at all any more. I saw that the road had been shut off: police bikes and vans were parked haphazardly across the tarmac so it couldn’t carry on.

I tried to push through – but a uniformed policeman stopped me.

‘You can’t go in there, love,’ he said, and I thought I could smell burning in the air. ‘Whole area’s sealed off.’

‘I work at the Academy. Just round the corner. The ballet school on Berkeley Square.’ I checked my watch frantically. I had a knot in my stomach that said I was late. Too late. Though it was still only 7.41.

I had to meet Tessa. I couldn’t remember why or where she was, but I was sure she had asked for my help.

‘I have to get to work,’ I cried. ‘It’s vital.’

‘I don’t care where you work, madam, you need to turn around now. The police cordon is being extended as we speak.’

A group of angry pedestrians had gathered behind me, and were starting to push and shove, and I was at the arrow-head of the crowd, and suddenly I found myself slammed into the policeman’s serge chest.

‘Easy, love.’ His arms went around me for a moment and I felt strangely safe, like I could just stay here and see out the storm we were caught in, but then he was pushing me back, and depositing me beside him. ‘Get back,’ he bellowed at the crowd, and now other officers were appearing, and a loudspeaker was being used.

‘We need everyone to evacuate this area immediately. Please leave the area, calmly and quietly. There is no need to panic,’ said a woman’s voice, but by now quite a lot of people were panicking.

‘It’s just like bloody 7/7,’ a young Asian man with long hair and a saggy red jersey said mournfully. ‘This is what happened that day.’ And people picked up on that, and ‘7/7’ went rippling through the crowd. A woman screamed and a couple of children started crying and I thought, something is very wrong, but I couldn’t think what. My head was throbbing so badly, and I just kept thinking of Tessa waiting, and I had a sudden surge of energy. I tried to break through the crowd with some vague idea I’d make it through the cordon, but I tripped and went flying over someone’s briefcase, and I fell awkwardly on the pavement, my cheek scraping the ground painfully, making my eyes water. Or maybe I was crying.

A couple helped me up, and asked if I was all right; and I felt wetness on my cheeks, blood or tears I didn’t know, and a band of iron was tightening around my chest and I realised if I didn’t get out of this crowd, I would start screaming.

I put my head down and held my bag in front of me like a shield, and I managed to push my way out, away from the cordon, away from the smell of diesel fumes and the burning. When I was a bit further away, down by John Lewis, I turned round and looked in the direction of Berkeley Square and I saw a dark plume of smoke feathering up into the air over the rooftops and my stomach clenched again.

I tried my mobile phone. I would phone Tessa to explain, or Mason, and find out if everything was OK in the Academy – but there was no network, everyone was on their phone and the lines had all gone down.

I started to run. I ran straight into the path of a frenetic cyclist at the junction of Regent Street. And then I was not running any more.