Fragile Minds

MONDAY 17TH JULY CLAUDIE



I woke sweating, like a starfish in a pool of my own salt. A bluebottle smashed itself mercilessly between blind and window, its drone an incessant whirr into my brain. It had been a long night of terrors, the kind of night that stretches interminably as you hover between sleep and consciousness, unsure which is dream and which reality.

‘Where are you? Where are you? Why are you not answering? I’m scared, Claudie, I can’t do it, Claudie …’

My heart was pounding as I tried to think where the hell I was. I tried to hold on to the last dream but it was ebbing away already, and fear was setting in. Momentarily I couldn’t remember anything. Why I was here. I was meant to be somewhere else surely – I just couldn’t think where.

I had spent the weekend at Natalie’s, against my better judgement but practically under familial lock and key. Natalie was truly our mother’s daughter, and I’d found the whole forty-eight hours almost entirely painful. She had fussed over me relentlessly, but it was also as if she could not really see me; as if she was just doing her job because she must. In between cups of tea and faux-sympathy, I’d had to speak to my mother several times, to firstly set her mind at rest and then to listen to her pontificate at length on what had really happened in Berkeley Square, and whether it was those ‘damned Arabs’ again. And all the time she’d talked, without pausing, from the shiny-floored apartment in the Algarve where she spent most of her time now, and wondering whether she should come over, ‘Only the planes mightn’t be safe, dear, at the moment, do you think?’ I’d kept thinking of Tessa and wondering why she didn’t answer her phone now.

Worse, it had poured all weekend, trapping us in the house. The highlight was Ella and the infinite games of Connect 4 we played, which obviously I lost every time. ‘You’re not very good, are you, Auntie C?’ Ella said kindly, sucking her thumb whilst my sister scowled at her ‘babyish habit’. ‘Let her be, Nat,’ I murmured, and then Ella let me win a single round.

The low point was – well, there was a choice, actually. There had been the moment when pompous Brendan drank too much Merlot over Saturday supper and had then started to lecture me on ‘time to rebuild’ and ‘look at life afresh’ whilst Natalie had bustled around busily putting away table-mats with Georgian ladies on them into the dresser. I had glared at my sister in the hope that she might actually tell her husband to SHUT UP but she didn’t; she just rolled table napkins up, sliding mine into a shiny silver ring that actually read Guest. So I sat trying to smile at my brother-in-law’s sanctimonious face, thinking desperately of my little flat and the peace that at least reigned there. Lonely peace, perhaps, but peace nonetheless. After a while, I found that if I stared at Brendan’s wine-stained mouth talking, at the tangle of teeth behind the thin top lip, beneath the nose like a fox’s, I could just about block his words out. For half an hour he thought I was absorbing his sensitive advice, instead of secretly wishing that the large African figurehead they’d bought on honeymoon in the Gambia (having stepped outside the tourist compound precisely once, ‘Getting back to the land, Claudie, and oh those Gambians, such a noble people, really, Claudie; having so little and yet so much. They thrive on it’) would crash from the wall right now and render him unconscious.

The second low came on Sunday morning, just after I had turned down the exciting opportunity to accompany them to the local church for a spot of guitar-led happy clapping.

‘Leave Ella here with me,’ I offered. My head was clearer today, not as sore and much less hazy than it had felt recently. The paranoia was receding a little. ‘It must be pretty boring for her, all that God stuff.’

‘Oh I can’t,’ Natalie actually simpered. ‘Not today. We have to give thanks as a family.’

‘What for?’ I gazed at her. She looked coy, dying to tell me something, that familiar flush spreading over her chest and up her neck and face. I looked at her bosom that was more voluptuous than normal and her sparkling eyes and I realised.

‘You’re pregnant,’ I said slowly.

‘Oh. Yes,’ and she was almost disappointed that she hadn’t got to announce it, but she was obviously wrestling with guilt too. ‘Are you OK with that?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’ I moved forward to hug her dutifully. ‘I’m really pleased for you.’

Natalie grabbed my hands and pushed me away from her so she could search my face earnestly. ‘You know why. It must be so hard for you.’ A little tear had gathered in the corner of one of her bovine brown eyes. ‘I – I’d like you to be godmother though,’ she murmured, as if she was bestowing a great gift. ‘It might, you know. Help.’

‘Great,’ I smiled mechanically. And I was pleased for her, of course I was, but nothing helped, least of all this, though she was well-intentioned; and I knew it was impossible for anyone else to understand me. I was trapped in my own distant land, very far from shore; I’d been there since Ned closed his eyes for the last time and slipped quietly from me. ‘Thank you.’ And I hugged her again, just so I didn’t have to look at the pity scrawled across her face.

‘If it’s a boy,’ she started to say, ‘we might call him—’

I heard an imaginary phone ringing in my room upstairs. ‘Sorry, Nat. Better get it, just in case—’ I disappeared before she could finish.

Whilst they were at church, I gathered my few bits and pieces and wrote her a note. I was truly sorry to leave Ella, I loved spending time with her, but I needed to be home now. I needed to be far, far away from my well-meaning sister and the suffocating little nest she called home.

And so here I lay, alone again. In the next room, the phone rang and I heard a calm voice say ‘Leave us messages, please.’

My voice, apparently; swiftly followed by another – male, low. Concerned. I attempted to roll out of bed, but moving hurt so much I emitted a strange ‘ouf’ noise, like the air being pushed from a ball. I lay still, blinded by pain, my ribs still agony from where I’d apparently fallen on Friday. When it subsided, I tried again. Wincing, I stumbled into the other room, snatched the receiver up.

‘Hello?’

‘You’re all right.’ The accented voice was relieved. ‘Thank God.’

‘Who – who is this?’ I caught my reflection in the mirror. Round-eyed, black-shadowed; face scraped like a child’s. My bare feet sank into the sheepskin rug I hated.

‘Claudie. It’s Eduardo. I didn’t know if you’d be there. Your sister called. I thought you might be away.’

‘Away?’ My brow knitted in concentration. ‘Eduardo.’ I made a concerted effort. Eduardo was head of the Academy. In my mind I conjured up an office, papers stacked high, a man in a grey cashmere v-neck, big hands, dark-haired, moving the paperweight, restacking those papers. ‘Oh, Eduardo.’ I sat heavily on the sofa. ‘No, I’m here. Sorry. I think I – I find it hard to wake up sometimes.’

I had got used to a little help recently, the kind of pharmaceutical help I could accept without complication.

‘I’m ringing round everyone to check. You’ve obviously heard what has happened?’

‘About the explosion? Yes,’ my hands clenched unconsciously. ‘Awful.’

‘Awful,’ he agreed. ‘They have only just let us back into the school. But – well, it’s worse than awful, Claudie, I’m afraid.’ I heard his inhalation. ‘There is some very bad news.’

Bad news, bad news. Like a nasty refrain. I stood very quickly, holding my hands in front of me as if warding something off.

‘I’m sorry.’ I sensed his sudden hesitation. ‘I should have thought. Stupid.’ He’d be banging his own head with the heel of his hand, the dramatic Latino. ‘My dear girl—’

‘It’s OK.’ I leant against the wall. ‘Just tell me, please.’

‘It’s Tessa.’

‘Tessa?’ My cracked hands were itching.

Tessa, with her slight limp and her benign face, her hair pulled back so tight. My friend Tessa who had somehow seen me through the past year; with whom I had bonded so strongly through our shared sense of loss. My skin prickled as if someone was scraping me with sandpaper.

‘Tessa’s dead, Claudie. I’m so sorry to have to tell you.’

Absently, I saw that my hand was bleeding, dripping gently onto the cream rug.

Emboldened by my silence, he went on. ‘Tessa was killed outside the Academy. Outright.’ He paused. ‘She wouldn’t have known anything, chicita.’

‘She wouldn’t have known anything,’ I repeated stupidly. My world was closing to a pin-point, black shadows and ghosts fighting for space in my brain.

‘I’m so sorry to have had to tell you,’ he said, and sighed again. ‘I am just pleased for you that you are not here this week. It is a very bad atmosphere. I think it’s good your sister has arranged for you to have this time off.’ I hadn’t had much choice in the matter: Natalie had taken over. ‘Try to rest, my dear. See you soon.’

Tessa was dead. Outside the birds still sang; somewhere nearby a child laughed, shrieked, then laughed again. The rain had stopped. Someone else was playing The Beatles, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Lennon’s voice floated through the warm morning, like dust motes on dusk sunshine. Death was in the room again. I closed my eyes against the cruel world, a world that kept on turning nonetheless, a sob forming in my throat. I imagined myself now, stepping off the bus, fumbling with the clasp of my bag, raising my hand in greeting, happy to see her …

The birds still sang, but my friend Tessa was dead – and I couldn’t help feeling I should have saved her.





TUESDAY 18TH JULY SILVER



7 a.m., and Silver was exhausted already. It had been a horrendous weekend; the worst kind of police work. Counting the dead, identifying and naming the corpses: or rather, what was left of them. Recrimination and finger-pointing and statistics that meant nothing. Contacting the families, working alongside the belligerent and somewhat over-sensitive Counter Terrorist Branch; waiting for the Explosives Officers who were struggling due to the amount of debris caused by the Hoffman Bank partially collapsing, hampered by torrential rain all weekend.

Images stuck to the whiteboards at the end of the office made him wince; the carnage, the tangle of metal, strewn rubber, clothing, the covered dead and the walking wounded. The life-affirming sight of human helping human – only wasn’t it a little late? Too late to make a difference: one human had hated another enough to do this – possibly … A gas leak was still being mooted, but Silver knew the drill, knew this was to prevent panic spreading through the city, another 7/7, another 9/11, the stoic Londoner weary of it all already. The Asians fed up of ever-wary eyes, the Counter Terrorist Branch overworked and frankly baffled. How do you keep tabs on invisible evil that could snake amongst us unseen? Silver was hanged if he knew.

He yawned and stretched as fully as his desk allowed. That bastard Beer was calling him, whispering lovingly in his ear over and again. He needed a long cold pint, smooth as liquid gold down his thirsty aching throat. He swore softly and checked the change in his pocket. Out in the corridor, he bought himself his fifth diet Coke of the night and unwrapped another packet of Orbit. Distractions. He wished he felt fresher, more alert, but he felt tired and rather useless. However much he preferred work to home, he wished himself there now, asleep, oblivious to the world’s inequities. Leaning against the wall wearily, he drank half the can in one go.

Craven popped his balding head out of the office. ‘Your wife’s on the phone.’

‘Ex-wife,’ Silver said mechanically.

In an exercise of male camaraderie, Craven grimaced. ‘Sorry. Ex-wife.’

Silver checked his expensive Breitling watch. Following Craven, he leant over the desk for the receiver. It was early even for her.

‘Lana?’

There was a long silence. He rolled his eyes; he thought he heard a sniff. Lana never cried.

‘What is it, kiddo?’ he tried kindness. He had ignored so many things recently, he was stamping all over his ‘emotional intelligence’ apparently; the intelligence they’d been lectured on recently at conference.

‘Don’t call me that, Joe,’ Lana snapped. ‘It drives me bloody mad.’

Some things never changed. And he didn’t have time for emotional intelligence anyway. He relied on gut instinct.

‘Sorry.’ He almost grinned. ‘What is it, Allana?’

‘I saw her on the News.’

The hairs on his arms stood up. Not this again.

‘I couldn’t sleep so I got up. It was GMTV,’ she was breathless and angry. ‘She was just there, smiling. A photo. I saw her, Joe.’

He’d thought they were through this. ‘Don’t be daft, Lana.’ Through, and out the other side. He dropped his voice to little more than a whisper. ‘We’ve been over this a million times.’ Persuasive, comforting. ‘It’s not her. It can’t be.’

‘On the News. I was watching about the bomb.’

‘Explosion,’ again, he corrected automatically.

‘Explosion. Whatever.’ Her distress was palpable. ‘They had a separate item about missing kids. She’s a dancer. I saw her face.’

‘Whose face?’ He knew who; but he needed her to say it, needed to hear the name.

A gulp, as if she were swallowing air. ‘Jaime. Jaime Malvern.’

‘Lana. Are you drunk?’

‘Nooo,’ the vowel was a long hiss, drawn-out. ‘I am stone cold sober, Joseph. But it’s her. As sure as eggs is eggs.’

They used to laugh at that expression. They used to lie in bed, legs intertwined, and do all the egg expressions: ‘Eggs in one basket, don’t count your chicken eggs.’ They were young, they were in love. They thought they were hilarious. ‘Teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’

Neither of them was laughing now.

‘Lana. It can’t be Jaime, you know that. She’s dead, kid— sweetheart. She’s been dead a long time now.’

‘I know,’ she howled, and the pain in her voice pierced him in the old way. ‘I know she’s bloody dead, Joe.’

Of course she did. Of course Lana knew this better than anyone.

‘But I saw her, Joe. I’m not mad, and I’m not drunk. Not yet anyway. I saw her.’

He stood now. ‘Lana. Don’t. You’ve done so well.’

But she’d gone. He was talking to the air.





Silver didn’t believe his ex-wife’s claims that she’d seen Jaime; he’d heard it a million times before. Allana had been haunted by Jaime’s face every day for six years, obsessed since the accident – since the afternoon that changed their lives forever. The afternoon that ruined Lana irrevocably and finished Jaime’s forever.

Silver had tried his damnedest to bring his wife back to the present, tried and failed; he’d grown used to Allana’s distress and his own guilt. He’d attempted every tactic: therapy, rehab and finally anger, until eventually he knew she was beyond reach. He mourned his lost love – for too long; until finally the mourning turned to indifference as he accepted he could no longer connect. No one could really pierce that layer of pain; not even her own children.

Silver hung up the phone feeling weary of battle. Tired and flat, he was ready for his bed – but something nagged at him. Draining the final backwash of diet Coke and crunching the can in one hand, he sat at the computer and quickly scrolled through the gallery of faces that flashed up. First the missing from the explosion: a photo album of mostly smiling anonymity, gathered quickly by frenetic journalists, posing for graduation, wedding, family snaps. Mothers, sons, nieces, nephews. Many of the families still waiting for their worst fears to be confirmed. The mess that is identifying devastated bodies after fatal accidents. Fourteen dead; the death toll still rising.

He called up the general Missing folder. Nothing. Allana was mad as ever. Not mad, he corrected himself; obsessed. Yawning until his jaw ached, Silver reached the final screen – and then – on a separate page, that face.

With a violent stab of recognition, he clicked back; pulled her up to full-screen. Slightly blurred: pretty little heart-shape, vulnerable baby face – and yet oddly tough too. Long blonde curls, widely spaced light eyes, blue maybe, too knowing for their years. Leaning into another darker girl whose face had been cropped off.

Christ.

Lana was right. He felt a finger of cold horror hook the back of his collar. She looked just like Jaime Malvern. But she couldn’t possibly be. Jaime was long dead. Who then was this girl? A doppelganger?

A ghost …





TUESDAY 18TH JULY CLAUDIE



Someone woke me, banging at the door, banging and banging until I let them in. I was so groggy I could hardly see; looking at the face on my doorstep out of one sticky eye.

Francis.

‘You didn’t come last night,’ he said, ‘and then I heard about Tessa, poor angel. Mason called.’

Bloody Mason. I bet she couldn’t wait to spread the news.

‘So I came to you. I brought chai.’

He walked past me into the flat, his thermos of tea wafting fragrant scent into my living room. But I was a little perturbed. He’d never been here. Why was he here? Had I arranged it, and forgotten this too?

On Monday, after Eduardo’s call, I had gone back to bed and hidden. I couldn’t move, couldn’t function. I lay on the bed, on top of the duvet, entirely still, until I slept again. I dreamt of Tessa. I dreamt of Ned. I feared I was going down again. I had this overriding feeling I should have saved Tessa. I couldn’t save my son – but I could have saved my friend. What had she been so scared of? I kept thinking of the lost hours before Rafe’s; the thoughts went round and round until I felt like screaming.

‘It’s not good to break the treatments,’ Francis said now, perusing the room. ‘Let me pour you tea, and then lie on the sofa and relax. I brought my needles.’

Francis was the acupuncturist and hypnotist Tessa had introduced me to when I fell off the smoking wagon; when I couldn’t sleep after Will left, when the migraines got so bad. I was a mess. I’d been a mess since Ned. ‘He’s amazing, Claudie, really; he has the hands of a genius,’ Tessa said, and so I gave it a go. Actually, I suspected Tessa was slightly in love with him, although she’d never confessed as much. She’d met him on a yoga retreat in the Cotswolds last year, I thought, and extolled his virtues ever since; in the way people who are falling in love want to use the name of their newly beloved all the time, so did she, only I feared her love was not reciprocated. Still, half the staff at the Academy were now using Francis, including a once-sceptical Mason, so Tessa’s enthusiasm had done him no harm.

Francis was certainly a unique individual; dark hair with a mullet and a deeply cared-for goatee beard, black discs in his tribally pierced ears, a shark tooth round his neck but pushing fifty, I suspected. He was friendly and empathetic, but I couldn’t for one moment see the sexual appeal Tessa obviously did, though his needles undoubtedly worked.

I drank a little of his revolting tea out of courtesy and took my jewellery off first as Francis always requested. He believed the metal interfered with my chakras and who was I to argue? I hardly knew what a chakra was. And perhaps the acupuncture would help clear my head now. I put my necklace on the sideboard and lay down on the sofa.

‘You’re not wearing a nicotine patch are you?’ he murmured as he measured my arm with his own hand, and inserted two needles near my elbow.

‘No,’ I shook my head.

‘Good girl.’ Francis chose another needle from his little box, and jabbed suddenly. A searing pain shot through my wrist.

‘Ouch!’ That had never happened before.

Francis looked troubled and took the needle out. I thought his hand was shaking a little.

‘I’m so sorry, Claudia.’ He stroked his beard. ‘My own energy is a little depleted today, I fear.’

‘No worries,’ I said, but I was nervous now.

He took a fresh needle and jabbed again – and the same searing pain shot through me.

‘Ow!’

He stared down at me, needle in hand, and I gazed back at him with apprehension. ‘Why’s that happening?’ I asked anxiously, looking at the spot of blood welling from my wrist.

‘I’m not sure. It could be hitting a chi path, ’specially if you’re feeling unwell.’ He stroked his beard again until it began to look pointed. ‘Something feels off kilter to me.’

My vague headache was taking a more severe hold and suddenly I felt violently ill. He was an alien presence, smelling so sickly of patchouli and lavender; and the stupid whale music he’d put on in the background seemed unbearable now.

‘Can you take them out?’ Panic was building in my chest. I was going back to a place I never wanted to revisit. ‘The needles. I really would like you to—’

‘Of course, Claudia. Be still for a moment.’ He removed the first two needles as I tried desperately to calm my breathing.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Francis shook his head, melancholy now. ‘This so rarely happens. And it is inexcusable if it is my fault. But as I say,’ he held his hands above my head now, not touching me, just hovering over my hair, ‘as I say, if you are poorly, then your paths can get so blocked that it causes pain. And I do feel a blockage.’

‘Right.’ I stood now, wishing his hands far away from me. ‘I need to go out now. Thank you for coming.’ I walked to the front door; held it open. ‘It was very kind.’

‘Something is not right, Claudia.’ He stepped through the door, gazing at me. ‘I sense it in your system. Is there anything you’ve changed? Your diet maybe, or—’

‘No,’ I almost shouted. ‘Nothing. Really.’

‘And I did want to talk about Tessa with you. To celebrate her spirit—’

‘Another time, OK?’ I shut the door firmly and leant against it, my heart thumping painfully.

What was happening to me?





Tessa had fitted no mould. Unconventional; gentle but outspoken, it was as if she had been born in the wrong era, out of her time. Push her back through the decades by forty years, and it would have seemed right. She revelled in beauty; the whiteness and the thread count of a tablecloth; the cylindrical shape of a water glass; Grace Kelly’s frocks. She dressed simply, in silks and cottons more expensive than my rent. The way she pulled her hair up and back was reminiscent of Margot Fonteyn or Lynn Seymour, not of the dancers’ styles today. She was anachronistic, misplaced – and hiding some deep hurt.

We’d met on her first day at the Academy. I was just back from compassionate leave, unsure if I could now hold down a job. I had retreated into myself wholly. I absorbed myself in work as best I could, but I was still raw as butcher’s meat on the block.

That morning during a break I had found the staffroom empty and I’d hunched into the corner chair, restraining myself from running; desperately repeating the mantras I had been taught, which were apparently meant to see me through the times of despair.

Tessa burst in, her long black skirt trailing dramatically, her spotted hairband wrapped tight round her fair hair. She exuded excitement.

‘Coffee?’ she offered, resting her walking stick in the corner whilst she wrestled with the jar of Nescafé. I indicated my full mug.

‘Thanks, I’m OK.’ I bit back the tears that had been threatening to fall.

‘Tessa Lethbridge, new from Melbourne.’ She poured the boiling water into her polystyrene cup. ‘God, the sense of history in this place. I can’t believe I’m actually here – er—’

I looked at her. She was waiting for me to tell her my name, I realised. I met her eyes, and they were kind.

‘Claudie. Claudie Scott. I’m one of the physios.’

‘Well, Claudie Scott, the sense of heritage and beauty in this building, my God,’ she whistled low and long. She sounded so much more Australian then. ‘We are privileged beyond belief, aren’t we?’

‘I guess so.’ I had never really looked at it like that.

‘You English. You don’t know you’re born half the time. I mean, look at this place, just look, Claudie, and give thanks.’

I just gazed at her. She looked back, frowning slightly now.

‘Sorry. Are you OK?’ She swiped up her cup now and sat in the chair beside me.

‘Yes.’ I nodded my head. The tears fell. I despised myself. ‘No. I don’t know.’

‘Oh, Christ.’ She pulled her chair nearer. ‘Me and my big mouth. There’s me all revved up and you’re crying in the corner. Wanna share?’

‘If you don’t mind,’ I wiped away the tears, ‘not really right now.’ I looked at her face, so worried now, and I tried to smile. ‘But thank you.’

But there was something about Tessa that did make me want to share, and eventually I did. An openness we uptight British lacked, perhaps, a warmth, or just a basic human instinct for being there, and it drew me to her until we forged a proper friendship. We ate lunch in small brasseries down the side streets; we talked of ballet and books and, sometimes, old boyfriends. We both liked Jean-Luc Godard and Tati; we cooked from Elizabeth David. We went to the ballet – our favourite busman’s holiday, or to watch French films; inevitably I forgot my glasses. We didn’t talk family often; it was unspoken and safely off-limits most of the time, but after a while, I discovered that she too had lost a child; two in fact, when her only pregnancy ended in early tragedy, and it led to a strong bond. We both had huge holes in our lives that needed filling, but we let them lie quietly beside us. Tessa, with her limp and her stick; her passion bubbling below a benign surface; with a love of ballet more intense than any I’d ever known before.

It was Tessa who I’d come to depend on in the darkest, bleakest hours. It was Tessa who had encouraged me to listen to my heart when my husband Will left, to not follow him to a place I didn’t belong. It was Tessa who had found me Francis when I couldn’t sleep. It was Tessa who knew what loss was like; it was Tessa who answered the phone in the middle of the night when I felt I couldn’t wake my oldest friends any more, though I saw her a little less once Rafe was around.

It was Tessa who had gone now. Dead.

It was I who, once again, was left behind. Who couldn’t help fearing that in some way, I had helped her to her death. I clutched the necklace she’d bought me; I racked my brain. If only I could remember why. And if only I knew why I couldn’t remember …





TUESDAY 18TH JULY KENTON



Silver had insisted she take the weekend off, but by Monday night, Kenton had been champing at the bit to get back to work. The horrific images had begun to fade a little, and she had listened to Alison’s calming tape at least five times until frankly, she thought the images were probably increasing manifold in her supposedly relaxed mind. Severed limbs and the like strewn across the ‘safe place’ of her childhood, a long beach in Dorset with good fossils and an ice-cream van selling cider lollies on the cliff. It had been difficult keeping busy with not much to do.

On Saturday she had driven down to see her father in Kent, who had worried her rather by referring to her at least twice during the visit as ‘Lilian’, which had been her late mother’s name. She had taken him to Waitrose, which was a real treat in her eyes. She had picked up some lovely ginger cordial and a fantastic Beef Wellington – but Dad had just grumbled that it wasn’t what he was used to, and then grew apoplectic about the prices, so in the end she had given up and taken him down to Aldi.

On Sunday the rain had been Biblical, as her mother would have said, and Alison came over for lunch: Beef Wellington, green beans and lumpy mash. Cooking really wasn’t Kenton’s forte, but Alison had been nice about it all, even about the sticky toffee pudding, which had more stick than toffee and had been impossible to get off the bloody pan for days after; the custard that was in turn both liquid and powder. Kenton had kept sneaking looks at Alison’s pretty round face, slightly troubled now as one dark curl caught in the zip of her borrowed cagoule, as they had prepared to walk along the canal after lunch.

‘Here, let me,’ Kenton had said, and she had been both nervous and exhilarated as she helped free her hair, and she had wanted to stroke Alison’s face. Her skin was like alabaster, her mum would have said, and Kenton had wondered for the tenth time that day what Alison saw in her, in her own pleasant blunt-nosed face that no one could ever call pretty. Alison had slipped her hand into Kenton’s and Kenton had felt a kind of pride that she hadn’t for years, since Diana Grills had kissed her behind the science block after the Sixth Form disco. Before Diana had blanked her and got off with Tony Hall half an hour later, leaving her broken-hearted for the first but not the last time in her life.

‘How are you feeling?’ Alison had asked, and Kenton had grinned and said, ‘Happy.’

‘That’s nice,’ Alison had smiled too, but then looked more serious and said, ‘But I meant about work. You know. The bad dreams.’

‘All right,’ Kenton had became gruff. She didn’t like to show her weak side.

‘It’s OK to be freaked out,’ Alison had said gently, and she’d held Kenton’s hand tighter, as if she could feel that Kenton had been about to relinquish hers. ‘We can talk about it if you like.’

‘It’s just part of the job,’ Kenton had said, and Alison nodded, and said, ‘Yes I can see that.’

There’d been a pause. Then two Canadian geese had flown overhead in perfect symmetry; they wheeled and turned course together over the rooftops.

‘Amazing,’ Kenton had shaken her head. ‘How does one know where the other is about to go?’

‘Not sure,’ Alison had looked up into the sky. ‘Synchronicity, I guess.’

They had walked on in silence for a bit.

‘I’m going back tomorrow,’ Kenton had said eventually. ‘Or Tuesday. See how I feel.’

‘You do that,’ Alison had said, and squeezed Kenton’s hand.





And so, by 8.15 a.m. on a damp Tuesday morning, Kenton was back at her desk, papers stacked neatly. Not exactly raring to go, perhaps, but looking forward to putting the trauma behind her, and getting on with the case. She had been in Berkeley Square herself; now it was of paramount importance to find the culprit and lay it to rest.





TUESDAY 18TH JULY CLAUDIE



I switched off the landline, so they rang my mobile instead.

Natalie first. I didn’t answer the phone.

I tried Tessa’s number. Just in case. Just in case it was all a big mistake, I tried it. Nothing.

I lay on the sofa. I stared at the ceiling.

Rafe rang. He was at the House of Commons; he sounded pretty keen to hear from me, but I didn’t answer the call. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say yet. I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been a challenge to him and he didn’t want to admit defeat.

I got up again and ate some stale Jammy Dodgers. I threw a dead spider plant away I’d always disliked. Its dead leaves trailed from the bin like fingers.

I tried Tessa again. The silence was deafening.

I paced the flat. I had that feeling again that someone was watching me from the corner of the room. I was fighting the paranoia and the memories of what had happened so dramatically to me when Ned died. I had to find an answer to this mess.

Helen rang. ‘Call me, Claudie, please. I’m worried. You’ve missed an appointment.’

I looked at my photos, I turned the big one of Ned back up again. Sometimes it hurt too much to look at him, but now I stared into his laughing eyes. What should I do?

My head was beginning to ache again; I was becoming my headache. Why couldn’t I remember Friday morning?

Listened to the rain outside. Got dressed, turned on the television.

There was yet another news conference taking place, headed by the Commissioner of the Police; blindly I stared at it. Next to him sat a bullet-headed man with the bluest eyes, grim-faced, glaring at the cameras, and beside him a gently weeping woman, face in her hands, and a plain middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and an expensive but nondescript suit, his receding grey hair pushed back, talking about the Hoffman Bank and how they would rebuild despite the tragedy. After a while, the Commissioner stopped talking and the bullet-headed policeman called Malloy was asking for the public’s cooperation as confirmation was still awaited re bomb or explosion, and our patience whilst they worked on the difficult task of identifying the missing and wounded as quickly as possible. Once again help-line numbers were flashed up.

An unsmiling photo of Tessa floated behind the man’s head.

‘One of the confirmed dead was ballet teacher Tessa Lethbridge,’ the bullet-headed man said vehemently. ‘We need these deaths not to go unmarked. If you know anything at all about the events of Friday morning, if you saw anything, were in the area, please, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You will be doing your public duty.’

Now the weeping woman began to talk about her missing brother. I turned the television off, rubbed my aching head fretfully. Fear was building in me until I felt like I might explode. I banged my head desperately with my flattened palms, palms that were itching desperately, the eczema flaring again. Why could I not remember? Why did I feel like I had done something very bad?

I returned to the sofa. The sun set over the rooftops, sliding into cloud, tingeing the sky with a pink luminescence. I felt an ache like a hard stone in my belly. I couldn’t cry any more. Something was very wrong and I didn’t know what. Tessa was slipping into the darkness, and she didn’t belong there.





TUESDAY 18TH JULY SILVER



Silver had stared at the girl’s face for what seemed like an age, and then called up her name. With a flash of relief he saw that it wasn’t Jaime Malvern. Misty Jones, 20, the name read. The girl Malloy had bumped Bobby Elwood for; reported missing at the end of last week, just before the explosion by a worried flatmate and friend, Lucie Duffy. No other details yet. He sat behind the desk, head in hands, trying to laugh at himself. Ridiculous to think it could have been her.

Silver had debated calling Lana and reassuring her – but he didn’t; he simply couldn’t face it now. He clocked off; glad to see Kenton back at her desk, brave lass, and then fought his way through the traffic wondering for the thousandth time why exactly all Londoners seemed so imbued with rage, glowering and swearing in their vehicles. Silver put on his CD of Duke Ellington and managed to maintain his calm by imagining his kids on the beach in Corfu. At a set of lights, he pulled up next to an elderly Rastafarian swaying to music by Burning Spear, crumpled spliff in hand. He smiled politely at Silver, his beard grizzled against his darker skin. Silver nodded back.

In the lively house in New Cross that was presently home, Silver retreated to his attic room and ate a bowl of Cornflakes sitting on the bed. He slid his boots off and lay down on the chintzy bedspread, fully clothed, sick with tiredness, thanking God most of his landlady’s noisy tribe were out.

When Silver had first come to London three years ago, when Lana had fully recovered, he’d stayed in the Section House nearest the station. But he’d found the boxy little room and the cool anonymity depressing after the noise of a large family home, and when one of his constables moved out of Philippa’s, Silver took over the large attic room as an experiment. He’d been expecting to stay for a few months at most, but somehow, a year or so later, here he still was. It was cheap and predominantly cheerful; Philippa cooked for him, which meant his tolerance of chilli pepper was impressive now; plus living here meant he could afford the small cottage at the base of the Pennines that sat empty for ten months of the year; that he planned to make home one of these days. Before too long, he told himself. For now, he felt comfortable where he was.

But tonight there was no rest to be had. Each time he shut his eyes, Jaime’s face floated in the ether, her name whispering through the red blood that thumped in his ears.

He dozed for a fitful hour and then he was back up again. It was dark now and he could hear the younger children below, the jolly and incessant jingle of the Wii. He called Craven.

‘Any news?’

‘Nope. None of the Islam-a-twats are holding their hands up – yet, anyhow. F*cking monkeys.’

‘No call for that, is there, Derek?’ Silver said lightly. ‘Need a favour, actually.’ It pained him to even ask.

A sigh. ‘Go on.’

‘I need some details on a missing person. Girl called Misty Jones.’

‘Misty Jones? As in Clint?’

‘Clint?’ Silver switched the kettle that lived on the table in the corner of his room, and wiped the surface down. It was spotless already, but he wiped it anyway.

‘Eastwood. Play Misty For Me.’

‘Oh right.’ He pulled the coffee off the tray. ‘I’m not a big Western fan personally.’

‘Not a Western. More – creepy. About a bunny boiler with big tits, I seem to remember. Anyway,’ Craven ate something noisy down Silver’s ear. Crisps, by the sounds of it. ‘Misty. Kind of a made-up name, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe.’ He didn’t want her to be made-up: she had to be Misty. Flesh and blood and real; nothing to do with Jaime. ‘That’s what I need to find out.’

‘I’ll have a dig around.’ Craven finished whatever he was eating with relish. Was the man actually licking his fingers? ‘Get back to you as-ap.’ He pronounced it as two words. Irritating. He did irritate Silver, a lot. All faux-jollity, resentment and latent bigotry, big belly spilling over a thin crocodile-skin belt.

‘Cheers, pal.’ Silver hung up. His emotional intelligence might be out of kilter, but his gut instinct was working hard now at least. He had tried to convince himself all afternoon that things were all right – but he knew deep down something was definitely wrong.