Fragile Minds

TUESDAY 18TH JULY CLAUDIE



In the evening, I managed to open the front door to my best friend Zoe. Good old Natalie had rung her, and despite all my best protestations she had been insistent that she’d cook Paella and sit with me tonight. Zoe had a new Spanish boyfriend called Pablo and was learning Spanish cuisine for his benefit, which was infinitely preferable to the toasted cheese sandwiches she normally lived on. She arrived at six in her latest incarnation – Zoe was the eternal chameleon when it came to men – Capri pants immaculate, ingredients spilling out of the wicker basket she lugged up to the flat, neat auburn ponytail and gold hoops swinging from her ears as she unpacked her wares, black eyeliner flicked above her watchful eyes. We drank white Rioja and didn’t talk about the explosion, apart from the plaster on my cheek. We talked about love; she was thinking of moving to Barcelona to be with Pablo.

‘Hmm,’ I mused. ‘It means your babies will play for Barca and not Man U. Your dad will be devastated.’

‘My mum will be relieved, that’s all I know. She knows my clock is ticking.’ She shot me a quick look.

‘It’s fine, Zoe,’ I murmured, staring into my cloudy glass. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘So,’ she said brightly, ‘how’s it going with that nice Rafe guy? Will you be moving into Number 10 together soon?’

‘It’s not going.’

She stared at me.

‘Are you joking?’

‘No.’

‘I thought he was good for you.’ She looked so disappointed, I almost felt guilty. ‘And so bloody successful.’

‘Good for me?’ I drained my drink. ‘Like Vitamin C or broccoli?’ I thought of Francis’s botched attempt earlier at making me feel better. I thought about my new fears that the disassociation I’d experienced after Ned’s death was returning. I wondered whether to mention it to my oldest friend.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Do I?’ I stood to stack the plates.

‘Don’t be difficult, Claudia.’

‘I’m not, really. It’s just – it’s meant to be love, not – not health.’

Zoe gazed at me until I felt uncomfortable. ‘And it’s not love?’

‘No. It was company. And I’m fine on my own.’ Though I had definitely felt a little more protected since I’d met Rafe. I pushed that thought away.

‘Are you?’ She stared at me until I nearly squirmed.

‘Yes. Even though I did quite fancy opening the door in my nightie on Election Day.’ I chucked a prawn shell in the bin. ‘I’d have made sure I got my hair done first though.’

We gazed at each other for a moment and then began to laugh, almost hysterically, so I had to sit down again and catch my breath.

‘It’s not funny,’ I gasped in the end.

‘No, it’s not.’ Zoe wiped her eyes with some kitchen roll. ‘And you could do with a good haircut actually. You do look a bit – dishevelled at the moment. Slightly – Worzel Gummidge.’

‘Oh thanks a lot.’ She was revving up for a lecture, I could tell. I changed the subject. ‘It’s just – it was all wrong. Me and Rafe. I think he’s been seeing someone else, anyway.’ I stood again.

‘Really?’ she frowned.

‘Yes. And the funny thing is,’ I considered it for a moment, ‘I couldn’t really care less.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

‘I mean, he’s nice and everything, but—’

‘But he wasn’t Will,’ she finished for me.

I plonked the plates into the sink.

‘I heard he’s back you know,’ she said, and I felt ice in my belly. ‘Will, I mean.’

‘Did you?’ I said casually. I hadn’t. I was still furious with him.

‘Claudie,’ Zoe looked at me all seriously, her dark eyes almost beseeching, ‘I really think it would be a good idea to—’

The phone rang and I snatched it up gratefully. It was a policewoman called DS Lorraine Kenton from Holborn.

‘We have some routine enquiries following the death of your colleague Tessa Lethbridge.’

I felt the cold kick of guilt and sorrow again.

‘Is there a suitable time we could meet please? Where will you be tomorrow or Thursday? It won’t take long.’

Unnerved, we arranged a time and place and I hung up the phone. Zoe had busied herself in the kitchen and was manfully grating nutmeg over baked peaches, her middle knuckle bleeding into the sauce.

‘Ouch! What I was going to say about Will was—’

The phone rang again.

‘Blimey, you’re popular,’ she glared at me as if I had arranged the call to stop her probing.

‘It’ll be that policewoman wanting to move the time.’

But it wasn’t.

‘Claudia,’ the voice said, and I wasn’t sure I recognised it. It was low and threatening, angry even. ‘If you are there, you know you shouldn’t be. Time is running out.’

They hung up before I could reply.





With shaking hands, I tried to call the number back, but of course it was barred.

‘Who was that?’ Zoe asked, and I stared at her stupidly. Behind her the sky was melting into darkness.

‘Some complete nutter,’ I tried to joke but it didn’t seem very funny.

‘Are you OK?’ She peered at me, running hot water into the sink. ‘You’ve gone terribly white.’

That voice. I’d heard it in my dreams.

‘Yes I’m fine. I’m just going to wash my hands.’

I went in to the bathroom and leant my hot head against the cool bathroom tiles. Did I know that voice? It was probably someone just winding me up. My hands were trembling as I looked through the little basket on the shelf for my pills. What would Helen say? Breathe deep, breathe into the panic.

I held on to the basin, and looked into the mirror, shocked at the sight of me. My shoulder-length hair was unbrushed and rather like hay with roots; my eyes seemed a darker brown than normal, black almost, and slightly wild. Half my face was still hidden beneath a great plaster; I slowly peeled it off. The dirty marks from the tape made me look like a panda and my skin beneath the dressing was almost translucent. I stared at myself, trying to come back to the moment. I had the strange sensation I should be going somewhere right now. I shook my head and swallowed the pills, scooping water from the tap like a man in a desert.

Zoe was calling me from the other room.

‘Claudie. Listen. They’re saying someone has taken responsibility for the explosion.’

She’d switched the radio on whilst she did the washing-up; the Northern tones of the presenter were crisp and precise as he announced:

‘We can reveal that earlier today a letter was sent to the BBC claiming the explosion in Berkeley Square was entirely deliberate and down to their organisation, although no names were given. However, the package contained a banner that read DAUGHTERS OF LIGHT: FOR PURITY. New Scotland Yard have refused to comment at this juncture, saying only that they receive many numbers of false claims every day.’

‘Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.’ Zoe pulled the plug out with a resounding squelch. ‘Daughters of Light, my arse; creating mayhem and killing everyone.’ She dried her hands on the oven gloves for want of anything better. ‘I’d better get going, darling, if you’ll be all right? Said I’d Skype Pablo later.’

‘I’m fine,’ I mumbled. I looked down, clenched my fists, then unclenched them. I forced myself to speak. ‘Actually, I’m – I’m a bit scared, Zoe.’

‘Why?’ She stepped closer, peering into my face as if she could read my thoughts that way.

‘I think—’ I took a deep breath, ‘I’m worried it’s happening again.’

‘What’s happening?’ She took my hands in hers, her neat little nose slightly wrinkled with worry.

‘The splitting. I’m worried—’ I tried to smile. ‘I’m worried that I’m having – an episode.’

‘Like last time? I thought it was under control now?’

‘So did I.’ I freed my hands and busied myself with the dishwasher for a moment. Zoe waited patiently. ‘It sort of feels like that, but different.’

‘What does?’ I could sense her struggling to understand. ‘Tell me.’

‘It’s like – I had this weird thing last week. I found myself at Rafe’s and I – the thing is, I couldn’t remember how I’d got there.’

‘Have you told the doctors?’

I shook my head vehemently. ‘No. I don’t want to get locked up again. I’m not mad, Zoe, I know I’m not.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ she soothed me like a child.

‘But why can’t I remember?’ I frowned at her. ‘I know that the day before the explosion Tessa was panicked—’

‘Oh, bloody Tessa.’ Zoe had never gelled with Tessa, and I’d secretly always wondered if she was a little jealous of our friendship. ‘I mean, I’m sorry she’s dead – but she was a loose cannon, Claudie.’

‘A loose cannon?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s harsh. But there was something not quite right about her, if you ask me.’

Which I hadn’t.

‘But she was trying to tell me something, Zoe, and I don’t know what. And then the explosion. I was in town and yet, it’s just so confused in my head.’

‘You’ll be telling me next that you did it,’ she joked.

I stared at her.

‘Claudie,’ there was an urgent note suddenly in Zoe’s voice. ‘You didn’t do it, for God’s sake. That was a joke. Not a very good one, admittedly.’

‘I know,’ I tried that smile again. ‘But something’s wrong somewhere.’

‘Look, perhaps you should see the doctors again.’ Zoe’s phone bleeped. ‘Tell them you’re worried.’

‘Perhaps.’ There was no way I was admitting this to the doctors. And anyway, confused as I felt, I knew this was not exactly the same as last time.

Zoe checked her message. ‘Pablo,’ she grinned ruefully, her face lighting up.

‘Ah, young love. Don’t let me keep you from Skype.’

‘If I can still speak after all the vino. My Spanish is still crap, though my swear words are coming on a storm.’

At the door, Zoe swung her wicker basket onto her arm like Little Red Riding Hood – though I imagined it was more Penélope Cruz she was channelling.

‘Let me know what they say, Claudie.’ She kissed me and took my hands in hers. ‘The doctors.’

‘I will.’

‘And talk to me, won’t you, if it gets really bad again.’

‘OK,’ I mumbled, trying to pull away.

‘And promise me one thing.’

‘What?’ but I already knew what Zoe was going to say.

‘Promise me you’ll call Will. I think you may need—’ she trailed off.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ She frowned. ‘It just worries me. You being alone again.’

I reached around her to open the front door. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I like being alone. And I’ll think about it.’

But right now, I had more pressing things on my mind.





WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY SILVER



Silver woke feeling hungover, which was ridiculous because he hadn’t had a drink for five years, three months, four weeks and – well. His fanatical counting of the days AA-style had dissipated a little in the past year or so, but old habits did die hard, it appeared.

Five minutes after arriving at work, Malloy called him in; bantered about the squash tournament briefly, and ‘that ponce Lonsdale’, and then asked Silver to head up part of what was now being referred to as Operation Nightingale.

‘You’ve probably heard, Al-Qaeda’s little friends have put up this new website since the explosion, celebrating the death toll. It’s a f*cking travesty.’ The top of Malloy’s bullet-shaped head was practically quivering with outrage. ‘But the f*cking knobs who run the worldwide web say they have no jurisdiction to shut it down. And the Muslims are not taking the rap for this, though they’re having a damn good laugh about it, so Counter Terrorism are about to pass it over. Got enough on their plate apparently; they’ll give us one dedicated officer to work with us and that’s it. And now we’ve got this f*cking stupid “Purity” pony to deal with that’s been leaked to the press.’ Malloy flung a typewritten letter onto the desk in front of Silver; he scanned it quickly.


To those who perpetuate the suffering in this world:

It is time you saw that things must change, that we cannot continue ad nauseam to ruin our planet, to never take the blame. We need to purify: we are purifying for you all. Be warned, Berkeley Square is only the beginning.



‘Nutters, no? Any other developments?’ Silver folded the letter and sat opposite his boss.

‘I’ve just found out that there was some sort of tip-off on the Friday morning; some bird rang to say there was going to be a “major incident southeast of Oxford Street”. If the press get hold of that, we are for the f*cking high jump.’

‘Who dealt with the call?’

‘It was passed over to SO15, but the operator thought it was a hoax. Said the woman was slightly hysterical and she thought she was a crazy. And f*cking Explosives are taking forever, and they’re so reticent to actually confirm anything, it’s doing my head in.’ Malloy fiddled with his Police Benevolent Fund paper-clip box in a way that suggested he wanted to slam it through the wall. He was highly agitated; more so than Silver remembered seeing him. ‘The bank wants to sue, the building firm are terrified they’re going to lose everything and British Gas are cacking themselves. Plus we’ve hardly managed to retrieve any CCTV footage at all, surprise f*cking surprise. So far only one of the cameras that survived the blast seems to have even been switched on. I wonder why the f*ck we bother really.’

Malloy dropped the paper-clip box and opened a DVD package on his desk, fiddling with his laptop for a minute, his stubby fingers clumsy on the keys, swearing quietly. ‘Christ. Technology. Makes me feel prehistoric. Right, here we go.’

The picture was visible now.

‘See, this little thing arrives at the Academy around 6.47.’

Silver watched a short teenage girl in a beanie hat enter via the front stairs, holding a gym bag. At 6.49 another taller woman, using a stick, walking as quickly as her limp allowed, came out and, standing at the top of the Academy stairs, made two calls, scanning the square as she did so. Then she went back into the building.

‘Tessa Lethbridge possibly? TBC. About five minutes later, the girl comes back outside, apparently to have a cigarette. Then this courier bike arrives,’ Malloy pointed at the screen, ‘and hands her this package; she goes back inside at 7.03.’

Silver found the flickering footage made him feel almost seasick.

‘Now look.’ At 7.08 a white car drove up, an old Golf, stopping outside the Academy, the driver apparently on a mobile phone.

‘Who’s that?’

‘No f*cking reg of course, from this angle.’ Malloy cracked his knuckles. ‘But we need to identify him.’

Two minutes later a couple of builders in hard hats and yellow high-visibility jackets walked past the Academy, presumably heading for the Hotel Concorde building site in the adjacent corner.

On the other side of the road, a figure in a full-length burqa pushed an empty pushchair to the edge of the pavement, then began to cross the road. Silver found he was riveted despite his slight nausea. A car passed through frame, then a black Range Rover. The figure in the Golf saw the girl come out of the Academy doors again, holding up a hand in greeting as she ran down the stairs to the pavement, and then a figure follow behind her, but before their identity was revealed, a double-decker bus pulled in front of the camera, obscuring any view.

Another thirty seconds: and the picture went white.

‘What the hell—’ Silver sat back, intensely frustrated, as if he’d just missed the end of his favourite soap opera.

‘Exactly. What the hell? The only people visible to us in the square and they hardly look like your typical group of fundamentalists do they?’

‘Except burqa-girl.’

They replayed the video. This time Silver noticed the way the girl smoking a cigarette outside of the Academy, who had accepted the courier’s parcel, was pacing back and forth as she waited. He watched again as the woman in the burqa seemed to react to something behind her.

‘Of course, burqa-girl might be totally unlinked.’ Malloy scratched his head, his grey crew-cut like burnt stubble in a field. ‘It’s just she seems obvious to me. Why’s the pushchair empty? It’s just a foil, surely. But Counter Terrorism disagree. And upstairs, they’re so f*cking paranoid about inciting religious hatred at the moment, they won’t say boo to a goose, which don’t help.’

‘But then,’ Silver rubbed his face wearily, ‘there’s no actual evidence from any of that, that any of them are directly linked to the explosion.’

‘No, of course. But what the f*ck were they up to?’ Malloy slammed the laptop lid shut with a thump. ‘Strike ’em off the list, and I’ll be happy. We need to find all of them: the courier bike and the bloke in the car, burqa-girl, and the dancer. And f*cking pronto. Christ, Joe,’ he stood up and then sat again. ‘We’ve got fourteen dead, the f*cking world’s media breathing down our necks, not to say the Commissioner and everyone at County Hall. I’m setting you up a new team; take Roger Okeke and Tina Price for now.’

Silver felt the surge of adrenaline that came with a new investigation. Okeke was good; young and baying for blood; Price was new but came with good reviews from Southampton. And now Kenton seemed back on track after her initial shock. It was shaping up to be a nice little team. Except, perhaps, for Craven.

‘While we wait for Explosives to pull their heads out of their tiny little arses, we need to identify who this little lot are,’ Malloy’s blue eyes were burning, ‘and what the f*ck they were up to before they got blown to kingdom come.’

Silver felt enthused for the first time in weeks.

‘Get on with it, Joe.’ Malloy’s attention was already distracted by an email. ‘And take the CCTV footage with you. You need to liaise with Counter Terrorism. I need f*cking results, and I need ’em yesterday.’





Five days on from the bombing, the phones in the office still rang incessantly: frantic relatives who hadn’t seen loved ones for weeks or even months and were now beginning to panic. The vast divisions of family became more obvious at times like these, Silver knew; loved ones ignored for years suddenly became the world’s nearest and dearest. The help lines were so busy they kept jamming, and eventually some of the Traffic team had to be seconded in to answer calls.

Lessons had been learnt from 7/7 and the chaos that had ensued then, but for the Met, a disaster like this was still a nebulous mass that was hard to manage. They had to think on their feet; very often, frustratingly, they had to chase their own tails.

When Silver returned from Malloy’s office, Kenton was filling in the whiteboard at the end of the room with today’s date and updating the lists.

MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD

Silver called Kenton over.

‘How are you?’

‘Fine, sir.’ She practically stood to attention. He grinned. He liked this girl; despite her dodgy hair, she was as solid as her stocky frame; diligent – with fire in her belly.

‘Here’s some CCTV footage of the bombing. I think you should take a look, if you can cope with it? See if you recognise anyone.’

She paled slightly, but nodded at the same time. ‘Sure.’

‘Did you see Merryweather?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Well. The facility is there if you need it. Don’t forget.’

‘Thanks.’

‘By the way. Misty Jones.’ Silver straightened his cuff with nonchalance. ‘The girl you were going to Crime Live! about. Have you got details of whoever reported her missing?’

‘Girl called Lucie Duffy, I think.’ Kenton frowned. ‘Flatmate, and yeah. Everything filed in the A drive, under Contacts.’

In the safety of his own office, Silver called the mobile number listed. A girl answered sotto-voce, piano music thumping in the background; he explained who he was.

‘I’m in rehearsal, I can’t really talk now,’ she murmured.

‘I need some more details. Why you think your friend’s missing.’

‘I’m on lunch in an hour. Can I call you back then please?’

‘Where are you, Miss Duffy?’

‘Covent Garden. Royal Opera House.’ She had a small, rather husky voice. ‘Tech run for Swan Lake at 4 p.m.’

Silver had no idea what she was on about. He unwrapped another stick of gum. ‘I’ll meet you there. One o’clock.’

‘Fine. Ask for Rehearsal Room 3.’ She hung up.

Silver should have sent one of his team; Misty Jones was nothing to do with Operation Nightingale, and he had more important matters at hand. The beauty was, though, no one would stop him. Before he got on with the bigger questions in hand, he had to satisfy himself that Misty Jones had no connection with Jaime Malvern.





Silver sent half of his team out on various dead and missing enquiries, including tracing the family of Australian ballet teacher Lethbridge, one of the first to be identified, who were proving elusive. Kenton and Craven were given the CCTV footage and the task of beginning to identify those featured. Silver wasn’t sure they’d work together well, but Kenton was a good foil for the bull-headed older policeman – if she could bear his outdated chauvinism. Now Silver headed out himself. Parking up near Holborn he walked the last half mile. Rehearsal Room 3 was on the top floor of the Royal Opera House; he was in good enough shape to jog up most of the stairs without being out of breath. Or much out of breath anyway, he thought ruefully, on the top step.

Through the glass-paned door he watched a slight mixed-race girl with dark plaits being whisked up into the air by a strapping youth in shorts so tight they made Silver wince. The ballerina’s back arched until she was curved almost fully into a circle, her short practice skirt rippling as one strong shapely leg extended gracefully before her. Silver had not the first clue about ballet and even less interest, but even he could recognise this as impressive. Lana would have enjoyed it. He remembered Molly trundling round the church hall aged five in her little pink leotard with a tummy swelling gently over her frilly skirt, constantly wobbling the opposite way to everyone else as the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was crashed out on the ancient piano, and he grinned. Happy days. Lana had high hopes for her only daughter – bright lights, big cities; chances she’d never had – chances a relentless diet of reality talent shows had rendered seemingly attainable. Hopes that most definitely weren’t ever going to be fulfilled by flat-footed Molly in the performance arts.

Satin-clad feet firmly back on the ground, Lucie Duffy had a quick discussion with her partner, who was annoyed about something. He was wiping his face on his muscled forearm, gesticulating and swearing in heavily accented English. Lucie placated him, stroking and patting him gently on the chest, before she caught Silver’s eye through the glass door.

She padded over with a towel round her neck, smooth caramel cheeks faintly pink, still panting slightly. Sweat had collected in the cleavage of her silver leotard and there were damp patches beneath her pert bosom as if someone with wet hands had placed them around her breasts. Silver looked away.

‘Sorry. Bit out of breath.’ She blinked up at him, her huge grey eyes framed by doll-like lashes. ‘We’ve really got to nail this today or we’re in trouble. Kiko is fed up with me.’ She blinked again, bottom lip almost quivering; like a true innocent. ‘He’s such a flipping perfectionist. He hates the way I lean in for the lifts.’

You’re as innocent as Reggie Kray, Silver thought. And a good actress to boot.

‘Looked all right to me,’ was what he actually said.

‘Thanks. God, I’m going to be bruised all over.’ She held her diaphanous skirt aside and pulled down her leggings a little to study her thigh. She was a sexy little thing, sinewy and hard-bodied, and she absolutely knew it. Silver looked away again.

‘Kiko doesn’t half like to hurl me around,’ Lucie bit her lip with neat white teeth, as if Kiko was a very bad man whom Silver should immediately chastise.

‘Look, I don’t want to keep you,’ he said. ‘But is there somewhere quiet we can talk?’

She indicated a small room along the corridor. There was a drinks machine against the wall and a series of old posters of Norma Shearer and Nijinsky on the wall. Silver followed her in.

‘Do you want something?’ she indicated the machine.

‘No, thanks. Can you tell me about Misty?’

‘Have you found her?’ Lucie looked up at him, her voice breaking slightly.

‘No.’ Silver sat at the table. ‘But it would help to know why you think she’s missing.’

‘She hasn’t been home since the start of last week. Even before the bomb went off—’

‘Explosion.’

‘Whatever,’ she shrugged. ‘Terrible, isn’t it? We trained at the Academy, you know.’

‘We’d already put a missing alert out on her by last Friday morning.’ He thought of the girl in the beanie hat on the CCTV footage. But she had been tiny, and from her description, he didn’t think Misty Jones was that small. ‘Is there any reason, incidentally, she might have gone near the Academy that day?’

‘Not really.’ Lucie leant against the table, and unwound the ribbons of her ballet shoe. ‘I don’t see why; we graduated over a year ago. But she’d been hanging out with some strange types recently. We’d—’ She stopped.

‘What?’ He was impatient now.

She peeled the pink satin back from her foot, wincing. Her big toe was bleeding, the blood thickly congealed between nail and skin. Silver felt faintly sickened.

‘No pain, no gain,’ she widened great grey eyes at him, and bit that bottom lip again.

‘You were saying – about Misty.’

‘We had a bad row. Last Tuesday, I think. Then I went away for a few days. But I don’t think it’s relevant.’

‘Why the row?’

‘She was acting like a prat.’ Her face hardened as she spoke the harsh word. ‘I got fed up with her.’

‘In what sense?’ He imagined arguments about make-up and clothes.

‘Let’s just say, she’d got in with the wrong crowd. She was lying to everyone. She even refused to answer to her proper name.’

Silver felt unease settle over him like a fine layer of dust. ‘Misty Jones?’

‘Misty Jones was just a stage name that she used.’ She leant forward slightly, affording him a glimpse of that buoyant cleavage. ‘Since she, you know, got into the clubs.’

‘Clubs?’ Silver needed to cut to the chase.

‘You know. Tits and arse.’ Lucie flashed a lascivious smile at him and he saw the girl behind the mask. ‘What little girls are made of, apparently. There was no telling her though. Just cos she didn’t get the breaks I did.’

But Lucie Duffy didn’t really think she’d got a break, Silver was quite sure. She thought she’d earned her place in the sun. He’d rarely met someone her age so assured of herself.

‘And if Misty isn’t Misty,’ he cleared his throat, ‘what’s her real name?’

‘Sadie. Sadie Malvern. Misty was her stage name.’

Silver felt his stomach roll. Of course. Jaime’s big sister. He cursed his stupidity. How could he have forgotten her? Lana had been half right after all. And yet he was not surprised. Even since he’d seen the face in that photo, he’d known something bad was coming.

‘Why didn’t you give her real name when you reported her missing?’ He remained deadpan.

‘She’d changed it officially. Poor Sadie.’ Her cloying concern was unconvincing.

‘What about her family? Did you contact them?’

‘I never met them. I don’t even know where they live. Just,’ Lucie pulled a funny face, ‘you know. Somewhere up North. She never mentioned them except to say they think she’s on ballet tour; she’s never told them about the club, I don’t think.’

Something about her manner smacked of disingenuousness.

‘If you can think of any other reason she might have not come home, I need to know,’ Silver tried hard to focus. ‘What about boyfriends?’

‘No one in particular, I don’t think,’ she sniffed, pulling a disgusted face. ‘A few no-marks she was dating. Oiks.’

‘I’ll need their details.’

‘OK.’

‘How did she get into the clubs?’

‘Not sure. Quite a few of the girls do it, you know. Easy way to make money.’

If you like taking your clothes off in front of lascivious men for a living, Silver thought dryly. ‘Who introduced her to it though?’ he pressed. ‘You must have an idea.’

‘There was some guy who came to the end of term shows when we finished, I think. Gave her and a few others his card. Promised her fame and fortune, that type of thing. She’s a bit gullible, our Sadie.’ Lucie shrugged lightly; looked at him curiously. ‘Why are you so bothered?’

‘I’m not, kiddo,’ he smiled pleasantly. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

Lucie Duffy stood up and moved nearer him, one hand extended slightly; she was so near he could smell the sweat mixed in with the scent of her deodorant. For a strange moment he thought she was going to place that small hand on his crotch – but she didn’t. She gazed up at him.

‘Something’s troubling you, Mr Policeman,’ she murmured so he almost had to bend to hear. ‘Can’t I help?’

‘I’ll be in touch.’ Silver took a swift step backward. ‘Let me know immediately if you hear from Misty.’

Lucie smiled. ‘Oh I will.’ She seemed to be enjoying this. ‘Let’s just pray Misty is sitting there safe and sound with her chicken chow mein when I get home tonight.’

But her concern was unpersuasive. As he lolloped down the stairs two at a time, Silver thought he’d never met anyone who seemed more excited by the apparent disappearance of a friend.