Fragile Minds

WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY CLAUDIE



The phone woke me with a nasty start at 8 a.m. I held my breath, but it was only Rafe, still seeking forgiveness apparently.

‘Claudia, if you do not ring back by lunchtime, I’m coming round between sittings.’ His voice softened. ‘I saw the thing about Tessa in today’s paper. Such a tragedy.’

I couldn’t help feeling his persistence was more to do with being thwarted than anything more sincere. Rafe did like his own way. Pulling my jeans on, I went down to Ahmed’s on the corner; I bought The Times, a copy of Vogue for the sheer normality of it, a can of Fanta and a Flake, craving sweetness and comfort. I left the shop quickly before Ahmed’s wizened mother could appear through the beaded curtain and ask about my face, which she’d then refer to every day for six months. I hadn’t been out of the flat for two days, I realised, as my feet trod the filthy pavement, and the colours of the day were bright and unreal, piercing my tired brain; as if the rain had washed London clean for once.

I sat beside the open window and drank my drink through a twirly elephant straw I’d found at the back of the cutlery drawer. I breathed in the fresh air, the smell of blossom, the scent of hope; I tried to avoid the tower block that sliced the sky in two before me. I felt a little more normal today; my head wasn’t aching and I felt clearer, but my craving for a cigarette was building again. I had to start denying my fears. I wouldn’t let it happen again, if it was. I’d fight it every step of the way this time.

I read my stars in Vogue, clinging to some vestige of my old life. I looked at the pedigree girls striking odd angular poses, all legs and big hair and surprised eyes. I pulled my own blonde scarecrow-do back and tied it with an elastic band that had held yesterday’s post. Then I scanned the newspaper headlines briefly; they mentioned the ‘Daughters of Light’ claim, but I turned the pages until I found the picture of Tessa, taken from a series the Sunday Telegraph had commissioned of the Academy last year, including Lucie Duffy. The picture showed intense concentration on Tessa’s bony face as she oversaw a class of seniors, black practice skirt flowing from her tall, lean form. I read the tribute. Darcey Bussell had given some flowery comments about the Academy and its brilliant teachers. Prima ballerina Natalia Vodovana had praised Lethbridge’s style, which made me smile wryly as I remembered Tessa’s disparaging views on Vodovana’s ‘showy style and forced line’.

And Lucie Duffy, who had graduated last year and was rocketing up the Royal Ballet’s ranks, was quoted: ‘Tessa Lethbridge was the best.’ I remembered Duffy and her friend Sadie; pretty, spiteful dancers, all about themselves. Sadie, blonde, Northern, tough and horribly bulimic, living in Duffy’s shadow, never reaching the potential of her friend and room mate.

I shut the paper and finished the Flake, tipping my head back to pour the last crumbs into my mouth. I couldn’t have been less like the girl in the technicolour poppy field if I tried. I tried to focus on positive memories, as Helen had taught me. Zoe and I on the beach in Goa last Christmas. Tessa listening; Tessa laughing over crème brulée at Mimi’s. Ned’s hand in mine. Ned’s little hand in mine. Ned’s hand, slipping through mine …

They didn’t work: the positive memories. They never did. The incision was too deep. His hand in mine, clutching so tight – and I, I had let go. I had failed fundamentally as a mother.

Savagely, I pushed the thought away. But the pain when it came was unbearable, like my soul was thrashing around for a refuge – only there wasn’t one. I wanted to pull my hair out, scratch my eyes out: to lacerate myself with pain.

I got up and put another nicotine patch on. I felt better immediately; the craving calmed. I rang the office and left a message for Eduardo, asking if I could come in for a shift or two. I didn’t want to sit here any more, alone with my thoughts and the guilt that was accumulating. I’d be better back at work, occupied; if I sat here any longer alone, I might fall back down. I loved my job; it had been my passion for years, working with the human body, helping people to heal. It had saved me when I had been flailing; it bridged a terrible void.

I filled the old metal watering can at the kitchen sink; I kept seeing myself on the bus on Thursday. Why could I not remember getting to Rafe’s? Where had I been? I was frightened that I was slipping backwards, that was the truth. I contemplated ringing Helen.

As I watered the window-boxes out on the balcony, the scarlet geraniums bright against the overcast sky, the telephone rang again. A swan flew across the canal, brilliant against the murky waters, and landed with elegance.

I thought it would be my boss but it wasn’t.

‘Claudie. It’s nearly time.’ There was a long pause and a sigh. ‘We’re waiting for you now.’

I felt a fierce twist of fear. Transfixed, I gazed at the light blinking belligerently on the machine. I heard the click as the phone was cut off.

Savagely, I pulled the phone out of the wall, dislodging a small cloud of plaster in the process. Someone was angry with me, and I didn’t know why. I had the strangest sensation that my life was shrinking down to this moment – and I had two choices. Run, or face it.





In the bathroom, I scrabbled around for my last few pills. Then I lay on my bed, in the dark, fiddling with the locket on the necklace Tessa had given me; thinking, thinking.

Friday morning was all such a haze still. I had got on the bus outside Rafe’s; I had started towards work. I had this strange idea that was forming, that Tessa had needed me; that I had been summoned …

Thinking, thinking – I fell into a doze.

Dreaming. Tessa and Ned, dancing in a poppy field …

My bedroom door was opening and I was screaming, screaming and—

My sister stood in the doorway, clutching an orange Le Creuset casserole dish, blinking rapidly like a worried rabbit.

‘Oh my God.’ I sat bolt upright on the bed, my heart thudding. ‘I nearly had a heart attack. How the hell did you get in?’

‘I borrowed the spare key from Mum’s,’ she said brightly. ‘I was so worried, Claudia, you haven’t been answering your phone.’

‘Haven’t I?’

‘Don’t be silly. You know you haven’t.’

I didn’t remember her ringing.

‘And I bet you haven’t been eating either. I know you, Claudie Scott.’ She put the dish down on the chest of drawers and opened the blind. ‘Come on, hoppity-skip. Out of bed with you. I’ll put the kettle on.’

She breezed out of the room, retrieving her casserole dish and proudly bearing it before her like a precious icon. At least she was a better cook than our mother.

‘Hoppity-skip?’ I muttered to myself. ‘Dear God.’ But I got out of bed and followed her into the living room, like a child.

‘Your hair needs a brush,’ she said reprovingly, from her station at the kettle. ‘And a trim. I’m surprised you can see out of that fringe. And your roots are showing.’

‘Nat,’ I slumped down at the table. ‘When did you turn into Mum?’

‘Probably when I became one. Now, Earl Grey or builders? Or green. Now that’s very good for you, I’ve read. Cleans your digestive tract. I’ll make some green, and we can have a nice chat.’

‘Do we have to?’ I groaned. ‘I think my digestion’s all right, honestly.’

‘I just wanted,’ her bluster subsided for a moment, ‘I wanted to check you’ve been looking after yourself actually.’

Suddenly she was less sure of herself.

‘Did you?’ I gazed at her. We never talked about my mental state. Natalie found it too shaming.

‘Yes.’ She was too bright. ‘Now, your lovely psychiatrist has been on the phone. Helen, isn’t it? Ever so worried she can’t get hold of you. Has it—’ The brightness was fading; she was struggling now. ‘Has it happened again?’

‘What?’

‘Come on, Claudie.’ She flapped around with the teabags, banging cupboard doors. ‘You know what.’

‘You mean, have I disassociated from reality again?’ I thought of my lost hours. ‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully.

‘Right.’ She looked supremely uncomfortable.

‘Actually,’ I changed tack midstream. I couldn’t do this with Natalie. ‘I don’t think it has.’

She couldn’t handle it, that much was obvious. Not many people could. Not even my husband, Will – so why put them through it? My own mother had been distraught at losing her three-year-old grandson, but more distraught, I feared, at my own descent into hell. ‘Thank God Phillip’s not here,’ I heard her tell my auntie Jean once, ‘it would have destroyed him to see her like this.’ They’d expected me to be strong, and I failed them too.

‘No. I’m fine,’ I said. I put some cream on my sore hands for something to do.

‘Good,’ she looked infinitely relieved. ‘Also, Mum’s been calling. Can you just ring her back, Claudia? I mean, Portugal is not the other side of the world, is it, love, and she’s not coming back for a while apparently, not unless you need her, she says. Just give her a bit of reassurance, and she’ll leave you alone.’

My little sister and I stared at each other, and then slowly I smiled. Perhaps Natalie did understand a little.

‘Sure. I will. Perhaps I’ll go out and see her.’ The idea of the sun on my weary bones suddenly seemed enticing, although my mother’s incessant chatter and home cooking did not.

Natalie reached across me for the sugar bowl.

‘Gosh, what’s that smell?’ she wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s really horrid.’

‘Probably me,’ I joked, but she didn’t smile.

‘My sense of smell’s gone crazy. Must be the hormones.’ She sniffed the air like the small alert dog she sometimes reminded me of. ‘It’s really weird. Like something burnt.’

‘Oh,’ I fingered the locket round my neck. ‘Might be this. It’s a native African herb. Tessa bought me some for my birthday, says it protects you. Old lady’s fingers, they call it.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ She pulled back from me. ‘It’s disgusting. Get rid of it, you hippy.’

‘I can’t,’ I said miserably. ‘Tessa’s dead, Nat.’

Natalie looked down and stirred her tea carefully.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘I know; I saw. I’m so sorry, Claudie.’ She put her hand over mine. ‘It’s the last thing you needed.’

And for a while we sat there, side by side at that old table, tied together not by choice, but by familiarity; by something more even. From necessity. And all the while the phone was unplugged, looking like an evil plastic toad, squatting malevolently on the coffee table. At least it couldn’t ring.





WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY SILVER



His ex-wife was at the hairdresser’s in Frogley when Silver called. He could hear the chorus of hairdryers in the background, imagined the girls moving in perfect choreographed precision in front of the long mirrors, whilst the immaculate Allana scrutinised her manicure critically. Her shell-pink nails that were never chipped and certainly never naked, her hair all caramel and tawny, streaked within an inch of its life. They had been a well-matched couple in this respect at least; both beautifully turned-out at all times, until Lana had her breakdown, and even then she’d managed perfect hair. It was only beneath the surface things had been so different than they seemed.

‘Lana,’ he twiddled with a biro on his desk. ‘The girl in the photo. The girl you saw on TV.’

‘Jaime,’ she said, calmly. ‘It was Jaime. I knew it.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s not Jaime,’ he took a deep breath. ‘Jaime’s dead, Lana, we both know that. But it is – it’s Sadie Malvern. Her big sister Sadie.’

‘I know who Sadie is,’ she said. She didn’t miss a beat; she was still calm. He didn’t know what he had been expecting; for her to lose it, start crying and screaming. Of course she didn’t. ‘Sadie was in the car that day too, Joe.’

‘So,’ what else was there to say? Sadie was still alive. Jaime was long dead, but then, Lana had only killed one sister. Sadie had survived; traumatised but alive, and now she was missing. That at least was nothing to do with the Silvers. ‘I just wanted to set your mind at rest.’

Lana said something that he couldn’t catch, the noise in the salon increasing behind her as she spoke, a cacophony of women’s voices fighting the hum of the dryers.

‘I can’t hear you.’

There was a pause; the sound of the salon door opening and closing. He saw her now on the narrow high street, pacing.

‘My mind’s never at rest, Joe. It’s never been at rest. Not since that day.’

‘I know, Lana,’ he sighed. ‘But try not to go back there again.’

‘Where?’

‘To that dark place. To all this self-flagellation.’

She hung up.





Now Silver had satisfied himself that Lana’s worst nightmare hadn’t come true, there was no reason for him to have any more to do with Sadie’s disappearance. He could easily pass it back over to his colleagues and be done with it; he had more pressing matters at hand.

But the situation really bothered him. Seeing Sadie Malvern’s face again after all this time, well, it flipped the proverbial can of worms wide open: and now they were out, they’d be bloody hard to recapture. Right now, in fact, they were slithering all over the damn place. He couldn’t just leave it now to others.

As Silver retrieved his suit jacket from the hanger on the wall, Ian Kelly stuck his head round the door. He’d been seconded for the week from Fraud; Silver had only seen him once or twice since the Finnegan baby case. Silver felt a fleeting twinge of nostalgia for the feisty Jess Finnegan, whose baby son Louis he’d helped recover after a kidnap attempt two years ago.

‘Come and have a drink with me and Lorraine,’ the portly DI was as pink-faced as ever. ‘Be good to catch up.’

Leaning against the fruit machine in the pub whilst Kelly queued for a round that included the wholly un-thrilling prospect of a pint of tepid diet Coke, Silver called Julie against his better judgement. When she didn’t answer, he left her a short message, but before he’d even pocketed the phone, he felt ashamed. There really wasn’t much to be said for a relationship entirely based on sex, whatever Craven or some of his younger colleagues might have felt. Silver sighed heartily. Maybe, at the grand old age of forty-five, he was getting old. He thought briefly of Jessica Finnegan. There had been an undeniable attraction between them, but Jess had been married still to the despicable Mickey, and neither Silver nor she had been ready for anything serious. Plus Jess, for all her tough façade, had been far too fragile to mess around with. But Silver had been drawn to her more than any other woman since Lana. He wondered where Jess was now.

The truth was he was tired of being alone – but he never met anyone who really excited him, not the way Lana had excited him once, before she slipped from reality. Silver suppressed another sigh and joined the others at their table. Briefly they discussed the latest claimant of the explosion.

‘They really do all crawl out of the woodwork, don’t they? And it might be weeks before all the dead are identified.’ Kelly spilt peanut crumbs down his front. Silver winced at the mess. ‘Just like 7 bloody 7. It’s a f*cking logistical and DNA nightmare. “Can I borrow your precious Lisa’s toothbrush, Mrs Smith, because we think she might have been blown to high heaven but we can’t tell cos she’s in bits.” Christ.’

‘Don’t,’ winced Kenton, hunching her square shoulders, and Kelly looked apologetic.

‘Sorry, love.’

‘We’ve already got one possible mix-up.’ Kenton sipped her pint most daintily for such a well-built lass. Not for the first time Silver wondered why exactly she dyed her hair such a similar shade to Heinz tomato soup. ‘Australian ballet teacher from the Academy calling herself Tessa Lethbridge. Can’t find her documents at the moment.’

Something chimed in Silver’s head. ‘The Royal Ballet Academy?’

‘That’s the one.’ Kenton wiped foam from her top lip, where just the faintest trace of dyed moustache was visible. ‘Turns out the best. Thank God the damage wasn’t worse. They’ve reopened already.’

Silver frowned, thinking of the sassy little ballerina he’d met that afternoon. What had Duffy said? ‘We trained at the Academy, you know.’

‘I met a dancer today at Covent Garden.’ He poked the lethargic slice of lemon down into his pint of brown syrup. ‘Girl called Lucie Duffy.’

‘Of course! That’s why I knew her name,’ Kenton said. ‘Beautiful ballerina. So natural for such a young ’un. The new Bussell, I reckon.’

‘Bit of an aficionado, are you?’ Silver grinned at her, and the policewoman was struck as ever by the lazy lopsided smile. If she hadn’t preferred the ladies, Kenton would definitely not have been the only woman at work who held a small torch for the solitary DCI. ‘Can’t see you in a tutu.’

‘No you blooming well can’t! No, it was Mum who loved all that. Took her to Sleeping Beauty for her birthday last year. It was Duffy’s first solo role, as the Lilac Fairy.’ Kenton changed the subject, a lump forming in her throat, scared she was about to show weakness over her late mother. ‘What’s her story then?’

‘Still not sure if Misty’s just off on a bender, or has really disappeared.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Kelly perked up at the prospect of death. ‘Who is she?’

‘Inconveniently,’ Silver folded his crisp packet very neatly, ‘she’s got two names. Misty or Sadie, depending on the persona. Misty’s the bad girl, from what I understand. Lap-dancer. A far cry from Sleeping Beauty, I fear.’

‘Girl with two names. Interesting. Where did she dance?’

‘Not sure. Duffy didn’t know.’

‘Sugar and Spice is the most infamous club.’ Kelly’s eyes followed a buxom blonde carrying a dripping pint. He reminded Silver of a hungry dog who knew he had no chance of snaffling the bone. ‘Boss is desperate to pin something on the bastards. They’re bent as arseholes down there. Nasty bunch with a habit of getting away with bloody murder. Literally.’

‘Are arseholes bent?’ Kenton deadpanned.

‘What little girls are made of!’ Silver clapped his hands to his forehead. ‘Of course, that’s what Duffy meant. Misty was dancing at Sugar and Spice. How bloody stupid.’

‘You know, it’s probably a coincidence, the Academy thing.’

‘Maybe.’

Kenton looked at her boss, who was draining his diet Coke. For a moment, their eyes met. He gave her a half-smile. Was it her imagination, or did he seem unusually tense?

Silver was saved from her scrutiny by the beep of his phone: Julie responding wholeheartedly to what she called a ‘booty call’. He had a strange image of stripy-topped burglars carrying sacks of loot. Not a good sign, surely.

‘Gotta go.’ He stood, brushing down his trousers, the crease as razor-sharp as ever. ‘See you tomorrow.’

He left the pub, cursing internally; he was not going to be able to leave the Misty thing alone. There were too many coincidences turning up today – and he owed it to the Malverns, that much he knew. He’d be pleased if he never saw the poor parents again, but still, he knew he owed it to them to find out what the hell was going on with their surviving daughter.





WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY CLAUDIE



The police tape flickered in the dusk breeze on the north side of Berkeley Square, the new hoardings hiding the chaos behind. Nearer the Academy, one lamppost was twisted and bent mournfully to the left, as if it had bowed its head and given up. The pavement was blackened slightly – and that was it. There were no other signs of the tragedy that had erupted here last week.

Averting my eyes, I trudged up the Academy’s front stairs, past the white pillars and the great arch windows, feeling none of the usual pleasure I gained from the beautiful old building. After nights of troubled dreams and broken sleep, my body felt heavy, my eyes gritty with tiredness. Only the strains of Tchaikovsky from the practice studios were soothing as I hurried towards the office, the patter of feet as students ran from one class to the next.

Natalie had finally left after I’d pretended I was going to lie down again, but instead I’d caught the tube into town. I’d been hoping everyone in the office would be gone, but Mason was still ensconced behind her desk; she was on the phone when I walked in and nearly dropped the receiver in her hurry to get rid of her caller.

‘Claudie! How are you?’ She stroked down her glossy black fringe. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were on holiday.’

‘Did you?’

‘Have you heard from the police? Asking questions about Tessa?’

‘Yeah.’ I headed straight for my pigeon hole that sat beneath the Ex-Student Performance board. Lucie Duffy: Swan Lake, it announced, Royal Opera House. Amanda Curran and Sarah Planer: Giselle corps de ballet, English National Ballet; and so it went on. The Academy liked to keep proud tabs on its protégées.

‘What do you think they want?’ Mason’s eyes were wide with complicity. ‘Isn’t it sad?’

‘Horrible,’ I agreed, retrieving my post. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mason flattening the perfect fringe again. I braced myself for a pearl of wisdom.

‘Tragic. “Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.” But you know, I was saying to Eduardo yesterday,’ she cocked her head on one side like a ruffled blackbird, ‘I always felt something might go wrong for her.’

‘That’s a strange thing to say.’ I rifled through the memos and offers for physio equipment, chucking most of it straight in the bin.

‘I mean, she was a bit odd, wasn’t she?’ Mason stared at me disingenuously. ‘Oh – sorry! Silly of me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were such good friends, weren’t you? I did tell that nice policeman yesterday. But you know, I never could quite see what you saw in her personally.’ Mason’s hands were too thin, raised veins like tube tunnels surfacing through skin as she put the lid back on her pen. ‘I mean, I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but really—’

‘You’re going to anyway.’

She pursed shiny lips. ‘Well. She was a snooty cow sometimes.’

‘Mason!’ I protested. Usually I found Mason’s child-like honesty refreshing. In her bizarre ensembles, with her twig-like legs ending in T-bar shoes, dressed at least ten years too young for her age, she often got away with things others wouldn’t. Now though, her scathing words seemed inappropriate.

‘Well, she was. Thought she was better than the rest of us.’

I was tuning out. I stared at the whiteboard, at my schedule.

‘I’ll go to her funeral, and pay my respects,’ she stood now, ‘but I won’t tell lies about her. As Mark Twain so rightly said, “Truth is the most valuable thing we have.” You know, it was a good thing you didn’t come in that day. Or you know—’ She threw her hands up in the air dramatically. ‘You could have been blown to smithereens like poor Tessa.’

‘Mason! For God’s sake.’

‘And you know little Anita Stuart is missing too.’

‘Is she?’ I was shocked by the news. I thought of her surly little face the day before Tessa died; her foot thrust against my door to prevent me shutting her out. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Suspected dead,’ Mason’s voice dropped to an almost gleeful whisper as she pulled her poncho on. ‘I’m going to get caffeine. I’ve got a ton of paperwork to catch up on. Can I interest you?’

I looked back at the date of the accident, Friday 14th July. I wasn’t down to work, but I had been on my way in to the Academy. Fear crept up my gullet.

‘You look terribly peaky, you know, darling.’ Mason was gazing at my face. ‘What’s happened to your poor cheek?’

‘Just a scratch.’ I pushed my hand through my hair, thinking desperately. ‘I’m fine. Have you got the key to the changing room, please, Mason? I’ve forgotten mine.’

Grumbling slightly, she unzipped her bag and dug around for the keys. ‘Put them back in my drawer.’

I waited until she was out of sight down the corridor and then I let myself into the changing room. My hands were slightly shaking as I fumbled in my pocket for the key to Tessa’s locker I’d just pinched from the board in the office, fuelled by some kind of desperate hope that there would be some clue to my ill feeling about Friday.

But someone had got there before me. The small metal door was hanging off and the locker was empty, though I ran my hand round it anyway to check.

There was a sudden noise, and I jumped, banging my head on the metal corner.

Mason stood behind me.

‘God you scared me.’ I felt like a naughty schoolgirl.

‘I forgot my purse. What are you doing?’ she said curiously.

‘I – I lent Tessa a book. I just wanted – I just thought I’d get it now. As I was here.’

‘Oh.’ Mason cocked her head again. ‘I see. Well, you’re too late, I’m afraid. Police took everything, actually.’

I pushed the door half-shut. ‘Right.’ I wished I’d stop feeling guilty. ‘Well, never mind.’

Mason kept staring at me until I felt shifty. I began to follow her towards the office – and then suddenly I saw Tessa in front of me last Thursday, telling me she’d lost her key. Tessa’s kitbag was in my locker, wasn’t it? How the key came now to be on the office board, I didn’t know. But whatever the reason, she had shoved her stuff in with mine on Thursday. I didn’t remember her having retrieved it again.

I stopped walking. Mason turned round and stared at me. In the outer office, the phone in her bag began to ring. She hesitated.

‘It might be your next date,’ I suggested helpfully. Mason’s love-life was the stuff of legend; three on-line dates a week in the search of true love, trying to forget her feelings for Eduardo, who was absolutely gay. ‘You don’t want to miss it.’

‘Might be,’ she turned to retrieve it. Heart thumping, I whipped my own locker open and pulled Tessa’s half-empty bag out of it, shoving it as best I could into my own bag. I shut the door, heading through the office. Mason was now deep in rapt conversation.

‘See you,’ I mouthed at her, leaving the keys on her desk, and started down the corridor.

‘Wait—’ she hung up the phone. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

‘What?’

‘That was Eduardo. He’s been with the Governors today. He’s having absolute kittens.’

‘Why?’

She was stringing her news out deliberately now.

‘Someone from the board read Tessa’s obituary, and called her family in Australia to pass on condolences.’ Her whole face shaped into a moue of astonishment.

‘So?’

‘They were astounded.’ Now Mason was blazing with something like triumph. ‘Her family, well – they saw Tessa this morning in Melbourne.’





WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY SILVER



Joe Silver was calculating exactly how soon he could leave Julie’s without mortally offending her – although as he’d finally realised he’d happily never see her again, perhaps it didn’t matter if he did. He’d swung by for a coffee and a nightcap, which when you don’t drink alcohol, really did mean coffee. It had taken him approximately eleven minutes to realise that he didn’t want to lay his nightcap anywhere near Julie, ever again. He took a swig of his coffee and steeled himself to leave.

‘All right?’ Julie giggled and sashayed over to the stereo where she put a CD called Lovers’ Ballads on. Silver groaned internally as he watched her pulling her skin-tight skirt down over her voluptuous curves, straightening the folds, before starting to sway on the spot to Marvin Gaye.

‘Cares of the world on your shoulders tonight, lover.’ She began to undulate towards him, kicking her stilettos off. ‘Let me help you forget, babe.’

Silver was dying inside. Forcing a weak smile as Julie undid the top button of her pink shirt, while licking her lips suggestively, he knew he had no one to blame apart from himself.

His phone rang: it was Matty, his middle child. Silver flipped it open with such alacrity he caught his own finger in the fold.

‘How do, kiddo?’ Silver grinned into thin air, ecstatic to hear from his son for not entirely pure reasons. ‘Been to football? How’s that tackle coming along? I must say, those Blackburn—’

‘Dad,’ Matty cut him off. ‘It’s Mum.’

‘What’s Mum?’

‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’ Silver sat up on Julie’s fake leather sofa.

‘I mean, she’s not come home,’ Matty’s normally even tones were distressed; he suddenly sounded very young. ‘Not since this morning.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Before school. She didn’t even remember to collect Molly from Gran’s.’

‘Have you called her mobile?’

Julie had stopped dancing and was glowering at him now. He ignored her, sticking his finger in his ear against Marvin’s crooning.

‘’Course,’ Matty was indignant. ‘But it just rings and rings.’

‘Where’s Ben?’

‘He’s took my skateboard and gone down to Chasers. To see if she’s there.’

‘Taken your skateboard,’ Silver said automatically, but his heart missed a beat. He imagined his kids, confused and alone whilst his ex-wife sank Bacardi on a leather-topped stool in the local wine bar, drinking until she could hardly stagger in her three-inch heels. ‘Are you on your own with Molly?’

‘Gran’s here,’ Matty muttered. ‘She made me eat peas.’

‘Can you put her on, mate?’

‘I hate peas.’

‘I know, lad. Squash them down and push ’em under your fork. Always worked for me.’

‘I tried. She sussed me.’

‘Look, Matty,’ Silver was very gentle; he didn’t want to upset his son any more than he already was. ‘Just get your grandma, OK, and then we’ll have another chat in a minute.’

Lana’s mother Anne arrived on the line.

‘Joseph.’ She was curt.

He pictured her now, stiff and proper, beige twin-set beneath beautifully coiffed fair hair, every inch her daughter’s mother. She had still not forgiven Silver for leaving Allana, even though it was indisputable that her daughter had been ruined largely by her own actions, and was temporarily beyond all reach. Anne could not get past the fact that Silver had been the drinker before Lana, that she had followed his path and then stuck steadfastly to it alone, even after he had found sobriety some years ago. In Anne’s eyes, Silver was the arch-villain.

‘Anne. First off, are you all right to stay with the kids?’

‘Of course.’ She dropped her voice. ‘I’m very worried though.’

‘I know you are,’ Silver soothed, his mind ticking furiously, ‘but Allana’s a big girl now, Anne. And it’s not like this is the first time.’

Four years ago, just before their marriage broke down irretrievably, Lana had gone through a stage of disappearing at lunchtime, usually into Leeds, usually to get hammered in one of the big hotel bars. It was only afterwards that Silver had discovered she had also been using the hotels to sleep with his pal Ray Steen from Yorkshire’s Vice Squad. At the point that Lana got back in a car for the first time since the accident and drove herself home, thankfully without passengers this time, taking out half the front garden as she arrived home, Silver had taken compassionate leave. She was lucky not to have been jailed for Jaime’s death anyway, and in exchange for Silver, having battled his conscience for a while, managing to persuade the local force to quietly look the other way, Lana had gone into rehab at the Phoenix Centre in West Yorkshire. Silver struggled to keep the family going – with a little help from his sister Nicky, and later Anne, when she had recovered from the shock of Lana’s ignominy.

‘She hasn’t done it for years,’ her mother said plaintively. ‘She’s been so much better. So why now?’

Silver thought with sinking heart of the phone call he’d had with Lana earlier. Apparently she wasn’t reacting well to Sadie Malvern’s disappearance.

‘Anne. Let me make some enquiries. She might just have been held up.’ They both knew this was untrue.

‘But where?’ Anne’s voice quivered slightly. Her daughter’s shame had been utterly her own too, in the tight community they lived in, though Anne had stuck absolutely by her daughter, enduring the whispers on Frogley’s every corner until they had at last died down, replaced by fresh scandal.

‘Is – is she driving?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ His heart sank further. Lana had only just got her licence back. ‘I’ll call you back. Can you put Matty back on for a sec, please.’

‘Matty!’ he heard her call.

‘Oh, and Anne—’

‘Yes?’

‘Go easy on my kids, would you. Give ’em ice cream or something nice,’ he tried to joke. ‘Let them stay up late. Just don’t give ’em a hard time right now.’

‘I’ll thank you, Joseph, to remember I brought up four of my own.’ She was predictably terse. ‘I think you’ll find I’ve got a damn sight better idea of what’s good for my grandchildren than you have.’

Matty was back on the line before Silver could protest. He reassured his son as much as he could, promising he’d call back in a while to speak to Molly and Ben.

‘Mum’s probably just shopping in Leeds. It’s late night tonight, remember. Probably getting more shoes, meeting a pal. You know what she’s like.’

‘Yeah probably.’ Matty, bless him, tried to laugh along with his father. ‘She hasn’t got enough high ones. I did tell her.’

The bravado broke Silver’s heart.

But as Silver rang the station to ask for a track and trace on Lana’s number plate, he had the horrible feeling that his mother-in-law was absolutely right. Anne probably did know best – and anyway, what earthly use was he to his children all the way down South?





WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY LANA



Because the sky was so big.

Because the sky stretched above her, so vast, so cavernous – and she was so tiny; so very tiny. She had been staring at it from the beach for hours, the pale milky-blue sky, for what seemed like hours. And in the end she picked herself up, herself and her empty polystyrene cup with the small coffee stain the shape of Italy on the side. She picked herself up and she was freezing. Her body was ramrod straight because she was tensed against the biting wind; she stood and a great gust buffeted her and she walked towards the sand dunes, away from the flurried sea, away from the sky that went on forever, the chalk marks of cloud swept across it.

She knew they would be waiting for her but she found now she didn’t care. She had been thinking about this for months now, she realised, only she had never really acknowledged her feelings, her fears. But now she was here, it seemed so obvious – absolutely crystalline.

She could hear their voices briefly, clamouring for her, clamouring like tiny hungry fledglings waiting to be fed – and then it all went quiet. Shockingly quiet. Just the roar of the sea and the wind in her stinging ears. Her children’s voices dampened, like someone had just lashed a great blanket across them.

She didn’t know where she was going. When she saw the man silhouetted on the cliff, she still didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she wasn’t going home.





THURSDAY 20TH JULY CLAUDIE



By Thursday morning, my head was absolutely thumping again; the pain making me nauseous and the fear creeping in again like a stealthy spy. I wanted to smoke, and the nicotine patches were doing little for my craving. I felt hazy and tired; trying to clean the flat to keep myself busy, but I had to keep sitting down during the hoovering. When the doorbell rang my inclination was not to answer it – but the ring was insistent. I held my breath. It rang again. Whoever it was wasn’t leaving. I peered out of the window; a police car was parked behind next-door’s van.

Somehow I’d forgotten they were coming.

‘Ms Scott? We’d appreciate a moment of your time as discussed. It’s about Tessa Lethbridge.’

I had no choice, so I let them in. A policeman called Craven, whom I felt an instant distrust for. Balding, overweight and supercilious, he pushed past me into the flat. A woman called Kenton. Short, wide and neat, with the bright eyes of a squirrel and bizarre-coloured hair, she shook my hand. They sat at the scrubbed pine table and refused the drinks I offered them.

I thought uncomfortably of my discoveries in Tessa’s bag yesterday at the Academy. I had dismissed Mason’s big announcement as her usual flair for the dramatic and histrionic. On the bus home to Kentish Town, sitting on the upper deck, I checked through my booty. A pair of soft block ballet shoes; a black and white spotty hairband of the kind Tessa always wore. Half a packet of jaffa cakes. A DVD of Baryshnikov teaching La Sylphide and, stuck to the cover as if by mistake with an old bit of Sellotape, a yellowing cutting from The Telegraph; a piece about the Lehman Brothers bank going down, and the Hoffman Bank stepping in, led by a man called Ivan Adanov. Finally, reaching into the depths of the bag, right at the bottom, was a set of keys and one glossy little card for some club called Sugar and Spice, with an illegible name scrawled on the back.

I read and re-read the clipping from The Telegraph: a dull piece about how the misguided actions of money men had taken down the bank, and where those now out of work were likely to go next. Why would Tessa have had this in her bag? Maybe she’d invested some money somewhere; it wasn’t the kind of thing we’d ever talked about. The idea of Tessa as speculator was hard to imagine.

Turning the article over in my hands, I noticed a faded pencil-written line in the margin; I squinted at it in the fluorescent bus light. ‘Here comes the chopper to chop off your head.’ It rang vague bells. Was it a poem I’d learnt at school, or perhaps a nursery rhyme? My heart clenched uncomfortably at the thought of nursery rhymes, and when I’d got home, I’d shoved the bag into a kitchen cupboard.

‘How can I help?’ I asked now, sitting at the other end of the table. ‘I hadn’t actually known Tessa that long.’

‘Handy,’ I thought the policeman called Craven muttered. The woman shot him a look.

Craven fiddled with a plastic cigarette he’d pulled from his shirt pocket. His fingers were fat and clumsy; he was almost guilty of a comb-over. ‘We have a few questions. There’s been a development.’

I felt my chest tighten. ‘Do they – do you know who it was?’

‘Who it was?’ Was he being deliberately obtuse? I couldn’t tell.

‘You know. Who set the – the bomb off? I heard something on the radio.’

‘We’re still not even sure yet,’ said DS Kenton carefully, ‘whether it actually was a bomb.’

I scrunched my face up; it made my sore cheek throb. ‘I thought someone had claimed responsibility now. Something about “purity and light”, I read?’

She smiled patiently. ‘We’re here about Ms Lethbridge.’

‘Right,’ I pondered this. ‘So how can I help?’

‘Tessa Lethbridge,’ DI Craven glanced down at a pad he’d placed on the table earlier. ‘How well did you know her?’

I thought about this for a minute. ‘Well, we only met last year. But we became quite good friends.’

I saw her long hand stretching towards mine across the void. Offering something I’d lost.

‘Yes, that’s what Eduardo Covas said.’

I winced at the mauled pronunciation of his name.

‘So—’ I tried not to appear rude. ‘I’m not sure what you’re driving at, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s just – we’ve had several calls today.’ His phone bleeped. He broke off mid-explanation and began to read a text.

I sensed Kenton trying to hide her irritation.

‘It seems—’ she continued now as he remained distracted. ‘It appears that your friend and colleague might not have been quite whom she said she was.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t follow.’ I looked at the red-headed woman for help; I thought uncomfortably of Mason’s big announcement yesterday that I had dismissed as her usual histrionics. ‘What do you mean, not who she said she is? Was,’ I corrected myself, pointlessly. ‘Tessa was a first-rate ballet teacher. She came from the Royal School in Melbourne two years ago. She danced with the best.’

‘No, love.’ God, he had an unfortunate manner about him, this man. ‘Tessa Lethbridge is still safely in Melbourne.’

‘She’s alive?’ I felt a rush of euphoria. Mason hadn’t been making it up. ‘She’s not dead after all?’

‘The real Tessa Lethbridge is alive. Very much alive, if a little ancient – and Down Under. I spoke to her earlier. Unfortunately, your mate,’ he actually smirked. ‘Your mate, I’m afraid, is very much dead – and very much a Jane Doe.’

‘He means,’ Kenton cut in quietly, ‘that we cannot at the moment identify the dead woman, the woman who taught at the Academy. All we do know right now is, she’s most definitely not Tessa Lethbridge.’

I stared at the two of them; my head spinning.

‘That’s why we’re here. To see if you are able to shed any light on the matter.’

‘Only judging by your face, I’d say not, eh, Lorraine?’ Craven stood now. He picked up a silver-framed photo. ‘Cute kid.’

My hands were itching.

‘Also we are interested in understanding Tessa’s movements on the day before the explosion. Thursday 13th July. She missed some of her afternoon classes—’

‘And Mason Pyke tells us you were meant to have lunch together.’

‘No,’ I shook my head, ‘she’s wrong. We weren’t – I had an appointment.’

‘An appointment?’

‘Yes.’

They gazed at me until I realised I was going to have to qualify myself.

‘In Harley Street.’

‘With?’

‘With—’ I took a deep breath. ‘With my psychiatrist.’

‘And her name is?’

‘Is it relevant?’ I clenched my fists. Now they would judge me.

‘Every detail helps, Ms Scott, in case we have to verify anything,’ Craven attempted a smile, sitting again.

‘Helen. Helen Ganymede.’

‘And why do you see her?’

‘I see her because—’ I didn’t want to share it with them, but they looked like they’d settled in for the day. I took a deep breath. ‘Because I briefly suffered psychotic post-traumatic shock syndrome.’

‘Because?’

‘Because,’ I stuck my fingernail into a bloody fissure on the back of my hand, ‘my son died.’





I had fought long and hard against seeing Helen, largely because Will, in his final act of husbandly benevolence before shipping out of the country and my life, had found her on my behalf. I’d seen enough doctors during the past year, many against my volition when I’d been briefly sectioned. I felt therapised beyond belief. But in the end, after much coercion from my mother and Zoe, and because Helen was the best in her field, I had agreed to see her once, six months ago.

And here I still was. Despite my reticence, it had been all largely positive so far, and I had felt gradually healthier in mind if not in spirit. My spirit was mortally wounded; my heart utterly broken.

On the Thursday before Tessa died, the day she wanted to talk to me so badly, during my lunchtime appointment, Helen and I had run through my week, the fact that it had been a fairly good one, the best in a while.

‘And the disassociation. It’s still decreasing?’ Helen met my gaze with her level one, her pale eyes still striking despite the deep lines around them, her smart suit immaculate and particularly severe today. For some reason though, it highlighted her rather ethereal grace. ‘Have you had any remote moments in the past week?’

I took a deep breath. I still found it hard to countenance; to admit something I suffered was akin to madness.

‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘No, none that I’ve been aware of. It’s been pretty good actually. Thank God.’

The disassociation, when it happened, was terrifying. Or the absence of memories; perhaps that was what terrified me. It had begun two years ago when I came home from the hospital alone, without my son; crippled with grief and afraid, too guilty to live. Over the next few months, it had developed to the stage where I wouldn’t remember where I was. I would slip from consciousness but I would remain conscious; leaving those around me unaware of my state. At its height, I could have whole conversations with people and the next day I’d not remember having seen them at all. It was blocking, Helen had explained, the mind shutting down to protect itself.

‘I think it’s subsiding, you know—’

My phone suddenly beeped mid-flow.

‘Sorry,’ I reached to turn it off, glimpsing Tessa’s name on the display. ‘It’s just my friend Tessa.’

‘Interesting that you left your phone switched on today, Claudie. Is there any reason?’

I did wonder sometimes why therapists liked to look for the hidden meaning in everything.

‘No.’ I hesitated. ‘I must find her later though. She was worried – she said she had something to tell me.’

‘And have you been avoiding her, Claudie?’ Helen’s gaze was direct.

‘No,’ I said, but I felt my fingers curl on my knee involuntarily.

‘Are you sure? You can be totally honest here, you know that. It’s a safe space.’

‘I haven’t. But I have to say – it’s just—’ I paused for thought, and my hand went up to my necklace, the gift Tessa had bought for my birthday. ‘She’s been a little frenetic recently. Out of character. And I did feel guilty today that I didn’t have time to talk when she needed me. I’ve seen less of her recently.’

‘Because?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve been busy.’ And perhaps, if I was honest, I’d needed her less.

‘All guilt is suppressed anger, you realise,’ said Helen mildly. ‘So why do you feel guilt? Are you cross with her for needing you?’

‘No,’ I shot back. Then I contemplated her words. ‘I should be there for her. She has helped me so much. She understands what grief is.’

‘All I would say,’ Helen blinked at me kindly; she’d mislaid her glasses earlier and I thought I was probably just a blur to her. ‘I’d just say that negative energy is not – not very good for you right now.’

‘Are you saying someone needing me is negative?’

‘No, absolutely not, Claudie. But you must stay attuned to your own instinct. It will tell you who is best to be around.’

I nodded. Helen brought clarity when often I had none. ‘I do try.’

‘So.’ She swept her greying hair back and checked her gold watch. She had beautiful hands, Helen, the hands of a pianist, slim and elegant. ‘We need to finish up. How’ve the migraines been?’

‘Not so bad.’

‘And the no smoking?’

‘Hard,’ I pulled a face. ‘But those patches you gave me have helped.’

‘I’m so glad. They’re invaluable, as I know all too well,’ Helen was a little rueful. ‘It’s the hardest drug to beat, nicotine, as I’ve learnt to my cost!’

She stood now and walked me to the door, her navy trouser suit remarkably uncreased, expensive court shoes whispering across the floor.

‘Thanks.’ I slipped my jacket on. I hated to outstay my welcome; I tried to always remember that I paid for my time here. That Helen was a therapist, not a friend.

‘You’re very welcome. I’ll see you next week. Have a good one. And remember, follow that heart.’

‘I will, thanks.’ I ran down the stairs feeling almost cheerful.





‘Thank you, that’s fine.’ Kenton sighed almost inaudibly; whether at me or her belligerent partner I wasn’t sure. ‘If you think of anything else, Claudia, love, can you call me please? On this number.’

She slid a card in front of me. I had an urge to stroke the shiny white of it, but I didn’t. I just nodded. I debated telling them about the two anonymous phone calls I’d received, but I didn’t know what I’d say. I thought of Helen. It had occurred to me that she might say I’d imagined them.

It had occurred to me that maybe I had.

‘We’d appreciate your help. Always hard, when a corpse has no name.’ Craven smirked again, and picked his trousers out of his arse. ‘They could be anyone. Let ourselves out shall we?’

Kenton paused by the front door. ‘Anything at all, love,’ she repeated. ‘It all helps.’

Craven turned as the woman went down the stairs. ‘It’s funny,’ he stared at me, ‘I thought it was our boys in Iraq and Afghanistan who suffered from PTSD?’

‘Anyone can,’ I mumbled as he lumbered away. ‘It’s not exclusive, I don’t think.’

But he had gone. After a while, I shut the door and stood with my back against it. I would not cry. I glanced down at the crumpled Times, on the floor by the sofa. All that time, all those espressos and glasses of red wine and all that courage I had somehow drawn from Tessa; all those walks in Hyde Park and St James’s, all those talks into the night; that quiet confidence she exuded, so self-possessed, so put together. All that had been fake. All the time she had told me she understood how I felt about Ned – and now this. I had been betrayed by the woman I had so quietly relied on.

And if Tessa was not Tessa, who the hell was she then?