Fragile Minds

FRIDAY 21ST JULY SILVER



They went via the Royal Opera House to see Lucie Duffy, who wasn’t answering her phone. Kenton stayed in the car to take a call from the Yorkshire police about the Malverns, whilst Silver asked Reception to call the young dancer down this time. He didn’t fancy watching her contort that lithe little body this morning. Standing in the huge foyer, Silver flicked through leaflets about dancers digging graves on stage, and a performance from Japan featuring nuns, nudity and soft porn. Bizarre, what they called art.

Lucie appeared five minutes later, as pink-cheeked as yesterday but wrapped in a long, blue cardigan today.

‘Any news?’

‘Nope,’ she shook her head, lowering her lashes so he couldn’t see her eyes, wispy tendrils of damp hair curling into her slender neck. ‘I tried the most recent idiot last night. Roberto. Hasn’t seen her for weeks, he said. There was another one, Mikey. I only met him once. I left him a message but he hasn’t called back yet. There was an older guy I met once – but—’

‘But what?’

‘I can’t remember his name. A one-night stand, I think. He was foreign I think.’

Silver wasn’t surprised; he’d had no joy with the boyfriends either.

‘But I think she’d lost interest in men recently,’ Lucie said, looking faintly appalled.

‘Really? Are you worried, Lucie, about your friend?’ Silver was genuinely curious. This girl was difficult to read: both hard and soft; not necessarily in the right places.

She pouted. ‘Of course I am. What do you take me for?’ She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes now. ‘I’m not heartless, DI Silver.’

‘DCI Silver,’ he corrected automatically.

‘Ooh, very important.’ She tapped his chest with a dainty forefinger. ‘Do you have a uniform?’

‘Only for special occasions.’ He sighed internally. Men were meant to be the uncomplicated creatures sexually, but actually, in his experience, women weren’t so far behind. It was just what happened the morning after that they seemed to differ on. ‘I think we have to assume your friend Sadie might be in trouble. I’m on my way to speak to the manager of the club she danced at. It was Sugar and Spice, was it?’

‘There were a few actually. But yeah, it was mainly the big one at London Bridge, I think. Sugar and Spice.’

Every copper in London knew the huge lap-dancing club, which was fast becoming renowned globally. Started in Moscow by a Russian oligarch with mafia connections, the London venue had opened five years ago and had cultivated a celebrity clientele and much media furore – until a gangland shooting behind the building two years ago had threatened the club with closure. Everyone used it: bankers, politicians, barrow-boys and aristocrats; footballers and female journalists who considered themselves cool because they wrote clever articles proclaiming their support. They boasted of tucking tenners in dancers’ G-strings and whistling them on with the lads. Silver found the journalists tiresome; he felt that if they actually knew the truth of it, it would be a very different matter, as yet another girl died of her crack habit or was coerced into a gang-bang by the pimps in charge of the clubs. That was the real story they needed to be reporting.

‘And all things nice.’ Lucie stretched like a cat, exposing the curve of her small breast as her blue cardigan fell back.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What little girls are made of. Sugar and spice, and all things nice. Not like you nasty boys,’ she pouted. Silver suppressed a grin. She was irrepressible, this girl. He pitied any boyfriend of hers.

‘Poor Sadie,’ she sighed unconvincingly. ‘Sexy Sadie. She didn’t seem very happy and it’s not where she wanted to end up, though I do have to say—’

‘What?’

‘She loves the money.’ Lucie wrinkled a distasteful little nose. ‘On a good night, she makes more than I do in a week. Comes home with all sorts, new Mulberry bags, Gina shoes, the lot. Those City boys love to splash their money about. And she loves to boast to everyone. A few private dances and – bingo! Some of the other girls—’ She stopped, biting her full lower lip.

‘Some of the other girls?’ Silver prompted, trying to read her look.

She shook her head. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Really.’

He gave Lucie a minute, but she obviously wasn’t going to elaborate.

‘Right. Well, let’s pray she’s just off spending a bit of that hard-earned cash.’ Silver had had enough of Duffy for one day. ‘Cheers, kiddo. Let me know if you hear from her.’

‘You don’t think something, you know, something really bad has happened, do you?’ Her grey eyes suddenly brimmed and she blinked them back girlishly. Silver felt guilty for his harsh appraisal of her. She wasn’t much older than Ben, his seventeen-year-old; a child at heart.

‘Let’s hope not. I’ll stay in touch.’

As he left the building, a pretty, dishevelled blonde ran into him on the front stairs.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, seeming slightly unsteady on her feet, her brown eyes bruised with tiredness, tangled hair all over the place. ‘My fault.’ She clutched her green parka around her, though it was a warm day.

‘All right, kiddo?’ he asked, but she was already well past him, up and into the building. He headed back to the car, heart heavy, where Kenton was still absorbed on the phone, scribbling notes furiously. Sadie was officially missing, Anita Stuart still hadn’t materialised – so that made two of them. Three maybe. If Lana hadn’t turned up in the next few hours, he was headed for home.





At Sugar and Spice in London Bridge, Kenton and Silver were shown downstairs into the dimly lit main club and asked to wait for a man called Larry Bird. A curvy waitress was sent over to ask them what they’d like to drink, her shiny platinum hair-piece more elaborate than one of Molly’s dolls. They both asked for water.

‘Whew. It’s bloody hot in here, isn’t it?’ Kenton took her sky-blue tank-top off, a decadent piece of clothing for her. It clashed horribly with her hair. ‘To stop the girls getting cold, I guess.’

‘Hardly. It’s to get the punters to buy drinks,’ Silver said. He felt dispirited and tired, and Lana’s face revolved constantly in his head.

‘Guv,’ Kenton said.

‘Yep?’

‘Why are we here?’

‘Misty Jones, Kenton,’ Silver was abrupt. He didn’t want to have to explain himself now. ‘Just trying to join the dots.’

Kenton shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’

The club had been open for about an hour and a black girl with a figure like an egg-timer was performing a lackadaisical dance to Michael Jackson’s Beat It, a song far more energetic than she was. She wobbled round the pole a few times, her huge breasts swinging high enough to make Kenton wince. A group of middle-aged businessmen drinking champagne clapped enthusiastically as she stuck her hands down the front of her silver G-string and simulated lazy masturbation. Silver looked away. Near the door to the Ladies, a fragile-looking brunette leant against the wall, wearing Perspex stilettos, knee socks and a see-through baby-doll dress. Silver beckoned her over, and she undulated towards them as best she could for someone so thin.

‘Sit down, please,’ he asked her politely. Kenton moved round the red velvet banquette to let the girl sit. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Gigi,’ she intoned in an Eastern European accent. Close up, she looked ill; her pale skin almost translucent, thick make-up failing to hide a huge cold sore on her top lip. ‘Would you like a private dance?’ She motioned to the booths that lined the main floor that were separated by curtains. In one, Silver could see two girls performing a lesbian routine for a couple of City boys; one girl crouched over the other’s body, pretending to lick her washboard stomach.

‘No thanks, love.’ Kenton shifted uncomfortably. ‘We’re police.’

‘Really?’ The girl looked unperturbed. ‘Police some of my best customers.’ She put her emaciated hand on Silver’s thigh. ‘Very nice uniform sometime.’ Her skin was very hot; he could feel it through the fabric of his suit trousers. He smiled politely and removed the hand. Her scarlet fingernails were horribly chewed.

‘Yes, really,’ he said. ‘Do you know a girl called Sadie? Pretty, medium height, blonde, curly hair. Blue eyes.’

‘No,’ she said immediately without even considering it.

‘Or maybe not Sadie. Maybe Misty.’

This time the girl shifted in her seat. ‘I don’t think so.’

Silver and Kenton exchanged looks.

‘Are you sure about that?’ He pulled out the photo of Sadie he’d brought with him and showed it to Gigi. She cast a desultory look at the photo before shrugging, but she had begun to bite one non-existent fingernail.

‘Well?’ Kenton snapped. Her patience was wearing thin. ‘This girl is missing. This is serious.’

‘Maybe I saw her.’ Her dark eyes flicked from side to side like a snake’s as she checked who was around. A fat man was waddling towards them, slicking his hair back in the dim light, a chunky gold bracelet glinting on his thick wrist. Gigi registered him and then looked back at the photo.

‘No,’ she said loudly, pushing it away now. ‘No I do not know this girl. I never seen her here.’

She was frightened, that much was obvious, and she was also lying, but Silver knew this was not the time to push it. As the man arrived beside them, Gigi stood and cuddled up to him, towering over him in her five-inch heels.

‘Larry,’ she said, simpering like a small child. ‘You looking good, Larry.’

He was most definitely not looking good.

‘Yeah well,’ Larry sniffed, grabbing a handful of Gigi’s scrawny arse. ‘You’re looking thin. You back on the gear, sweetheart?’

‘Of course not.’ She blinked doll eyes at him coquettishly. It was painful to watch. The more Silver gazed at her, the more her face looked like a death’s head. Larry grabbed her arm now, checking for track-marks; Gigi pulled it back.

‘Larry,’ she purred, but she was nervous, ‘you know I am good girl now. I see you in office, yeah?’

Larry sighed elaborately.

‘I show you how good I am.’ Gigi ran her bony hand across his crotch with a hint of exhausted promise.

Kenton looked down at her knees, biting her lip.

‘OK. Wait for me there. And don’t f*cking lose another inch off those tits or you’re out.’ Larry let the girl go so suddenly she staggered slightly, sniffing wildly as she collected her purse from the table. ‘No tits, no job. Consider yourself warned.’

‘Ciao,’ Gigi tried a little-girl wave at Silver as she weaved her way towards the door. He held a hand up in response.

‘What a mess,’ Kenton muttered under her breath.

‘Yeah, f*cking girls,’ Larry agreed, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘If they get too ugly or too high, they’re straight out.’

‘Pardon?’ Kenton stared at him.

‘We’re the best f*cking club in town. We can’t have dogs here. We’ve got a reputation to uphold.’

‘Dogs? Excuse me, but really,’ Kenton’s words were tumbling over one another, ‘it’s exactly that sort of attitude that damages young—’

‘Lorraine,’ Silver murmured. ‘Let’s just leave the lecture for now, shall we, kiddo?’

‘Yes, guv,’ she muttered, but she shot daggers at the American, who, oblivious, was beckoning a waitress.

‘We’re looking for this girl.’ Silver showed the photo of Sadie Malvern to Larry. ‘She’s missing.’

The fat man considered the picture for a moment, holding it in unwieldy fingers. He was sweating in the heat, an unchecked droplet rolling down his pock-marked cheek and bouncing off the glossy paper. Kenton shuddered.

‘Pretty broad,’ he smirked. ‘I’d give her a job.’

‘That’s my question. Did you give her a job?’

‘I don’t remember them all,’ he shrugged. ‘They come and go.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Silver adjusted his cuff minutely. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to be more specific than that.’

‘Really?’ Larry looked up at him.

‘Really.’

The two men stared at one another.

‘OK, sure.’ Larry shrugged again. ‘Let me have another look.’ Silver was patient whilst the other man pretended to reconsider. ‘Yeah, OK.’ He returned the photo. ‘She may have danced for us once or twice.’

‘Do you keep records?’ Kenton asked, barely civil.

‘Sure. We keep lists and till receipts when the girls check in for the night.’

‘Till receipts?’ Kenton shook her head, not understanding.

‘They pay for the privilege of dancing, at the till in the changing room.’

‘They pay?’

‘Like I said, lady, it’s the best club in town. They choose a name, and they pay their £100, they keep the tips, and everyone’s laughing.’

As she opened her mouth to speak, Silver silenced Kenton with another look. Now was most definitely not the time to unleash her feminist principles.

The young waitress brought the champagne Larry had ordered now, bending over him to expose a deep cleavage, trailing her talons down his arm as she poured him a glass.

‘Thanks, baby,’ he smiled at her, his button eyes disappearing into his oily dough face.

Kenton looked like she was about to spontaneously combust.

‘So, when did you last see her?’ Silver asked.

‘Hard to say. Few weeks probably. Like I say, they come, they go. She wasn’t one of the best.’

‘She was a highly trained dancer,’ Kenton snapped.

‘So? As long as they know how to shake their booty, I couldn’t care less if they trained with Britney Spears.’

‘That’s hardly what I meant.’

‘Oh?’ He stared at her. ‘What did you mean?’

‘Never mind,’ Silver intercepted. ‘So she definitely hasn’t been in the past week?’

‘Definitely not. I’ve been here every night.’

‘But you’ll double-check,’ Silver said firmly. ‘Now.’

The American sighed. ‘But I’ll double-check, now.’

‘And you won’t mind if I ask the girls. Check if anyone’s seen her?’

‘It’s crappy for business—’ Larry broke off, defeated. He certainly did mind, that was clear; but he had no option. Huffing and puffing, he heaved his great bulk off the banquette, and headed back to the office, where perhaps the emaciated Gigi could soften the blow of police presence in the club. Or blow the man softly – Silver grinned at his own wit.

As Silver and Kenton approached the changing room, a line of around fifteen girls queued at the door, chatting idly, texting on pink phones, preparing for the next, busier shift. A muscular Eurasian girl in a vest top and jeans was on the till just inside the room, taking the money.

‘Brandy,’ a small curvaceous redhead in a powder-blue tracksuit passed her cash over.

‘The other Brandy’s in already,’ the cashier said, without looking up.

‘Bollocks.’ The redhead sighed. ‘Paige then.’

‘Paige it is.’ The cashier rang up the hundred pounds and jotted her name in a notebook. ‘Next!’

Silver stopped the redhead as she dumped her bag at the long mirror and showed her Sadie’s picture. ‘Do you know this girl?’

‘Who wants to know?’ She eyed him warily. Her freckles were so infinite the pale skin between was almost entirely hidden.

‘I do.’ He flashed his badge.

‘Shit.’ Her yellow cat eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down, weighing up her options. ‘Yeah, I do,’ she said in the end, reluctantly. ‘That’s Misty. What’s she done now?’

‘Nothing. When did you last see her?’

‘Not for a bit.’

‘Can you remember when? It’s important.’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe two weeks. Maybe last week, actually. I had flu; she was in on my first shift back. I remember cos she gave me some painkillers. She kept boasting about going away. She was getting on my tits actually.’

‘Going away where?’

‘Dunno. Somewhere flash. Some hippy dippy expensive place.’

‘What kind of place? With who?’

‘I really don’t know. We weren’t that close.’ She kicked her trainers off and started unzipping her tracksuit. ‘Sorry, but I’m on at three.’

‘What did you mean, what’s she done now?’

‘Nothing.’ She peeled off her t-shirt, revealing large rose-coloured nipples.

Silver averted his eyes. ‘You must have meant something.’

She reached over for her corset, brushing her breasts deliberately against his arm. He stepped back.

‘She’d had a warning. From Larry and the big boss.’

‘For what?’

‘For snorting coke in the toilet.’ She squeezed herself into the lacy black number. ‘Half the girls are bang on it, but it don’t do to get caught, you know. Misty got careless.’

‘So what happened?’

As she struggled with the clasp on her top, her gaze was distracted. Silver glanced round; the Eurasian girl was standing behind him, hands on hips.

‘I dunno. Ask Larry. It’s not my business.’ The redhead sat and extended one leg almost up to her ear to pull on a thigh-high patent black boot. ‘We keep ourselves to ourselves, know what I’m saying? We’ve got bills to pay, mouths to feed.’

A gorgeous black girl bounced into the room now and chucked a load of business cards in the bin. Silver recognised her as one of the girls simulating lesbian sex in the booth earlier. ‘F*cking losers. Like I’m going to f*ck one of them for nothing.’

‘Er – Linda!’ the brunette in her bra and knickers next to Paige pointed furiously at Silver. ‘Old Bill.’

‘What?’ the girl giggled, her wrap falling open, her eyes an alarming green colour, from contact lenses Silver assumed. ‘I’d do you though, darling. Love a boy in blue.’

Silver hid his grin badly, fishing out his card to hand to the cashier.

‘Right, well,’ he said stoically, passing it over. ‘If anyone thinks of anything else, give me a call, yeah?’

‘I will,’ the redhead said quietly, standing up now and manoeuvring her breasts to the front of the dress so they spilt over the corset, pink nipples just visible. She took another card from Silver and held Silver’s eye, biting her lower lip provocatively. ‘If I think of anything at all, I’ll call.’





Kenton had been watching a small, compact girl with the most enormous breasts shimmying up and down the pole, hair like Cleopatra, eyes like the dead, pretending to lick her own nipple.

Despite herself, she couldn’t stop laughing as they left the club. ‘They’re not shy, those girls, are they?’

‘Nope. But I’m surprised at you, Lorraine, especially as you were coming over all Mary Whitehouse on me there.’

‘They’re still pretty—’ Kenton paused.

‘Hot?’

‘No,’ she retorted, but Silver saw the flush flood her face again. ‘Anyway,’ she changed the subject quickly, ‘you looked like you were in your element.’

Silver unwrapped a stick of gum with absolute nonchalance. ‘I did not.’

‘Oh yes, guv.’ Kenton opened the car door. ‘You did!’





FRIDAY 21ST JULY CLAUDIE



Round the corner at the Coliseum on St Martin’s Lane, I bought a Big Issue from the bald vendor who looked as downbeat as I felt, and waited at the Stage Door for Amanda Curran. To my relief, she was far friendlier than her classmate had been.

‘I’m finished for a few hours,’ she said, slipping her snowy tutu off and shoving it into her kitbag. ‘Shall we grab a coffee? I’m starving.’

We sat outside at the café on St Martin’s Lane and I showed her the photo that Lucie had been so disturbed by. As usual, Amanda’s red hair was pulled tightly back from her funny pale face; tiny rosebud mouth, large forehead and protuberant blue eyes making her look a little alien. But what she lacked in beauty, she made up for in charm and character.

‘I don’t want to be horrid, but I always thought Tessa was a little strange, to be honest,’ Amanda confided, ordering a double espresso and no food. As a concession, she unpeeled a banana she’d taken from her own bag, but then laid it down again without taking a bite.

‘In what sense?’

‘I’m not sure exactly.’ She lit a cigarette, and offered me one.

‘I’d love to but I’m quitting.’ I tapped my arm, indicating a patch. ‘Or trying to, anyway, with a little help. Not much fun.’

‘No. I should try,’ she agreed, looking at the picture again. ‘Yeah, Tessa. Just a bit odd. Like, sometimes, in class, she would tell stories that just didn’t quite add up.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, once she said she’d danced with Nureyev. But she couldn’t have done, could she? He was really sick by 1990, and she would have still been training in Australia.’

‘If she even was Australian.’ I resisted the temptation to bury my face in my hands. ‘I don’t know. I guess it’s not impossible she met him.’

Amanda shrugged. ‘There was other stuff. A world record for pirouettes, or something ridiculous. And always some kind of drama. It’s hard to explain really.’ She added four sweeteners to her coffee, pushing the photo back to me. ‘I found her – you know – very highly strung. And then she kept asking me round to her flat for dinner in my last few months at the Academy.’

‘Really?’ I was surprised. She’d only asked me once or twice, and we’d been firm friends; we usually ate out. I thought she enjoyed her privacy. I was beginning to seriously question my relationship with her; I had felt such a strong bond when she had told me she had lost her own children during a premature labour, but it seemed now a friendship built on quicksand. In fact, I was beginning to question every decision I’d made in the past year.

‘Yeah, a few of us. Lucie and Sadie both went. And Meriel Steele, before she left.’

I vaguely remembered Meriel, a mousey little girl with an out-of-proportion bosom that the boys had loved to tease her about, who’d dropped out after two terms, citing exhaustion. As far as I knew, she’d given up dancing and returned to her family in Devon.

‘Why didn’t you go?’

‘I – I don’t know. I just didn’t fancy it, I guess. And when I started going out with Tommo, Tessa got really funny with me. She didn’t really like the boys.’ She looked at her watch and forced herself to eat a bite of banana. ‘He’ll be here in a minute; he’ll be pleased to see you.’

Strong, jolly Tommo from the Ukraine, with the soulful eyes and a physique to die for.

‘Why was that? Not liking the boys?’

‘“Big ugly brutes” she used to call them, and I think she was only half-joking.’

I thought uncomfortably about my occasional underlying worry that Tessa had felt a different kind of attraction to me than I had towards her.

‘Though I did meet a male friend of hers once.’ Amanda stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Bit of a weirdo,’ she pulled a face now. ‘Don’t tell Tommo about the fags,’ she grimaced. ‘He’ll kill me.’

‘Who was he?’ I was confused. ‘Tessa’s boyfriend?’

‘Not sure really. He took us out to lunch once. Older man. Bit – serious.’

‘In what way?’

‘Kept staring at us all the time. Talked a lot about the politics of nature, which I didn’t understand a word of, to be honest. Celebrating the naked human form, being at one with nature – but then talked about money for the rest of the time. How he could make us rich. Talked about raising money for the cause, which made me switch right off. Gave us all a number to call if we were interested.’

I thought of Tessa’s fascination with Francis.

‘Did he have a beard? Earrings?’

‘No, definitely not. Very ordinary. Older. Slight accent, I think. Expensive clothes, but a bit of a bore, I do know that much. He called Tessa a funny name.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t remember now,’ she frowned. ‘Something like – like from a poem or something. She gave us all some stinky herbs to burn for good luck that day. I chucked mine away. What are you looking for?’ she asked kindly as I pulled things frantically out of my bag, looking for the little book I’d found in Tessa’s locker. The African plants. Was there a link?

‘Oh, sorry.’ Did I seem a little manic? I gave up the search. ‘So who went with you?’

She ticked them off on her long fingers. ‘Lucie, Sadie, Meriel, Tessa. And me.’

The girls circled in the photo.

‘Not Anita Stuart?’

‘Who?’ She peered down at her banana like it might suddenly bite. ‘And he suggested we all go away some time. He invited us all.’

‘Away?’

‘Yeah, like, some retreat or something in the countryside. Really hippy.’ She shuddered. ‘Not on your nelly, I thought. I can just about manage a night at Glastonbury with no hot water.’

‘Did the others go?’

‘I don’t know. Don’t think so.’

‘Do you keep in touch with them?’

‘Lucie, a bit, yeah – though she’s so busy now, well, you can imagine! It’s all lunches at Claridges and first-class tickets to New York. But Sadie, it’s a bit sad really. She’s pole-dancing, as far as I know.’

Alarm bells rang. ‘Pole-dancing?’

‘Yeah, I know. Awful. But she earns loads. God knows what she does for it though.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think she’s got into coke.’

‘Lucie says she’s missing.’

‘Missing?’ Amanda frowned. ‘Really?’

‘Though she didn’t seem terribly worried. Do you know who Paul Piper is?’ My heart was beating faster.

‘Piper?’ Amanda shook her head. ‘No I don’t think so. Should I?’

‘Not really. And the man you met with Tessa, what was his name?’

‘Not sure. Something ordinary, I think. Can’t remember it though.’ She scrunched her face in thought.

‘It’ll come back, I expect.’

‘He wore glasses, I think.’ She looked at me, her pale face serious. ‘Why are you so interested in all this, Claudie?’

‘Oh,’ I felt embarrassed suddenly. ‘I’m not really, it’s just – it’s so strange, that’s all. A friend turning out to not be who they said they were. It’s really confusing.’

Tommo appeared behind Amanda now, tiptoeing dramatically round the corner of the café, gesturing to me to keep quiet until he placed his hands over her eyes. She squealed in surprise and clamped his hands with hers.

‘Silly! You scared me.’

‘Sorry.’ He leant down and kissed her. ‘Hi, baby.’

‘Tommo,’ she grabbed his hand, ‘you remember Claudie, don’t you?’

‘Certainly do,’ he made a mock bow. ‘The lady with hands of steel.’

I grinned. ‘Always glad to be of service.’

‘Claudie was asking about Tessa Lethbridge.’

Tommo pulled a face. ‘That old lesbian? I never liked her much. Always forced our turn-out till we hurt our backs.’

I gathered my things. ‘Right, well, I’ll leave you to it.’ As I stood, I had a sudden thought.

‘That name he called Tessa, the foreign man. It wasn’t—’ I turned the photo over and showed her, ‘the Queen of Hearts?’

Amanda gazed at the scrawled line, and then up at me with her bulgy blue eyes. ‘God, yes, I think it was. So what were we then?’ She looked down again at the writing. ‘The tarts?’ She sniffed. ‘Charming.’

I left them nuzzling one another; young lovers, their affection for one another quite obvious – and I managed to suppress any feelings of envy as I walked away. I did look round, once, just before I went round the corner, and for a moment I thought they might have been laughing at me – but I dismissed it as paranoia.





At the bus stop, I didn’t feel very well again. My head ached and I felt nauseous and hazy, and above all else, frightened. I found I was constantly checking to see if I was being followed, and I clenched my fists, reminding myself I was out in the open, in the sun, that all was normality. But everywhere I looked, shadows seemed to fall. I got on the bus; concentrated on watching a young woman with her rosy-cheeked toddler in his Mr Men sunhat, carefully wiping away the jam from a doughnut, counting blue cars through the window, his pudgy nose squashed up against the glass in delight.

‘Bless him! Makes your heart glad, doesn’t it?’ an elderly lady in tweed said, smiling at me. ‘Have you got any?’

I had to look away. I felt an overwhelming sadness that threatened to engulf me, clamping the heart of me. I was starting to shudder, metaphorically, the very core of me not fitted to my centre any more. I tried to breathe.

It was stupid not to have stayed to see Helen this morning; I needed her common sense and her innate knowledge. She would be able to make it better. I switched my phone back on. Hands shaking slightly, I texted an apology. I’d go and see her now.





FRIDAY 21ST JULY KENTON



DS Lorraine Kenton arrived at the Vegetarian Oven in Spitalfields around five, troubled by thoughts of the dancers she’d met earlier. Despite being quite taken by Alison and wondering whether they were – rather gingerly – becoming an item, Kenton couldn’t stop thinking of the dancer Paige that Silver had just interviewed, those slanted cat’s eyes and that voluptuous creamy body. She sighed heavily and checked out the Vegetarian Oven’s wares whilst she waited for the owner. There were some extremely stodgy-looking and worryingly yellow Quorn pasties and a mushroom biryani that looked like something her cat had—

She shuddered and moved away.

‘DS Kenton?’ a shrill voice asked, and an anaemic-looking middle-aged woman with her hair in a striped headscarf appeared from the back room. Her skin was almost as yellow as the Quorn pasties. ‘Jan Martin.’

‘Jan, hi. Thanks for your time. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘Yes.’ Jan eyed Kenton’s extended hand coldly. ‘Here.’

It took Kenton less than five minutes to establish that Jan believed all police to be both bourgeois and fascist. She then had to listen to a rant about the Empathy Society and what they had believed in, and how they had been betrayed by the world in general. They had all met at Sussex University apparently, most of them English Literature students, or members of the Socialist party during the late 1980s, campaigning and standing outside Middle England’s railway stations, trying to flog their ideals and their paper. Jan had acted as Secretary, expanding the ranks as best she could.

‘This world is ruined,’ Jan said, her long nose quivering slightly. Her mouth was too small for her face, Kenton noted absently. ‘You mark my words. It’s only a matter of time before it all implodes.’

Once her diatribe had ended and she’d actually managed to get a word in, Kenton had asked Jan when she’d last seen either Michael Watson or Rosalind Lamont.

‘Michael changed his name long ago,’ Jan sniffed. ‘God knows why he was hanging out with that bloody Rosalind. She really was a prize bitch.’

Aha, thought Kenton. A woman scorned …

‘So,’ she asked pleasantly, ‘what did he change it to?’

‘Gabriel Oak,’ Jan said.

‘Why?’

‘Far from the Madding Crowd?’ Jan stared at her like she was completely stupid. ‘Thomas Hardy?’

It irritated Kenton beyond belief that she had no idea what the woman was on about and was going to have to ask her to clarify. One more supercilious look from Jan Martin and she might be tempted to shove a Quorn pasty somewhere the sun didn’t shine.

‘Sorry,’ she kept calm. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘He’s a farmer, Gabriel Oak. A man of the land. Michael wanted to renounce all worldly goods. He believed our society was about to eat itself.’

As long as it didn’t have to eat the mushroom biryani, Kenton thought wryly.

‘So he chose his favourite literary character. He was a very charismatic man, Michael. He was also a terrible bloody liar. Capricious as the wind.’

‘Right.’ Kenton wrote the name Gabriel Oak down carefully, glad to have the time to collect herself as she did so. ‘And Rosalind? What happened to her?’

‘Don’t know, and frankly I don’t care,’ the woman was petulant as a child, pursing her thin lips.

‘You’ve really got no idea where she might be?’ Kenton was patient. ‘It would be so helpful.’

‘Well, I heard various things. Once, that she ran off with a millionaire, some kind of Freud scholar with an estate in Lincolnshire – that would be just her luck.’ Martin’s nose quivered. ‘More recently, that she’d met a Russian professor of politics, a refugee – but really, who knows? I expect she did marry into money in the end, because she was that shallow. No real morals. And that’s what they do, don’t they?’ Jan stared at Kenton like she was the cause of all the world’s grief. ‘I mean, that’s how the rich stay rich.’

‘So she’s not with Michael Watson any more?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘And you have no idea where I could look for either of them?’

‘Like I said, try Lincolnshire.’ Jan got up now from the little table they had been sitting at, and began to restock the fair-trade brown sugar. ‘If that’s all, I’m really busy.’

Not a single customer had crossed the threshold the whole time they’d talked, and Kenton couldn’t blame them – though she was too kind to point this out. Jan Martin’s life was obviously miserable enough as it was. She gathered her things.

‘I’ll take a piece of carrot cake, thanks.’ Kenton smiled gamely at the older woman, half-expecting her to offer it on the house.

‘That’s £3. Please.’

Kenton bit back a retort about the slimy-looking icing and paid the exorbitant sum. She’d claim it back on expenses anyway.

‘Well, thanks, Jan. If you do think of anything else,’ she popped her card onto the glass counter, ‘you know the drill, I expect.’

As she stepped out of the door, infinitely relieved to get away from the acrid smell of Tibetan joss-sticks if nothing else, Jan spoke.

‘There was one other thing, actually. Rosalind. Now you come to mention it, I did hear from one of the group that she’d gone to Australia briefly a few years ago. Initially to save the Reef – like she could – and then on somewhere else artsy-fartsy probably. Not sure where exactly. Melbourne, perhaps.’