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‘What’s wrong, Tessa?’ I followed her gaze; through the crack, I glimpsed Anita Stuart trailing Sorcha and the Bolshoi dancers up the stairs to the girls’ changing rooms.
‘It’s just – I’ve been – oh God.’ Tessa let the door swing to, biting her own fist. ‘I really wanted to tell you before—’
In a blast of surrealist kaftan, Mason arrived, music swelling and dying down again as she opened and shut the door. Behind her in the corridor I saw my first student waiting outside my room.
‘Ladies. Don’t mind me.’ Mason began sticking up audition notices onto the central notice-board. I knew she was all ears.
I looked back at Tessa; her hands fluttered at her sides like long white butterflies.
‘Look, can we grab a coffee at eleven?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll have about fifteen minutes between sessions.’
‘Yes please.’ Tessa tried to smile, but I thought I saw her bottom lip tremble slightly. ‘Oh, and can you shove my kitbag in your locker? I’ve mislaid my keys. Stupid, really.’
‘Of course.’
Her light eyes were over-bright as I took the bag from her, her mascara oddly clumpy for someone usually fastidious. I felt torn, but Billy McCorkdale was leaning against the wall, only eighteen and already all testosterone and attitude. Starting treatments late meant the whole day became a logistical nightmare.
‘Problem?’ Mason perked up. ‘Can I assist?’
Tessa tried that smile again. ‘No, no.’
Later, that smile haunted me.
Later, my abiding memory was that it was one of fear.
THURSDAY 13TH JULY SILVER
DCI Joseph Silver was just about to step into the shower at the sports club when his work mobile rang. He felt particularly disgusting at this moment, sweat dripping down his back, his t-shirt saturated, having just thrashed it out with his colleague DI Lonsdale in a match that was ostensibly part of the station tournament, but was really about Serious Crime vs Homicide. And in fact, even more so in this instance, about proving the North/South divide was well and truly alive and breathing. Lonsdale stood for everything Silver despised in the force; a supercilious Southern bastard with a daft goatee who drove a Volvo, wore ever-clean Timberlands, and bleated about his paternity rights every other day.
Silver ignored the phone. It rang off, and then immediately started again.
He swore quietly and fumbled in the pocket of his neatly folded trousers, tentatively holding the phone to his sweaty ear, trying not to soak it. ‘Silver.’
‘Guv.’ It was DS Lorraine Kenton, the newest member of his team. ‘Sorry to bother you, but Malloy’s on the rampage.’
‘Go on.’ Sweat trickled down his cheek and dripped onto the filthy floor. Silver suppressed a fastidious shudder. He might have just proven that the North bore tough and tenacious sportsmen who were unafraid to slam their own bodies into brick walls in the name of gamesmanship, but he was also the same copper who couldn’t abide mess and dirt. OCD, his ex-wife Lana called it, invariably to wind him up, though she wasn’t too far behind him in the cleanliness next to Godliness stakes. Not that either of them had ever followed the God bit – but their house had been truly sparkling.
‘Just a quick one.’ Kenton cleared her throat. ‘Missing girl, Misty Jones. Malloy wants to use the GMTV and Crime Live! appeal tomorrow morning for her.’
‘Why?’ Silver tasted the salt on his own lips. ‘It’s meant to be for that Down’s Syndrome lad.’
‘Bobby Elwood. I know. I did say that. But the thing is,’ Kenton cleared her throat again, a habit Silver was beginning to recognise as a nervous one, ‘Malloy thinks Misty Jones is more—’
‘Don’t tell me – photogenic. Pretty, is she?’ Which meant his boss thought they’d get more response to the appeal, which meant a quicker result, which meant better statistics. ‘Brilliant.’
‘Is that – are you being serious, sir?’ Kenton asked nervously.
‘I’m being entirely sarcastic, Kenton. Which is the lowest form of wit, someone once told me. Poor retarded lad traded in for pretty lass. Have we even looked into the case properly?’
‘Not really. Flatmate reported it. Can’t trace the family.’
‘But it’s a fait accompli, as those learned French say. Doubt I have much choice, do I?’
Kenton looked at her email inbox, where the GMTV producer had just mailed her to thank her for the Jpeg of the missing girl, and asking for a few more details. Favourite pet, younger siblings, anything that would help the nation’s heart bleed. None of which Kenton could immediately answer.
‘Er—’
‘That was rhetorical, Kenton. Who the hell is Misty Jones anyway?’ Down in the shower room, Silver could see Lonsdale approaching. He wanted to get into the shower before his competitor. He didn’t fancy chit-chat from a cheating Southern bastard with a wispy chin who’d quibbled over every point.
‘Look, if Malloy’s given you the word, then do it, kiddo. We’ll have a chat in the morning. Or at the weekend, any road. I’m off tomorrow.’
Reason not to be cheerful no. 87. Silver shoved his phone back into his sports bag and made for the shower. He might just have won, but he had no desire to engage in back-slapping camaraderie with a secretly seething colleague, or be invited to go for a drink, which he’d only have to turn down. He was knackered, and his mood was dark. Bed and solitude called.
THURSDAY 13TH JULY CLAUDIE
Tessa didn’t show up at eleven and by lunchtime, I’d been distracted by a first-year student falling in class and a possible elbow fracture. I forgot about my friend and her earlier anxiety as I hastened to sort the subsequent hospital referral, and then to reach my own appointment in Harley Street.
Rushing back to the Academy at the end of the lunch hour, almost late for my next student, I found Anita Stuart lurking outside my room, her feet sketching movement on the spot as someone down the hall played the opening suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet score over and over.
‘Have you seen Tessa?’ she demanded, fiddling with a small silver dove on a chain round her neck. She was a little surly, as ever, and her rather lazy left eye gave her an unfortunate lopsided look.
‘No, ’fraid not.’ I unlocked my door. ‘She’s probably in class, no?’
Anita was clutching something, a pamphlet of some description. I caught the words ‘Redemption’ and ‘Light’ before she shoved it in her pocket.
‘She’s not,’ Anita scowled. She smelt odd; it seemed familiar but I couldn’t place the scent. ‘I thought she might be having lunch with you.’
‘Sorry. Can’t help.’ I let myself into my room, relieved to get away from the scowl and the odd smell. But Anita was too fast.
‘What’s she said to you?’ She stuck her foot in the door so I couldn’t shut it behind me.
‘About what?’ I frowned.
‘About—’ She stopped and stared at me. Thought better of it, perhaps. ‘Never mind. But if you see Tessa, tell her I’m looking for her.’
‘Yes, Madam,’ I muttered at her departing back. What an unpleasant girl, I thought, and closed my door behind her.
At five, as I was signing out, I had a quick look for Tessa, but she wasn’t in class or in the staffroom. I needed some fresh air now, my back was aching from standing for so long, and I was dying for a cigarette. I searched my bag for a nicotine patch, applying it with a sense of slightly defeated relief.
‘Seen Tessa?’ I asked Leila, who hadn’t, and Mason, who immediately raised her non-existent eyebrows in an entirely suggestive way.
‘What?’
‘She was ever so stressed. I heard her on the phone. I was trying not to listen but—’ Mason’s letterbox mouth snapped shut dramatically. ‘Well.’
‘Your speciality, not listening.’ Leila winked at me. ‘Walls have ears, eh, Mason?’
‘Let’s just say Tessa was more than a little fraught. She was meant to be covering Eduardo’s 4 p.m. but she made some sort of excuse and just left. Jenny had to do it.’
Leila and I exchanged glances. Mason was unperturbed.
‘She’s not best pleased, shall we say. Jenny. Still, “The busy man is troubled with but one devil, the idle man by a thousand.”’
‘Oh dear.’ I gathered my things, feeling guilty I hadn’t found Tessa earlier. ‘I hope she’s OK.’
‘Oh, Claudie,’ Mason barked as I opened the door to leave. ‘I completely forgot. She left you a note.’ As she bent to retrieve it from the pile on her desk, Mason knocked over her coffee, soaking everything with dark brown liquid. ‘Oh, damn and blast.’
After a bit of wrangling, Mason passed me the soggy bit of paper, but it was almost pulp already. I could just make out the words ‘Take’ and ‘the necklace’. The last word in the paragraph looked like it was possibly ‘Sorry’ with a big curly y.
I held it to the light but it was no good, it was illegible. I balled the note, tossing it in the bin. From the set of Mason’s expectant head, I could tell she had read it, she was dying to be asked; but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. If it was important, Tessa would call me, I guessed. ‘See you guys tomorrow.’
‘Ta ta for now,’ Mason sniffed. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t with that gorgeous Rafe. I know what MPs are like.’
‘Leaves me wide open then,’ I grinned at her, shouldering my bag, and left.
The summer afternoon was warm and the air outside seemed to almost shimmer. I suddenly felt more cheerful about life, almost euphoric even. Things were going to get better. They simply had to.
I had no idea of the level of my delusion.
But on the bus to meet Rafe, stuck at red lights, I felt less than euphoric and increasingly racked by a headache. I stared out at an Evening Standard billboard on the street which read ‘Dancer, 20, Missing or Dead?’; but the words moved up and down with alarming speed as I tried to focus.
Disoriented, I was jolted into a memory that terrified me. I felt like I had last year; my self fracturing into pieces – but it couldn’t be happening again – could it? I was over the worst, surely? I leant against the window, my head pounding so badly now I thought I might actually throw up, and I thought vaguely that maybe I should get off the bus before it was too late – only the idea of walking right now seemed a little like scaling Mount Everest. I looked down onto the pavement, onto the worker ants of London, and my phone was ringing in my bag. I tried to pull it out, the flickering lights in front of my burning eyes bewildering me until I felt like I was losing consciousness.
I woke in the dark, almost dribbling, absolutely freezing, my hands curled round my bag strap so tightly I had to fight to unfurl them. I could hear voices, and then Rafe was there, peering down at me, saying, ‘Oh my God, Claudie, what’s happened?’ And I found I could hardly speak, I was so disoriented, but I managed to croak something about my head, and he was saying, ‘Oh Christ, you’re frozen, how long have you been here?’ and practically carrying me up the few stairs to his flat. He gave me a warm drink of something tasteless, and laid me down on his sofa with a cashmere blanket – it was so warm and homely that I drifted off again.
FRIDAY 14TH JULY CLAUDIE
I came to in the early hours caught in the desperate state between sleep and consciousness; hearing frantic voices whispering in the dark, a woman’s voice too now, and I thought perhaps it was Tessa, and then I realised I was dreaming.
When I woke properly about six, Rafe had already gone. He was a gym addict, and there was a note, telling me to help myself to anything I wanted, and that he’d see me later, and he hoped I was feeling better.
The headache had gone, but I didn’t feel better. I just felt frightened. I’d lost a few hours from last night; I remembered leaving work, being on the bus and then – what? Waking in Rafe’s porch; being carried into the flat. An overwhelming sense of anxiety pulsed through me. Images from yesterday flickered through my mind, like a camera shutter opening and closing too fast. I sat on the sofa, my head in my hands, and tried to breathe.
Was it happening again?
I washed my face and hands beneath the expensive lighting in Rafe’s stark bathroom and, trying to calm my tousled hair, I opened the medicine cabinet above the basin, looking for what Rafe called ‘product’. A packet of Well Woman tablets fell out. I picked them up, frowning. Next to them, a pink electric toothbrush, and a jar of Clinique night cream.
I shut the cabinet door, and walked into his bedroom. It all looked the same as ever, until I opened the drawers by the side of the bed. There was a pale blue hairband and some expensive hand cream.
It underlined something I had been avoiding … that Rafe and I were really only a stopgap. Meeting by chance at the Sadler’s Wells charity do in January, it had always felt a little like I was one of his pet projects; that we were keeping each other warm on cold winter nights.
But now it was summer.
Grabbing my stuff, I ran down the stairs and buzzed myself out, the fortress door slamming behind me. I stood at the top of the shiny steps to the street. A milk float trundled slowly down the deserted road, and a ginger cat cleaned its ears discreetly as it sat beneath the frothy mimosa tree; it looked at me with disdain and then carried on licking. And I remembered Tessa’s soaked and illegible note in my hand yesterday afternoon and I had this sudden overriding feeling that I should be somewhere, and I felt a rising panic, because I just didn’t know where.
FRIDAY 14TH JULY KENTON
How the hell she had ended up having to do this alone, she would never know. Cursing quietly, DS Lorraine Kenton backed the car into the small space, knocked the adjacent Audi’s mirror and then looked around guiltily to see if anyone had noticed. It had taken over half an hour to find a parking space because the bloody NCP was shut for some reason, and she was seriously over-tired and crochety. She’d slept badly because all night she’d kept dreaming that she’d forgotten what she was meant to say in the TV studio and no one would tell her the lines so she just sat frozen in fear on the famous cream sofa of Crime Live!, opposite the immaculate ice-maiden presenter who stared at her blankly.
At six, Kenton had woken with relief, before realising with horror she really did have to go on TV today. In an effort to rouse herself, she’d drunk too much black coffee in a foolish attempt to get those little grey cells working and thrown half a mug of it down her new white shirt, which meant she had to plump for the crumpled stripy one. She didn’t have time to iron it because she’d nicked the fuse out of the plug last week for her hairdryer, which had been unused for at least two years prior to her first date, on the Southbank, with Alison from the dating website Guardian Soulmates. Now the only consequence of all that coffee was a mismatched outfit and a horribly pounding heart, her brain exactly as slow and sludge-like as when she’d first woken.
The television studio was on a small side street off Berkeley Square. Kenton checked the A-Z and, grabbing her jacket from the back seat hoping it would cover the crumpled stripes, wondered for at least the forty-eighth time this morning why the hell she’d volunteered to replace Gill McCarthy from the Press Office when she had become ‘unavailable’ at the last minute yesterday evening (for unavailable read: had just found out her boyfriend in Organised Crime was screwing McCarthy’s number two, Jo Reid, who wore a wanton look, too much red lipstick and her dresses practically slashed to the waist. Obvious, maybe, but Kenton could definitely see her appeal).
Her phone rang. Her pounding heart slowed and sank. It was DI Craven.
‘I’ll meet you there, pet,’ he said. ‘At Audley Street. Running slightly late.’
‘Really? I thought I was—’ Kenton collected herself, ‘I didn’t realise you were coming too.’
‘Boss thought you might fuck it up,’ he said smugly, and hung up.
Kenton counted to ten slowly and then dug her iPod out to begin the walk west, shuffling the wheel for the Meditation CD Alison had rather shyly suggested she try for stress.
‘Breathe deeply. Now imagine yourself in a safe, secure place. Somewhere you are entirely comfortable,’ the man’s voice droned unconvincingly. ‘Perhaps you are in a childhood—’
Someone pushed Kenton so violently from behind that she stumbled, just righting herself in time before she fell; her iPod hitting the pavement hard.
Before she could pick it up, she was pushed again. Heart racing, she turned to see who her attacker was, but they had run on. There was some sort of commotion on the far side of the square behind her, beside the big Swiss bank – but she was too far away to see exactly what it was; the railings round the green blocked her view, so she could only see the edge of the building site beside the bank. About fifty metres away, a woman in a burqa stood on the edge of the pavement, about to push a buggy across the road. Now the woman began to run towards the group of people at the bus stop.
As Kenton neared, adrenaline flooding her veins now, she could hear shouting and then another, more eerie noise: a high-pitched wail not unlike the keening of the bereaved at an Arabic funeral.
A bus pulled in, blocking her view again; and then a woman was screaming and shouting something unintelligible and Kenton saw people on the bus look out, and then stand up, a man pointing, pointing out of the far window and then—
All was chaos and noise and white, exploding light.
FRIDAY 14TH JULY CLAUDIE
I stood on the quiet street outside Rafe’s flat. The church clock on the green struck seven, and a double decker slid into place at the bus stop in front of me. Unthinking, I climbed on. I didn’t check the destination, I just slapped my Oyster card on the reader like it was a dead fish, and I sat in the first seat I came to.
I kept thinking I need to be somewhere only I couldn’t seem to collect my thoughts; and when I did manage to assemble them a little, I found I was thinking of Ned, and then of Will. I fiddled anxiously with my locket, realising I had a sudden urge to see my husband. Oh the sweet irony: an irony Will would not thank me for.
The old lady beside me smelt high, as if she’d been ripened especially for months. She kept grumbling about the driver, on and on she droned. ‘He’s trying to scare us, that lad, you mark my words, it’s because they don’t learn to drive here, they learn in Africa, too many holes in the roads, those jigaboos.’ After a few minutes, I said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t share your horrible opinions,’ and I moved to the back, stumbling against the other commuters who stared at me with empty eyes.
We reached Russell Square. Tessa; that was it; that was what I had to do. I changed buses and boarded a new one. It seemed to take forever to reach Oxford Street where we became one in a line of nose to tail buses, crawling at tortoise pace – something was holding us up, but we couldn’t see what; until eventually I knew, I knew I had to get off the bus NOW. I began to smash on the doors until the other passengers stepped back in fear, until the driver thought I was truly mad, and gave in, and let me off.
And I ran, ran, ran towards Berkeley Square.
FRIDAY 14TH JULY KENTON
Somehow the bus protected her. Forever after she would be grateful; she would look on London’s famous red double decker as some kind of lucky charm; some kind of talisman to her.
Instinctively, Kenton had hit the floor when the explosion ripped through the north side of the square. She had lain motionless on the pavement with her hands over her head for a minute or two, until the noise settled, the rumble stopped, and there was quiet across the square. A strange pocket of silence in the city, broken only by the incongruous sound of birdsong.
And then a new noise began. Now it was the alarms that filled the air: the cars, the shops and flats; the electrics triggered by the huge explosion. There was thick dust swirling in the air, making Kenton cough as she thought absently of 9/11 and the survivors staggering about covered in white like ash-covered ghosts.
She tasted it in her mouth and spat a few times, trying to find some moisture. She stood slowly, trembling, and began to walk towards the mutilated bus that had inclined fatally to the right, towards the crying and the wailing – towards the devastation, glass crunching underfoot. Her inclination might be to run back, but she knew it was her duty to go forward. She stopped for a moment, and breathed deeply and then pulled her phone from her pocket to ring for help. Afterwards, she couldn’t remember the conversation, or whom she spoke to, but soon after, the air was filled with police sirens.
Nothing could prepare her for what she was about to witness. In her mind’s eye, she imagined her late mother, smiling with encouragement from her usual place at the kitchen sink. ‘You can do it, Lorraine,’ she heard her mother say, snapping off her yellow Marigolds. ‘That’s my girl.’
