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Five minutes after arriving at work, Malloy called him in; bantered about the squash tournament briefly, and ‘that ponce Lonsdale’, and then asked Silver to head up part of what was now being referred to as Operation Nightingale.
‘You’ve probably heard, Al-Qaeda’s little friends have put up this new website since the explosion, celebrating the death toll. It’s a fucking travesty.’ The top of Malloy’s bullet-shaped head was practically quivering with outrage. ‘But the fucking knobs who run the worldwide web say they have no jurisdiction to shut it down. And the Muslims are not taking the rap for this, though they’re having a damn good laugh about it, so Counter Terrorism are about to pass it over. Got enough on their plate apparently; they’ll give us one dedicated officer to work with us and that’s it. And now we’ve got this fucking stupid “Purity” pony to deal with that’s been leaked to the press.’ Malloy flung a typewritten letter onto the desk in front of Silver; he scanned it quickly.
To those who perpetuate the suffering in this world:
It is time you saw that things must change, that we cannot continue ad nauseam to ruin our planet, to never take the blame. We need to purify: we are purifying for you all. Be warned, Berkeley Square is only the beginning.
‘Nutters, no? Any other developments?’ Silver folded the letter and sat opposite his boss.
‘I’ve just found out that there was some sort of tip-off on the Friday morning; some bird rang to say there was going to be a “major incident southeast of Oxford Street”. If the press get hold of that, we are for the fucking high jump.’
‘Who dealt with the call?’
‘It was passed over to SO15, but the operator thought it was a hoax. Said the woman was slightly hysterical and she thought she was a crazy. And fucking Explosives are taking forever, and they’re so reticent to actually confirm anything, it’s doing my head in.’ Malloy fiddled with his Police Benevolent Fund paper-clip box in a way that suggested he wanted to slam it through the wall. He was highly agitated; more so than Silver remembered seeing him. ‘The bank wants to sue, the building firm are terrified they’re going to lose everything and British Gas are cacking themselves. Plus we’ve hardly managed to retrieve any CCTV footage at all, surprise fucking surprise. So far only one of the cameras that survived the blast seems to have even been switched on. I wonder why the fuck we bother really.’
Malloy dropped the paper-clip box and opened a DVD package on his desk, fiddling with his laptop for a minute, his stubby fingers clumsy on the keys, swearing quietly. ‘Christ. Technology. Makes me feel prehistoric. Right, here we go.’
The picture was visible now.
‘See, this little thing arrives at the Academy around 6.47.’
Silver watched a short teenage girl in a beanie hat enter via the front stairs, holding a gym bag. At 6.49 another taller woman, using a stick, walking as quickly as her limp allowed, came out and, standing at the top of the Academy stairs, made two calls, scanning the square as she did so. Then she went back into the building.
‘Tessa Lethbridge possibly? TBC. About five minutes later, the girl comes back outside, apparently to have a cigarette. Then this courier bike arrives,’ Malloy pointed at the screen, ‘and hands her this package; she goes back inside at 7.03.’
Silver found the flickering footage made him feel almost seasick.
‘Now look.’ At 7.08 a white car drove up, an old Golf, stopping outside the Academy, the driver apparently on a mobile phone.
‘Who’s that?’
‘No fucking reg of course, from this angle.’ Malloy cracked his knuckles. ‘But we need to identify him.’
Two minutes later a couple of builders in hard hats and yellow high-visibility jackets walked past the Academy, presumably heading for the Hotel Concorde building site in the adjacent corner.
On the other side of the road, a figure in a full-length burqa pushed an empty pushchair to the edge of the pavement, then began to cross the road. Silver found he was riveted despite his slight nausea. A car passed through frame, then a black Range Rover. The figure in the Golf saw the girl come out of the Academy doors again, holding up a hand in greeting as she ran down the stairs to the pavement, and then a figure follow behind her, but before their identity was revealed, a double-decker bus pulled in front of the camera, obscuring any view.
Another thirty seconds: and the picture went white.
‘What the hell—’ Silver sat back, intensely frustrated, as if he’d just missed the end of his favourite soap opera.
‘Exactly. What the hell? The only people visible to us in the square and they hardly look like your typical group of fundamentalists do they?’
‘Except burqa-girl.’
They replayed the video. This time Silver noticed the way the girl smoking a cigarette outside of the Academy, who had accepted the courier’s parcel, was pacing back and forth as she waited. He watched again as the woman in the burqa seemed to react to something behind her.
‘Of course, burqa-girl might be totally unlinked.’ Malloy scratched his head, his grey crew-cut like burnt stubble in a field. ‘It’s just she seems obvious to me. Why’s the pushchair empty? It’s just a foil, surely. But Counter Terrorism disagree. And upstairs, they’re so fucking paranoid about inciting religious hatred at the moment, they won’t say boo to a goose, which don’t help.’
‘But then,’ Silver rubbed his face wearily, ‘there’s no actual evidence from any of that, that any of them are directly linked to the explosion.’
‘No, of course. But what the fuck were they up to?’ Malloy slammed the laptop lid shut with a thump. ‘Strike ’em off the list, and I’ll be happy. We need to find all of them: the courier bike and the bloke in the car, burqa-girl, and the dancer. And fucking pronto. Christ, Joe,’ he stood up and then sat again. ‘We’ve got fourteen dead, the fucking world’s media breathing down our necks, not to say the Commissioner and everyone at County Hall. I’m setting you up a new team; take Roger Okeke and Tina Price for now.’
Silver felt the surge of adrenaline that came with a new investigation. Okeke was good; young and baying for blood; Price was new but came with good reviews from Southampton. And now Kenton seemed back on track after her initial shock. It was shaping up to be a nice little team. Except, perhaps, for Craven.
‘While we wait for Explosives to pull their heads out of their tiny little arses, we need to identify who this little lot are,’ Malloy’s blue eyes were burning, ‘and what the fuck they were up to before they got blown to kingdom come.’
Silver felt enthused for the first time in weeks.
‘Get on with it, Joe.’ Malloy’s attention was already distracted by an email. ‘And take the CCTV footage with you. You need to liaise with Counter Terrorism. I need fucking results, and I need ’em yesterday.’
Five days on from the bombing, the phones in the office still rang incessantly: frantic relatives who hadn’t seen loved ones for weeks or even months and were now beginning to panic. The vast divisions of family became more obvious at times like these, Silver knew; loved ones ignored for years suddenly became the world’s nearest and dearest. The help lines were so busy they kept jamming, and eventually some of the Traffic team had to be seconded in to answer calls.
Lessons had been learnt from 7/7 and the chaos that had ensued then, but for the Met, a disaster like this was still a nebulous mass that was hard to manage. They had to think on their feet; very often, frustratingly, they had to chase their own tails.
When Silver returned from Malloy’s office, Kenton was filling in the whiteboard at the end of the room with today’s date and updating the lists.
MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD
Silver called Kenton over.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine, sir.’ She practically stood to attention. He grinned. He liked this girl; despite her dodgy hair, she was as solid as her stocky frame; diligent – with fire in her belly.
‘Here’s some CCTV footage of the bombing. I think you should take a look, if you can cope with it? See if you recognise anyone.’
She paled slightly, but nodded at the same time. ‘Sure.’
‘Did you see Merryweather?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well. The facility is there if you need it. Don’t forget.’
‘Thanks.’
‘By the way. Misty Jones.’ Silver straightened his cuff with nonchalance. ‘The girl you were going to Crime Live! about. Have you got details of whoever reported her missing?’
‘Girl called Lucie Duffy, I think.’ Kenton frowned. ‘Flatmate, and yeah. Everything filed in the A drive, under Contacts.’
In the safety of his own office, Silver called the mobile number listed. A girl answered sotto-voce, piano music thumping in the background; he explained who he was.
‘I’m in rehearsal, I can’t really talk now,’ she murmured.
‘I need some more details. Why you think your friend’s missing.’
‘I’m on lunch in an hour. Can I call you back then please?’
‘Where are you, Miss Duffy?’
‘Covent Garden. Royal Opera House.’ She had a small, rather husky voice. ‘Tech run for Swan Lake at 4 p.m.’
Silver had no idea what she was on about. He unwrapped another stick of gum. ‘I’ll meet you there. One o’clock.’
‘Fine. Ask for Rehearsal Room 3.’ She hung up.
Silver should have sent one of his team; Misty Jones was nothing to do with Operation Nightingale, and he had more important matters at hand. The beauty was, though, no one would stop him. Before he got on with the bigger questions in hand, he had to satisfy himself that Misty Jones had no connection with Jaime Malvern.
Silver sent half of his team out on various dead and missing enquiries, including tracing the family of Australian ballet teacher Lethbridge, one of the first to be identified, who were proving elusive. Kenton and Craven were given the CCTV footage and the task of beginning to identify those featured. Silver wasn’t sure they’d work together well, but Kenton was a good foil for the bull-headed older policeman – if she could bear his outdated chauvinism. Now Silver headed out himself. Parking up near Holborn he walked the last half mile. Rehearsal Room 3 was on the top floor of the Royal Opera House; he was in good enough shape to jog up most of the stairs without being out of breath. Or much out of breath anyway, he thought ruefully, on the top step.
Through the glass-paned door he watched a slight mixed-race girl with dark plaits being whisked up into the air by a strapping youth in shorts so tight they made Silver wince. The ballerina’s back arched until she was curved almost fully into a circle, her short practice skirt rippling as one strong shapely leg extended gracefully before her. Silver had not the first clue about ballet and even less interest, but even he could recognise this as impressive. Lana would have enjoyed it. He remembered Molly trundling round the church hall aged five in her little pink leotard with a tummy swelling gently over her frilly skirt, constantly wobbling the opposite way to everyone else as the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was crashed out on the ancient piano, and he grinned. Happy days. Lana had high hopes for her only daughter – bright lights, big cities; chances she’d never had – chances a relentless diet of reality talent shows had rendered seemingly attainable. Hopes that most definitely weren’t ever going to be fulfilled by flat-footed Molly in the performance arts.
Satin-clad feet firmly back on the ground, Lucie Duffy had a quick discussion with her partner, who was annoyed about something. He was wiping his face on his muscled forearm, gesticulating and swearing in heavily accented English. Lucie placated him, stroking and patting him gently on the chest, before she caught Silver’s eye through the glass door.
She padded over with a towel round her neck, smooth caramel cheeks faintly pink, still panting slightly. Sweat had collected in the cleavage of her silver leotard and there were damp patches beneath her pert bosom as if someone with wet hands had placed them around her breasts. Silver looked away.
‘Sorry. Bit out of breath.’ She blinked up at him, her huge grey eyes framed by doll-like lashes. ‘We’ve really got to nail this today or we’re in trouble. Kiko is fed up with me.’ She blinked again, bottom lip almost quivering; like a true innocent. ‘He’s such a flipping perfectionist. He hates the way I lean in for the lifts.’
You’re as innocent as Reggie Kray, Silver thought. And a good actress to boot.
‘Looked all right to me,’ was what he actually said.
‘Thanks. God, I’m going to be bruised all over.’ She held her diaphanous skirt aside and pulled down her leggings a little to study her thigh. She was a sexy little thing, sinewy and hard-bodied, and she absolutely knew it. Silver looked away again.
‘Kiko doesn’t half like to hurl me around,’ Lucie bit her lip with neat white teeth, as if Kiko was a very bad man whom Silver should immediately chastise.
‘Look, I don’t want to keep you,’ he said. ‘But is there somewhere quiet we can talk?’
She indicated a small room along the corridor. There was a drinks machine against the wall and a series of old posters of Norma Shearer and Nijinsky on the wall. Silver followed her in.
‘Do you want something?’ she indicated the machine.
‘No, thanks. Can you tell me about Misty?’
‘Have you found her?’ Lucie looked up at him, her voice breaking slightly.
‘No.’ Silver sat at the table. ‘But it would help to know why you think she’s missing.’
‘She hasn’t been home since the start of last week. Even before the bomb went off—’
‘Explosion.’
‘Whatever,’ she shrugged. ‘Terrible, isn’t it? We trained at the Academy, you know.’
‘We’d already put a missing alert out on her by last Friday morning.’ He thought of the girl in the beanie hat on the CCTV footage. But she had been tiny, and from her description, he didn’t think Misty Jones was that small. ‘Is there any reason, incidentally, she might have gone near the Academy that day?’
‘Not really.’ Lucie leant against the table, and unwound the ribbons of her ballet shoe. ‘I don’t see why; we graduated over a year ago. But she’d been hanging out with some strange types recently. We’d—’ She stopped.
‘What?’ He was impatient now.
She peeled the pink satin back from her foot, wincing. Her big toe was bleeding, the blood thickly congealed between nail and skin. Silver felt faintly sickened.
‘No pain, no gain,’ she widened great grey eyes at him, and bit that bottom lip again.
‘You were saying – about Misty.’
‘We had a bad row. Last Tuesday, I think. Then I went away for a few days. But I don’t think it’s relevant.’
‘Why the row?’
‘She was acting like a prat.’ Her face hardened as she spoke the harsh word. ‘I got fed up with her.’
‘In what sense?’ He imagined arguments about make-up and clothes.
‘Let’s just say, she’d got in with the wrong crowd. She was lying to everyone. She even refused to answer to her proper name.’
Silver felt unease settle over him like a fine layer of dust. ‘Misty Jones?’
‘Misty Jones was just a stage name that she used.’ She leant forward slightly, affording him a glimpse of that buoyant cleavage. ‘Since she, you know, got into the clubs.’
‘Clubs?’ Silver needed to cut to the chase.
‘You know. Tits and arse.’ Lucie flashed a lascivious smile at him and he saw the girl behind the mask. ‘What little girls are made of, apparently. There was no telling her though. Just cos she didn’t get the breaks I did.’
But Lucie Duffy didn’t really think she’d got a break, Silver was quite sure. She thought she’d earned her place in the sun. He’d rarely met someone her age so assured of herself.
‘And if Misty isn’t Misty,’ he cleared his throat, ‘what’s her real name?’
‘Sadie. Sadie Malvern. Misty was her stage name.’
Silver felt his stomach roll. Of course. Jaime’s big sister. He cursed his stupidity. How could he have forgotten her? Lana had been half right after all. And yet he was not surprised. Even since he’d seen the face in that photo, he’d known something bad was coming.
‘Why didn’t you give her real name when you reported her missing?’ He remained deadpan.
‘She’d changed it officially. Poor Sadie.’ Her cloying concern was unconvincing.
‘What about her family? Did you contact them?’
‘I never met them. I don’t even know where they live. Just,’ Lucie pulled a funny face, ‘you know. Somewhere up North. She never mentioned them except to say they think she’s on ballet tour; she’s never told them about the club, I don’t think.’
Something about her manner smacked of disingenuousness.
‘If you can think of any other reason she might have not come home, I need to know,’ Silver tried hard to focus. ‘What about boyfriends?’
‘No one in particular, I don’t think,’ she sniffed, pulling a disgusted face. ‘A few no-marks she was dating. Oiks.’
‘I’ll need their details.’
