Fragile Minds

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

FRAGILE MINDS Copyright © Claire Seeber 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

Claire Seeber asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847562074

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 9780007334704

Version 2018-06-18

Dedication

For Fenn and Raffi, again.

All my love, always.

And in memory of my beloved grandpa,

Roy Livingstone Holmes.

Lemonade lollies forever.

Epigraph

‘Whoever takes one life, takes the world entire,

Whoever saves a single life, saves the world entire.’

The Talmud

‘No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even

The natural fool of fortune. Use me well.’

King Lear, Act IV, Scene VI

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Thursday 13th July Claudie

Thursday 13th July Silver

Thursday 13th July Claudie

Friday 14th July Claudie

Friday 14th July Kenton

Friday 14th July Claudie

Friday 14th July Kenton

Friday 14th July Claudie

Friday 14th July Silver

Friday 14th July Claudie

Friday 14th July Kenton

Monday 17th July Claudie

Tuesday 18th July Silver

Tuesday 18th July Claudie

Tuesday 18th July Kenton

Tuesday 18th July Claudie

Tuesday 18th July Silver

Tuesday 18th July Claudie

Wednesday 19th July Silver

Wednesday 19th July Claudie

Wednesday 19th July Silver

Wednesday 19th July Claudie

Wednesday 19th July Silver

Wednesday 19th July Lana

Thursday 20th July Claudie

Thursday 20th July Silver

Thursday 20th July Claudie

Thursday 20th July Silver

Thursday 20th July Claudie

Friday 21st July Silver

Friday 21st July Claudie

Friday 21st July Silver

Friday 21st July Claudie

Friday 21st July Silver

Friday 21st July Claudie

Friday 21st July Kenton

Friday 21st July Silver

Friday 21st July Claudie

Friday 21st July Silver

Friday 21st July Claudie

Friday 21st July Kenton

Friday 21st July Claudie

Saturday 22nd July Silver

Saturday 22nd July Kenton

Saturday 22nd July Claudie

Saturday 22nd July Silver

Saturday 22nd July Claudie

Saturday 22nd July Silver

Saturday 22nd July Claudie

Saturday 22nd July Silver

Sunday 23rd July Kenton

Sunday 23rd July Silver

Saturday 22nd July Claudie

Sunday 23rd July Silver

Sunday 23rd July Claudie

Sunday 23rd July Silver

Monday 24th July Claudie

Monday 24th July Silver

Monday 24th July Claudie

Monday 24th July Silver

Monday 24th July Claudie

Monday 24th July Silver

Monday 24th July Claudie

Monday 24th July Silver

Monday 24th July Claudie

Monday 24th July Kenton

Tuesday 25th July Claudie

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Tuesday 25th July Kenton

Tuesday 25th July Claudie

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Thursday 24th July Kenton

Tuesday 25th July Claudie

Thursday Night, 13th July Claudie

Friday 14th July: The Berkeley Square Bomb Claudie

Tuesday 25th July Kenton

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Tuesday 25th July Claudie

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Tuesday 25th July Kenton

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Tuesday 25th July Kenton

Tuesday 25th July Silver

Claudie

Read on for an exclusive short story by Claire Seeber

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by Claire Seeber

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

There are plenty of beginnings, but only one end to my story.

At the police station in the small country town, they brought me tea and toast, but I didn’t touch it; I pushed it away. I didn’t trust them. Any of them, any more.

My feet were cut and bleeding; I didn’t care. They matched my sore hands. In my head I was still running, and the road was cold and rough beneath my naked feet and I didn’t care. The pain pushed me on. I was a streak of white light in a black surround, and then you were beside me, only you couldn’t keep up, so I leant down and carried you, light as thistledown, in my arms. No one could stop us; I would run and run and run—

Someone was behind me. I could feel my heart beating, I could hear the blood thumping in my ears, I could feel the breath squeezing through my ribs and out of me; I couldn’t outrun them.

My feet were hurting badly now and I no longer felt invincible, I could hear the sobs pushing out of me as the car slowed and a blue light flickered across the road between the sand dunes, and the sea hissed to the left of me: ‘Don’t stop, Claudie, or they will get you.’ But I was weak now, too weak—

The man held my arm gently. He was wearing a uniform and he said, ‘Are you all right, love, you’re freezing.’ And he led me to the car with the blue light on top, and made me sit in the back.

And then they brought me to the building in the town, and said another man, a man they called Silver, wanted to talk to me.

I didn’t give him time to sit when he came in. I had waited too long already.

‘Something’s not right,’ I said, too fast, almost before he came through the door.

He leant on the wall in his shirtsleeves, hands in his pockets, and looked down at me. His expression was quizzical but I was relieved that he didn’t look amused. He looked tired, perhaps, but not amused.

‘I see. Are you all right though, Claudie?’

I kept my hands in my lap beneath the table, where he couldn’t see me tearing at my own skin.

‘I – I’m not sure.’ I eyed the toast warily. ‘I think I will be OK.’ If only they’d stop poisoning me.

He sat now, directly opposite me. There was a black tape recorder on the table between us, but he didn’t switch it on. His eyes were a little hooded; they narrowed slightly as he studied my face.

‘Have we met before?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You look a little familiar.’

I shook my head. There was a pen on the table; he turned it round neatly, and then gave me a slight smile. ‘So, Claudie. In your own time, I need you to tell me why you’re here. How you came to be all the way out here. Did someone bring you?’

‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘And something’s not right,’ I repeated, slowly this time. I could feel the shiny crescent moon of skin missing from my thumb where I’d stripped it raw.

‘What?’ he said now. His accent was Northern. ‘What’s not right?’

‘I can’t – it’s hard to explain.’

We locked eyes. Still he did not condescend to me; he didn’t look at me as if I was mad. He just waited, dug in his trouser pocket for something.

‘That sounds stupid, I know.’ I was trying to order my mind. My thumb throbbed. ‘I mean, I can’t quite put my finger on it.’

‘On what?’ He was handsome. No, not handsome even, kind of … debonair. Like he’d stepped from a Fred and Ginger film; his cuffs so white they almost shone.

‘I think I might have done something bad. The Friday before last.’

‘What kind of bad?’ he asked. Long fingers on gum; waiting to unwrap it. He sat back in his chair and looked at me patiently. I could smell his aftershave. Lemony.

‘Very bad,’ I muttered.

‘Do you know my name?’ he asked.

He felt me falter. I shook my head.

‘It’s DCI Silver.’ It was an inducement. ‘Joe Silver.’

A short, stocky woman walked into the room now and stood behind him. She smiled at me, a kind, reassuring smile. I recognised her, I realised. I’d met her before. A woman with funny coloured hair.

‘And what happened to your face, Claudie?’

Automatically I raised my hand to my cheek. ‘Berkeley Square.’

‘Berkeley Square?’ He sat up straighter. ‘The explosion?’

I nodded.

‘OK, Claudie.’ He flicked the gum away into the wastepaper basket and smiled again. He must have kids, I thought. He is used to waiting with infinite patience. His teeth were very straight, almost as white as his cuffs. ‘Why don’t you start from the beginning? Who brought you all the way out here?’

‘I think I might have done something terrible,’ I repeated. I took a gulp of air: I met his eyes this time. ‘I think – I think I might have killed a lot of people.’

THURSDAY 13TH JULY CLAUDIE

It was such an ordinary morning. Afterwards that seemed the most marked thing about everything that followed, that it started as any day that encapsulates absolute normality. Not particularly sunny, not particularly cold – a day on which people get up and eat toast, choose underwear and shoes; argue about walking the dog or taking the bin out, kiss their children and their partners goodbye; catch the 8.13, jostle for space with the same anonymous faces they jostle with every day. A day on which people go about things in exactly the same way as always; not realising life might be about to change forever.

And for me, it was one of the all right days. A day when I had managed to roll out of bed, step out of the house; walk, talk and function. Not one of the pole-axed days. Not one of the splitting days.

One of the all right days.

I got to work early because the yoga teacher hadn’t turned up at the Centre. I walked through the back streets of Marylebone, enjoying the relative quiet of Oxford Street, free of the tourists and maddened shoppers, at one with the street cleaners and the other Londoners not yet soiled for the day by the city.

I wandered up the front stairs of the Royal Ballet Academy in Berkeley Square, between the great white pillars and the huge arched windows, soaking in the ambience of the old building. I loved my job and the Academy was grand enough to warrant its distinguished title, training some of the greatest ballet talent in Europe.

‘The Bolshoi are in.’ My colleague Leila shot past me on the stairs, following a gaggle of chattering students. I caught up with them at the glass wall to watch a little of the guest stars’ technical demonstration, watching a sturdy Russian male fling the Academy’s young Irish ballerina Sorcha into the air during the Sleeping Beauty pas de deux. By the rapt look on the couple’s faces, I guessed it might not be all they’d be demonstrating later.

A small, dark first-year student called Anita sat against the back wall, limbering up, watching Sorcha like a hawk. One of Tessa’s protégées, I had yet to see her dance, or treat her for any sort of injury myself, but she had a rather glowering intensity that I found unattractive. Her face in repose was simply a downturned mouth. And recently, I’d noticed that she’d begun to trail Tessa in a way that verged on pathological.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ a girl in a blue leotard breathed, fugging up the glass, ‘and look at his arms. His lifts are effortless.’

‘He can lift me,’ her plain friend said, sticking her bony chest out. ‘Any way he wants.’ They both giggled.

Down in the office, Mason was as always safely ensconced behind her desk, keeper of the back-room. God only knew where she had found this morning’s ensemble: a kaftan in vivid black and orange swirls that entirely swamped her skinny frame. I wondered, not for the first time, if anyone else ever thought she looked like a female version of the transvestite potter Grayson Perry.

‘You’re early,’ Mason said. The sleeve of her kaftan trailed patiently after the raddled hand flying across the keyboard. ‘As the esteemed Mr Franklin once said: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”’

‘Indeed,’ I grinned. Mason’s ability to quote at long and tedious length was legendary, though I was sure she made half of them up. ‘Let’s hope he was right.’

‘Tessa’s looking for you.’ She glanced up, one pencilled eyebrow disappearing into her glossy fringe. ‘Seems a little – anxious.’

As I was changing into my tunic in the staff changing room, Tessa arrived, slightly breathless, her limp a little more pronounced than usual. She looked oddly harried and her spotted hairband was tied too loosely so wisps of fair hair were escaping.

‘Morning. Everything OK?’ I noted the roses of high colour on her cheeks. ‘Mason said you were after me.’

‘I – Claudie. I must just catch my breath. Sorry,’ she mumbled. She sat on the bench beside me, clutching her tortoiseshell walking stick.

‘I’ve got that book you wanted to borrow, by the way,’ I said, ‘the Elizabeth David. Don’t let me forget to give it to you now I’ve—’

Tessa startled me by grasping my hand so hard it made me wince. Her breathing seemed very fast as she peered over my shoulder, dropping her voice.

‘I need to talk to you, Claudie.’ The Australian accent she normally fought to hide was broad today, and something in her tone made me frown. I’d never seen Tessa so tense, although her behaviour in the past few weeks had seemed different, somehow; erratic, even. Recently her star as the Academy’s top teacher had slid into the descendant after an ugly incident involving an irate mother and her hysterical daughter; the board were looking into it and Tessa refused to talk about it, but I’d put her unease down to that. ‘In private, I mean.’ She looked over my shoulder as if she was expecting someone to materialise.

‘I’ve got a full schedule this morning,’ I was apologetic. ‘They’re all overdoing it at the moment apparently, poor loves. End of term in sight, I suppose. Can we talk later?’

‘Lunchtime?’

‘I’m – I’ve got an appointment at lunch.’ I grimaced. I was aware we hadn’t spent much time together recently. ‘Sorry. I can’t really – how about tea this afternoon?’

‘I’m not sure I can wait.’ Tessa was blinking strangely, moving to the door. ‘I’m – I really need to—’ she trailed off as she pushed the door ajar and scanned the corridor.

‘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.