Claire Seeber - Fragile Minds

‘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.

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.

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.