Claire Seeber - The Girl with the Fragile Mind

It was Tessa who I’d come to depend on in the darkest, bleakest hours. It was Tessa who had encouraged me to listen to my heart when my husband Will left, to not follow him to a place I didn’t belong. It was Tessa who had found me Francis when I couldn’t sleep. It was Tessa who knew what loss was like; it was Tessa who answered the phone in the middle of the night when I felt I couldn’t wake my oldest friends any more, though I saw her a little less once Rafe was around.

It was Tessa who had gone now. Dead.

It was I who, once again, was left behind. Who couldn’t help fearing that in some way, I had helped her to her death. I clutched the necklace she’d bought me; I racked my brain. If only I could remember why. And if only I knew why I couldn’t remember …

Silver had insisted she take the weekend off, but by Monday night, Kenton had been champing at the bit to get back to work. The horrific images had begun to fade a little, and she had listened to Alison’s calming tape at least five times until frankly, she thought the images were probably increasing manifold in her supposedly relaxed mind. Severed limbs and the like strewn across the ‘safe place’ of her childhood, a long beach in Dorset with good fossils and an ice-cream van selling cider lollies on the cliff. It had been difficult keeping busy with not much to do.

On Saturday she had driven down to see her father in Kent, who had worried her rather by referring to her at least twice during the visit as ‘Lilian’, which had been her late mother’s name. She had taken him to Waitrose, which was a real treat in her eyes. She had picked up some lovely ginger cordial and a fantastic Beef Wellington – but Dad had just grumbled that it wasn’t what he was used to, and then grew apoplectic about the prices, so in the end she had given up and taken him down to Aldi.

On Sunday the rain had been Biblical, as her mother would have said, and Alison came over for lunch: Beef Wellington, green beans and lumpy mash. Cooking really wasn’t Kenton’s forte, but Alison had been nice about it all, even about the sticky toffee pudding, which had more stick than toffee and had been impossible to get off the bloody pan for days after; the custard that was in turn both liquid and powder. Kenton had kept sneaking looks at Alison’s pretty round face, slightly troubled now as one dark curl caught in the zip of her borrowed cagoule, as they had prepared to walk along the canal after lunch.

‘Here, let me,’ Kenton had said, and she had been both nervous and exhilarated as she helped free her hair, and she had wanted to stroke Alison’s face. Her skin was like alabaster, her mum would have said, and Kenton had wondered for the tenth time that day what Alison saw in her, in her own pleasant blunt-nosed face that no one could ever call pretty. Alison had slipped her hand into Kenton’s and Kenton had felt a kind of pride that she hadn’t for years, since Diana Grills had kissed her behind the science block after the Sixth Form disco. Before Diana had blanked her and got off with Tony Hall half an hour later, leaving her broken-hearted for the first but not the last time in her life.

‘How are you feeling?’ Alison had asked, and Kenton had grinned and said, ‘Happy.’

‘That’s nice,’ Alison had smiled too, but then looked more serious and said, ‘But I meant about work. You know. The bad dreams.’

‘All right,’ Kenton had became gruff. She didn’t like to show her weak side.

‘It’s OK to be freaked out,’ Alison had said gently, and she’d held Kenton’s hand tighter, as if she could feel that Kenton had been about to relinquish hers. ‘We can talk about it if you like.’

‘It’s just part of the job,’ Kenton had said, and Alison nodded, and said, ‘Yes I can see that.’

There’d been a pause. Then two Canadian geese had flown overhead in perfect symmetry; they wheeled and turned course together over the rooftops.

‘Amazing,’ Kenton had shaken her head. ‘How does one know where the other is about to go?’

‘Not sure,’ Alison had looked up into the sky. ‘Synchronicity, I guess.’

They had walked on in silence for a bit.

‘I’m going back tomorrow,’ Kenton had said eventually. ‘Or Tuesday. See how I feel.’

‘You do that,’ Alison had said, and squeezed Kenton’s hand.

And so, by 8.15 a.m. on a damp Tuesday morning, Kenton was back at her desk, papers stacked neatly. Not exactly raring to go, perhaps, but looking forward to putting the trauma behind her, and getting on with the case. She had been in Berkeley Square herself; now it was of paramount importance to find the culprit and lay it to rest.

I switched off the landline, so they rang my mobile instead.

Natalie first. I didn’t answer the phone.

I tried Tessa’s number. Just in case. Just in case it was all a big mistake, I tried it. Nothing.

I lay on the sofa. I stared at the ceiling.

Rafe rang. He was at the House of Commons; he sounded pretty keen to hear from me, but I didn’t answer the call. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say yet. I couldn’t help feeling like I’d been a challenge to him and he didn’t want to admit defeat.

I got up again and ate some stale Jammy Dodgers. I threw a dead spider plant away I’d always disliked. Its dead leaves trailed from the bin like fingers.

I tried Tessa again. The silence was deafening.

I paced the flat. I had that feeling again that someone was watching me from the corner of the room. I was fighting the paranoia and the memories of what had happened so dramatically to me when Ned died. I had to find an answer to this mess.

Helen rang. ‘Call me, Claudie, please. I’m worried. You’ve missed an appointment.’

I looked at my photos, I turned the big one of Ned back up again. Sometimes it hurt too much to look at him, but now I stared into his laughing eyes. What should I do?

My head was beginning to ache again; I was becoming my headache. Why couldn’t I remember Friday morning?

Listened to the rain outside. Got dressed, turned on the television.

There was yet another news conference taking place, headed by the Commissioner of the Police; blindly I stared at it. Next to him sat a bullet-headed man with the bluest eyes, grim-faced, glaring at the cameras, and beside him a gently weeping woman, face in her hands, and a plain middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and an expensive but nondescript suit, his receding grey hair pushed back, talking about the Hoffman Bank and how they would rebuild despite the tragedy. After a while, the Commissioner stopped talking and the bullet-headed policeman called Malloy was asking for the public’s cooperation as confirmation was still awaited re bomb or explosion, and our patience whilst they worked on the difficult task of identifying the missing and wounded as quickly as possible. Once again help-line numbers were flashed up.

An unsmiling photo of Tessa floated behind the man’s head.

‘One of the confirmed dead was ballet teacher Tessa Lethbridge,’ the bullet-headed man said vehemently. ‘We need these deaths not to go unmarked. If you know anything at all about the events of Friday morning, if you saw anything, were in the area, please, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You will be doing your public duty.’

Now the weeping woman began to talk about her missing brother. I turned the television off, rubbed my aching head fretfully. Fear was building in me until I felt like I might explode. I banged my head desperately with my flattened palms, palms that were itching desperately, the eczema flaring again. Why could I not remember? Why did I feel like I had done something very bad?