Fragile Minds

‘Why?’ She stepped closer, peering into my face as if she could read my thoughts that way.

‘I think—’ I took a deep breath, ‘I’m worried it’s happening again.’

‘What’s happening?’ She took my hands in hers, her neat little nose slightly wrinkled with worry.

‘The splitting. I’m worried—’ I tried to smile. ‘I’m worried that I’m having – an episode.’

‘Like last time? I thought it was under control now?’

‘So did I.’ I freed my hands and busied myself with the dishwasher for a moment. Zoe waited patiently. ‘It sort of feels like that, but different.’

‘What does?’ I could sense her struggling to understand. ‘Tell me.’

‘It’s like – I had this weird thing last week. I found myself at Rafe’s and I – the thing is, I couldn’t remember how I’d got there.’

‘Have you told the doctors?’

I shook my head vehemently. ‘No. I don’t want to get locked up again. I’m not mad, Zoe, I know I’m not.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ she soothed me like a child.

‘But why can’t I remember?’ I frowned at her. ‘I know that the day before the explosion Tessa was panicked—’

‘Oh, bloody Tessa.’ Zoe had never gelled with Tessa, and I’d secretly always wondered if she was a little jealous of our friendship. ‘I mean, I’m sorry she’s dead – but she was a loose cannon, Claudie.’

‘A loose cannon?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s harsh. But there was something not quite right about her, if you ask me.’

Which I hadn’t.

‘But she was trying to tell me something, Zoe, and I don’t know what. And then the explosion. I was in town and yet, it’s just so confused in my head.’

‘You’ll be telling me next that you did it,’ she joked.

I stared at her.

‘Claudie,’ there was an urgent note suddenly in Zoe’s voice. ‘You didn’t do it, for God’s sake. That was a joke. Not a very good one, admittedly.’

‘I know,’ I tried that smile again. ‘But something’s wrong somewhere.’

‘Look, perhaps you should see the doctors again.’ Zoe’s phone bleeped. ‘Tell them you’re worried.’

‘Perhaps.’ There was no way I was admitting this to the doctors. And anyway, confused as I felt, I knew this was not exactly the same as last time.

Zoe checked her message. ‘Pablo,’ she grinned ruefully, her face lighting up.

‘Ah, young love. Don’t let me keep you from Skype.’

‘If I can still speak after all the vino. My Spanish is still crap, though my swear words are coming on a storm.’

At the door, Zoe swung her wicker basket onto her arm like Little Red Riding Hood – though I imagined it was more Penélope Cruz she was channelling.

‘Let me know what they say, Claudie.’ She kissed me and took my hands in hers. ‘The doctors.’

‘I will.’

‘And talk to me, won’t you, if it gets really bad again.’

‘OK,’ I mumbled, trying to pull away.

‘And promise me one thing.’

‘What?’ but I already knew what Zoe was going to say.

‘Promise me you’ll call Will. I think you may need—’ she trailed off.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ She frowned. ‘It just worries me. You being alone again.’

I reached around her to open the front door. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I like being alone. And I’ll think about it.’

But right now, I had more pressing things on my mind.

WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY SILVER

Silver woke feeling hungover, which was ridiculous because he hadn’t had a drink for five years, three months, four weeks and – well. His fanatical counting of the days AA-style had dissipated a little in the past year or so, but old habits did die hard, it appeared.

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.