a little string of sky blue, round and round her wrist until it was tight. ‘I told you. Her.’
‘Who is she?’
‘John’s wife. Helen.’
Silver stared at her. ‘Helen? The psychiatrist? Who’s John?’
‘John?’ Sadie blinked up at him. ‘John’s Helen’s husband. I think she is going to leave him though. She is so – pure and he, he is about money and stuff she hates.’
‘Sadie, love, you’ve lost me. Why does she call herself the Archangel?’
‘Because she is leading the revolt in heaven.’
‘And John? The husband? Is he in heaven too?’
‘Hardly,’ Sadie’s lip curled. ‘Only when he’s fucking young girls. It’s not his real name. His real name is Ivan Adanov, Helen told me, but he’d kill you if you called him that. John owns Sugar and Spice. He used to be the same as Helen but she says he’s changed. Still, he lets Helen do what she likes, and she looks the other way.’
Craven arrived at the door of the dressing room now, lumbering like an old bear in a zoo.
‘We picked up a woman called Miriam round the corner; she was driving the white Golf from the CCTV footage. And Kenton’s trying to get hold of you, guv. Urgent.’
The white Golf. Of course. Silver stood now. ‘Where is Kenton?’
‘At the Royal Free Hospital. The girl Claudie Scott,’ Craven was mumbling now, he could see the distress on Silver’s face and for once he was sensitive to it. ‘I’m afraid it’s not good news, guv.’
Silver thought of the psychiatrist’s perfect house, of the Renaissance print of the Archangels’ battle in heaven, of the photos on the sideboard. Of the husband with the dog. The husband whose face he thought he recognised in the photos; of the man sitting in Sugar and Spice quietly adding up figures. Of the instinct Silver had ignored when he chose to fly down to Norfolk that night.
‘Fuck.’
‘Stay with her,’ Silver ordered Craven, indicating Sadie who was staring at the ceiling, murmuring quietly to herself, and he walked out of the room. He kicked the next door along the corridor so hard that it cracked. Then he kicked it again. He walked down the hall and the bastard Beer was screaming in both ears, and he knew he’d messed up fatally.
TUESDAY 25TH JULY KENTON
Kenton took the call from Silver as she was leaving the hospital.
‘Get to Helen fucking Ganymede’s house now and check the bitch isn’t there. I doubt she’d be so stupid – but you never know with a lunatic like her. Apparently she is the infernal Archangel!’
‘Gladly, sir.’
Price put the blues and twos on and they drove, sounding like banshees from hell; from the hospital to Hampstead Heath. They skidded down Ganymede’s road and Kenton took the drive corner far too fast and they—
They hit Helen’s Range Rover head on.
Of course, Helen was far too elegant and restrained to even show the tiniest amount of terror or regret, and she certainly wasn’t about to try to run. But Helen Ganymede – aka Rosalind Lamont – had finally slipped up. She should never have gone home, but she was exactly the kind of solipsistic sociopath who would believe she could get away with behaving however she wanted. Her black Range Rover was packed to the hilt, and they learnt later that she had locked up the house, alone apparently, and was about to head for the Eurotunnel when Price and Kenton had apprehended her. She had greeted them with a smile as she stepped down from her car, holding a book carefully against her leather jacket, and had remained entirely calm during her arrest. As Kenton thought of Claudie Scott lying in that hospital bed, she felt hot tears spring to her eyes.
‘How could you?’ Kenton said as she escorted Helen to the marked car that had just arrived. ‘She trusted you, absolutely.’
‘She was right to trust me. She has gone to the best place, poor Claudia,’ the woman smiled beatifically, and ducked her head gracefully as she was pushed into the car, and Kenton found that she had no strength left to argue. Because who was to say that Helen wasn’t right? Claudie Scott had lived in purgatory; she had given up the fight for life the day her son died. As Kenton went to shut the door, Helen held out the old book she had been clutching. It was a dog-eared volume of nursery rhymes.
‘It was mine when I was a child. I don’t need it any more,’ Helen said as Kenton flipped open