and Spice. How bloody stupid.’
‘You know, it’s probably a coincidence, the Academy thing.’
‘Maybe.’
Kenton looked at her boss, who was draining his diet Coke. For a moment, their eyes met. He gave her a half-smile. Was it her imagination, or did he seem unusually tense?
Silver was saved from her scrutiny by the beep of his phone: Julie responding wholeheartedly to what she called a ‘booty call’. He had a strange image of stripy-topped burglars carrying sacks of loot. Not a good sign, surely.
‘Gotta go.’ He stood, brushing down his trousers, the crease as razor-sharp as ever. ‘See you tomorrow.’
He left the pub, cursing internally; he was not going to be able to leave the Misty thing alone. There were too many coincidences turning up today – and he owed it to the Malverns, that much he knew. He’d be pleased if he never saw the poor parents again, but still, he knew he owed it to them to find out what the hell was going on with their surviving daughter.
WEDNESDAY 19TH JULY CLAUDIE
The police tape flickered in the dusk breeze on the north side of Berkeley Square, the new hoardings hiding the chaos behind. Nearer the Academy, one lamppost was twisted and bent mournfully to the left, as if it had bowed its head and given up. The pavement was blackened slightly – and that was it. There were no other signs of the tragedy that had erupted here last week.
Averting my eyes, I trudged up the Academy’s front stairs, past the white pillars and the great arch windows, feeling none of the usual pleasure I gained from the beautiful old building. After nights of troubled dreams and broken sleep, my body felt heavy, my eyes gritty with tiredness. Only the strains of Tchaikovsky from the practice studios were soothing as I hurried towards the office, the patter of feet as students ran from one class to the next.
Natalie had finally left after I’d pretended I was going to lie down again, but instead I’d caught the tube into town. I’d been hoping everyone in the office would be gone, but Mason was still ensconced behind her desk; she was on the phone when I walked in and nearly dropped the receiver in her hurry to get rid of her caller.
‘Claudie! How are you?’ She stroked down her glossy black fringe. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were on holiday.’
‘Did you?’
‘Have you heard from the police? Asking questions about Tessa?’
‘Yeah.’ I headed straight for my pigeon hole that sat beneath the Ex-Student Performance board. Lucie Duffy: Swan Lake, it announced, Royal Opera House. Amanda Curran and Sarah Planer: Giselle corps de ballet, English National Ballet; and so it went on. The Academy liked to keep proud tabs on its protégées.
‘What do you think they want?’ Mason’s eyes were wide with complicity. ‘Isn’t it sad?’
‘Horrible,’ I agreed, retrieving my post. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mason flattening the perfect fringe again. I braced myself for a pearl of wisdom.
‘Tragic. “Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.” But you know, I was saying to Eduardo yesterday,’ she cocked her head on one side like a ruffled blackbird, ‘I always felt something might go wrong for her.’
‘That’s a strange thing to say.’ I rifled through the memos and offers for physio equipment, chucking most of it straight in the bin.
‘I mean, she was a bit odd, wasn’t she?’ Mason stared at me disingenuously. ‘Oh – sorry! Silly of me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were such good friends, weren’t you? I did tell that nice policeman yesterday. But you know, I never could quite see what you saw in her personally.’ Mason’s hands were too thin, raised veins like tube tunnels surfacing through skin as she put the lid back on her pen. ‘I mean, I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but really—’
‘You’re going to anyway.’
She pursed shiny lips. ‘Well. She was a snooty cow sometimes.’
‘Mason!’ I protested. Usually I found Mason’s child-like honesty refreshing. In her bizarre ensembles, with her twig-like legs ending in T-bar shoes, dressed at least ten years too young for her age, she often got away with things others wouldn’t. Now though, her scathing words seemed inappropriate.
‘Well, she was. Thought she was better than the rest of us.’
I was tuning out. I stared at the whiteboard, at my schedule.
‘I’ll go to her funeral, and pay my respects,’ she stood now, ‘but I won’t tell lies