Fragile Minds Page 0,60

don’t you?’

‘Certainly do,’ he made a mock bow. ‘The lady with hands of steel.’

I grinned. ‘Always glad to be of service.’

‘Claudie was asking about Tessa Lethbridge.’

Tommo pulled a face. ‘That old lesbian? I never liked her much. Always forced our turn-out till we hurt our backs.’

I gathered my things. ‘Right, well, I’ll leave you to it.’ As I stood, I had a sudden thought.

‘That name he called Tessa, the foreign man. It wasn’t—’ I turned the photo over and showed her, ‘the Queen of Hearts?’

Amanda gazed at the scrawled line, and then up at me with her bulgy blue eyes. ‘God, yes, I think it was. So what were we then?’ She looked down again at the writing. ‘The tarts?’ She sniffed. ‘Charming.’

I left them nuzzling one another; young lovers, their affection for one another quite obvious – and I managed to suppress any feelings of envy as I walked away. I did look round, once, just before I went round the corner, and for a moment I thought they might have been laughing at me – but I dismissed it as paranoia.

At the bus stop, I didn’t feel very well again. My head ached and I felt nauseous and hazy, and above all else, frightened. I found I was constantly checking to see if I was being followed, and I clenched my fists, reminding myself I was out in the open, in the sun, that all was normality. But everywhere I looked, shadows seemed to fall. I got on the bus; concentrated on watching a young woman with her rosy-cheeked toddler in his Mr Men sunhat, carefully wiping away the jam from a doughnut, counting blue cars through the window, his pudgy nose squashed up against the glass in delight.

‘Bless him! Makes your heart glad, doesn’t it?’ an elderly lady in tweed said, smiling at me. ‘Have you got any?’

I had to look away. I felt an overwhelming sadness that threatened to engulf me, clamping the heart of me. I was starting to shudder, metaphorically, the very core of me not fitted to my centre any more. I tried to breathe.

It was stupid not to have stayed to see Helen this morning; I needed her common sense and her innate knowledge. She would be able to make it better. I switched my phone back on. Hands shaking slightly, I texted an apology. I’d go and see her now.

FRIDAY 21ST JULY KENTON

DS Lorraine Kenton arrived at the Vegetarian Oven in Spitalfields around five, troubled by thoughts of the dancers she’d met earlier. Despite being quite taken by Alison and wondering whether they were – rather gingerly – becoming an item, Kenton couldn’t stop thinking of the dancer Paige that Silver had just interviewed, those slanted cat’s eyes and that voluptuous creamy body. She sighed heavily and checked out the Vegetarian Oven’s wares whilst she waited for the owner. There were some extremely stodgy-looking and worryingly yellow Quorn pasties and a mushroom biryani that looked like something her cat had—

She shuddered and moved away.

‘DS Kenton?’ a shrill voice asked, and an anaemic-looking middle-aged woman with her hair in a striped headscarf appeared from the back room. Her skin was almost as yellow as the Quorn pasties. ‘Jan Martin.’

‘Jan, hi. Thanks for your time. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘Yes.’ Jan eyed Kenton’s extended hand coldly. ‘Here.’

It took Kenton less than five minutes to establish that Jan believed all police to be both bourgeois and fascist. She then had to listen to a rant about the Empathy Society and what they had believed in, and how they had been betrayed by the world in general. They had all met at Sussex University apparently, most of them English Literature students, or members of the Socialist party during the late 1980s, campaigning and standing outside Middle England’s railway stations, trying to flog their ideals and their paper. Jan had acted as Secretary, expanding the ranks as best she could.

‘This world is ruined,’ Jan said, her long nose quivering slightly. Her mouth was too small for her face, Kenton noted absently. ‘You mark my words. It’s only a matter of time before it all implodes.’

Once her diatribe had ended and she’d actually managed to get a word in, Kenton had asked Jan when she’d last seen either Michael Watson or Rosalind Lamont.

‘Michael changed his name long ago,’ Jan sniffed. ‘God knows why he was hanging out with that bloody Rosalind. She really was a prize bitch.’

Aha, thought Kenton. A woman scorned …

‘So,’ she asked pleasantly,