Michael Robotham - Shatter

‘Did your mother sleep naked?’

‘No.’

‘Did she ever wander around the house naked?’

‘No.’

‘Did she draw the curtains before she undressed?’

‘I’ve never taken much notice.’

I glance out the bedroom window, which overlooks an allotment with vegetable gardens and a greenhouse guarded by an elm tree. Spider webs are woven through the branches of the trees like fine muslin. Someone could easily watch the house and not be noticed.

‘If someone came to the door, would she have opened it or put on the security chain?’

‘I don’t know.’

My mind keeps going back to the clothes by the phone. Christine undressed, making no attempt to close the curtains. She didn’t fold her clothes or place them on a chair. The cordless phone handset was found on the floor.

Darcy could be wrong about a boyfriend or a lover, but there’s no sign of the bed being used. No condoms. No tissues. Similarly, there’s no trace of an intruder. Nothing appears to be disturbed or missing. There is no sign of a search or a struggle. The place is clean. Tidy. It’s not the house of someone who has given up hope or someone who doesn’t want to live any more.

‘Was the front door deadlocked?’

‘I don’t remember,’ says Darcy.

‘It’s important. When you came home, you put the key in the door. Did you need two keys?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Did your mother have a raincoat?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did it look like?’

‘It was a cheap plastic thing.’

‘What colour?’

‘Yellow.’

‘Where is it now?’

She takes me to the entrance hall- an empty coat hook tells the rest of the story. It was raining on Friday; bucketing down. She chose the raincoat but not an umbrella.

Emma is sitting at the kitchen table, attacking a piece of paper with coloured pencils. I walk past her into the lounge, trying to create my own picture of what happened on Friday. I glimpse the ordinariness of the day, a woman doing her chores, washing a cup, wiping down the sink and then the phone rang. She answered it.

She took off her clothes. She didn’t draw the curtains. She walked naked from her house wearing only a plastic raincoat. She didn’t double lock the door. She was in a hurry. Her handbag is still on the hallway table.

The thick glass top of the coffee table is supported on two ceramic elephants with tusks raised and flattened above their heads. Kneeling beside the table, I lower my head and peer along the smooth glass surface, noticing tiny shards of broken crayon or lipstick. This is where she wrote the word ‘slut’ across her torso.

There is something else on the glass, a series of opaque circles and truncated lines of lipstick. The circles are dried tears. She was crying. And the lines could be the edges of looping letters that departed from a page. Christine wrote something in lipstick. It can’t have been a phone number, she could have used a pen for that. More likely it was a message or a sign.

Forty-eight hours ago I watched this woman plunge to her death. Surely it had to be suicide, yet psychologically it doesn’t make sense. Everything about her actions suggested intent, yet she was a reluctant participant.

The last thing Christine Wheeler said to me was that I wouldn’t understand. She was right.

Sylvia Furness lives in a flat in Great Pulteney Street on the first floor of a Georgian row that has probably featured in every BBC period drama since the original Forsyte Saga. I half expect to see horse-drawn carriages outside and women parading in hats.

Sylvia Furness isn’t wearing a hat. Her short blonde hair is held off her face with a headband and she’s clad in black spandex shorts, a white sports bra and a light blue T-shirt with a looping neckline. A gym membership card dangles from a bulky set of keys that must help burn calories simply by being lugged around.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Furness. Do you have a moment?’

‘Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.’

‘It’s about Christine Wheeler.’

‘I’m late for a spin class. I don’t talk to the press.’

‘I’m not a journalist.’

She glances past me then and notices Darcy at the top of the stairs.

With a squeak of anguish she pushes past me, wrapping her arms around the teenager, summoning tears. Darcy gives me a look that says, I told you so.

She didn’t want to come upstairs because she knew her mother’s business partner would make a fuss.

‘What sort of fuss?’

‘A fuss.’

The front door is reopened and we’re ushered inside. Sylvia is still clutching Darcy’s hand. Emma follows, suddenly quiet, with a thumb wedged in her mouth.

The flat has polished wooden floors, tasteful furniture and ceilings that seem higher than the clouds outside. There are women’s touches everywhere- from the throw cushions in African prints to the dried flower arrangements.

My eyes scan the room and fall upon a birthday invitation propped beside the phone. ‘Alice’ is invited to a pizza and pyjama party. Her friend Angela is turning twelve.

Sylvia Furness is still holding Darcy’s hand, asking questions and offering sympathy. The teenager manages to slip out of her grasp and tells Emma there’s a park on the corner, behind the museum. It has swings and a slide.

‘Can I take her?’ asks Darcy.

She’ll have you pushing her forever,’ I warn.

‘That’s OK.’

‘We’ll talk when you get back,’ says Sylvia who has tossed her gym bag on the sofa. She looks at her watch- a stainless steel, sporty number. She won’t make her spin class. Instead she flops into an armchair, looking irritated. Her breasts don’t move. I wonder if they’re real. As if reading my mind she straightens her shoulders.

‘Why are you so interested in Christine?’

‘Darcy doesn’t think it was suicide.’

‘And why does that concern you?’

‘I just want to be sure.’

Her eyes are full of a gentle curiosity as I explain my involvement with Christine and how Darcy came looking for me. Sylvia props her toned legs on the coffee table, showing what miles on the treadmill can do for a woman.

‘You were business partners.’

‘We were more than that,’ she replies. ‘We went to school together.’

‘When did you last see Christine?’

‘Friday morning. She came into the office. She had an appointment with a young couple who were planning a Christmas wedding.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘Fine.’

‘She wasn’t concerned or worried about anything?’

‘Not particularly. Chris wasn’t the type.’

‘What was she like?’

‘The sweetest person. A total one-off. Sometimes I used to think she was too nice.’

‘In what way?’

‘She was too soft for this business. People would give her a sob story and she’d give them longer to pay or offer them discounts. Chris was a hopeless romantic. She believed in fairytales. Fairytale weddings. Fairytale marriages. It’s funny when you think her own lasted less than two years. At school she had a wedding chest. I mean, what sort of person still has a wedding chest? And she used to say that each of us has a special soul mate. Our Mr Right.’

‘You obviously don’t agree.’

Her head swivels towards me. ‘You’re a psychologist. Do you really believe there is only one person for each of us in this big wide world?’

‘It’s a nice thought.’

‘No it’s not! How boring.’ She laughs. ‘If that’s true, my soul mate had better have a six pack and a six figure salary.’

‘What about your husband?’

‘He’s a lump of lard, but he knows how to make money.’ She runs her hands along her legs. ‘Why is it that married men let themselves go while their wives spend hours trying to look beautiful?’