Michael Robotham - Shatter

‘A film star.’

‘Whatever.’

‘We’ll call your aunt.’

‘I’m not living with donkeys.’

There must be other possibilities… other names. Her mother had friends. Surely one of them could look after Darcy for a few days. Darcy doesn’t have their numbers. She’s not even trying to be helpful.

‘I could stay with you,’ she says, pressing her tongue to the inside of her cheek like she’s sucking a boiled sweet.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Why not? Your house is big enough. You’re looking for a nanny. I could help look after Emma. She likes me…’

‘I can’t let you stay.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re sixteen and you should be at school.’

She reaches over the seat for her bag. ‘Stop the car. Let me out here.’

‘I can’t do that.’

The electric window glides down.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to yell rape or kidnapping or whatever else it takes for you to stop the car and let me out. I’m not going back to school.’

Emma’s voice interrupts from the back seat. ‘No fighting.’

‘Pardon?’

‘No fighting.’

She looks at us sternly.

‘We’re not fighting, sweetheart,’ I explain. ‘We’re having a serious talk.’

‘I don’t like fighting,’ she announces. ‘It’s bad.’

Darcy laughs. Her gaze is defiant. Where does she get such confidence? How did she become so fearless?

Circling the next roundabout, I turn back.

‘Where are we going now?’ she asks.

‘Home.’

If Darcy were a grieving husband or a mate, we’d go to the pub and get rolling drunk. Then we’d come staggering home, put on Sky Sports and watch some obscure ice-hockey game in Canada or that weird sport where they ski across country and shoot at targets. Men do that sort of thing. Alcohol isn’t a substitute for tears. It feeds them on the inside where it’s less public and the tissues don’t get soggy.

Teenage girls are trickier. I know from my consulting room. They’re more likely to fret, to stop eating, to become depressed or promiscuous. Darcy is a singular creature. She doesn’t prattle away like Charlie and Emma. She acts so grown up; smart mouthed and sassy, but beneath the bravado is a hurt child who knows less about the world than a blind girl at an art gallery.

She took herself to bed in the spare room as soon as the dishes were packed away. I paused outside her door a few minutes ago, pressing my ear against the painted wood and thought I heard her crying. I may have imagined it.

What am I going to do? I can’t investigate her mother’s death. Maybe DI Cray is right and nobody will ever know the truth.

Sitting in the study, I open my palms on the desk and watch them. My left hand is shaking uncontrollably but I don’t want to take any more medication today. My doses are already too high and the drugs become less effective over time. Vincent Ruiz’s telephone number is on the desk blotter.

Ruiz is a former detective inspector with the London Metropolitan Police. Five years ago he arrested me on suspicion of murder after a former patient of mine had been found stabbed to death beside the Grand Union Canal in London. My name was in her diary. It’s a long story. Let’s call it history.

Ever since then, Ruiz has been one of those peripheral characters that drift in and out of my life, adding brightness to the beige. Before he retired, he used to invite himself to dinner, flirt with Julianne and pick my brain about his latest murder investigation. He’d tickle the girls, drink too much wine and spend the night on our sofa.

Julianne’s soft spot for Ruiz is bigger than the man’s liver, which says something about his drinking and her ability to attract strays.

It takes me three attempts to punch Ruiz’s number on the phone. I hear it ringing.

‘Hi, Vincent.’

‘Hey, hey, if it isn’t my favourite shrink.’

He has a voice that matches his body, hard on the inside and fleshy on the outside- gravel coated in phlegm.

‘I saw you on one of those reality TV shows the other night,’ he says. ‘I think they call it the News at Ten. You were tossing a woman off a bridge.’

‘She jumped.’

‘No shit,’ he laughs. ‘No wonder you have all those letters after your name. How is your gorgeous wife?’

‘She’s in Moscow.’

‘Alone?’

‘With her boss.’

‘Why can’t I be her boss?’

‘Because you know nothing about high finance and your idea of up-sizing is to buy a bigger pair of trousers.’

‘That’s harsh but true.’

I hear ice clinking in a glass.

‘Fancy a few days in the West Country?’

‘Nope. I’m allergic to sheep.’

‘I need your help.’

‘Say it like you mean it, baby.’

I tell him about Christine Wheeler and Darcy, describing the past twelve hours in a series of bullet points that ex-coppers regard as almost a second language. Ruiz knows how to fill in the gaps. Without my even mentioning DI Cray he predicts exactly how she reacted to my request.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘As sure as I can be for now.’

‘What do you need?’

‘Christine Wheeler was talking to someone on her mobile before she fell. Is it possible to trace the call?’

‘They recover the phone?’

‘It’s at the bottom of the Avon Gorge.’

‘Do you know the lady’s number?’

‘Darcy does.’

He is silent for a moment. ‘I know a guy who works for British Telecom. He’s a security consultant. He was our go-to man when we were tapping phones or tracing calls- all above board, of course.’

‘Of course.’

I can hear him taking notes. I can even picture the marbled notebook that he carries everywhere, bulging with business cards and scraps of paper, held together with a rubber band.

Another rattle of ice in a glass.

‘So if I do come down to Somerset can I sleep with your wife?’

‘No.’

‘I thought country folk were supposed to be hospitable.’

‘The house is sort of full. You can stay in the pub.’

‘Well, that’s almost as good.’

The call ends and I slip Ruiz’s number into a drawer. There’s a tap on the door. Charlie wanders in and slumps sideways in a perfectly good armchair, dangling her legs over the armrest.

‘Hi, Dad.’

‘Hi.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing much, what’s up with you?’

‘I got a history test tomorrow.’

‘You been studying?’

‘Yep. Did you know when they embalmed pharaohs in ancient Egypt they used to take out their brains through their left nostril with a hook?’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Then they used to put the body on a bed of salt to dry it out.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yep.’

Charlie has a question, but needs a moment to frame it. She’s like that, very precise with no ums and ahs or long pauses.

‘Why is she here?’

She means Darcy.

‘She needed somewhere to stay.’

‘Does Mum know?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What should I tell her if she calls?’

‘Leave that to me.’

Charlie stares at her knees. She thinks about things far more deeply than I ever remember doing. Sometimes she will mull over something for days, formulating a theory or an opinion and then deliver it out of the blue, long after everyone else has stopped thinking about it or forgotten the original discussion.

‘The woman on the news the other night: the one who jumped.’

‘What about her?’

‘It was Darcy’s mum.’

‘Yes.’

‘Should I say something to her? I mean, I don’t know whether to avoid the subject or pretend nothing’s wrong.’