Michael Robotham - Shatter

There is a beat of silence. ‘Hi.’

‘How are you?’

‘Good. How’s Rome?’

‘I’m in Moscow. Rome was last week.’

‘Oh, that’s right.’

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine. Just woke up.’

‘How are my beautiful girls?’

‘Perfect.’

‘How is it that when I’m home they’re capable of being absolutely horrid but around you they’re perfect?’

‘I bribe them.’

‘I remember. Have you found a nanny?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What happened?’

‘I’m still interviewing. I’m looking for Mother Teresa.’

‘You know she’s dead.’

‘How about Scarlett Johansson?’

‘We’re not having Scarlett Johansson look after our children.’

‘ Now who’s being picky?’

She laughs. ‘Can I talk to Emma?’

‘She’s not here just now.’

‘Where is she?’

I look at the open door and can hear the rustle of my own breathing in the mouthpiece. ‘In the garden.’

‘It must have stopped raining.’

‘Uh-huh. How’s the trip?’

‘Painful. The Russians are stalling. They want a better deal.’

I’m standing at the sink, looking out the window. The lower panes are smeared with condensation. The upper panes frame a blue sky.

‘Are you sure everything is all right?’ she asks. ‘You’re sounding very strange.’

‘I’m fine. I miss you.’

‘I miss you too. I’ve got to go. Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I hear the click of the phone. As if on cue, Emma comes bounding through the back door with Darcy behind her. The teenager catches the youngster and hugs her tightly. Both are laughing.

Darcy is wearing a dress. It belongs to Julianne. She must have found it in the ironing basket. The light from the doorway paints the outline of her body within it. Teenage girls don’t feel the cold.

‘Where have you been?’

‘We went for a walk,’ she says, defensively. Emma reaches towards me with her arms and I pick her up.

‘Where’s Charlie?’

‘On her way to school- I walked her to the bus stop.’

‘You should have told me.’

‘You were asleep.’ She nudges me gently sideways with her hip and picks up the cereal bowl.

‘You should have written a note.’

She fills the sink with hot water and suds. For the first time she notices my arm is twitching and my leg seems to spasm in sympathy. I haven’t taken my morning medication.

‘So what’s with the shaking thing?’

‘I have Parkinson’s.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a progressive degenerative neurological disorder.’

Darcy pushes her bra strap onto her shoulder. ‘Is it contagious?’

‘No. I shake. I take pills.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘My friend Jasmine had cancer. She had to have a bone marrow transplant. She looked cool without any hair. I don’t think I could have done it. I’d rather die.’

The last sentence has the bluntness and hyperbole of youth. Only teenagers can turn pimples into catastrophes or leukaemia into a fashion dilemma.

‘This afternoon I’ll go and see the headmistress of your school…’

Darcy’s mouth opens in protest. I cut her off. ‘I’m going to tell her that you’re spending a few days away from school- until the funeral or we decide what you want to do. She’s going to ask questions and want to know who I am.’

Darcy doesn’t answer. Instead she turns back to the sink and continues washing a plate.

My arm trembles. I need to shower and change. I’m on the stairs when I hear her final remark.

‘Don’t forget to take your pills.’

Ruiz arrives just after eleven. His early model, forest green Mercedes is splattered with mud on the fenders and lower doors. It’s the sort of car they’re going to outlaw when emission regulations come into force because entire Pacific atolls disappear every time he refills the tank.

He has put on weight since he retired, and let his hair grow longer, just over his ears. I can’t tell if he’s contented. Happiness is not a concept that I associate with Ruiz. He confronts the world like a sumo wrestler, slapping his thighs and throwing his weight around.

Rumpled and careworn as ever, he gives me a crushing handshake. His hands are unfailingly steady. I envy him.

‘Thanks for coming,’ I say.

‘What are friends for?’

He says it without any irony.

Darcy is standing at the gate, looking like an elf maiden in that dress. Before I can introduce her, Ruiz mistakes her for Charlie and grabs her around the waist, spinning her round.

She fights at his arms. ‘Let me go, you pervert!’

Ruiz puts her down suddenly. He looks at me.

‘You said Charlie had grown.’

‘Not that much.’

I don’t know if he’s embarrassed. How do you tell? Darcy tugs down the dress and brushes hair from her eyes.

Ruiz smiles and bows slightly. ‘No offence meant, miss. I mistook you for a princess. I know a couple who live round here. They turn frogs into princes in their spare time.’

Darcy looks at me, confused, but she can recognise a compliment. The flush in her face has nothing to do with the cold. Meanwhile, Emma comes flying down the path and hurls herself into his arms. Holding her high in the air, Ruiz seems to be estimating how far he could throw her. Emma calls him Dooda. I have no idea why. It’s a name she’s used ever since she could talk whenever Ruiz came to visit. Her shyness around adults has never applied to him.

‘We have to go,’ he says. ‘I might have found someone who can help us.’

Darcy looks at me. ‘Can I come?’

‘I need you to look after Emma. It’s just for a few hours.’

Ruiz is already at the car. I pause at the passenger door and glance back at Darcy. I hardly know this girl and I’m leaving her alone with my youngest daughter. Julianne would have something to say. Maybe I won’t tell her this part.

Heading west towards Bristol, we take the coast road to Portishead, along the Severn Estuary. Gulls swing and wheel above the rooftops, working against a blustery wind.

‘She’s a pretty thing,’ says Ruiz, dangling his fingers over the steering wheel. ‘Is she staying with you?’

‘For a few days.’

‘What does Julianne say?’

‘I haven’t told her yet.’

Nothing changes on his face. ‘Do you think Darcy is telling you everything- about the mother?’

‘I don’t think she’s lying.’ We both know it’s not the same thing.

I tell him the details of Friday, describing Christine Wheeler’s last moments on the bridge; and how her clothes were found lying on the floor of her house, beside the phone; and how she wrote some sort of sign in lipstick while leaning on the coffee table.

‘Was she seeing anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Any money problems?’

‘Yes, but she didn’t seem to be too worried.’

‘So you think someone threatened her?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. Blackmail, intimidation… She was terrified.’

‘Why didn’t she call the police?’

‘Maybe she couldn’t.’

We turn off into a new business park full of metal and glass office buildings. The bitumen roads are starkly grey against the newly planted garden beds.

Ruiz turns into a car park. The only sign on the building is a plaque beside a buzzer: Fastnet Telecommunications. The receptionist is barely twenty with a pencil skirt, a white blouse and even whiter teeth. Not even the sight of Ruiz interrupts her winning smile.

‘We’re here to see Oliver Rabb,’ he says.

‘Please take a seat.’

Ruiz prefers to stand. There are posters on the walls of beautiful young people, chatting on designer phones that obviously bring them great happiness, wealth and hot dates.