Michael Robotham - Shatter

‘What’s happening in the world?’ I ask.

‘Usual death and destruction. Some kid in America just shot up a high school. That’s what happens when you sell automatic weapons at the school canteen.’

Ruiz hands me a takeaway coffee from a tray resting on the seat.

‘How was your room at the Fox amp; Badger?’

‘Too close to the bar.’

‘Noisy, huh?’

‘Too tempting. I got to meet some of the locals. You have a dwarf.’

‘Nigel.’

‘I thought he was taking the piss when he said his name was Nigel. He wanted to take me outside and fight me.’

‘He does that all the time.’

‘Does anyone ever hit him?’

‘He’s a dwarf!’

‘He’s still an annoying little fuck.’

I have an appointment to see Veronica Cray at Trinity Road Police Station in Bristol.

‘Are you sure you want me to come?’ asks Ruiz.

‘Why not?’

‘Job’s done. You got what you wanted.’

‘You can’t go back to London- not yet. You’ve only just arrived. You haven’t even seen Bath. You can’t come to the West Country and not see Bath. It’s like going to LA and not sleeping with Paris Hilton.’

‘I can pass on both of those.’

‘What about Julianne? She’s coming home this afternoon. She’ll want to see you.’

‘That’s more tempting. How is she?’

‘Good.’

‘How long has she been away?’

‘Since Monday. It seems like longer.’

‘It always does.’

Trinity Road Police Station is an inward looking building without any windows on the lower floors. Like a bunker built for a siege, it is the perfect expression of modern law enforcement with CCTV cameras on every corner and spikes on the walls. Someone has daubed graffiti on the brickwork: Stop Killer Cops: End State Terrorism.

Opposite the station, the Holy Trinity Church is boarded up and deserted. An old woman shelters beneath the portico, dressed in black and bent like a burnt matchstick.

We wait downstairs for someone to arrive. A metal security door opens. A tall black man has to almost duck his head to get through. My first assumption is the wrong one. He’s not being released from custody. He belongs here.

‘I’m Detective Constable Abbott,’ he says, ‘but you can call me Monk. Every other bastard does.’

His hands are the size of boxing gloves. I feel ten years old again.

‘Does everyone have a nickname around here?’ asks Ruiz.

‘Most of us do.’

‘What about the DI?’

‘We call her boss.’

‘Is that it?’

‘We like our jobs.’

Veronica Cray’s office is a box within this box, furnished with a simple pine desk and a few filing cabinets. The walls are covered with photographs of unsolved cases and uncaught suspects. While other people fill drawers and diaries with their unfinished business, the DI turns it into wallpaper.

She is dressed in black, with breakfast in progress. A sweet bun and a cup of tea rest upon the paperwork.

She takes a final mouthful and gathers her notes.

‘I got a briefing. You can listen.’

The incident room is clean, modern and open plan, broken only by moveable partitions and whiteboards. A photograph has been taped to the top of one of them. Christine Wheeler’s name appears alongside.

The assembled detectives are mostly men who stand as DI Cray enters. A dozen officers have been assigned to the investigation, which hasn’t yet been classified as a murder inquiry. Unless the taskforce can produce a motive or a suspect within five days, the powers that be are going to toss this one to the coroner to decide.

DI Cray licks sugar from her fingers and begins.

‘At 5.07 p.m. last Friday afternoon, this woman jumped to her death from Clifton Suspension Bridge. Our first priority is to piece together the final hours of her life. I want to know where she went, who she spoke to and what she saw.

‘I also want interviews with her neighbours, friends and business associates. She was a wedding planner. The business was in financial trouble. Talk to the usual suspects- loan sharks and money lenderssee if they knew her.’

She outlines the timeline of events, beginning on Friday morning. Christine Wheeler spent two hours in her office at Blissful and then went home. At 11.54 she received a call on her landline that came from a public phone box in Clifton at the corner of Westfield Place and Sion Lane, overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

‘This call lasted thirty-four minutes. It may have been someone she knew. Perhaps she arranged to meet them.

‘The landline call ended just after her mobile phone began ringing. One call may have produced the other.’

DI Cray signals an officer working an overhead projector. A map covering Bristol and Bath is beamed onto the white board behind her. ‘Telecommunications engineers are triangulating signals from Christine Wheeler’s mobile and plotting the likely route she took on Friday when she drove from her house to Leigh Woods.

‘We have the two positive eyewitness sightings. Those witnesses have to be reinterviewed. I also want the names of everyone else who was in Leigh Woods on Friday afternoon. I want their reasons for being there and their home addresses.’

‘It was raining, ma’am,’ offers one of the detectives.

‘This is Bristol- it’s always bloody raining. And don’t call me ma’am.’

She focuses on the only woman among the detectives. ‘Alfie.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘I want you go through the Sex Offenders’ Register. Get me a list of every known pervert living within five miles of Leigh Woods. I want them graded by the seriousness of the offence and when they were last charged or released from prison.’

‘Yes, boss.’

The DI shifts her gaze. ‘Jones and McAvoy, I want you to go through the CCTV footage. There are four cameras on the bridge.’

‘What time period?’ one of them asks.

‘From midday until six p.m. Six hours, four cameras, do the maths.’

‘What exactly are we looking for, boss?’

‘Take down every vehicle number. Run them through the Automatic Number Plate Recognition software. See if any of them come up as stolen and cross-check the names with Alfie. We may get lucky.’

‘You’re talking about more than a thousand cars.’

‘Then you’d better get started.’ She turns to another detective who is dressed in a short-sleeved jacket and jeans. She calls him ‘Safari Roy’- another nickname. It suits him.

‘Check out the business partner, Sylvia Furness. The company accounts. Find out who the major creditors are and if any of them were getting heavy.’

She mentions the food poisoning incident. The father of a bride wants compensation and is threatening to sue. Safari Roy makes a note to check it out.

DI Cray throws a file into the lap of another detective. ‘That’s a list of every sexual assault or complaint of indecent behaviour on Leigh Woods over the past two years, including nude sunbathing and flashing. I want you to find every one of them. Ask them what they were doing on Friday afternoon. Take D.J. and Curly with you.’

‘You think it’s sexual, boss?’ asks Curly.

‘The woman was naked with “slut” written on her torso.’

‘What about her mobile?’ asks Alfie.

‘Still missing. Monk will be handling the search of Leigh Woods. Those of you who haven’t got assignments will be going with him. You’re going to knock on doors and talk to the locals. I want to know if anyone has been acting strangely or if anything unusual happened in the past few weeks. Did a sparrow fart? Did a bear shit in the wood? You get the picture.’

A new face appears at the briefing, a senior officer in uniform with polished buttons and a cap tucked beneath his left arm.