Michael Robotham - Shatter

Darcy stops stretching and her eyes meet mine. They’re no longer bright with energy or amusement.

‘Who?’

‘Sylvia Furness. I’m sorry.’

A slight noise catches in Darcy’s throat. She holds her hands to her mouth as if trying to stop the sound from escaping.

‘Did you ever meet Alice?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know her well?’

She shakes her head.

I don’t have enough information to explain to Darcy what happened today or ten days ago. Her mother and Sylvia Furness were in business together but what else did they share? The man who killed them knew things about them. He chose them for a reason.

This is a search that must go backwards rather than forwards. Address books. Diaries. Wallets. Emails. Letters. Telephone messages. The movements of both victims have to be traced- where they went, who they spoke to, what shops they visited, where they had their hair done. What friends do they have in common? Were they members of the same gym? Did they share a doctor or a drycleaner or a palm reader? And this is important: where did they buy their shoes?

A key rattles in the lock. Julianne, Charlie and Emma come bustling into the hallway with polished paper shopping bags and red cheeks from the cold. Charlie is in her school uniform. Emma is wearing new boots that look too big for her but she’ll grow into them before winter is over.

Julianne looks at Darcy. ‘Are you dressed for dancing or double pneumonia?’

‘I’ve been practicing.’

She turns to me. ‘And what have you been doing?’

‘He’s been helping me,’ says Darcy.

Julianne gives me one of her impenetrable looks; the same look that makes our children confess immediately to wrongdoing and sends unwelcome Seventh Day Adventists jostling for the front gate.

I sit Emma on the table and unzip her boots.

‘Where did you go this morning?’ asks Julianne.

‘I had a call from the police.’

There is something in my tone that makes her turn and fix her gaze on mine. No words are spoken, but she knows there has been another death. Darcy tickles Emma under the arms. Julianne glances at her and then back to me. Again, no words are exchanged.

Perhaps this is what happens when two people have been married for sixteen years: it gets so that they know what the other is thinking. It’s also what happens when you’re married to someone as intuitive and perceptive as Julianne. I have made a career out of studying human behaviour but like most in my profession I’m lousy at psychoanalysing myself. I have a wife for that. She’s good. Better than any therapist. Scarier.

‘Can you take me into town?’ Darcy asks me. ‘I need a few things.’

‘You should have asked me to get them,’ answers Julianne.

‘I didn’t think.’

A sudden tight smile covers Julianne’s annoyance. Darcy goes upstairs to change.

Julianne begins unpacking groceries. ‘She can’t stay here indefinitely, Joe.’

‘I called her aunt in Spain today and left a message for her. I’m also talking to her headmistress.’

Julianne nods, only partially satisfied. ‘Well, tomorrow I’m interviewing more nannies. If I find someone we’ll need the spare room. Darcy has to go.’

She opens the fridge door and arranges eggs in a tray.

‘Tell me what happened this morning.’

‘Another woman is dead.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Christine Wheeler’s business partner.’

Julianne is speechless. Stunned. She stares at the grapefruit in her hand, trying to decide if she was putting it in the fridge or taking it out. She doesn’t want to hear any more. Details matter to me but not to her. She closes the fridge and steps around me, taking her silent verdict upstairs.

I wish I could make her understand that I didn’t choose to get involved in this. I didn’t choose to watch Christine Wheeler jump to her death or have her daughter turn up on my doorstep. Julianne used to love my sense of fairness and compassion and my hatred of hypocrisy. Now she treats me like I have no other role to play except to raise my children, perform a handful of lectures and wait for Mr Parkinson to steal what he hasn’t already taken.

Even when Ruiz came to dinner last night she took a long while to relax.

‘I’m surprised at you, Vincent,’ she told him. ‘I thought you would have talked Joe out of this.’

‘Out of what?’

‘This nonsense.’ She looked at him over her wine glass. ‘I thought you retired. Why aren’t you playing golf?’

‘I have actually hired a hitman to bump me off if I ever leave the house wearing tartan trousers.’

‘Not a golfer.’

‘No.’

‘What about bowling or driving a caravan around the country?’

Ruiz laughed nervously and looked at me as though he no longer envied my life.

‘I hope you never retire, Professor.’

From upstairs there are raised voices. Julianne is shouting at Darcy.

‘What are you doing? Get away from my things.’

‘Ow! You’re hurting me.’

I take the stairs two at a time and find them in our bedroom.

Julianne is gripping Darcy’s forearm, squeezing it hard to stop her getting away. The teenager is bent over, cupping something against her stomach as if hiding it.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I caught her going through my things,’ says Julianne. I look at the dresser. The drawers are open.

‘No, I wasn’t,’ says Darcy.

‘What were you doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It doesn’t look like nothing,’ I say. ‘What were you looking for?’

She blushes. I haven’t seen her blush before.

She straightens and moves her arms. A small dark crimson stain is visible in the crotch of her track pants.

‘My period started. I looked in the bathroom, but I couldn’t find any pads.’

Julianne looks mortified. She lets go of Darcy and tries to apologise.

‘I am so sorry. You should have said something. You could have asked me.’

Ignoring my inertia, she takes Darcy by the hand and leads her to the en-suite. As the door closes, Julianne’s eyes connect with mine. Normally so poised and unflappable, she has become a different person around Darcy and she blames me.

I was thirty-one years old when I understood what it was like to watch someone die. A Pashtun taxi driver, with psoriasis on his joints, expired as I watched. We had made him stand for five days until his feet swelled to the size of footballs and the shackles cut into his ankles. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat.

This is an approved ‘stress and duress position’. It’s in the manual. Look it up. SK 46/34.

His name was Hamad Mowhoush and he’d been arrested at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan after a roadside bomb killed two Royal Marines and wounded three others, including a mate of mine.

We put a sleeping bag over Hamad’s head and bound it with wire. Then we rolled him back and forth and sat on his chest. That’s when his heart gave out.

Some folks claim torture isn’t an effective way to get reliable information because the strong defy pain and the weak will say anything to make it stop. They’re right. Most of the time, it’s pointless, but if you act quickly and combine the shock of capture with the fear of torture, it’s amazing how often the mind unlocks and all sorts of secrets tumble out.

We weren’t allowed to call the detainees POWs. They were PUCs (persons under control). The military loves acronyms. Another one is HCI (Highly Coercive Interrogation). That’s what I was trained to do.

When I first saw Hamad someone had sandbagged and zip-tied him. Felini gave him to me. ‘Fuck a PUC,’ he said, grinning. ‘We can smoke him later.’

To ‘fuck a PUC’ meant to beat him up. To ‘smoke’ them meant using a stress position. Felini used to make them stand in the sun in hundred degree heat with their arms outstretched, holding up five-gallon jerry cans.