Michael Robotham - Shatter

‘Was there a note with the box?’

‘Just my name written on the side.’

‘Do you know who left it for you?’

Alice shakes her head.

‘Did you ever talk to anyone about wanting a rabbit?’

‘No. I thought it was from my dad. He always talks about white rabbits and Alice in Wonderland.’

‘But it wasn’t from your dad.’

A shake of the head- her ponytail sways.

‘Who else might send you a rabbit?’

She shrugs.

‘It’s really important, Alice. Have you talked to anyone about your mum or about rabbits or Alice in Wonderland? It could be someone your mum knew or a stranger. Someone who found a reason to talk to you.’

She grows defensive. ‘How am I supposed to remember? I talk to people all the time.’

‘This is someone you will remember. Think hard.’

Her tea is getting cold. She strokes the rabbit’s ears, trying to make them stand upright.

‘Maybe there was somebody.’

‘Who?’

‘A man. He said he was incognito. I didn’t know what that meant.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘I was out with Mum.’

Alice talks about going to a party with Sylvia to celebrate one of her mother’s friends getting married. She was standing next to the jukebox when a man came up to her. He was wearing sunglasses. They talked about music and horses and he offered to buy her another lemonade. He quoted from Alice in Wonderland.

‘How did he know your name?’

‘I told him.’

‘Had you ever seen him before?’

‘No.’

‘Did he know your mother’s name?’

‘I don’t know. He knew where we lived.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell him, he just knew.’

Taking her over the story again and again, I build up layers of detail, putting sinew and flesh on the bones. I don’t want her paraphrasing or skipping sections. I need her to remember his exact words.

He was my height with thin fair hair, older than her mother, younger than me. Alice can’t remember what he was wearing and didn’t notice any tattoos or rings or distinguishing features apart from his sunglasses.

She yawns. The conversation has begun to bore her.

‘Did he talk to your mother?’ asks Ruiz.

‘No. That was the other one.’

‘The other one?’

‘The man who drove us home.’

Ruiz elicits another description, this one of a younger man, early thirties, curly hair and an earring. He was dancing with her mother and offered to take them home.

Her aunt interrupts again. ‘Is this really necessary? Poor Alice has told the police everything.’

Alice suddenly holds her rabbit at arm’s length. There’s a wet patch on her jeans.

‘Oooh, he peed on me! How gross!’

‘You squeezed him too hard,’ says her aunt.

‘No I didn’t.’

‘You shouldn’t handle him so much.’

‘He’s my rabbit.’

The animal is dumped on the kitchen table. Alice wants to change her clothes. I’ve failed to instil any sense of urgency into her and she’s sick of talking. Staring at me reproachfully, she gives the impression that it’s somehow my fault- her mother’s death, the stain on her jeans, the general upheaval in her life.

Everyone deals with grief differently and Alice is hurting in places I can’t even imagine. I have spent more than twenty years studying human behaviour, treating patients and listening to their doubts and fears, but no amount of experience or knowledge of psychology will ever allow me to feel what someone else feels. I can witness the same tragedy or survive the same disaster, but my feelings, like hers, will be unique and forever private.

It’s cold but not painfully so. Bare trees, savagely pruned around the power lines, are etched against a lavender sky. Ruiz shoves his hands deep in his pockets and walks away from the house. He rocks slightly on his right leg, which has never fully recovered from an old gunshot wound.

I fall into step alongside him, struggling to keep up. Somebody sent ballet shoes to Darcy after her mother died- with no note or return address. The same person is likely to have left the rabbit for Alice. Are they calling cards or condolence gifts?

‘You got a fix on this guy yet?’ asks Ruiz.

‘Not yet.’

‘I’ll bet you twenty quid it’s an ex-boyfriend or a lover.’

‘Of both women?’

‘Maybe he blames one of them for breaking up the relationship with the other.’

‘And you base this theory upon?’

‘My gut.’

‘Are you sure it’s not wind?’

‘We could make a wager.’

‘I’m not a betting man.’

We’ve reached the car. Ruiz leans on the door. ‘Let’s say you’re right and he targets the daughters- how does he do it? Darcy was at school. Alice was riding her horse. They weren’t in any danger.’

I don’t have an easy explanation. It requires a leap of the imagination: a tumble into darkness.

‘How does he prove a lie like that?’ asks Ruiz.

‘He has to know things about the daughters- not just their names and ages, but intimate details. He could have been in their houses, found reasons to meet them, watched them.’

‘Surely a mother would phone the school or the riding centre. You don’t just believe someone who claims to have your daughter.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. You never hang up. Yes, you want to check. You want to phone the police. You want to scream for help. But what you never, ever do is hang up the phone. You can’t take the risk that he’s right. You don’t want to take that risk.’

‘So what do you do?’

‘You keep talking. You do exactly what he says. You stay on the phone and you keep asking for proof and you pray, over and over, that you’re wrong.’

Ruiz rocks back on his heels and looks at me with a kind of repulsive wonderment.

Passers-by are stepping round us on the footpath, glancing with disapproval and curiosity.

‘And this is your theory?’

‘It fits the details.’

I expected him to argue with me. I thought it would be too great a leap to contemplate someone stepping off a bridge or chaining herself to a tree on the basis of any sort of belief or rational fear.

Instead he clears his throat.

‘I once knew a man in Northern Ireland who drove a truck full of explosives into an army barracks because the IRA was holding his wife and two children hostage. They killed his youngest by slitting her throat in front of him.’

‘What happened?’

‘Twelve soldiers died in the blast… so did the husband.’

‘And what about his family?’

‘The IRA let them go.’

Both of us fall silent. Some conversations don’t need a final word.

Charlie is in the front garden, kicking a football against the fence. She’s wearing her football boots and her old strip from the Camden Tigers.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

The ball cannons harder off the wall. Thump. Thump. Thump.

‘You practicing for the big trial?’ I ask.

‘Nope.’

‘Why not?’

She catches the ball in two hands and looks at me now, giving me her mother’s stare.

‘Because the trial was today and you were supposed to take me, so I’ve missed it. Thanks a lot, Dad. Special effort.’

She drops the ball and volleys it so hard it almost takes off my head as it ricochets past me.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ I say, trying to apologise. ‘I’ll talk to the coach. They’ll give you another trial.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t want any favours,’ she says. Could she be any more like her mother?

Julianne is in the kitchen. A towel is wrapped like a turban over her freshly washed hair. It makes her walk with rolling hips like an African woman carrying a clay pot on her head.