Shatter by Michael Robotham Page A

raises the mug of tea to her lips, holding it steady with both hands. I look at her clear brown eyes, her bare neck; the thinness of her jacket and the dark bra outlined beneath her T-shirt. She is beautiful y ugly in a gawky teenage way, but destined in a few years to be exceptional y beautiful and to bring no end of misery to a great number of men.
    ‘What about your father?’
    She shrugs.
    ‘Where’s he?’
    ‘No idea. He walked out on my mum before I was born. We didn’t hear from him after that.’
    ‘Not at al ?’
    ‘Never.’
    ‘I need to cal your school.’
    ‘I’m not going back.’ The sudden steel in her voice surprises me.
    ‘We have to tel them where you are.’
    ‘Why? They don’t care. I’m sixteen. I can do what I want.’
    Her defiance has al the hal marks of a childhood spent at boarding school. It has made her strong. Independent. Angry. Why is she here? What does she expect me to do?
    ‘It wasn’t suicide,’ she says again. ‘Mum hated heights. I mean real y hated them.’
    ‘When did you last talk to her?’
    ‘On Friday morning.’
    ‘How did she seem?’
    ‘Normal. Happy.’
    ‘What did you talk about?’
    She stares into her mug, as if reading the contents. ‘We had a fight.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘It’s not important.’
    ‘Tel me anyway.’
    She hesitates and shakes her head. The sadness in her eyes tel s half the story. Her last words to her mother were ful of anger. She wants to take them back or to have them over again.
    Trying to change the subject, she opens the fridge door and begins sniffing the contents of Tupperware containers and jars. ‘Got anything to eat?’
    ‘I can make you a sandwich.’
    ‘How about a Coke?’
    ‘We don’t have fizzy drinks in the house.’
    ‘Real y?’
    ‘Real y.’
    She’s found a packet of biscuits in the pantry and picks apart the plastic wrapping with her fingernails.
    ‘Mum was supposed to phone the school on Friday afternoon. I wanted to come home for the weekend, but I needed her permission. I cal ed her al day— on her mobile and at home. I sent her text messages— dozens of them. I couldn’t get through.
    ‘I told my housemistress something must be wrong, but she said Mum was probably just busy and I shouldn’t worry, only I did worry, I worried al Friday night and Saturday morning. The housemistress said Mum had probably gone away for the weekend and forgotten to tel me, but I knew it wasn’t true.
    ‘I asked for permission to go home, but they wouldn’t let me. So I ran away on Saturday afternoon and went to the house. Mum wasn’t there. Her car was gone. Things were so random.
    That’s when I cal ed the police.’
    She holds herself perfectly stil .
    ‘The police showed me a photo. I told them it must be somebody else. Mum wouldn’t even go on the London Eye. Last summer we went to Paris and she panicked going up the Eiffel Tower. She hated heights.’
    Darcy freezes. The packet of biscuits has broken open in her hands, spil ing crumbs between her fingers. She stares at the wreckage and rocks forward, curling her knees to her chest and uttering a long unbroken sob.
    The professional part of me knows to avoid physical contact but the father in me is stronger. I put my arms around her, pul ing her head to my chest.
    ‘You were there,’ she whispers.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It wasn’t suicide. She’d never leave me.’

    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Please help me.’
    ‘I don’t know if I can, Darcy.’
    ‘Please.’
    I wish I could take her pain away. I wish I could tel her that it won’t hurt like this forever or that one day she’l forget how this feels. I’ve heard childcare experts talk about how fast children forgive and forget. That’s bul shit! Children remember. Children hold grudges. Children keep secrets. Children can sometimes seem strong because their defences have never been breached or eroded by tragedy, but they are as light and fragile as spun glass.
    Emma is awake and cal ing out for me. I