Read Online Shatter by Michael Robotham - Free Book Online

anything?’
    She thinks about this.
    ‘I used the phone… to cal the police.’
    ‘Which phone?’
    ‘The one upstairs.’
    ‘Why not use this one?’ I motion to the handset of a cordless phone, sitting in a cradle on a side table.
    ‘The handset was on the floor. The battery was flat.’
    A smal pile of women’s clothes lie discarded at the base of the table— a pair of machine-distressed jeans, a top and a cardigan. I kneel down. A flash of colour peeks from beneath the sofa— not hidden but tossed away in a hurry. My fingers close around the fabric. Underwear, a bra and matching panties.
    ‘Was your mother seeing anyone? A boyfriend?’
    Darcy suppresses the urge to laugh. ‘No.’
    ‘What’s so funny?’
    ‘My mother is going to be one of those old women with a herd of cats and a wardrobe ful of cardigans.’ She smiles and then remembers she’s speaking of a mother without a future.
    ‘Would she have told you if she was seeing someone?’
    Darcy isn’t sure.
    I hold up the underwear. ‘Do these belong to your mother?’
    She nods, frowning.
    ‘What?’
    ‘She was like real y obsessed about stuff like that, picking up things. I wasn’t al owed to borrow any of her clothes unless I hung them up or put them in the wash afterwards. “The floor is not a wardrobe,” she said.’
    I climb the stairs to the main bedroom. The bed is untouched, without a crease on the duvet. Bottles are lined up neatly on her dresser. Towels are folded evenly on the towel rails in the en suite.
    I open the large walk-in wardrobe and step inside. I can smel Christine Wheeler. I touch her dresses, her skirts, her shirts. I put my hands in the pockets of her jackets. I find a taxi receipt, a dry cleaning tag, a pound coin, an after dinner mint. There are clothes she hasn’t worn in years. Clothes she is making last the distance. Here is a woman used to having money who suddenly doesn’t have enough.
    An evening gown slips from a hanger and pools at my feet. I pick it up again, feeling the fabric slip between my fingers. There are racks of shoes, at least a dozen pairs, arranged in neat rows.
    Darcy sits on the bed. ‘Mum liked shoes. She said it was her one extravagance.’
    I remember the pair of bright red Jimmy Choos that Christine was wearing on the bridge. Party shoes. There is a gap for a missing pair at the end of the lower shelf.
    ‘Did your mother sleep naked?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Did she ever wander around the house naked?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Did she draw the curtains before she undressed?’
    ‘I’ve never taken much notice.’
    I glance out the bedroom window, which overlooks an al otment with vegetable gardens and a greenhouse guarded by an elm tree. Spider webs are woven through the branches of the trees like fine muslin. Someone could easily watch the house and not be noticed.

    ‘If someone came to the door, would she have opened it or put on the security chain?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    My mind keeps going back to the clothes by the phone. Christine undressed, making no attempt to close the curtains. She didn’t fold her clothes or place them on a chair. The cordless phone handset was found on the floor.
    Darcy could be wrong about a boyfriend or a lover, but there’s no sign of the bed being used. No condoms. No tissues. Similarly, there’s no trace of an intruder. Nothing appears to be disturbed or missing. There is no sign of a search or a struggle. The place is clean. Tidy. It’s not the house of someone who has given up hope or someone who doesn’t want to live any more.
    ‘Was the front door deadlocked?’
    ‘I don’t remember,’ says Darcy.
    ‘It’s important. When you came home, you put the key in the door. Did you need two keys?’
    ‘No. I don’t think so.’
    ‘Did your mother have a raincoat?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What did it look like?’
    ‘It was a cheap plastic thing.’
    ‘What colour?’
    ‘Yel ow.’
    ‘Where is it now?’
    She takes me to the entrance hal — an empty coat