Shatter

6

Monday morning. Grey. Dry. The agency is sending three candidates for me to interview. I don’t think they’re called nannies any more. They are carers or childcare professionals.

Julianne is on her way to Moscow, Charlie is on the bus to school and Emma is playing with her dolls’ clothes in the dining room, trying to put a bonnet on Sniffy our neurotic cat. Sniffy’s full name is Sniffy Toilet Roll, which is again what happens when you give a three-year-old the naming rights to family pets.

The first interview starts badly. Her name is Jackie and she’s nervous. She bites her nails and touches her hair constantly as if needing reassurance that it hasn’t disappeared.

Julianne’s instructions were clear. I am to make sure the nanny doesn’t do drugs, drink or drive too fast. Exactly how I’m supposed to find this out is beyond me.

‘This is where I’m supposed to find out if you’re a granny basher,’ I tell Jackie.

She gives me a puzzled look. ‘My granny’s dead.’

‘You didn’t bash her, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’

I cross her off the list.

The next candidate is twenty-four from Newcastle with a sharply pointed face, brown eyes and dark hair pulled back so tightly it raises her eyebrows. She seems to be casing the house with the view to robbing it later with her burglar boyfriend.

‘What car will I be driving?’ she asks.

‘An Astra.’

She’s not impressed. ‘I can’t drive a manual. I don’t think I should be expected to. Will there be a TV in my room?’

‘There can be.’

‘How big is it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Is she talking about watching it or flogging it, I wonder. I scrub out her name. Two strikes.

At 11.00 a.m. I interview a pretty Jamaican with braided hair, looped back on itself and pinned with a large tortoiseshell clip at the back of her head. Her name is Mani, she has good references and a lovely deep voice. I like her. She has a nice smile.

Halfway through the interview, there’s a sudden cry from the dining room. Emma in pain. I try to rise but my left leg locks. The effect is called bradykinesia, a symptom of Parkinson’s, and it means that Mani reaches Emma first. The hinged lid of the toy box has trapped her fingers. Emma takes one look at the dark-skinned stranger and howls even louder.

‘She hasn’t been held by many black people,’ I say, trying to rescue the situation. It makes things worse. ‘It’s not your colour. We have lots of black friends in London. Dozens of them.’

My God, I’m suggesting my three-year-old is a racist!

Emma has stopped crying. ‘It’s my fault. I picked her up too suddenly,’ Mani says, looking at me sadly.

‘She doesn’t know you yet.’ I explain.

‘Yes.’

Mani is gathering her things.

‘I’ll call the agency,’ I say. ‘They’ll let you know.’

But we both realise what’s happening. She’s going to take a job elsewhere. It’s a shame. A misunderstanding.

After she’s gone, I make Emma a sandwich and settle her for her afternoon nap. There are chores to do- washing and ironing.

I know I’m not supposed to admit such a thing, but being at home is boring. Emma is wonderful and enchanting and I love her to bits but there are only so many times I can play sock puppets or watch her stand on one leg or listen to her declare from the top of the climbing frame that she is indeed the king of the castle and I am, yet again, the dirty rascal.

Looking after young children is the most important job in the world. Believe me- it is. However, the sad, unspoken, implicit truth is that looking after young children is boring. Those guys who sit in missile silos waiting for the unthinkable to happen are doing an important job too, but you can’t tell me they’re not bored out of their tiny skulls and playing endless games of Solitaire and Battleships on the Pentagon computers.

The doorbell rings. Standing on the front step is a chestnut-haired teenager in low-slung black jeans, a T-shirt and tartan jacket. Ear studs like beads of mercury glisten on her earlobes.

She is clasping a shoulder bag hard to her chest, leaning forward a little. An October wind whips up an eddy of leaves at her feet.

‘I wasn’t expecting anyone else,’ I tell her.

Her head tilts to one side, frowning.

‘Are you Professor O’Loughlin?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Darcy Wheeler.’

‘Come in, Darcy. We have to be quiet, Emma is sleeping.’

She follows me along the hall to the kitchen. ‘You look very young. I expected somebody older.’

Again she looks at me curiously. The whites of her eyes are bloodshot and raw from the wind.

‘How long have you been a childcare professional?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘How long have you looked after children?’

Now she looks concerned. ‘I’m still at school.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She hugs her bag a little tighter, steeling herself. ‘You talked to my mother. You were there when she fell.’

Her words shatter the quietness like a dropped tray of glasses. I see a resemblance, the shape of her face, her dark eyebrows. The woman on the bridge.

‘How did you find me?’

‘I read the police report.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I caught the bus.’

She makes it sound so obvious but this isn’t supposed to happen. Grieving daughters don’t turn up on my doorstep. The police should have answered Darcy’s questions and given her counselling. They should have found a family member to look after her.

‘The police say it was suicide but that’s impossible. Mum wouldn’t… she couldn’t, not like that.’

Her desperation trembles in her throat.

‘What was your mother’s name?’ I ask.

‘Christine.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Darcy?’

She nods. I fill the kettle and set out the cups, giving myself a chance to work out what I’m going to say.

‘Where have you been staying?’ I ask.

‘I’m at boarding school.’

‘Does the school know where you are?’

Darcy doesn’t answer. Her shoulders curve and she shrinks even more. I sit down opposite her, making sure her eyes meet mine.

‘I want to know exactly how you came to be here.’

The story tumbles out. The police had interviewed her on Saturday afternoon. She was counselled by a social worker and then taken back to Hampton House, a private girls’ school in Cardiff. On Sunday night she waited until lights out and unscrewed the wooden blocks on her house window, opening it far enough to slip out. Once she had dodged the security guard, she walked to Cardiff Central, and waited for the first train. She caught the 8.04 to Bath Spa and a bus to Norton St Phillips. She walked the last three miles to Wellow. The journey took most of the morning.

I notice the grass clippings in her hair and mud on her shoes. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’

‘In a park.’

My God, she could have frozen to death. Darcy 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 beautifully ugly in a gawky teenage way, but destined in a few years to be exceptionally 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 all?’

‘Never.’

‘I need to call your school.’

‘I’m not going back.’ The sudden steel in her voice surprises me.

‘We have to tell them where you are.’

‘Why? They don’t care. I’m sixteen. I can do what I want.’

Her defiance has all the hallmarks 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 really 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.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

She hesitates and shakes her head. The sadness in her eyes tells half the story. Her last words to her mother were full 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.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

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 called her all 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 all Friday night and Saturday morning. The housemistress said Mum had probably gone away for the weekend and forgotten to tell 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 called the police.’

She holds herself perfectly still.

‘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, spilling 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, pulling 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 tell her that it won’t hurt like this forever or that one day she’ll forget how this feels. I’ve heard childcare experts talk about how fast children forgive and forget. That’s bullshit! 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 calling out for me. I climb the stairs to her room and lower one side of her cot, lifting her into my arms. Her fine dark hair is tousled by sleep.

I hear the toilet flush downstairs. Darcy has washed her face and brushed her hair, pinning it tightly in a bun that makes her neck appear impossibly long.

‘This is Emma,’ I explain as she returns to the kitchen.

‘Hi, gorgeous,’ says Darcy, finding a smile.

Emma plays hard to get, turning her face away. Suddenly, she spies the biscuits and reaches out for one. I set her down and, surprisingly, she goes straight to Darcy and crawls onto her lap.

‘She must like you,’ I say.

Emma toys with the buttons of Darcy’s jacket.

‘I need to ask you a few more questions.’

Darcy nods.

‘Was your mother upset about anything? Depressed?’

‘No.’

‘Was she having trouble sleeping?’

‘She had pills.’

‘Was she eating regularly?’

‘Sure.’

‘What did your mother do?’

‘She’s a wedding planner. She has her own company- Blissful. She and her friend Sylvia started it up. They did a wedding for Alexandra Phillips.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘A celebrity. Haven’t you ever seen that show about the vet who looks after animals in Africa?’

I shake my head.

‘Well, she got married and Mum and Sylvia did the whole thing. It made all the magazines.’

Darcy still hasn’t referred to her mother in the past tense. It’s not unusual and has nothing to do with denial. Two days isn’t long enough for the reality to take hold and permeate her thinking.

I still don’t understand what she’s doing here. I couldn’t save her mother and I can’t tell her any more than the police can. Christine Wheeler’s final words were addressed to me but she didn’t give me any clues.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask.

‘Come to the house. Then you’ll see.’

‘See what?’

‘She didn’t kill herself.’

‘I watched her jump, Darcy.’

‘Well, something must have made her do it.’ She kisses the top of Emma’s head. ‘She wouldn’t do it like that. She wouldn’t leave me.’