Shatter by Michael Robotham Page B

finished up at the Clifton Suspension Bridge on Friday afternoon. At some point she stopped using her mobile and picked up another. When did it happen and why?
    Oliver pushes his chair away from the desk and rol s across the room to a second computer. His fingers flick at the keyboard.
    ‘I’m searching the base stations in the area. If we work backwards from five o’clock, we may find Mrs Wheeler’s mobile.’
    He points to the screen. ‘There are three base stations nearby. The closest is on Sion Hil , at the bottom of Queen Victoria Avenue. The tower is on the roof of the Princes’ Building. The next closest is two hundred yards away on the roof of Clifton Library.’
    He types Christine Wheeler’s number into the search engine. The screen refreshes.
    ‘There!’ He points to a triangle on the screen. ‘She was in the area at 3.20 p.m.’
    ‘Talking to the same cal er?’
    ‘It appears so. The cal ends at 3.26.’
    Ruiz and I look at each other. ‘How did she get another mobile?’ he asks.
    ‘Either someone gave it to her or she had it with her. Darcy didn’t mention a second phone.’
    Oliver is listening in. He’s slowly being drawn into the search. ‘Why are you so interested in this woman?’
    ‘She jumped off the Clifton Suspension Bridge.’
    He exhales slowly, making his face look even more skul -like.
    ‘There must be some way of tracing the conversation on the bridge,’ says Ruiz.
    ‘Not without a number,’ replies Oliver. ‘There were eight thousand cal s going through the nearest base stations every fifteen minutes. Unless we can narrow the search down…’
    ‘What about duration? Christine Wheeler was perched on the edge of the bridge for an hour. She was on the phone the whole time.’
    ‘Cal s aren’t logged by length,’ he explains. ‘It could take me days to separate them.’
    I have another idea. ‘How many of the cal s ended precisely at 5.07 p.m.?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘That’s when she jumped.’
    Oliver turns back to the keyboard, typing in parameters for a new search. The screen becomes a stream of numbers that flash by so quickly they blur into a waterfal of black and white.
    ‘That’s amazing,’ he says, pointing to the screen. ‘There’s a cal that ended at precisely 5.07 p.m. It lasted more than ninety minutes.’
    His fingers are tracing the details when they suddenly stop.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
    ‘That’s strange,’ he replies. ‘Mrs Wheeler was talking to another mobile which was routed through the same base station.’
    ‘Which means what?’
    ‘It means whoever was taking to her was either on the bridge or looking at it.’

    13

    There are girls playing hockey on the field. Blue-pleated skirts swirl and dip against muddy knees, pigtails bounce and sticks clack together. The word budding comes to mind. I have always liked how it sounds. It reminds me of my childhood and the girls I wanted to fuck.
    The sports mistress is refereeing, her voice as shrill as a whistle. She yells at them not to bunch up and to pass and to run.
    ‘Do keep up, Alice. Get involved.’
    I know of some of the girls’ names. Louise has the long brown hair, Shelly the sunshine smile and poor Alice hasn’t hit the ball once since the game began.
    A group of adolescent boys are watching from beneath a yew tree. They are sizing up the girls and poking fun at them.
    Every time I look at the girls I imagine my Chloe. She’s younger. Six now. I missed her last birthday. She’s good at ball games. She could catch by the time she was four.
    I built her a basketball hoop. It was lower than regulation height so she could reach. We used to go one-on-one and I always let her win. In the beginning she could hardly sink a basket but as she grew stronger and her aim improved, she landed maybe two shots in every three.
    The hockey game is over. The girls are running indoors to change. Shelly with the sunshine smile runs across to flirt with the boys and is shepherded away by the sports