Read Shatter for Free Online Page B

perspective makes it look as though I’m close enough to touch her, to reach out and grab her before she fal s.
    Abernathy notices the same photograph. Rising from his desk, he walks to the door, opening it before I get to my feet.
    ‘It was a bad day at the coal face, Professor. We al have them. Make your statement and you can go home.’
    The phone on his desk is ringing. I’m stil in the doorway as he answers it. I can hear only one side of the conversation.
    ‘You’re sure? When did she last see her?… OK… And she hasn’t heard from her since? Right… Is she at home now?…
    ‘Send someone to the house. Pick her up. Make sure they get a photograph. I don’t want a sixteen-year-old identifying a body unless we’re bloody certain it’s her mother.’
    My stomach drops. A daughter. Sixteen. Suicide is not a matter of self determination or free wil . Someone is always left behind.

    4

    It takes me ten minutes to walk from the Boat House in Eastville Park to Stapleton Road. Avoiding the industrial estates and the slime-covered canal, I follow the concrete brutality of the M32 flyover.
    The plastic shopping bags are cutting into my fingers. I put them down on the footpath and rest. I’m not far from home now. I have my supplies: meals in plastic trays, a six pack of beer, a slice of cheesecake in a plastic triangle— my treats for a Saturday night, purchased from a Paki grocer who keeps a shotgun under his counter, next to the porn magazines in their plastic wrappers.
    The narrow streets cut in four directions, flanked by terraces and flat-fronted shops. An off-licence. A bookmakers. The Salvation Army selling second hand clothes. Posters warn against kerb crawling and urinating in public and, I love this one, putting up posters. Nobody takes a blind bit of notice. This is Bristol— city of lies, greed and corrupt politicians. The right hand always knows what the left is doing: robbing it blind. That’s something my dad would say. He’s always accusing people of ripping him off.
    The wind and rain have stripped leaves from the trees along Fishponds Road, filling the gutters. A street sweeping machine, squat with spinning wheels, weaves between the parked cars. Shame it can’t pick up the human garbage— strung-out slum kids who want me to fuck them or buy crack from them.
    One of the whores is standing on the corner. A car pulls up. She negotiates, throwing her head back and laughing like a horse. A doped horse. Don’t ride her, mate, you don’t know where she’s been.
    At a café on the corner of Glen Park and Fishponds, I hang my waterproof on a hook beside the door and my hat next to it, along with my orange scarf. The place is warm and smells of boiled milk and toast. I choose a table by the window and take a moment to comb my hair, pressing the metal teeth hard against my scalp as I pull it backward from my crown to the nape of my neck.
    The waitress is big-boned and almost pretty, a few years shy of being fat. Her ruffled skirt brushes against my thigh as she passes between the tables. She’s wearing a plaster on her finger.
    I take out my notebook and a pencil that is sharp enough to maim. I begin writing. The date comes first. Then a list of things to do.
    There is a customer at a table in the corner. A woman. She’s sending text messages on her mobile. If she looks at me I’ll smile back.
    She won’t look, I think. Yes, she will. I’ll give her ten seconds. Nine… eight… seven… six… five…
    Why am I bothering? Uppity bitch. I could wipe the sneer off her face. I could stain her cheeks with mascara. I could make her question her own name.
    I don’t expect every woman to acknowledge me. But if I say hello to them or smile or pass the time of day, they should at least be polite enough to respond in kind.
    The woman at the library, the Indian one, with hennaed hands and disappointed eyes, she always smiles. The other librarians are old and tired and treat everyone like book