Harum Scarum (6 page)

Stevie cleared the desk chair of shoes and sat down to make notes of the key points of her conversation with Stella.

Bianca was the product of a one night stand with a New Zealand backpacker on a Darwin beach. Stella remembered the man’s Christian name, Nicholas, but that was it. After their brief encounter he’d returned to New Zealand none the wiser of Stella’s pregnancy.

It had been a struggle to bring up Bianca alone. Stella worked a regular shift at Lotus Lodge as well as moonlighting at several nursing homes in the metro area. She averaged a sixty-hour working week and was saving up to take her daughter to Queensland for a holiday.

Bianca grew up well able to amuse and take care of herself. Last year she’d chucked a tanty (Stella’s words), insisting she was too old for after-school care. Stella had conceded and bought her daughter the laptop which had provided hours of amusement—much more educational for her than the TV, Stella had said.

Stevie had been unable to reply.

No, Bianca didn’t seem to enjoy school much, was often teased. She was a bit of a loner—her teacher had reported often seeing her alone at lunchtime, playing with her iPod. She didn’t have many friends, despite the effort she took to fit in: the belly button ring, the dyed hair, even the rock stars on the wall. Stevie tried not to react when Stella had mentioned the belly button ring—the early sexualisation of girls Bianca’s age seemed almost the norm these days.

Stevie gazed at the posters, recognising the Veronicas, Pink and a boy band whose name she couldn’t remember. Her talk with Stella had given her enough insight into the child’s personality to make her wonder whether the posters were only there on the off chance that one day a school friend might come over to play.

Bianca had wagged school several times last term, promising her mother after their last blow up that she wouldn’t do it again. Her mother thought it was because a kid called Zoë Carmichael was bullying her. When she’d approached the school about it they’d done nothing.

Despite her absenteeism Bianca’s school grades had been improving, especially in reading and story writing, and she even had a story published in the school newsletter. Untidy piles of type-written paper formed a nest where the laptop should have rested on the desk. Stevie shuffled through the scattered sheaves, hoping she might find some printed emails, but she only found doodles of brick walls, more Daniel hearts, and piles of half finished stories. ‘Once upon a time in a place far, far away.’ Or ‘It was a dark and stormy night...’ Nothing particularly original; atrocious spelling, but not bad for a child of this technological age where DVDs and computer games were the entertainment of choice.

Stevie searched through the wastepaper basket next to the desk and found a few more screwed up stories, some used tissues, chocolate wrappings and several empty potato chip packets.

A row of sagging shelves above the desk was weighed down with paperbacks—the Harry Potter series, Alex Ryder boy detective, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, Paul Jennings and several others. Despite the strained finances of her mother, it didn’t seem as if Bianca had gone without. Next to the books were jumbled piles of CDs, an iPod and a small-screen combo TV and DVD player.

‘Did you ever see what Bianca was doing on the computer?’ Stevie had asked Stella earlier.

‘Don’t know anything about computers, all I know is I get a whacking great bill for the Internet every month.’

‘Did she use email?’

‘Yes, with her Internet friends. I encouraged it. I couldn’t write a proper letter when I was her age. I was proud of her.’

If the woman had known anything at all about kids’ activities on the Internet, Stevie thought, she would have realised the letters were probably far from proper.

‘Why’s everyone so caught up over the computer, anyway?’ Stella had queried.

‘We think it might have been taken by her abductor to cover his tracks.’

‘You mean he took it when he grabbed her? But why would he do that?’

‘This man is probably a cyber predator, a paedophile who picks up children through the Internet and tricks them into meeting him. I doubt he came here to take the computer. A common ploy is to get the child to bring their laptop, if they have one, to the meetings. In that way they can destroy the computer and any evidence of their activities.’

At that point Stella had buried her face in her hands. ‘I never knew any of this. She was always so good. So quiet.’

Stevie heard her own mother’s voice across the chasm of the years: ‘You’re too quiet, you’re up to something.’ And usually they were, either putting laxatives in the shearers’ tea or hiding the hand-reared calf from their father at market time. There were no computers then, no Internet chat rooms and no mobile phones.

Stevie was thirty-five years old, but her childhood could have been a century ago.

Thursday

Her parents were at it again; Emma Breightling heard them yelling at each other in the kitchen. She padded through her bedroom door, still in her nightie, and peered down into the kitchen from behind the wrought iron banister, wondering what it was about this time. Three guesses: money, money or maybe even money; Emma wasn’t usually wrong. She looked down at her mother’s head and saw the gleam of scalp shining through the dark sculptured hair. Miranda would be mortified if she knew how exposed and vulnerable—how
old
—she seemed from this height.

Emma took hold of the decorative balustrade on the mezzanine with both hands and wiggled at it. The ornamental railings were loosening nicely in their concrete beds and would soon be more of a danger than a safety feature. God help the stumbling drunk who might one day lean upon it for support. Emma smiled to herself and continued to watch Miranda.

Her mother hit the side of the table with the rolled up morning paper, making the Spode cups rattle in their saucers, the milk shiver in the matching jug. Emma’s father flinched but said nothing. Emma could imagine the little muscle in his jaw twitching, one beat short of a facial tic. It was as if there was something lurking there just under his skin, bursting to get out. He reached for a paper napkin and placed it under his cup to absorb the slops.

‘You’ve got to do something, Christopher! I can’t take much more of this—this not knowing. Have you any idea what it’s doing to me?’

‘Miranda, I told you, everything’s fine. It was just a temporary cash flow problem; we’re back on track now.’

Compared to his wife’s hysterical shriek, her father’s voice sounded calm and slow, though Emma could tell by the twitch and by the clenching and unclenching of his fist on the table, how close he was to snapping.

‘Aidan said—’

‘You shouldn’t be listening to Aidan,’ Christopher interrupted.

‘He said we might have to sell the house.’

‘That stupid nouveau prick doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just leave everything to me, it’s going to be fine.’

‘That’s no way to speak of your oldest friend,’ Miranda pouted. ‘
And
our accountant—if anyone should know, he should.’

‘
Your
oldest friend, Miranda; not mine.’

Christopher said no more, refusing to be drawn into a conversation about Aidan Stoppard. Funny, he never listened to Emma either, when she tried to tell him what her godfather was really like; it seemed he never listened to either of them any more.

Miranda bided her time, drumming her long fingernails on the breakfast table, clicking them like metal balls on strings. Emma knew the signs; her mother was dredging for something else to hurl at her husband.

At last she seemed to find it. ‘That man was hanging around outside the agency again the other night,’ Miranda said. ‘I told you to do something about him. I’ve not been sleeping; my nerves are shot to pieces. You’ll have to give me another prescription. Imagine if he tried to do something to one of the girls?’

Emma had to stop herself from laughing out loud; Miranda was even dumber than she thought. You’d think that after fifteen years of marriage, she would have realised the only thing that got Christopher Breightling flustered was money; money and Aidan Stoppard, which were one and the same thing really.

‘When was it you saw this man?’ Christopher asked calmly.

Miranda lifted her chin. ‘Monday.’

He took several measured sips of coffee before answering her. ‘I spoke to him weeks ago, I told you that.’

‘Well it can’t have done much good, whatever you said. He was hanging around outside the agency again, ogling the girls, just like before. And you’re off to your stupid conference in Queensland this afternoon. What do I do if he comes back?’

‘I’ll only be away a couple of days. Get Julian to talk to him if you’re worried.’

‘Huh, some help he is.’

‘Are you sure it was the same man? What did he look like?’

‘It was dark, so I couldn’t see his face but he was smallish, and thin, and he was wearing a hooded windcheater.’

Christopher paused with the coffee cup halfway to his lips. For a moment he appeared to stare right through Miranda. Then he gave a slight shrug. ‘There are always men hanging around waiting to get a glimpse of the girls, and he sounds like a different man to me. I’m sure the one I spoke to won’t be coming back.’ After some deliberation he said, ‘Maybe you should just go to the police.’

Emma was sure she saw the hint of a smile on his face—yay, one for the old man at last. After Miranda’s last disastrous contact with the police, he’d have to know she wouldn’t dream of involving them in this.

Emma turned back into her room, stopping when she reached her desk to gaze at the photo on the pin up board. The picture showed a small dark-skinned boy standing in front of a mud shack, grinning. His name was Josef, he lived in Morocco and he was her World Vision sponsorship child. She rummaged in her school bag and plopped yesterday’s lunch money in the tin under the photo. Then she kissed her finger and tapped the small boy’s face with it. Every morning Christopher gave her money to buy lunch and every morning she put it in her tin and made her own lunch after he’d left for work.

She selected her wardrobe for the day, an old pair of school track pants with torn knees and saggy waistband. The other girls would doubtless be wearing their sexy pleated sports skirts. This was the thing she liked the most about her state school, the compulsory school uniforms—not.

In her pink en-suite bathroom, designed by her mother to keep her out of hers, she brushed her long dark hair one hundred times. Then she bent over and mussed it all up again. Satisfied with the unkempt look, she went downstairs to make some toast for breakfast, planning on taking it back up to her room to eat as she scanned her morning’s email.

The tension between her parents had eased by the time she joined them in the large open plan kitchen which merged into the family area. Her father was crunching cereal, her mother reading the newspaper horoscope.

‘Huh,’ Miranda scoffed as she read her stars aloud.
‘A work colleague might surprise you.’
Maybe it means Julian will at last come up with the photos for the catalogue. God know, he’s had the proofs for weeks. I can’t stall Hartley Macs for much longer. Before we know it, they’ll be hassling me for the autumn shots.’

‘Sack him,’ Christopher said dispassionately. ‘He’s already got you into enough trouble as it is.’

‘That’s easier said than done. Good photographers are almost impossible to find these days.’

‘Do you need a lift to work?’

‘No, I’m fine; Julian’s picking me up. Or so he said.’ She glanced at the watch on her wrist. ‘He’s late of course. I can’t believe how long the panel beaters are taking with my car. It was only the smallest of dents.’

Miranda rattled the newspaper and Emma caught a glimpse of the headlines, something about a missing girl. The few words she read made her breath jam in her chest. She cocked her head and tried unsuccessfully to peer at the front of the paper as it quivered in her mother’s hands above her breakfast grapefruit.

Then the phone rang.

‘Always at meal times, guaranteed,’ Christopher grumbled as he picked up the phone, quickly switching to the unctuous cheer of his bedside manner. Emma had once overheard one of his professional colleagues saying that despite what he might once have been, these days Christopher Breightling had the bedside manner of a vet. Emma didn’t understand the comment; vets were usually nice.

He listened for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, certainly, here she is.’ He held the phone out to Emma without looking at her, his attention already back on his breakfast.

‘Hello Emma, my name’s Stephanie Hooper,’ the voice on the end of the phone said. ‘I live quite close to you in Hill View Terrace. I’ve been speaking to Mrs Carlyle—apparently you babysit her twins when she goes shopping.’

‘Uh, yes, that’s right,’ Emma said.

‘Mrs Carlyle is very impressed with you and thought you might be looking for more babysitting work. I was wondering if you might be interested in doing some after-school care for me? I have a six year old daughter who goes to your school. It would be a case of walking her home from school and staying with her until her father or I get home. It’ll be regular for a week or so until my mother comes back from holiday, then just occasionally after that. I’m a police officer, so my work hours are a bit erratic.’

‘I remember you, you’re the lady who talked to us at school the other day.’

‘That’s right.’

Emma could hear the smile in the woman’s voice. ‘Cool.’ ‘You’d better check with your parents then, make sure it’s okay.’

‘Sure.’ Emma put her hand over the receiver and left it there for a moment. Her mother got up from the table to make herself another cup of tea. Taking advantage of her turned back, Christopher took the paper and spread it open at the finance pages, now obscuring the headlines completely.

‘Yes, they said it would be fine,’ Emma said into the phone after a suitable lull. ‘When shall I start?’

‘Come over to my place after school today to meet Izzy, number 25 Hill View terrace. We can take it from there.’