Текст книги "Harum Scarum"
Автор книги: Felicity Young
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
33
A short, balding man turned his car into Stoppard’s driveway. When Angus and his team apprehended him, Andrew Bishop claimed he’d made a wrong turn and denied knowing anyone called Aidan Stoppard.
Angus led the man towards the unmarked police car in which Stoppard was still cuffed. The windows had steamed up, Stoppard only a vague blur behind the glass.
Tash and Stevie came out to meet them. Tash leaned over and said to Stevie through the side of her mouth, ‘Oh dear, looks like I forgot to leave a window open for him.’
A gush of extremities exploded from the car when Angus opened the door.
‘I’ve been unlawfully detained in here for over an hour; I’m hot and I’m thirsty and I need a piss; you can’t do this to me; I demand to see my lawyer...’ Stoppard swallowed the rest of his sentence when he saw Bishop’s soft shiny face staring at him through the car door. ‘Who’s this?’
‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ Angus said.
‘Never seen him before in my life,’ Stoppard said. No surprises there.
When both men had been driven away, Stevie stood in the carport and rang Central to see that Emma’s parents were notified that she was safe and would be brought home soon. Then she phoned Monty at the hospital and told him the good news. The blipping and beeping of the heart monitor underscored their telephone conversation. He sounded groggy and ready for sleep. She told him she loved him and would be seeing him soon. The old ache returned and she found herself blinking away tears.
Tash had accompanied Angus with the suspects, leaving a forensics team to search the Chateau for any further incriminating evidence. Emma and Stevie stood in the driveway until the frogs in the lake swallowed the sound of the disappearing cars.
Stevie held her hand out to the girl. ‘C’mon hon, time to get you back to the city. We need to record an official interview with one of your parents present.’
The girl wiped her mouth with her hand. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she whispered. ‘I need the toilet again.’
Stevie waited for Emma in the great hall. The child looked paler than ever when she returned.
‘Tummy trouble?’ Stevie asked
Emma nodded and rubbed her stomach. ‘Can we just wait here for a bit longer? If I go in the car now I think I might be sick.’ She sank into one of the chairs.
‘I thought you’d be wanting to get away from this place as soon as possible.’ Stevie sat down next to her.
‘No, I like it here.’
She’d rather be here than with her parents, Stevie thought. Sad. The forensics team had erected lights in the courtyard, and brilliant artificial light shone through the window. Every now and then lenses of Emma’s glasses flickered silver.
Stevie reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
‘If Mr McGuire’s in hospital, who’s looking after Izzy?’ Emma asked, her soft brown eyes filled with concern.
‘She’s staying with my mum, Izzy’s grandma. Her place is like a second home.’
‘Izzy must be worried sick about her dad.’
‘She’s okay; my mother’s explained everything to her. I’ll take her to the hospital to see him in the morning.’
‘That might be scary for her.’ Emma opened her mouth as if to say something else, then closed it again. It was obvious that there was a lot more on her mind than worry for Izzy.
‘Look, Emma, I know you’ve had a hard time, but I think you’ve left out quite a bit—when I interview you at Central, you’ll have to tell me everything.’
The girl took off her glasses and pressed her hands into her eyes. ‘In front of my parents? Do I have to, can’t I just tell you now?’
‘I might be able to find someone else to sit in with you if it would make you feel more comfortable.’
Emma hesitated, let out a sigh. ‘No it’s okay. I suppose they’d have to find out eventually.’
‘You can talk to me now if you like, but you don’t have to.’ Stevie had a sudden feeling that the girl might clam up during the official interview. Surely a few off the record questions while she seemed willing to talk wouldn’t do any harm? It might help the official questioning run more smoothly and that would mean less trauma for Emma in the long run.
‘You seem to understand a lot about paedophiles, how they work and what they do,’ she said.
Emma shrugged, ‘I read a lot.’
‘Tell me then, how you got to know Bianca Webster.’
The girl looked to the high ceiling, her voice shook. ‘How, how do you know that?’
‘I’ve read the emails and chat transcripts Bianca stored on her iPod.’
Emma’s hands twisted before her on the table. ‘I taught Bianca how to save stuff to her iPod. She didn’t want her mum finding them on her computer.’
There was a long silence.
‘Emma?
When the child finally spoke, it was through both hands covering her mouth, as if she was trying to separate herself from what was being said.
‘I met her at the agency; sometimes I have to wait for Miranda there after school. Bianca was crying, I felt sorry for her and we began to talk. I told her about a kids’ website which had some great stories on it and I said I thought it might cheer her up.’
Stevie gently removed Emma’s hands from her mouth. ‘And then you began writing Katy Enigma stories for her?’ She paused. ‘Look at me Emma.’
‘Ummm...’ Emma turned her head away again. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Yes you did, I found them. It’s your website, Emma, you call yourself Harum Scarum.’
‘Oh...’ Silence stretched between them. Stevie said nothing, hoping to let it work for her.
Finally Emma gave a resigned sigh. ‘Mainly she just read mine, but she had a go at writing the stories too sometimes. They got better each time, I think I really helped her and she seemed to get happier. But then, then she turned to that fraud Daniel. She was so unhappy and she needed some kind of escape. I don’t think my stories were helping her anymore. She kept asking me to meet her face to face, but I didn’t think it was such a good idea. Sometimes it’s best to retain a bit of distance from the people you’re trying to help, don’t you think?
‘But I stuffed up, I handled it wrong and now she’s dead. Maybe if I’d agreed to meet and talk to her she would be alive now. But I’ve got to know so many kids on the website and I can’t meet them all, can I?’
Emma lost the battle with her tears. ‘There’s so much else, I just don’t know how to say it. You’re going to think I’m a really really bad person.’
‘I’d never think that, Emma,’ Stevie said, weighing in her mind just how much she could push the child without causing her too much distress. ‘Tell me what you know about Miro Kusak’s death.’
The child gulped down air. ‘They’ll send me to prison. I did a bad thing.’
‘Emma?’ Stevie gently encouraged.
Emma shook her head violently. ‘No, no, I can’t tell you.’
34
Emma barely spoke on the journey back to the city. Earlier she’d admitted to having something to do with Kusak’s death, but she back-tracked on the drive home, telling Stevie she didn’t know anything. She’d only said what she’d said earlier because she wished it was true, wished that she really had killed him. This is one disturbed kid, Stevie thought as she glanced at the miserable figure curled in the front seat of the car.
‘How do you think one of your hairs got onto the dashboard of Kusak’s car, Emma?’ she asked, keeping her tone soft.
Emma sniffed. ‘Did it? Ummmm, I don’t know.’ Her face contorted as she battled to retrieve the memory—or invent the lie, Stevie wasn’t sure. ‘Hang on, I think I know; I sent Bianca some of my old clothes, I posted them a few months ago—maybe she was wearing something of mine when she was kidnapped and it had my hair on it?’
She was sure the girl was lying, but Stevie tried to keep her voice free from the suspicion she felt. ‘Can you describe the clothes you gave to her?’
‘It was a while ago, I’m not really sure, T-shirts, shorts,’ Emma said with a vague wave of her hand.
Stevie’s resolve slipped as exasperation moved in. ‘Emma, who are you trying to protect, yourself or someone else?’
Emma slapped both hands upon the dashboard, the sudden noise making Stevie swerve the car in surprise. ‘I’m not protecting anyone and you can’t say I am, you can’t prove anything!’ she cried.
Stevie remained silent, gripped the steering wheel and wished she had been more patient. Emma was right; she couldn’t prove anything. She still didn’t know exactly what happened that night at the lookout with Miro Kusak.
Whatever it was, she knew Emma hadn’t acted alone. The only thing she could think to do now was set up a meeting with Donna French. She might be able to give Emma some kind of counselling, persuade her to tell the authorities what she knew.
They drove on in silence for several more minutes. At last the tension began to ease. The girl leaned forward and began to fiddle with the radio, trying to find a station she liked. After a while she gave up and resigned herself to Stevie’s oldies station. Soon the unmistakable dissonance of a Hendrix riff filled the car.
Stevie judged the time to be right to ask a question that had been niggling in the back of her mind for some time now.
‘Emma,’ she asked, ‘just one more thing; your Internet nickname, Harum Scarum, what does it mean?’
The small white face turned from the radio and faced hers. Stevie had to strain to catch the words, whispered to the backdrop of Purple Haze.
‘It means confusion,’ she said.
At Central they met up with Emma’s father. He’d turned into an old man since Stevie had last seen him, with hunched shoulders and trembling hands. Tears glistened in his eyes as he pulled his daughter close. They recorded an interview in which she explained everything that had happened to her over the last twenty-four hours. As he learned about the true nature of Aidan Stoppard he covered his face with his hands, then slammed a fist on the table and cried, ‘I’ll kill him!’ Emma flinched at the explosion and Stevie warned Breightling to control himself.
His eyes softened as he met his daughter’s. ‘I’m sorry darling, so sorry for everything,’ he whispered and clasped her hand upon the table. Stevie noticed Emma squeeze it back.
When the interview was over, Stevie escorted father and daughter back to their house. With eyes red and puffy, the strain of the last twenty-four hours seemed also to be finally showing on Miranda’s face. She held Emma tight and sobbed with genuine relief when she met them at the door. But she might as well have been something reptilian if the look on Emma’s face was anything to go by. For one fleeting moment, Stevie felt sorry for Miranda.
‘Have they’ve locked Aidan up?’ Miranda asked when she finally let her daughter go.
Stevie nodded; there was little else she could say in front of the child.
Christopher placed an arm around Emma’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t you go and have a shower and get ready for bed?’
‘Will you come and see me later?’ Emma asked him.
Miranda looked at her watch and frowned.
‘Of course,’ Breightling said.
‘It’s nearly one o’clock,’ Miranda said.
‘I’d go and see her if it was five o’clock, Miranda.’
‘Yes, of course and I will too, she’s had a terrible time,’ Miranda conceded with a deep sigh.
Emma disappeared upstairs and Christopher offered Stevie a seat on an uncomfortable wooden bench near the window. The sound of trickling water from the garden pond and the croaking of the frogs reminded Stevie of the sound effects at Stoppard’s Chateau-by-the-Lake. Christopher suggested a drink. When she declined he poured a double measure of scotch into a crystal glass for himself, topped up Miranda’s orange juice with vodka.
‘You must believe us, we had no idea that Aidan was like this, no idea at all,’ Miranda said, agitating the ice in her glass.
‘The pornography in that secret room ... all those visitors he gets to the Chateau...’ Breightling forked slim fingers through his sparse hair. ‘Everything is beginning to make sense.’
‘I can’t believe that he tried to hurt her. He’s her godfather for God’s sake!’ Miranda’s voice was shrill, only a couple of notches below hysteria.
‘Last time we went up to the Chateau, she didn’t want to go, remember how she was, Miranda?’ Breightling didn’t look at his wife, just stared into his glass, swirling the liquid.
‘Well, she only said that to you. I wasn’t privileged to the information.’
‘I thought it was because of the hideous statues on the lawn,’ Christopher looked at Stevie. ‘I told her to stop being silly.’ His voice shook. He pulled out a bar stool and slumped next to his wife. Stevie wondered why they never seemed to opt for the more comfortable sofa—too intimate perhaps?
‘You’ve known Stoppard for a long time?’ Stevie asked him.
‘I was involved in a land development with him years ago. I was cutting down my practice hours, sick of the long hours and my frequent trips abroad. Aidan had been at school with Miranda.’
‘We met when we were both in year ten,’ Miranda said. ‘He’d just come over from England with his mother. He was so much more interesting than the other children, bright, worldly.’ Her sigh was almost dreamy. Jesus, woman, Stevie thought, do you have no regrets at all?
‘Worldly all right,’ Breightling laughed bitterly. ‘He’s got money now of course. He’s a self-made man who never tires of reminding me of it.’
Miranda stiffened on her stool. ‘It’s all very well to be clever after the event, Christopher. No one forced you to do business with him. You haven’t always thought this way about him.’
Stevie held her palms up to the couple.
Breightling took a breath and his eyes dropped once more to his scotch. ‘Yes well, he introduced us, actually.’ Stevie got the idea he would have been more than happy to erase that part of his life. Had it really been love at first sight? Maybe as far as Breightling was concerned—but did he have an inkling of what a prize he would have been for a woman like Miranda? And one tall poppy Aidan Stoppard must have relished shooting down.
Stevie wondered what else had been in it for Stoppard. A soft touch surgeon with little business acumen, perhaps? An attractive wife who produced an even more attractive daughter? The thought was so sickening, it had to be true.
‘Are you still involved in business with Stoppard, Mr Breightling? Stevie asked.
‘Of course, he was our accountant,’ Miranda put in.
Christopher gave a vague wave of his hand. ‘Still a few things here and there—more’s the pity.’
‘And how are they going?’ Stevie asked.
‘Terribly,’ said Miranda.
Breightling put his empty glass down. His face was twitching. ‘Nothing we can’t extract ourselves from. Just don’t, don’t be so melodramatic, Miranda.’
‘I’d like to warn you, Mr Breightling, that it won’t be hard for us to get access to your financial records,’ Stevie said.
Christopher Breightling dropped his head into his hands.
35
Monday morning
EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 141106
HARUM SCARUM: things beta with u now?
BETTYBO: no. scary
HARUM SCARUM did u c him again?
BETTYBO: mum did. he hit her. I wan 2 meet u F2F
HARUM SCARUM: sme and tell me about it
BETTYBO: ok
Wayne picked up Stevie on his way to the Breightling house. She’d already taken Izzy to see Monty in hospital, and told him how much better Monty looked—well enough even to complain about the food and speculate that there might really be such a place as the Rosa Klebb School of Nursing.
Wayne told her about his second interview with Sammy Nguyen. The kid had confirmed his suspicions that Aidan Stoppard was the man who’d introduced them to Zhang Li’s killer—identified him from his recent mugshot. And identified Christopher Breightling as the murdering doctor from a photograph Wayne found on a cosmetic surgery site.
‘I think he knew the doc’s name all along. Looks like Sammy was thinking of going into the blackmail business—get the doctor to pay for his silence. He’s been casing out Breightling’s joint and Miranda’s business.’
Stevie grunted. ‘Just as well he didn’t get any further. One manipulative kid on the loose is enough.’
‘Interesting thing, one night he was about to jump the wall at the Breightlings’ house when he saw a girl fishing around in the garden pond and chickened out. The girl had to be Emma. What do you reckon she was doing?’
‘Somehow I doubt she was catching tadpoles,’ Stevie murmured.
She was still pondering what Emma might have been up to in the pond when Angus rang. She listened to his report while Wayne continued to weave his way through the traffic to the Breightling’s home.
‘We’ve got him,’ she said to Wayne when she punched the off button. ‘We now have a convincing motive for Li’s murder and it backs up everything Sammy’s told you.’
‘Financial pressure from Stoppard?’
‘Financial thumbscrews more like. According to Angus, Stoppard and Breightling have been involved in a series of small developments since they first met, all instigated by Stoppard and all yielding modest returns. Then a few years ago the investment opportunity of a lifetime pops up. They invest in a large property in Wanneroo with plans of developing it into some kind of golfing estate. Stoppard provides the security for the loan with both parties responsible for repayments. But once the development starts, Stoppard calls on Breightling to repay the lot, which of course he doesn’t have, having just poured thousands into his wife’s business—which suddenly happens to be failing—upon the advice of his accountant.’
‘Who happens to be Stoppard—and, let me guess, Tall Poppies is far from failing?’ Wayne asked.
‘Right. Angus thinks Stoppard’s been cooking the books, getting together a tasty nest egg for himself, with or without Miranda, we’re not yet sure. Anyway, Breightling can’t get the money in the required time frame, so Stoppard puts the partnership into receivership and they are forced to sell the property for a song.’
‘Don’t tell me, to another company owned by Stoppard...’
‘Yes, which Breightling had no idea about. So in the end, Breightling is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, when his old pal Stoppard says, hey, I know a guy who might be able to help you with a loan.’
‘And the rest is history. Jeez, with friends like Stoppard...’
‘You don’t just get screwed for your money, you lose your wife and daughter too.’
‘I wonder which was the most important to Stoppard?’ Wayne mused. ‘Do you think he hoped Li would knock Breightling off?’
‘Maybe, but not necessarily. I think Stoppard just wanted to see Breightling suffer.’
‘That’s something I just don’t get. How long has Breightling known about him and his wife? I can’t understand why the hell he’s been putting up with it.’
‘Yeah well, relationships—who knows? But as far as Stoppard was concerned, Miranda and Breightling staying together would be worth much more financially to him. I doubt he was ready to let Breightling go until he’d sucked him totally dry.’
‘The guy’s a mongrel.’
‘And at the moment he’s exercising his right to remain silent. But we’ll get him. Clarissa’s pulling apart his laptop as we speak; it’s just a matter of time. She’s already accessed the Dream Team chat room, it’s full of creeps setting up deals, swapping and sharing their material.’ She worried her thumbnail for a moment. ‘There’s a link where you can order video footage of any kind of abuse you want to see, rape on demand, even snuff movies.’
Wayne shook his head.
‘There are members in the US, the UK and Germany—it’s going to be of interest to police on several continents. We might even be setting up a worldwide sting.’
‘How would you do that?’
‘By highjacking Stoppard’s online identity. But we have to act quickly, while we still have a media blackout—we don’t want word getting out that Lolita’s been arrested.’
‘I can see you’ll be having your hands full for a while.’
‘Yeah, plus identifying the kids in Stoppard’s films, and their parents or so-called carers.’
Traffic was lighter now. They whizzed down Guildford Road in silence for a while before Wayne spoke again.
‘Okay, so we’ve worked out the Zhang Li angle, but what about Kusak? They were both killed by the gun that belonged to Emma’s father.’
Stevie shrugged. ‘Maybe Emma and her father did it together? All along I’ve had the feeling she’s trying to protect someone.’
‘But do you really think he’d use his own daughter as bait to catch a paedophile?’
She shook her head. ‘No, for all his faults, Breightling loves his daughter. He would never put her in harm’s way like that.’
‘But so far that’s what the evidence is telling us.’ Wayne pulled the car to a stop outside the Breightlings’ house. ‘Here we are.’
Christopher Breightling opened the black lacquer door and squinted at them through the bright sunlight. He was in need of a shave and his pale T-shirt was stained with what appeared to be red wine.
‘What do you want? Can’t you just leave us alone for a while?’ he said.
Stevie was getting used to the effect she’d been having on people lately. She edged her foot into the crack in the door to prevent him from slamming it in their faces. ‘We need another word, sir.’
He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘When is this ghastly business going to end?’
‘I’m afraid it’s only just warming up,’ Wayne said as they pushed past him into the house. The curtains were still drawn, the kitchen strewn with evidence of a long night and the air sour with old wine. Music thundered down from Emma’s room on the mezzanine, a particularly loud heavy metal riff that made Christopher clamp his hands over his ears and groan.
Wayne flicked his head in the direction of the music and Stevie climbed the twisted staircase to Emma’s room. The girl was still in her pyjamas, lying on her bed propped up on her elbows and engrossed in sketching something. She wasn’t aware of Stevie’s presence until the stereo was switched off.
‘Oh, hi,’ Emma said, looking up from her drawing.
‘I didn’t know you were into heavy metal,’ Stevie said.
The girl shrugged. ‘Sometimes, in some moods.’
‘Then it sounds like you must be very angry.’
Emma returned to her sketching. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said, keeping her eyes on her work.
Stevie sank onto the edge of the bed. ‘I’m afraid we’ve come to arrest your father.’
At last she seemed to have the girl’s attention. The pale face flushed, the pencil snapped on the paper. ‘Why?’ she demanded.
‘We think he’s responsible for two fatal shootings.’ Somehow, a shooting sounded so much softer than murder.
Emma spun herself into a sitting position. Light from the window glinted on her glasses, making them look like windows with the shutters down.
Stevie looked at the drawings; images of gargoyles and pointy-tongued dragons. When Emma saw she was looking at them, she scraped them up, screwed them into a ball and threw them at her.
‘You’re wrong, you’re wrong!’ Emma shouted. Then she sprang to her feet, grabbed a photo from the desk and held it out to Stevie with both hands. It was the much younger Breightling with the African children. ‘Look at this, my father’s a doctor, he doesn’t kill people, he helps people!’ Then she burst into tears.
Stevie took the photo and put it back on the desk and attempted to comfort the girl. She clasped her thin shoulders and searched the small anguished face. ‘Emma, take some deep breaths. You are going to have to tell someone what you know about the death of Miro Kusak. It’s the only thing that might help your father now.’
Wayne peered around the door. ‘You ready?’ He was clearly bursting with something he wanted to tell her.
‘No, not yet,’ she said. She went out into the passageway with him.
‘He’s broken down,’ Wayne whispered. ‘Said he killed Zhang Li in self defence. He’s coming with me to Central to make a full confession. He’s just getting changed.’
Stevie cocked a surprised eyebrow. ‘That didn’t take long.’
‘Well, he’s no Aidan Stoppard, is he?’
‘What about Kusak?’
‘Said he’s never heard of him.’
‘Where’s the mother?’
‘Not here.’
Stevie felt her anger flare. ‘For God’s sake, that woman is too much. Is she just oblivious to everything that’s going on around her? I’m looking forward to a word with her ... wilful neglect, what do you reckon? Can we charge her with that?’
Wayne raised an eyebrow. ‘Save it Stevie, ranting at her isn’t going to do any good. Breightling took her to the hospital first thing this morning; apparently she OD’d on sedatives last night. She’s done it before, he says, when he brought up the D word with her. Seems she knows just the right amount of pills to take to avoid the nasty side effects.’
Maybe this was part of the reason Breightling stayed around, Stevie thought, the old leave-me-and-I’ll-kill-myself-trick.
She put her head back through the bedroom door and told Emma to get dressed as Wayne headed off to hurry up Breightling. Wayne was right, Stevie thought as she slumped against the wall of the mezzanine landing. Maybe it was just as well Miranda wasn’t here right now. Dishing it up to Miranda might make her feel better, but in the long term it would only make communication with the woman more difficult than it was already. And wilful neglect on top of the possession charges might make the authorities question Miranda’s suitability to keep her child. While the woman was no paradigm of motherhood, she was probably better than no mother at all.
She went back into Emma’s room. ‘Wash your face Emma, you’re coming with me to Central.’ It was time for some answers.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked as they headed to the front counter at Central.
Emma shrugged. ‘When are they letting Mum out of hospital?’
‘Later this afternoon, hopefully.’
‘Can I stay at your place tonight, just in case she can’t come home?’
Good God no, Stevie thought, and fill Izzy’s head with those weird stories? She shook her head and squeezed the girl’s arm. ‘I’m sorry, hon, it wouldn’t be appropriate. You have an aunt in Westminster, don’t you? I can give her a ring, just in case. Do you have her number?
Emma heaved a heavy sigh. ‘No, we hardly ever see her.’
Stevie was leaning across to ask the desk sergeant for the phone book when she overheard a well-dressed middle-aged woman ask for Sammy Nguyen’s paperwork which had been left there for her to collect. Stevie gathered from the conversation that this woman with the kind, grandmotherly face was Mrs Jenkins, Sammy’s case officer from child welfare.
Seizing the opportunity to get the interview with Emma started as quickly as possible, Stevie introduced herself to Mrs Jenkins. The social worker said she would be pleased to sit in on Emma’s interview.
‘I seem to be getting quite good at this,’ she said, smiling at Emma as she pulled up a chair at the interview room table. She placed the manila file on the table in front of her and removed some unused pages, writing Emma’s name at the head of the top sheet. Emma slumped next to the woman, her chin in her hands, her dark hair spilling like a veil over her face.
‘Come on now dear, get your hair from your eyes and sit up straight,’ Mrs Jenkins said.
Emma did as instructed. Stevie decided she liked this woman. She switched the tape on, stated the time and the names of those present.
‘Emma,’ she said. ‘Last night you told me you’d done a bad thing, but you wouldn’t tell me anything else about it. Was it something to do with Miro Kusak, the man who killed your friend Bianca? You see, your father has admitted to killing a man with his gun and it turns out that it was the same gun that was used to kill Mr Kusak. Did you tell your father about him, Emma? Did you tell him what Miro Kusak had done to your friend? Did you and your father go to the lookout and kill him together?’
Emma took her glasses off and shook her head wildly, her hair once more falling over her face. But when she spoke it was in an even and unemotional tone. ‘My dad had nothing to do with Miro Kusak’s murder. I took my dad’s gun from the safe and I gave it to someone else. You’re right, I planned it, but not with my father.’
Stevie glanced at the social worker. The woman had her eyes fixed on Sammy Nguyen’s file in front of her. Perhaps she was beginning to regret volunteering for the job. It wasn’t every day one became involved with a child accused of murder.
‘Emma, who did you give the gun to?’ she asked.
Emma bit at her bottom lip.
‘Who did you give it to?’
‘Bianca’s dad, Mr Bennett. Nick Bennett.’
But Stella said she hadn’t seen Bianca’s father since the conception! Stevie’s mind filled with questions, but she forced herself to let the girl continue without interruption.
‘He was very angry about Bianca’s death. He’d been having sex with her you know. In secret. He said he’d kill her if she told anyone, even her mum. But she told me. He saw her as his property, you see—he could have sex with her, but no one else could.’
The social worker squirmed in her seat. Stevie thought her discomfort was probably less about what was said, than how it was said. Emma’s matter of fact tone even had Stevie suppressing a shiver.
‘I wanted to kill Kusak when he killed Bianca, but I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, so I got Mr Bennett to do it for me.’
‘How did you manage to contact him?’
‘Bianca told me. We were going to write a story about him, just pretend, you know, but I still like to get the details right. He lives in a scungy block of flats in Mosman Park. He’s been to jail where he learned IT stuff and he’s fully into computers. He has the words love and hate tattooed on his knuckles, they look gross. Bianca gave me his email address and his phone number because we were going to write a story about stalking him and getting revenge—we called him Count Luvanhate.’ The memory caused a brief smile to flick across Emma’s face. ‘I also had all Daniel’s details—Daniel is Miro Kusak—because Bianca forwarded me his emails too, including one with his mobile number. I just called Kusak and arranged to meet him in Shenton Park, just like Bianca did. It was easy.’
It must have been when Kusak was on the run from the police, Stevie thought. Would the man have taken such a risk?
Emma seemed to sense Stevie’s incredulity. ‘I think he couldn’t believe his luck, having another girl so soon after the last one.’ She giggled, and the sound sent an icy tingle up Stevie’s back. Mrs Jenkins looked across at her, wide eyed.
Emma seemed to have no idea of the effect she was having and went on. ‘I said I was a friend of Bianca’s and that we had something to discuss. He thought I was stupid enough to come alone and try and blackmail him, because that’s what I told him. But you know about creeps like him, they can’t control themselves once they get horny. I wore a short skirt and a tight top, not my usual stuff.
