Текст книги "Harum Scarum"

Stevie struggled to make conversation as she drove Emma home. ‘Is your father some kind of specialist?’ She shot a look at the girl sitting rigidly beside her. He had to be more than a GP to afford the Hitler’s-bunker by the river’s edge, she thought.

‘He’s supposed to be a plastic surgeon, specialising in the treatment of burns. He used to be famous for the work he did in war torn countries. Maybe you’ve heard of Christopher Breightling.’

Stevie mused over the name. Yes, it did have a familiar ring.

Emma’s top lip curled as she continued. ‘Now he’s into cosmetic surgery—there’s more money in it you see, and my mother has expensive tastes.’

Stevie smiled to herself. At the traffic lights she stopped and angled the rear vision mirror to inspect herself. She made a play of pushing up the skin of her forehead and stretching it away from her cheeks. ‘A handy man to know, maybe I’ll give him a call someday,’ she said, attempting to lighten the mood.

‘Don’t,’ Emma said with surprising vehemence.

Stevie glanced over at her as she took off from the lights.

‘Plastic surgery sucks. One more nip, one more tuck, then I’ll be perfect. People are never satisfied with what they’ve got. And only vain rich people can afford to have it done while the people who really need it, the people my father used to treat, don’t have a chance.’

‘I was joking.’

‘It’s not funny,’ Emma said. ‘People in the west spend too much time and money worrying about what they look like and then in the end you can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake.’

Christ, the kid will be preaching hell and damnation soon. Never satisfied with what they’ve got. Stevie untwisted her seatbelt and attempted to make herself more comfortable.

In the back seat Izzy played with a computer game. A series of beeps came as a welcome distraction.

‘How’re you going back there, Izzy?’ Stevie asked, for once wanting a conversation interrupted by her daughter

‘Good,’ Izzy answered. End of topic. Great.

‘And what does your mum do, apart from go out to lunch?’ Stevie glanced at her passenger.

Emma’s face screwed up with distaste. ‘She runs a modelling agency. And a school of etiquette.’

Stevie paused to digest this. ‘And I gather you don’t approve of either?’

‘You wouldn’t if you saw what went on there. Girls younger than Izzy turned into baby beauty queens by stupid mothers who wish they could change places’—Emma broke off, giggled and pointed to an old woman trundling down the footpath with a shopping trolley. ‘Hey, look Izzy, there goes old Mrs Do-as-you-would-be-done-by, the lady I told you about, the one with all the cats.’

Izzy wriggled in her harness with excitement. ‘The witch, the witch!’

‘She’s a good witch, remember, that’s why she takes in all those strays.’ Turning back to Stevie she rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry about that, my going on about cosmetic surgery and modelling schools I mean.’ She smiled. ‘Oh and that’s not really the old lady’s name, it’s the name of a character from the Water Babies—just part of an imagination game I play with Izzy.’

Stevie smiled back, but said nothing. What a strange kid you are, she thought. You know you’re strange and you play on people’s reactions to it too. Somehow she found herself liking the girl all the more for it.

Emma straightened as they came to her house. ‘Oh-oh, here goes nothing,’ she said, a thirteen-year-old again.

The black lacquered doors of the mansion opened as they pulled alongside the curb and a man stepped onto the porch. He seemed to be saying goodbye to someone inside. His head and shoulders disappeared from sight, the hidden movement suggestive of a kiss.

Emma shivered and slipped further down the car seat. ‘Oh shit,’ she breathed.

Stevie threw her a startled glance. ‘Who’s that?’

The girl twiddled quote marks in the air. ‘The family friend—my godfather. Please, let’s just stay here a moment, wait for him to leave.’

Stevie studied the man as he strode towards a black Porsche parked a little further down the road. Here was a man who knew he cut a dashing figure. His jaw jutted forward in a manner very like that of a male salmon, his longish brown hair was wet and curled carefully behind his ear. In his pink polo shirt, white pants and boaters without socks, he could have been sauntering down the road to the yacht club.

‘Actually,’ Emma said in a matter of fact tone, ‘he’s Aidan Stoppard and as well as my godfather he’s my parents’ accountant.’ Then she said casually, as if it were an afterthought, ‘He’s also my mother’s lover. He always visits when my father’s away.’

Emma shrugged her shoulders in response to Stevie’s gob-smacked look. Stevie wondered if she was being manipulated. Was the child making up stories, trying to provoke sympathy in order to avoid being dobbed in for her deceit? That must be it, she decided as she regarded the small, deadpan face. Mature beyond her years, Emma had already proved herself quite capable of manipulation and deception. Perhaps it was just as well the babysitting was coming to an end.

The Porsche took off with a throaty rumble at about twenty over the speed limit. Had she been in uniform, Stevie would have relished the job of booking that one.

‘C’mon Emma,’ she said, twisting around to the back seat and unclipping Izzy’s belt. ‘Time to face the music.’ Izzy held Stevie’s hand and skipped up the path towards the house with Emma dragging her heels behind them.

Miranda appeared a model of cool poise when she opened her door to find her daughter on the front step with a stranger and a small child. The only sign of surprise on the beautifully made up face was a deepening of the almost imperceptible lines between the startling violet eyes. ‘Emma, what an earth are you doing out here? I thought you were in bed.’

‘I need to get some homework done.’ Emma brushed past her mother, dragging her bag across the marble floor, leaving skid marks of dirt behind her.

The mother rolled her eyes. ‘Teenagers,’ she sighed.

Stevie said, ‘There seems to have been a bit of a misunderstanding, Mrs Breightling. I believe you’ve been under the impression that Emma has been doing some extra babysitting for Mrs Carlyle, when in fact she’s been working for me. She slept at my house last night and I thought you knew about it, but you obviously didn’t. I’ve come to apologise; it seems we’ve had our wires crossed.’

From somewhere within the house, Stevie heard the sound of footsteps scraping up a stone staircase.

Miranda Breightling pursed plump lips and touched her short, immaculately styled hair. ‘I’m afraid I lost control of Emma a long time ago. This is very embarrassing, you’d better come in, Mrs...’

Stevie put out her hand. ‘Just call me Stevie,’ she said. ‘Stevie Hooper.’

The woman flinched under Stevie’s firm grip. ‘I’m Miranda Breightling. Come in.’

Miranda glided ahead, a small woman, walking as straight as if she had a book balanced on her head. Stevie followed, trainers squeaking on the white marble tiles. A ditty of her father’s popped into her mind and the memory made her smile. When you use this marblehall, use the paper not the wall.

The house was more interesting on the inside than it was on the outside, although the ultra modern décor was not to Stevie’s taste. She preferred old things, things with warmth and character. More black lacquer doors to the right of the front entrance opened into a formal lounge dominated by an oversized cream modular couch. As she progressed through the house she discovered the soft furnishings to be the exception, not the rule; the place consisting mostly of wrought iron, stone and sharp angles. The kitchen contained more stainless steel than a hospital morgue. Light streamed in from a stained glass skylight in the adjoining family area. There was no evidence of a TV. A shiny black couch stood next to a blocked up fireplace.

At the granite breakfast bar, Miranda pulled up a wrought iron barstool for Stevie to perch on. She turned to a coffee machine, whose milk frother sounded like an old-fashioned steam train. Stevie wondered if the sound effects were a ploy on Miranda’s part to delay what was sure to be an uncomfortable conversation for both of them.

In her white linen skirt suit, Miranda looked as cool as ice cream, although Stevie did detect a slight tremor in her hand and an almost imperceptible quivering of froth on the cappuccino placed before her.

They made small talk. Stevie could tell that the woman couldn’t wait to get rid of her, but courtesy demanded a show of gratitude to the scruffily dressed woman who’d brought her daughter safely home.

It was patently obvious that Miranda wasn’t interested in Stevie’s polite answers to her polite questions, and was even less interested when Stevie tried to reintroduce the topic of Emma’s deceit. The restless eyes indicated a mind far away on more important things—lunch? Hair removal? Surely the woman couldn’t be as shallow as her daughter had made out.

Stevie knew she’d failed the etiquette test the moment she’d gripped Miranda’s hand too tightly. She shook hands the way her father had taught her. She tried to make up for it now by mimicking her perch upon the barstool, but failed in this too. The stool wasn’t built for comfort, and in jeans the natural tendency was to flop the legs, not keep them taut and together like Miranda’s, constricted as they were in the tight skirt.

Coffee from the overfilled cup slopped onto Stevie’s jeans at her first sip. Damn, another fail, but it could have been worse. Once when she’d been out at a restaurant with Monty, a gulp of coffee had gone down the wrong way and she sputtered it all over the white tablecloth. They’d laughed so much they’d had to leave. Under different circumstances it would have been quite fun to take the piss out of this woman, give her a bit of a shock. No wonder Emma was such a reactionary.

She wondered what Monty would have thought of Miranda. She was very beautiful, no doubt about it, but that wouldn’t have fazed him. He wouldn’t have felt as uncomfortable here as Stevie did, he was at home anywhere, in an outback pub or a reception at Government House. With a good education behind him and well travelled, he could be smooth as molasses when he wanted to be and probably would have charmed the be-Jesus out of her. She shook her head to stop her mind from wandering any further.

Miranda’s fingers were long and graceful and adorned with a tasteful array of rings; nothing too big or garish. Her large eyes followed Izzy as she explored, worried perhaps about sticky fingermarks on the pristine surfaces.

Izzy stopped when she came to an abstract arrangement of steel and glass rising out of the floor, gazing up at it, no doubt trying to figure out what it was. She reached to touch one of the sharp edges and Stevie called out to her to stop, worried she would damage herself on one of the steel points which rose to the vaulted ceiling like spears.

Izzy dropped her hand and turned, bestowing an angelic smile upon the two women seated at the breakfast bar.

Miranda’s smile in response was probably as genuine as she was capable of through the eggshell smooth skin. ‘What a beautiful child,’ she murmured to Stevie, ‘those Shirley Temple curls—’

‘Can I go upstairs and see Emma?’ Izzy asked her.

‘Of course you can, darl,’ Miranda said.

‘Just for a minute, it’s nearly time to leave for Georgia’s house,’ Stevie said as her daughter scuffed up the stairs to the mezzanine landing, calling for Emma.

Stevie’s coffee tasted like mud. She forced down a final swallow, resisting the urge to pull a face. Give her instant coffee any day. A breeze cooled her cheek and she became aware of the musical sound of trickling water, tracing its source to an open window at the back of the family room. Next to it French doors opened into a high walled courtyard blocking the view of the river beyond. The paving and wall were made of recycled bricks, rustic and charming and quite incongruous with the style of the rest of the house.

‘Have you ever thought of signing Izzy up with a modelling agency?’ Miranda’s violet eyes were now focused intently on Stevie’s for the first time since they’d met.

Stevie dragged her gaze from the inviting view outside. ‘Nah, not really, not my scene,’ she said, roughening up her voice just for the hell of it. ‘I suppose I might let her if she was keen when she was older, but frankly I haven’t got the time as things are.’ Now might be a good time to test out one of Emma’s possible lies. ‘I’m a police detective you see, which means a lot of after hours work. I don’t think I’d ever find the time to get her to the shoots, the make-up courses and whatnots.’

Miranda visibly paled under the layer of foundation. Her eyes widened and her hand crept to her throat. Sheesh, Stevie thought, Emma wasn’t lying, not even bending the truth on this one. The mention of police had left the woman looking like a roo in headlights.

Miranda composed herself, slid from the barstool and looked at her wristwatch. ‘My goodness, is that the time?’

Stevie followed suit. ‘I suppose we should get those girls moving,’ she said, heading towards the stone stairway. She called out for Izzy, heard footsteps thumping on the mezzanine and saw her daughter peering down at them through the decorative balustrade.

‘Thank you for telling me what Emma’s been up to. I think it’s best that Emma stops working for you. It’s the only way for her to learn.’ Miranda looked pointedly at her daughter who was coming down the staircase. Stevie agreed, adding that Emma was more than welcome to call by any time for a visit.

‘But I want Emma’s stories!’ Izzy cried.

Stevie stopped on her way to the stairs, feeling something cling to the wisp of a thought in her mind, something connected to the Bianca Webster case. But like a feather in the wind, it blew away before she could grasp it.