Harum Scarum (14 page)

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she repeated as she dragged herself back to reality. ‘Oh God, this is so embarrassing.’ She turned her face to the wall as Stevie came over to the bed.

‘Don’t worry, most people have nightmares Emma.’ Stevie sank onto the edge of the mattress and touched the girl’s arm. ‘Do you want to tell me what yours was about?’

Emma wiped her bare arm across her face and glanced at her watch on the bedside table. ‘I’m sorry I woke you, it’s Saturday, you should be having a lie-in.’

‘Usually, yes, but things are very busy so we’re working today. Luckily Izzy has a play date with a school friend.’ She took in the tear-smudged face. ‘How about I make us a hot chocolate?’ she said.

‘I’d rather a cold Milo if that’s okay.’ No hesitation. Despite the state she had woken in, she remained polite but forthright. Here was a girl who knew her own mind.

Emma followed Stevie into the kitchen, sat at the table and watched her make their drinks. It was too warm for dressing gown and slippers, too warm even for hot chocolate. Stevie slapped across the lino in her bare feet and oversized T-shirt and made two cold Milos. Just after seven in the morning and the light shining through the kitchen blinds was already the colour of warm honey.

‘I go through phases where I get the same nightmare over and over again—is that what happens to you?’ Stevie fished.

‘I usually control my nightmares or I use my wings and fly away from them. But I couldn’t control this one. Something horrible was happening to someone else and all I could do was watch, helpless.’

Stevie saw Emma’s eyes stray to the newspaper on the kitchen table. Bianca’s murder was still on the front page. The girl visibly paled and her eyes began to well again.

‘Emma, are you okay?’ Stevie folded the paper in half and pushed it away. She hadn’t taken the child to be quite this emotionally delicate. ‘You didn’t know her did you?’

Emma placed one hand over her mouth and gestured to the paper with the other. ‘No, but I hate all that. I don’t know how you do your job.’

‘I sometimes wonder too.’ Stevie took a sip of Milo and decided a rapid change of subject was necessary. ‘What do you want to be when you leave school?’

‘A teacher,’ Emma replied without hesitation, brightening up immediately. ‘I want to teach underprivileged children, you know, kids from homes where education is not considered important, especially if the child is a girl, like in third world countries. I believe lack of education is the root of all the world’s troubles. I want to encourage literacy, I’ve already got my own...’ Emma broke off mid sentence, as if she thought Stevie might be bored or might reproach her for her enthusiasm.

Stevie didn’t want her to stop, she was fascinated by the animation in the small intense face. The girl was way older than her years. Emma Breightling didn’t fit at all with the image of what a girl her age was supposed to be.

‘Go on,’ Stevie encouraged.

‘You might think this sounds dumb, but I want to have my own website for kids, to encourage reading, have story writing competitions, prizes and stuff. One of the teachers at school has one, but I want mine to be totally kid friendly, do you know what I mean? Not preachy and teachy. It’s a good idea, don’t you think?’

‘I think your ambitions sound fantastic. I’ll bet your parents are very proud.’

Emma fell silent, as she always did when her parents were mentioned. She took a sip of her cold drink.

‘You’ve given yourself a Milo moustache,’ Stevie said.

The girl wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and laughed; she had a wide mouth, designed for laughter.

‘Izzy always does that,’ Stevie said.

Emma had become serious again. ‘Apparently,’ she said, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, ‘I cause my Dad nothing but anxiety. I was kept down a year at school you see. I should have started high school this year. I’m glad I didn’t because they want to send me over east to boarding school and I don’t want to go. I had bad hearing when I was little—glue ear—and they seemed to think it set me back.’

‘And did it?’

‘No way, if anything it’s helped me more. I don’t care about being kept down at school; I like it there. I learn what I want to learn, no one bothers me and I know where I’m going—that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’

To know where you’re going? Lucky you.
Stevie’s gaze fell to her left hand. She usually kept the ring on while she slept, but last night she’d taken it off and put it on her chest of drawers.

‘You’re not wearing your engagement ring,’ Emma said with a frown, ‘did you lose it?’

Stevie waved away the child’s look of concern. ‘No, it was ... it was getting in the way.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, the set up you have here is kind of funny,’ Emma said, licking the crust of Milo from the edge of her glass.

‘Funny?’ Stevie queried, ‘In what way?’

‘The way you and Mr McGuire don’t live together and you never even have. It’s like Izzy comes from a broken home, only the home was never fixed in the first place, was it?’

Was the girl lumping Izzy among her clutch, settling her within her nest of disadvantaged children? If Stevie hadn’t had such a bad evening with Monty she might not have taken the statement so much to heart. She found herself curling her toes into the lino under her feet. ‘Maybe you should think about going back to bed,’ she said. ‘You might be able to snatch a second sleep; they’re always the best.’

Emma put her hand over her mouth, eyes widening behind the magnifying lenses. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve offended you.’

‘Not at all,’ Stevie lied. Jeez, the girl didn’t miss much. She was better than most adults at seeing through the crap and getting to the very heart of things. And not big on self censorship.

‘I can go home now if you like. I’ve got a school assignment to work on and lots of other stuff to do. I was planning on going early anyway.’

There was something about the hurried way Emma spoke, the way she eagerly jumped to her feet that made Stevie ask, ‘Emma, you really did get permission from your parents to stay over, didn’t you?’

‘I left a note.’

‘Yes, but what did your note say?’

‘Look, they don’t care where I am. Dad’s at a conference in Queensland and Mum’s always so busy worrying about something or other she doesn’t even
know
if I’m at home or not.’

Stevie searched the little face intently for a moment. ‘Busy with work you mean?’

The girl’s face lit with a cheeky smile. ‘Yeah, that too, but mostly what to wear out to lunch, laser or electrolysis for hair removal, worrying if collagen gives you Mad Cow—if it does she’s living proof.’

Resisting the urge to return the smile, Stevie repeated her question with more firmness. ‘What did you say in your note, Emma?’ She climbed to her feet and stood over the seated girl, suddenly feeling as if she was interviewing a suspect.

Emma gazed into to her Milo and said softly, ‘I left a note saying I’d gone to bed early. She never checks up on me once I’ve gone to bed.’

Stevie folded her arms. ‘Emma, does she even
know
you’ve started working for me?’

Emma nibbled at her bottom lip and shook her head.

‘But she knows you work for Mrs Carlyle, right?’

‘Yes, she doesn’t mind that,’ Emma said quickly.

‘Then why didn’t you tell her you were working for me?’

Emma’s eyes had not strayed from her glass. ‘Because you’re a cop. My mother doesn’t like cops.’

Stevie sat down again. ‘Look hon, this isn’t acceptable, whatever your reasons I can’t be party to this deceit. We’re going to have to get dressed, go and see your mother and explain the situation.’

‘But then you’ll be stuck without a babysitter!’

‘My mother will be back soon. This arrangement was only temporary, I explained that.’

‘But I love it here, I love Izzy...’

‘We might still be able to persuade your mum to let you come over now and then to play with Izzy.’

The girl’s face crumpled and the huge brown eyes filled. Stevie reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, ‘we’ll sort something out.’

Emma shook her head, letting fall a single tear. ‘You don’t know my mother.’

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.