She thought for a moment, pondering the lines. As realisation dawned she covered her mouth with her hand. Oh God, is this what the site was really all about?
25
Sunday Morning
EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 151206
BETTYBO: he did it again 2me 2day
HARUM SCARUM: u ok?
BETTYBO: I wanna run away
HARUM SCARUM: me2 but we can’t
BETTYBO: ynot?
HARUM SCARUM: betta 2 get even than run
BETTYBO: lik u?
Aidan Stoppard’s Porsche was parked in the Breightlings’ driveway. Stevie laid her hand flat on the bonnet as she hurried past it. Cold.
The black lacquer door opened before she had a chance to knock. Miranda stood before her with panda eyes, pillow hair and pale blotchy skin. When she saw Stevie standing there, she pulled her silk robe tight over her generous breasts, strikingly out of proportion with the rest of her small frame. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said in puzzled recognition. ‘That was very quick.’
‘I only live around the corner from you Mrs Breightling. Central contacted me at home and I came right away.’
‘Who is it?’ Stevie heard a deep male voice from somewhere down the sepulchred hallway.
‘The police, Aidan,’ Miranda called over a porcelain shoulder.
From the distant family area Stevie recognised Aidan Stoppard. ‘Already?’ he queried.
‘They told me you’d reported Emma missing,’ Stevie said. Miranda took a deep breath, the ribs in her chest visibly straining. ‘Yes, yes, you’d better come in. I think she’s been kidnapped!’
With ballerina grace she turned on her bare heels and fled down the passageway into the waiting arms of Aidan Stoppard.
He looked gravely at Stevie as she approached, pushed Miranda gently to the side and handed her his business card. Stevie barely glanced at it, put it in her jeans pocket.
He cleared his throat and explained, ‘I’m a friend of the family, popped in for breakfast. Miranda’s just told me the news.’ He spoke with a slightly flat intonation, the residue of some kind of faded London accent Stevie suspected. The Bill flashed briefly to mind.
She cut him no slack. ‘No you didn’t just pop in for breakfast, you stayed here overnight.’
The tight expression and the straightening of his shoulders told Stevie this was a man not used to being challenged.
‘Emma and I get nervous when Christopher’s away,’ Miranda cut in, as if anticipating an unfavourable reaction from Stoppard. ‘And Emma’s prone to nightmares. She feels more secure with her Uncle Aidan around.’
Stoppard relaxed, spoke with a flash of white teeth, ‘There you go then, sorry about the white lie, officer. People will talk and Miranda has a reputation to maintain. Christopher knows I stay here—the spare room’s a home away from home for me.’
‘Of course it is.’ Stevie didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm. Emma had told Stevie the other night that she didn’t have problems with nightmares, that she was usually able to control her bad dreams. So which one of them was lying and why?
Emma had also told her that her mother and Aidan Stoppard were lovers.
She regarded Stoppard closely; he wore white pants and a lightweight dark polo neck. When she’d seen him the other day from the car, she’d assumed his hair had been wet from the shower, now she realised it must have been slicked down with gel. In contrast to Miranda’s dying swan look, Stoppard looked clean, neat and pressed, as if he’d at least had the time to shower and change while Miranda was making her frantic calls to the police.
He fingered a longish curl behind his ear where a single diamond stud gleamed. ‘Err, don’t you want to hear the details?’ he asked.
Stevie glanced at Miranda. She wasn’t looking at either of them, but was busy rolling the hem of her robe back and forth between her fingers.
‘Go on,’ Stevie said.
‘I heard screaming from Emma’s room. I rushed in and turned the light on. She woke up, seemed very embarrassed, said she had a nightmare and apologised for disturbing me.’
‘She often gets night terrors,’ Miranda stammered. ‘When she was younger it was always the monster from under her bed. I would’ve gone if I’d heard her, but I’d taken a sleeping pill and was out for the count.’
A hollow feeling grew in the pit of Stevie’s stomach.
‘And what time was it that you went into Emma’s room, Mr Stoppard?’ Stevie asked, the hollow feeling turning to dread.
‘About one o’clock, I’d say.’
Stevie kept her voice level. ‘Did she say anything else?’
‘She said there was a man in her room. I searched it, looked in the wardrobe, under the bed, out the window—just to humour her, yeah? She seemed reassured by this and went back to sleep. I feel like a right prat now of course, I should have believed her.’
‘Stupid, Aidan, stupid,’ Miranda spat, the air around her crackling as if with static. She reached for a glass half filled with orange juice, and downed it in a couple of swallows. Aidan looked at her, his eyes narrow with anger. But when Miranda returned his glare, Stevie was sure she saw something else flash in them.
Stevie asked Miranda to take her up to Emma’s room. Stoppard followed them up the stone staircase.
The room wasn’t the orderly high tech sanctuary Stevie had imagined. The single bed was a mess of twisted sheets and the chair near it upturned with one of the curtains draped over it as if yanked from the track. Hot air and flies poured in through the open window.
‘Was the room like this when you first checked on Emma, Mr Stoppard?’ she asked as she looked around the room. A pile of magazines seemed to have been tipped from the desk and fanned across the floor. She glanced at the titles, mostly computer mags but also copies of New Scientist and Psychology Today. A softball bat lay at an angle next to them.
‘No, it was a lot tidier than this,’ Stoppard replied. ‘But the window was open and I closed it.’ He hesitated, the silence sounded contrived, as if he was willing himself to at least sound repentant. ‘It does look like she was telling the truth after all, doesn’t it? It wasn’t a dream, the man was real and he must have come back later and taken her.’
A World Vision poster on the pin board above Emma’s desk had a picture of a small African boy pinned onto it. There was also a snap of a khaki-clad man on the board, crouching down as if to examine a ragged line of African children. The picture seemed old and the colours faded.
‘Who’s that?’ Stevie said, pointing.
‘Her father, years ago, before we were married,’ Miranda replied with a dismissive wave of her hand.
A comfy armchair next to Emma’s desk was covered with a Mexican throw rug and a well-worn teddy bear was sitting on it. It hadn’t occurred to Stevie that Emma would be the kind to hang on to an old teddy—her grandmother’s encyclopaedia maybe, but not a teddy. A postcard was propped upon the Teddy’s arms, showing a rolling scenic view with a European castle in the foreground. She swallowed down the growing ache in her throat. You’re all right Emma, you’re safe; I know you are and I’ll find you.