When he’d heard what she had to say, he held up the bottle of pills and rattled them in front of others. ‘Compressed cocaine,’ he said, ‘found in your bathroom, Mrs Breightling.’
Miranda’s mouth formed an ‘O’, which she covered delicately with one finger in a 1950’s ingenue gesture. Was she sending herself up?
Christopher Breightling looked angrily at his wife. ‘Miranda...’ he began and stopped. He loosened the knot of his tie, ‘Inspector, surely this is not the time or the place...’
‘Have some compassion, man,’ Stoppard interjected, large chin thrust forward with belligerence. Stevie made as if to look away, but continued to observe him through her peripheral vision. She might have been mistaken, but she could’ve sworn she saw a twinkle of amusement in those deep-set eyes.
Breightling clenched his fists.
Monty said nothing, merely slipped the pills into his pocket and began to pace the room. He stopped at the abstract objet d’art and touched one of the sharp points, his face briefly showing the same surprised look Stevie had seen—was it only yesterday?—on Izzy’s.
‘It’s an original Sienna-Pastor sculpture.’ Miranda swivelled around on the barstool to face Monty, her tanned legs crossed, one high-heeled sandal hanging from her foot and dangling seductively towards him. Already working hard at getting the possession charges dropped, Stevie thought. ‘It’s worth a lot of money,’ Miranda added.
Breightling palmed his forehead with exasperation. ‘Can we please return to the subject of my daughter’s disappearance, Inspector?’
‘Certainly, Mr Breightling, where were we?’ Monty knew very well where they were. ‘Ah yes, we were trying to ascertain your daughter’s frame of mind, wondering if she might have run away. Sergeant Hooper was under the impression that Emma was unhappy, that she didn’t want to go east to boarding school.’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s simply ridiculous. Emma is an extremely gifted child,’ Christopher Breightling told them. ‘She really finds it natural to want to learn, to achieve. The boarding school she’ll be going to has an extensive gifted program.’
Miranda said, ‘She couldn’t wait to go, she never shut up about it—that’s true isn’t it, Aidan?’ To Stoppard again, not the husband, Stevie noted.
Stoppard nodded. Stevie looked at Christopher Breightling. His knuckles were white, and a complex mixture of emotions played across his face.
‘Then is there something else she might have been unhappy about?’ Stevie’s look burned into Stoppard. He turned his palms to each parent and shrugged, as if to say, why’s she got it in for me?
They needed to separate Stoppard from Emma’s parents. It was creepy, it was downright unhealthy the way they sat together like that, three little dickie birds sitting on a wall. What was it between them? And just what were the ties that seemed to be binding them so uncomfortably together?
Monty must have been thinking along similar lines. ‘Mr Stoppard,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to come up to Emma’s room with me now and we’ll go over again what you told Sergeant Hooper.’
Stoppard let out an impatient sigh, looked at his watch, and told them he had things to do.
Before they could leave, a uniformed constable approached Monty and whispered something in his ear. Monty listened for a moment then addressed Breightling. ‘You have a gun safe in your garage?’
Breightling slid off the barstool. ‘What of it?’
‘We’d like to have a look inside it. We need the key.’
‘I’ve nothing to hide,’ Christopher said, moving towards a tall pantry cupboard. ‘I would have told you if you’d asked that I’m the owner of a licensed hand gun and a couple of shotguns.’ He positioned a small kitchen ladder next to the pantry and stood on it to reach the highest shelf, taking a set of keys from a hook.
‘Nothing to be alarmed about, sir,’ Monty said. ‘My officer has already confirmed with the database that you have a number of registered firearms. We just need to check them out.’
Stevie and Monty followed Christopher through a kitchen door leading into a three-car garage. Bolted to the floor next to Breightling’s Mercedes SLX they saw a heavy steel gun cabinet as tall as a change room locker.
Monty asked Breightling to open the cabinet. His hands shook; he was clearly upset over his daughter’s disappearance. He made a couple of unsuccessful attempts at slotting the key into the lock before the door swung open, showing the body of the locker. He passed Monty two Purdy over-and-under shotguns in wooden cases, explaining that they once belonged to his father and he used them for clay pigeon shooting. While Monty examined the guns, Breightling continued to grope around in the cabinet, struggling to reach something on the top shelf.
Monty handed the shotguns to a watching constable. ‘Allow me.’ He gently pushed Breightling aside and removed the bundles.
‘My wife’s jewels,’ Christopher said as Monty handed the two velvet bags to Stevie. ‘The handgun must be further back.’
Monty stuck his hand in, his fingers clanging on the metal at the back of the cabinet and came out with nothing.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Christopher exclaimed. He felt blindly towards the back of the cabinet, his panic mounting. ‘I can’t believe it, it’s gone!’
He spun around wildly, as if expecting to see the gun lying around in the garage somewhere.
‘When did you last see it, sir?’ Stevie asked as she replaced the rings and necklaces she’d been examining into their respective velvet pouches.
A muscle in Breightling’s cheek twitched. He drew his hands over his face as if trying to wipe it away. ‘A few weeks ago?
Maybe a month; I haven’t had much time for the firing range recently.’
‘The data base has it listed as a Glock 22,’ Monty said.
‘That’s right. I’ve been meaning to get into some competition shooting.’
‘Your keys weren’t in a particularly safe place, it wouldn’t be very hard for someone to get to the gun,’ Stevie said.
‘Well, I could hardly keep them with me, could I? Miranda needs easy access to her jewellery. Besides, no one else knows where they’re kept.’ Breightling took a breath, rubbed his cheek again. ‘Actually, there’s something else you should know, something else that’s missing from the safe. Frankly, I find this loss more disturbing than the gun’s.’ He paused.
‘Go on,’ Stevie said.
‘A set of antique scalpels, my great-grandfather’s from the Boer War.’ He paused for thought. ‘Come to think of it, I think I remember seeing the gun in the safe when I last cleaned them about three weeks ago. The scalpels need cleaning every month, you see. They’re made of high-carbonised steel and would rust if not regularly maintained. They haven’t been used for years, but they’re still as sharp as razors. They have a lot of sentimental value to me as well as being worth a small fortune.’
Monty and Stevie exchanged glances. ‘Why would someone take a handgun and scalpels, but leave the jewels and the shotguns?’ Monty thought aloud. ‘Make sure the cabinet gets dusted for prints,’ he told the uniformed officer as he strode back to the kitchen. Out of the corner of his mouth he said softly to Stevie. ‘He may be a surgeon, but did you see his hands shake when he was opening the safe? I wouldn’t trust him cutting a cake.’
Monty spoke again when they were once more congregated in the family room. ‘Now, I need Mr Stoppard to go over last night’s events in Emma’s bedroom with me.’
‘Is that necessary Inspector? I’ve already been over it with Sergeant Hooper and I do have business in the city.’
‘I’ll let you know when you can leave, sir. Besides, I’m sure the Breightlings could use the support of an old family friend such as yourself.’