‘I’ll talk to her about that later, let’s take one thing at a time.’ The toilet flushed. ‘Shhhhh...’
Emma reappeared. ‘Actually,’ she said as she wiped her hands on her tracksuit pants. ‘You were a bit slower at finding me than I thought you would. I left clues all over the place. Didn’t you notice the postcard and the Mexican blanket in my room?’
‘Oh, sure,’ Stevie couldn’t help smiling. ‘And the footprints in the flower beds pointing to the hills, silly me.’
Emma continued with her story. ‘I was ready for Uncle Aidan this time. I was lying under the bedclothes fully dressed with my softball bat. When he tried to touch me I whacked him over the head with it. I didn’t knock him out but I reckon he got a terrible shock. Then I climbed out of my bedroom window while he was rolling around on the floor and swearing.
‘A nice woman picked me up from the main road and I told her my mum and me had had a row in the car earlier in the day and I’d jumped out at the traffic lights. I told her I was really sorry I’d done that and that I wanted to go home. She took me to a house in Mundaring where I said I lived and dropped me off outside it. There was a bike on the back verandah and I took it and cycled here. It took ages and my legs were killing me by the time I arrived. I chucked the bike in the lake.’ She looked through her circular glasses, her large magnified eyes darting from one to the other of them. ‘But I’ll pay the owner back for it, I swear I will...’
‘Why didn’t you just beat him to death while he was lying on your floor?’ Tash asked, subtle as ever.
Emma squashed cake crumbs with her finger. ‘Well, I, err, I don’t really know...’
Stevie filled in the blanks. Because Katy Enigma wouldn’t have done anything quite so banal.
‘I guess I wanted you to come to the Chateau too,’ Emma said. ‘Then you could see for yourself what else he was up to.’
‘Was Stoppard already here when you arrived?’ Tash asked.
‘No, but I was pretty sure he would come, so I prepared my...’ she hesitated. ‘My trap for him.’
Tash ruffled her hair with her hands, but said nothing, as if she still hadn’t come to terms with the idea of a thirteen year old girl taking on a grown man.
‘Well, you gave me the idea Stevie. You spoke about entrapment when you came to my school,’ Emma said defensively.
Shit, Stevie wouldn’t be using that word again in a hurry. ‘You balanced a pot on the top of the door, hoping it would fall on his head,’ she said.
‘Yes, it was really heavy, I had to tip the soil out before I could put it on top of the door. Then I filled a bucket with water and put that in the pot to make it heavy again. Well anyway,’ she sighed. ‘The best laid plans ... it missed. He was ready for it.’
‘Then what happened?’ Stevie asked.
‘Then he took me to that secret room where you found me. He gave me something to drink that made me sleepy and then he started taking stuff out of the room and packing it up, to take away and hide I guess.’ She indicated the boxes on the table. ‘These boxes I think. Once when I stayed here I caught him watching one of his DVDs in the secret room when everyone was asleep, it was so gross I was nearly sick.’
‘I think the room where Emma was imprisoned was used for filming the hardcore porn,’ Stevie told Trash.
Emma nodded. ‘I reckon some of the people who came here with their families to buy his art were only pretending. They were actually hiring their own kids out for him to film.’
Tash cupped a hand over her mouth. Like Stevie, she was having difficulty coming to terms with the horror that had been going on in the Chateau. Tash met Stevie’s eye and mouthed, ‘Lolita.’
‘Anyway,’ Emma went on, ‘if you want to see, the TV’s over here.’ She sprang eagerly to her feet and went to the wood panelled wall next to the Mexican throne. Pushing on a discreet knob she opened up hidden wooden doors to reveal a flat screen TV.
Stevie glanced at Tash and cleared her throat. ‘It’s okay, Emma, we’ll watch them later when we try to identify the kids involved.’
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.’