Izzy ran over when Stevie called, hugged her around the waist and began burrowing about with sandy hands into the picnic basket.

‘Wait on there Miss Greedy; you’re getting sand in the chips. Find Dad for me so we can start our tea.’

‘You won’t be able to find him,’ Izzy said as she lunged again for the picnic basket. This time Stevie was ready for her and swung it away. ‘You won’t be able to find him,’ Izzy repeated, ‘cos I buried him!’

Stevie walked a few steps and searched the surrounding sand. She really didn’t have time for Izzy’s games this evening. Not only were their fish and chips getting cold, she was desperate to get home and start wading through Bianca’s stories plus the sheaves of emails she and Tash had printed from Bianca’s iPod.

Izzy’s hand stopped her in her tracks, preventing her just in time from tumbling over a mountain of sand. ‘Careful, you’ll step on him!’ her daughter warned.

A few cracks knifed their way through the compressed sand and the mountain groaned. Only Monty’s head was visible and it shone from one end of the mound like that of a red painted tortoise.

‘Monty, you idiot, you’re burnt to a crisp!’ Stevie cried.

‘I think I fell asleep.’

‘No sunscreen? No hat? Izzy, go find your father’s hat!’

‘I used it to carry water for my sand castle,’ Izzy said.

‘Then go and get it. Now!’

‘Don’t let him get up, I haven’t finished decorating him yet,’ Izzy called over her shoulder, running off to find Monty’s hat.

Compressed sand slid off his body in great slabs as Monty sat up. He climbed groggily to his feet and shook like a dog, reaching out for Stevie when he almost lost his balance. After planting a sandy kiss on her cheek, he headed to the water to sluice off.

Stevie spread out the picnic blanket and opened up the parcels of fish and chips, the mouth-watering smell reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She managed to hold off until her family returned, Izzy with the hat and bucket of shells, Monty with the smell of the sea on his skin.

While they ate, Izzy regaled them with every second of her day spent playing with her friend Georgia. When they’d finished their meal, Stevie told Izzy that if she wanted to bring her shells home she’d have to first wash them; it was all she could think of to get some time alone with Monty.

‘I had a word with Tash,’ Stevie got in quickly when Izzy skipped off. Monty’s shrug made her pause and she sat poised with the last chip halfway to her mouth. ‘Well, it’s what you wanted me to do, isn’t it?’

‘Forget it, it’s over, let’s drop the subject.’ Monty turned to watch Izzy at the water’s edge. The sea was pulling the sun down; pinks, oranges and mauves smeared the sky around it.

Stevie decided to file the matter of Monty’s strange mood in the too hard basket, to be retrieved later when she had the mental energy for it.

She filled him in on what she and Tash had discovered and gave him the name of the photographer. ‘We should be making an arrest tomorrow.’ She added, ‘I’m hoping the printed documents from the iPod might tell us a bit more about how men like Kusak operate, and maybe give us some details on the Dream Team. I also think that Emma and Bianca knew each other, it’s a long shot but I’m going to follow it through.’

‘Good one, sounds like you’re in for a busy night. Ring me if you find anything more of interest. Oh and by the way, the mystery of Mrs K’s large cash withdrawal has been solved. She was planning on a trip to Italy next month and used it for an airline ticket and other expenses.’

‘Not to pay a contract killer?’ Stevie was hardly surprised.

‘Right, scratch that theory. It’s all on the street kid now.’

He screwed up the fish and chip paper and headed to a bin with it. ‘Hey, what about your mother, aren’t you supposed to pick her up from the station tonight?’ he turned and asked.

‘Oh shit, yes, at eight o’clock.’ Stevie looked at her watch, then pleadingly at Monty as he’d trudged back through the sand to her. ‘Will you, please? You were going to be having Izzy tonight, anyway.’

‘Sure,’ he said, without enthusiasm.

She rummaged in the basket for some sunscreen. ‘Here, put this on, better late than never and it might stop you from peeling.’

He rubbed the lotion into his face, took some time to massage the remainder into his arm. She looked at him for a moment. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

In reply he handed her back the tube and stooped to rearrange the items in the basket. Izzy returned with her washed shells and insisted they both examine her latest find, a shell with legs.

‘It’s a hermit crab Izz, you can’t take it home, it’ll die and stink the place out,’ Monty said.

Izzy protested and Monty gave in with an unusual lack of conviction. Stevie caught his eye and signalled her concern to him.

‘Just a touch of the sun,’ he said, putting the crab in the bucket.

Stevie ignored the breakfast dishes in the sink and settled onto her sofa with the emails, chat transcripts and printed stories. She’d also left copies with Tash, so they could meet at Central in the morning to discuss them.

Tempted as she was to get started on them straightaway she forced herself to pause, leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes, trying to conjure up a portrait of Bianca Webster. Criminal profilers stressed the importance of getting into the mind of the killer, but Stevie knew it was just as important to get into the mind of the victim. Soon the image of the child became so clear in her mind’s eye she could have been watching her from a web cam.

She visualised Bianca dipping a greasy hand into a packet of chips split open upon her desk. She could almost smell salt and vinegar in the air, see the crumbs dropping on to the keyboard, salt sprinkling the strewn papers. With much sighing and brow furrowing, the girl struggled to write coherently, typing with two lead-heavy fingers. She could see her lose concentration and pause to doodle on a piece of scrap paper, or scratch the name Daniel with a compass into the veneer of her desk. When a new email appeared, she’d give it a quick skim and impatiently type back words before they had even formed properly in her brain. Sometimes she got angry, sometimes she cried, sometimes she swore and stabbed at the desk with the point of her compass.

Stevie shook her head to rid it of the images—imagination was a powerful thing and as a cop she should use it with extreme caution: evidence, that’s what she was after. She picked up a bunch of printouts and started to read.

Then read it again.

She should have guessed. Daniel, the name she’d seen carved into Bianca’s desk, was Miro Kusak, not some rock or movie star as she’d earlier assumed.

None of ‘Daniel’s’ earlier emails had been saved to the iPod. Stevie could only guess that Kusak had made the first move, getting Bianca’s email address and photo from the Dream Team webmaster, Lolita. With her email address and the necessary computer skills, it would have been no problem for Kusak to cyber stalk Bianca wherever she chose to travel on the web. She needed to confirm this with Clarissa, but she suspected Kusak had probably infected Bianca’s computer with a Trojan virus disguised as some innocent-looking email attachment addressed from a friend. Once installed on her computer it would forward to Kusak the log files of all her Internet activities.

Stella had told Stevie that her daughter was a loner, often seen sitting in the school playground fiddling with her iPod. Bianca had probably been reading Daniel’s messages over and over again, trying to boost her fragile self-esteem. Stevie closed her eyes and took a breath and waited a moment for the ache of sadness to become manageable again.

The contents of Daniel’s saved emails were sickeningly predictable, flattery and talk about their common interests mostly. ‘I only have one parent too, we have so much in common; we’re soul mates...’ It was what she told the school kids at her talks: the cyber predator closely examines the profile of his victim and makes himself into what they want him to be. Unlike the inexperienced Robert Mason, Kusak seemed to have been able to hold back on the dirty talk—though Stevie had a feeling the needy Bianca Webster would’ve played along regardless.