She gave one last desperate thump at the heavy door and was turning to leave when Stella’s sister opened it.

‘Oh hi Gail. Sorry to disturb you. Could I have a word with Stella?’

‘Stella’s still asleep love, I’d hate to wake her just now, she’s that washed out. Would you like a cuppa?’ Gail waved her in, covering a yawn with her other hand.

Stevie declined the offer of tea, but accepted the invitation to pull up a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Has Stella said anything more to you about the man who was harassing her in the park?’ she asked as Gail moved around the kitchen area, preparing her breakfast.

Gail shrugged. ‘Not a peep.’

‘And you’ve never seen him hanging around the flats before?’

A shake of the head.

Without mentioning the contents of Bianca’s emails, Stevie asked if she had any knowledge of her sister being involved in an abusive relationship.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about her at all. Stella left home about fifteen years ago and since then none of us really heard from her, she wasn’t very close to the family. As horrible as it sounds, this terrible business has drawn us together again.’

‘Do you believe her about how she broke her arm?’

‘That she fell down the stairs? Well, those stairs are pretty dangerous, especially when rain gets down the stairwell.’ Gail’s toast popped and she spread it with margarine and Vegemite. Stevie hadn’t had time for breakfast and the savoury aroma made her stomach rumble.

Gail smiled and put the plate of toast on the table in front of her. ‘Go on, be a devil, with a figure like yours I bet you can eat what you want.’

‘Thanks.’ Stevie took a slice, asking between mouthfuls, ‘Has she received any strange phone calls since you’ve been here with her, had any men call around?’

‘No. Look, you may as well have a cuppa with that.’ Gail handed Stevie the tea she’d made for herself.

The bedroom door creaked open and Stella appeared in a rumpled nightie. The plaster cast had been removed since Stevie had last seen her and her left arm looked frail as a plucked chicken wing. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said as she leaned wearily against the doorframe.

‘She thinks you knew that man who bothered you in the park, that he’s been beating you up,’ Gail said to her sister.

Shit. Stevie nearly choked on her toast. This wasn’t the approach she’d had in mind. She climbed to her feet and put a calming hand out to Stella, ‘Why don’t you come and sit down?’

‘I’ve had just about enough of you!’ Stella cried, shaking Stevie’s hand off. ‘Just get the fuck out of here and leave me alone!’

‘Stella, another girl has gone missing. This is important, I think Bianca knew her from the Internet...’

Stella spun back into her bedroom and slammed the door in her face.

Stevie counted to ten in her head before turning to the stunned sister. ‘Well, that went well didn’t it?’

What a day. Later that afternoon at Central, the team sat around a table in one of the conference rooms to swap notes and brainstorm. The air conditioning had conked out for the third time that week, faces glowed and tempers flared.

Stevie kicked off her trainers and pulled at her short-sleeved top, trying to invoke a non-existent breeze. Monty’s face was as red as it had been at the beach, his tie hung at his neck like a noose, and his white shirt was patterned with threads of sweat. He looked at his watch and scowled.

The door flung open and Tash hurried in, the banging and crashing from the air conditioning mechanics in the corridor trailing in behind her.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she gasped and thumped into the chair next to Stevie.

Monty made a point of getting up and closing the door. ‘Stevie, a brief summary for Constable Hayward, please,’ he ground out. While Stevie filled Tash in on Emma Breightling’s disappearance, he struggled to open a window, cursing under his breath when he discovered that no amount of heaving and thumping could break the seal.

‘No ransom note, no telephone message?’ Tash asked when Stevie had finished her rundown.

Stevie was almost certain they were dealing with a runaway and told Tash so. After pleas for information were broadcast on the radio a woman had reported picking up a girl matching Emma’s description and dropping her off in Mundaring in the early hours of the morning.

Despite this lead, Monty suggested it was best to humour the parents for the time being and continue to pursue the investigation as a possible kidnap—the kid on the highway might not have been Emma. Better to err on the side of caution, he told the team, than find themselves with a pile of litigation in their laps. For now they just had to suck it and see, hoping their questions would be answered when Clarissa had finished the post mortem on Emma’s PC.

Stevie asked Tash if she’d got hold of the photographer.

‘Yeah, that’s why I was late.’ From under dark brows Tash shot Monty a withering look. ‘Mr Holdsworth is waiting in the interview room downstairs.’ To the rest of the team she said, ‘We suspect him of supplying a paedophile ring with the photos he took for the modelling agency.’

‘Good one, let’s keep him sweating, we can talk to him later.’ Stevie returned to the topic of Emma Breightling. ‘I’ve discovered some interesting connections between Emma Breightling and Bianca Webster. Not only was Bianca turned down by Miranda Breightling’s modelling agency, but both girls were members of the same Internet message board/fan site that seems to be about supporting abused kids.’

‘So you think Bianca and Emma knew each other?’ Wayne asked.

‘Internet pals, I think so, but I don’t know if they ever met. Miranda said she couldn’t remember any Bianca Webster, but when I showed her the pic we got from Kusak’s computer, she admitted that the child looked vaguely familiar. I went to see Stella this morning, but before I could ask her about it, the meeting went south, she practically threw me out of the flat. I’ll call around later when she’s calmed down.’

‘Would you like me to come too?’

She threw Monty an appreciative smile; there was a chance his presence might make Stella more cooperative. Over the years she’d learned never to underestimate the effect of a sympathetic, attractive member of the opposite sex on a distraught witness.

‘Wait one,’ Wayne raised a finger. ‘Are you suggesting Emma’s disappearance and Bianca’s murder are related?’

Stevie let out a heavy sigh. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘So now you’re telling us that Emma might also have been snatched by Lolita and the Dream Team?’ Barry’s flippant tone made the group sound like a fifties rock band. ‘But you just said she was a runaway.’

Stevie poked at the papers in front of her with her pen, determined not to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. And he’d wondered why his application for the Cyber Predator Team had been turned down.

‘If I hadn’t met Emma before, I’d say yes, it’s a possibility, but the girl I know seems too clever to allow herself to be trapped by someone like that. I think she’s run away because of abuse, most probably by “old family friend” Aidan Stoppard.’

‘Have you checked him out on the National Child Sex offender Register?’ Wayne asked.

‘Yes, and he’s not on it. I’ve made an appointment to see Emma’s school counsellor at her home this afternoon, she may be able to tell me something. The more I can find out about her, the more likely I can figure out what’s happened to her, why and where she might have gone.’

‘Angus, find out as much as you can about this Aidan Stoppard,’ Monty said.

Angus nodded and wrote himself a note. ‘How do you spell Aidan?’

Stevie reached into the pocket of her jeans and slid across the business card Stoppard had given her.

‘Thanks,’ Angus glanced at the scenic view on the front of the card and flipped to the business details on the back. ‘Importer of Mexican art with a hills showroom called Chateau-by-the-Lake, and an accountant too, with his own company and a St Georges Terrace office,’ he paraphrased. ‘Want me to check out Breightling as well, boss?’