Stevie remained silent, gripped the steering wheel and wished she had been more patient. Emma was right; she couldn’t prove anything. She still didn’t know exactly what happened that night at the lookout with Miro Kusak.

Whatever it was, she knew Emma hadn’t acted alone. The only thing she could think to do now was set up a meeting with Donna French. She might be able to give Emma some kind of counselling, persuade her to tell the authorities what she knew.

They drove on in silence for several more minutes. At last the tension began to ease. The girl leaned forward and began to fiddle with the radio, trying to find a station she liked. After a while she gave up and resigned herself to Stevie’s oldies station. Soon the unmistakable dissonance of a Hendrix riff filled the car.

Stevie judged the time to be right to ask a question that had been niggling in the back of her mind for some time now.

‘Emma,’ she asked, ‘just one more thing; your Internet nickname, Harum Scarum, what does it mean?’

The small white face turned from the radio and faced hers. Stevie had to strain to catch the words, whispered to the backdrop of Purple Haze.

‘It means confusion,’ she said.

At Central they met up with Emma’s father. He’d turned into an old man since Stevie had last seen him, with hunched shoulders and trembling hands. Tears glistened in his eyes as he pulled his daughter close. They recorded an interview in which she explained everything that had happened to her over the last twenty-four hours. As he learned about the true nature of Aidan Stoppard he covered his face with his hands, then slammed a fist on the table and cried, ‘I’ll kill him!’ Emma flinched at the explosion and Stevie warned Breightling to control himself.

His eyes softened as he met his daughter’s. ‘I’m sorry darling, so sorry for everything,’ he whispered and clasped her hand upon the table. Stevie noticed Emma squeeze it back.

When the interview was over, Stevie escorted father and daughter back to their house. With eyes red and puffy, the strain of the last twenty-four hours seemed also to be finally showing on Miranda’s face. She held Emma tight and sobbed with genuine relief when she met them at the door. But she might as well have been something reptilian if the look on Emma’s face was anything to go by. For one fleeting moment, Stevie felt sorry for Miranda.

‘Have they’ve locked Aidan up?’ Miranda asked when she finally let her daughter go.

Stevie nodded; there was little else she could say in front of the child.

Christopher placed an arm around Emma’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t you go and have a shower and get ready for bed?’

‘Will you come and see me later?’ Emma asked him.

Miranda looked at her watch and frowned.

‘Of course,’ Breightling said.

‘It’s nearly one o’clock,’ Miranda said.

‘I’d go and see her if it was five o’clock, Miranda.’

‘Yes, of course and I will too, she’s had a terrible time,’ Miranda conceded with a deep sigh.

Emma disappeared upstairs and Christopher offered Stevie a seat on an uncomfortable wooden bench near the window. The sound of trickling water from the garden pond and the croaking of the frogs reminded Stevie of the sound effects at Stoppard’s Chateau-by-the-Lake. Christopher suggested a drink. When she declined he poured a double measure of scotch into a crystal glass for himself, topped up Miranda’s orange juice with vodka.

‘You must believe us, we had no idea that Aidan was like this, no idea at all,’ Miranda said, agitating the ice in her glass.

‘The pornography in that secret room ... all those visitors he gets to the Chateau...’ Breightling forked slim fingers through his sparse hair. ‘Everything is beginning to make sense.’

‘I can’t believe that he tried to hurt her. He’s her godfather for God’s sake!’ Miranda’s voice was shrill, only a couple of notches below hysteria.

‘Last time we went up to the Chateau, she didn’t want to go, remember how she was, Miranda?’ Breightling didn’t look at his wife, just stared into his glass, swirling the liquid.

‘Well, she only said that to you. I wasn’t privileged to the information.’

‘I thought it was because of the hideous statues on the lawn,’ Christopher looked at Stevie. ‘I told her to stop being silly.’ His voice shook. He pulled out a bar stool and slumped next to his wife. Stevie wondered why they never seemed to opt for the more comfortable sofa—too intimate perhaps?

‘You’ve known Stoppard for a long time?’ Stevie asked him.

‘I was involved in a land development with him years ago. I was cutting down my practice hours, sick of the long hours and my frequent trips abroad. Aidan had been at school with Miranda.’

‘We met when we were both in year ten,’ Miranda said. ‘He’d just come over from England with his mother. He was so much more interesting than the other children, bright, worldly.’ Her sigh was almost dreamy. Jesus, woman, Stevie thought, do you have no regrets at all?

‘Worldly all right,’ Breightling laughed bitterly. ‘He’s got money now of course. He’s a self-made man who never tires of reminding me of it.’

Miranda stiffened on her stool. ‘It’s all very well to be clever after the event, Christopher. No one forced you to do business with him. You haven’t always thought this way about him.’

Stevie held her palms up to the couple.

Breightling took a breath and his eyes dropped once more to his scotch. ‘Yes well, he introduced us, actually.’ Stevie got the idea he would have been more than happy to erase that part of his life. Had it really been love at first sight? Maybe as far as Breightling was concerned—but did he have an inkling of what a prize he would have been for a woman like Miranda? And one tall poppy Aidan Stoppard must have relished shooting down.

Stevie wondered what else had been in it for Stoppard. A soft touch surgeon with little business acumen, perhaps? An attractive wife who produced an even more attractive daughter? The thought was so sickening, it had to be true.

‘Are you still involved in business with Stoppard, Mr Breightling? Stevie asked.

‘Of course, he was our accountant,’ Miranda put in.

Christopher gave a vague wave of his hand. ‘Still a few things here and there—more’s the pity.’

‘And how are they going?’ Stevie asked.

‘Terribly,’ said Miranda.

Breightling put his empty glass down. His face was twitching. ‘Nothing we can’t extract ourselves from. Just don’t, don’t be so melodramatic, Miranda.’

‘I’d like to warn you, Mr Breightling, that it won’t be hard for us to get access to your financial records,’ Stevie said.

Christopher Breightling dropped his head into his hands.

35

Monday morning

EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 141106

HARUM SCARUM: things beta with u now?

BETTYBO: no. scary

HARUM SCARUM did u c him again?

BETTYBO: mum did. he hit her. I wan 2 meet u F2F

HARUM SCARUM: sme and tell me about it

BETTYBO: ok

Wayne picked up Stevie on his way to the Breightling house. She’d already taken Izzy to see Monty in hospital, and told him how much better Monty looked—well enough even to complain about the food and speculate that there might really be such a place as the Rosa Klebb School of Nursing.

Wayne told her about his second interview with Sammy Nguyen. The kid had confirmed his suspicions that Aidan Stoppard was the man who’d introduced them to Zhang Li’s killer—identified him from his recent mugshot. And identified Christopher Breightling as the murdering doctor from a photograph Wayne found on a cosmetic surgery site.