Stevie hadn’t noticed the arrival of the police car earlier, and spotted it now parked outside the Pavels’ house, one door carelessly left open.

With relief she said, ‘I’d better go now...’ about to add a consoling ‘love’, she stopped herself in time. ‘The proper police are here and they’ll probably need to talk to you. If talking is hard, perhaps you could write down what you remember about the Pavels for them?’

Mrs Hardegan shook her head.

‘Never mind,’ Stevie said, injecting her tone with false brightness. ‘I’m sure the other neighbours will be able to help out.’

Mrs Hardegan closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep calming breath. ‘We’re sorry, better leave now. Needed to do that.’

‘Are you going to be okay?’

Mrs Hardegan nodded and reached into her sewing basket. Stuck into the padding was a row of pre-threaded needles of various shades of wool. Inspecting them in the window’s light she selected a strand of lemony green. ‘Too long,’ she muttered to herself, cutting it to size with a decisive snip of the scissors, before picking up a swathe of cross-stitch tapestry. Stevie was dismissed.

She made her way unescorted to the front door. Mrs Hardegan would be written off as a witness, even though it was obvious she knew more than she could tell. They’d have to dig into the Pavels’ history from other sources.

Wait a minute; Stevie stopped halfway down the darkened, book-lined passageway. What was she thinking? This wasn’t her problem; her problem was a can of paint she’d forgotten to put the lid on and some half-finished eaves she’d have to live with until her next day off. She looked to the west and noticed the brewing bank of grey clouds, hoping what she’d painted that morning had had a chance to dry; it looked like the weather bureau had got it right for a change.

All she could do now was have a quick word with the local cops, put the incident behind her and return to her family. (Image 2.1)

Image 2.1

CHAPTER THREE

A plainclothes cop in a snappy suit and crisp white shirt leaned on the car’s bonnet, writing notes. He barely looked up when Stevie approached. ‘Hi, I’m Stephanie Hooper; I called you. The Silver Chain nurse and I found the baby.’

The cop lifted his left hand in brief acknowledgement and continued to write. ‘Detective Sergeant Luke Fowler, Peppermint Grove.’ He put a full stop at the end of his sentence, straightened and inspected her through mirrored sunglasses. ‘You’re a painter?’

‘No, I was painting my own house. Nurse Williams called and asked me to go with her to the Pavels’. The old lady next door told her there was something amiss over there.’

‘Well she’s got that right in one, no sign of the Pavels at all—but why did the nurse call you?’

‘The old lady was getting agitated. She has speech problems and had already asked her son and the nurse to call in her suspicions to the police, but apparently the matter wasn’t followed through.’ Stevie made sure to keep her tone neutral; she didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. ‘Nurse Williams decided to call me because we’ve worked together before. I’m with Central...’

Fowler cut her off. ‘That wouldn’t be Skye Williams, would it?’

‘That’s right.’

Fowler ran his hand over his buzz cut as if to say, Jesus, that’s all I need.

Stevie let the matter slide. ‘Skye went to the hospital with the baby. Do you want me to ring her for you?’

‘No, I’ll get to her later,’ he said abruptly. ‘You’ll do for now.’

‘I might call her anyway.’ Stevie delved into her overall pocket for her phone. ‘I’d like to know how the baby is. He was badly dehydrated when we found him.’

He pushed her hand away before she could reach the phone. ‘Leave it to the police please, ma’am; we’ll handle this.’

Stevie felt a sudden pulse of anger. ‘The baby’s condition should be top priority, Sergeant—you might find you have a homicide on your hands. ’

Before Fowler could retort, the uniformed officer who’d accompanied him appeared from the back of the house. ‘Looks like the pool cover’s been removed recently, Luke.’

‘That was me,’ Stevie said. ‘I thought someone might’ve been stuck under it.’

Stevie might have been able to exercise a certain amount of control, but the same couldn’t be said for Sergeant Fowler. He hissed out a breath through clamped teeth. ‘Oh, is that so? And what else have you tampered with, Ms, er—’

‘Hooper, Detective Senior Sergeant Hooper, Central Police.’

The detective paused. Stevie delighted in seeing the skin around his collar redden. He hitched his trousers and took off his sunglasses to get a better look at her. The blond buzz cut, the hard blue eyes and the razor-sharp scar on the cheek reminded her of someone or something she couldn’t place.

‘Did you spot the stains under the chesterfield?’ she asked holding his blazing gaze with her own.

Unaware of the mounting tension, the tall uniformed officer did a double take, gaping at her through thick-lensed glasses. ‘Stevie Hooper, what a sight for sore eyes! I’ve been following your exploits in Newsbeat. Congratulations, sounds like you’ve really wiped the floor with those cyber predator arseholes. I hear you’ve shacked up with Inspector McGuire—how is old Monty going these days—coping okay with your new-found fame?’

William Trotman had been a divisional colleague of Monty’s some years ago, and obviously had climbed no further up the career ladder since. Staffed by the likes of him, the tardy response of the Peppermint Grove station now came as no surprise.

At last it seemed that Stevie and Fowler were on the same wavelength and neither in the mood for idle gossip. ‘Save the chitchat, Bill,’ Fowler told him. ‘Notify the station and have a team dispatched over here asap. Then call the office and get them to phone the local hospitals, see if anyone’s been admitted matching the parents’ descriptions. The couple might have just ducked out to the shops while the baby was asleep and met with some kind of accident.’

Fowler turned back to Stevie while Trotman carried out his instructions on the car radio. The Pavel house would soon be a hotbed of police activity—though perhaps ‘soon’ was optimistic.

Fowler drew himself up, on full alert since he’d discovered he wasn’t dealing with an easily bullied member of the public. ‘You were at the house next door when we arrived. What were you doing there?’

She could have lied, could have told him she’d been admiring the last of the bulbs in Mrs Hardegan’s front garden, but to hell with self-preservation. Telling the truth and risking an official reprimand was worth every gram of pleasure she’d get from stirring up this self-important prat. ‘I was talking to Mrs Hardegan, the woman who raised the alarm.’

Fowler rubbed his square chin. ‘If you’re involved with the cyber predator team, you must be with Sex Crimes. This is way out of your jurisdiction, Hooper. You’ve already breached police procedure; you should have waited here for me as instructed. How am I to know how you handled the witness, what false memories you might have sown in her mind?’

Stevie sighed—so much for amiable cooperation. ‘I had to do something while I waited; you took long enough. Anyway, you won’t get much sense from her. She’s had a stroke and has trouble talking. I suggest you start with the other people in the street. Get a decent description of the couple and find out if there are any family members who can tell you anything before you start phoning the hospitals and stirring up a media frenzy. And now, if you excuse me, I have a call to make.’

She glared back at Fowler, challenging him to stop her as she punched Skye’s number into her phone. A vanload of cops pulled up alongside the Pavels’ driveway and he was called away.