SH02 - Harum Scarum Read online

  ‘And you blamed yourself too I bet.’

  ‘As a kid I did, yeah, even though I was younger than him, I always saw myself as his protector.’

  Stevie shook her head. And you still do blame yourself don’t you? You’ve picked up your mother’s mantle.

  ‘Look,’ Tash said. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this, will you? If anyone else in the unit got to hear about this I’d be under a microscope. It would colour everything I did.’

  Maybe it already has, Stevie thought as she searched her friend’s face. If this story had been revealed during the interviews and psychological screening that went with the job application, she would never have been accepted into Sex Crimes, Cyber Predator Unit. Christ, it was a serious breach just to withold that sort of information.

  Just then the door swung open and a uniformed officer entered. He did a double take when he saw them sitting in what he’d assumed to be a vacant interview room.

  With a slight curl of his lip he said, ‘Oh, sorry ladies, didn’t mean to disturb the mothers’ meeting.’

  Stevie rolled her eyes at him then said to Tash, ‘Yeah, all this gossip’s made me thirsty, how about a cuppa, Tash?’

  As they slipped past the officer Tash nudged Stevie in the ribs. ‘You swear?’ she mouthed.

  2

  EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 110207

  HARUM SCARUM: U goin 2 park 2 meet boy?

  BETTYBO: yup. 2morow

  HARUM SCARUM: omg plz dont

  BETTYBO: Ynot?

  HARUM SCARUM: sme

  In another park not too far away, Bianca Webster ran. She felt light and fluttery, as if her heart wanted to fly from her mouth, as if her thongs had turned into giant, bouncy springs.

  ‘Yay!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs as she raced across the grass, barely feeling the weight of the laptop bag as it thumped upon her back. I’m Katy Enigma; my computer bag has become my jet-propelled backpack. Any minute now I will press the button and bounce from my springs into the air and stay there, swooping high and low over the park like a hawk, hunting out mystery and adventure, saving lives and righting wrongs.

  But as she rounded the grassy corner she was forced to skid to a sudden halt. The springs buckled and crumbled to rust; the breath flew from her body.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Ahead of her, two boys played on a seesaw. Bianca dropped to her knees and crept behind a bush to watch them. Her nose began to run but she didn’t dare sniff. She turned her head and wiped it on her bare arm.

  For a moment the boys seemed perfectly balanced, but then the heavier boy bounced on his end, making it sink. He was about nine, Bianca guessed, and he was really quite fat. The other one scowled, swearing, because he’d been stranded in the air. She saw it coming: all of a sudden the fat kid rolled off the seat and his mate came crashing down, landing hard on his bum. The fat kid laughed and the skinny kid began to blub, then took off with the fat kid chasing after him yelling, ‘Slow down, slow down, arsehole!

  Bianca didn’t mind being invisible to the boys; most boys were dickheads, anyway, except for Daniel of course. But even though she didn’t care about the boys, she found she’d lost that light airy feeling from before. Maybe it was a sign; maybe she shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe she should turn around and go home. It felt as if she was the one sitting on the seesaw now.

  Daniel said it was good to take risks because taking risks makes us feel alive, like she felt when she was running down the hill playing at being Katy Enigma. Katy might be pretend, but Daniel was real and cool and mega smart. More than anything else, Bianca wanted to be cool and smart like Daniel. She also wanted to show that snobby Zoë Carmichael that she could get a boyfriend who was clever and popular too, that she didn’t need any of those teasing dickheads from school.

  There wasn’t anyone on the swings. The heat shimmered from the ground and made the chains wiggle like spaghetti. She should have worn shorts. Her heavy jeans rubbed as she walked, making her legs feel hot and sore.

  There wasn’t anyone else in the park at all now. She was early. She looked around and identified the meeting spot, a closed up ice cream kiosk. Too bad it was closed, she thought, it would’ve been good to have an ice cream while she waited.

  She tugged her jeans further down her hips and hoisted her boob tube up to expose her tummy. The belly button ring sparkled in the sun like a real jewel. She must remember to keep her belly sucked in. Not that Daniel would mind that she wasn’t size zero, he wasn’t that kind of guy. He always said it was the person inside that counts.

  The cuffs of her jeans scooped up dirt as she walked. Her mum would chuck a psycho when she saw half the playground dragged into the kitchen. What should she tell her if she asked her where she’d been? What if the school rangs to say she’d wagged again? She did have a cold, she decided, so she could say she was sick. Her mum was on double shift anyway, so with any luck she’d miss the call.

  She stopped again. A shadow from behind the kiosk made the breath catch in her chest. A man stepped into the sunlight. He wore shorts and one of those T-shirts with a collar and a tiny crocodile on them and his nose was small and red. She giggled, it was just like the fake noses you buy at the deli for the dead babies.

  He wasn’t what Bianca had expected, and he certainly wasn’t Daniel. She took a step back.

  ‘Hi,’ the man said, not moving any closer. ‘You come to meet Daniel?’

  She nodded and nibbled at her bottom lip. The sun was hot and bright and she had to screw up her eyes to see him properly. Sweat ran like tears down the sides of his face and sparkled on his round red nose.

  ‘Well, he’s kinda shy, y’know? He’s waiting for you in the car. I’m his dad.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Daniel said he was shy with girls. He lived alone with his dad, just like she lived alone with her mum. He said that’s what made them soul mates.

  ‘You got your laptop in there?’ The man asked. He talked a bit funny, some kind of accent, Bianca noticed.

  She nodded, the computer bag suddenly feeling like a sack of bricks on her back.

  ‘Good, Dan’ll be pleased. He’s got a heap of really cool games to show you. And he’s just downloaded another Katy Enigma story, he said you like them.’ He put his hand out as if he wanted to hold hers, but she didn’t take it. She was remembering Zoe’s horrible words at school: You’re ugly, you’re stupid and you’ll never get a boyfriend. And then she thought of Katy Enigma, girl detective, always ready for adventure, flying golden hair, long legs—would Katy go with this man?

  ‘Look, if you’re not okay with this,’ the man said, ‘Dan’ll understand. To be honest, he’s scared about meeting you.’

  The man smiled. He had soft brown eyes and despite the strange nose and his peculiar voice, his face looked kind.

  Bianca placed her hand in his and felt him shiver.

  She didn’t know why, it wasn’t cold at all.

  3

  Wednesday

  EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 020207

  TIMTAM: send me pic?

  ANGEL12: ok

  TIMTAM: do u have webcam?

  ANGEL12: no ... I wish

  TIMTAM: tdtm

  ‘Only on Monday,’ Stevie spoke to the gathered year sixes and sevens in the classroom. ‘My partner and I caught a man who had tricked a young girl into meeting him in Kings Park.’

  A girl with pigtails put up her hand. ‘But why would the girl want to meet him in the park anyway?’

  ‘He knew she was a big fan of a local rock band,’ Stevie said. ‘The man had been talking to her in an Internet chat room, pretending to be a boy her own age. He promised to give her CDs and posters; even a hat like one of the band members wears. You see, these people pretend to be whatever the child wants them to be in order to entrap them.’

  Entrap, was that too big a word for these kids? Stevie looked at the faces before her, searching for signs of confusion. She detected boredom in some, giggles in a few, but on the whole mo
st of the children gazed back at her in rapt attention.

  At first she’d been slightly anxious when she’d learned that one of her roles in the newly formed Cyber Predator Team was public speaking, but to her surprise she found she was beginning to enjoy it. In fact, educating children about the dangers of the Internet was the most rewarding experience she’d had in her fifteen years with the police.

  A girl with round glasses and a thick mane of dark messy hair put up her hand. Her face seemed vaguely familiar. ‘But how did you know the man was planning on doing this?’

  ‘Our operations room in Central Police headquarters is filled with computers. We take it in turns to watch the kinds of Internet websites we think Perth children might be interested in. I logged into a chat room devoted to a local rock band and called myself Angel12. Pretty soon I began talking to a boy who began asking me all sorts of personal questions.’ Stevie didn’t go into the lurid details. ‘And I got the feeling he wasn’t the boy he was pretending to be. We arranged to meet and it was then that I discovered that he was an older man.’

  One of the boys laughed and whispered to the boy sitting next to him. Donna, the school councillor, wagged her finger and shut him up.

  The girl with the glasses put up her hand again. She had a pixie face, the tips of her ears visible through her hair. ‘Anyone who gives themselves a name like Angel12 is looking for trouble. The name just calls out, “Hey, I’m a cute girl and I’m only twelve.” No one should give themselves a nickname like that, a predator would know straight away how easily someone like that could be manipulated.’

  The boy sitting next to her rolled his eyes, but Stevie was impressed with the girl’s command of language, her confidence and her insight. She nodded. ‘Yes, very good.’ Where the hell had she seen that girl before?

  Another boy put up his hand. ‘Yeah, but it’s only girls they’re interested in, yeah?’

  ‘No, not at all, quite a lot of these men go for boys.’

  There was a chorus of gross, yuck and pervert from the group of boys in the back row.

  ‘But all this doesn’t mean you can’t have fun on the Internet too or use it as a valuable learning tool.’ Stevie nodded to Donna who turned to face the whiteboard. ‘I’m going to give you a list of do’s and don’ts and Miss French is going to write them down for you to copy.’ She had leaflets she could give them, but if they wrote it themselves there was a better chance they’d remember it.

  The children rippled like the sea as they sought their writing equipment.

  ‘First, when you’re on the Internet, don’t ever think you know who you are talking to, no matter what someone might tell you about themselves—people will often lie. Never give out personal information, and never agree to meet anyone unless you can bring a trusted adult with you.

  ‘Often the predator will try to build up to a trusting relationship with you. He might start in chat rooms, then private chat rooms. Instant messaging and emails would be next because it gives both of you the freedom of not having to be always logged onto the Internet. The more confident predator might even attempt to telephone you. When you hear a voice on the end of the phone, it’s easy for you to think you’re talking to a friend...’

  Stevie knew the talk by heart and had to remind herself to slow down. Heads bobbed up and down as the children copied the notes and Donna’s careful printing squeaked upon the whiteboard.

  ‘Another fine performance, Stevie, thanks for coming.’ Stevie and Donna made their way down the tiled corridor to the staffroom.

  ‘No worries, all part of the service; I think the message is getting across don’t you? It would be better if we could get more parents involved. I want to talk about the dangers of kids having web cams in their rooms. There are things the parents need to know that aren’t suitable for the kids to hear.’

  ‘I put a note in last week’s newsletter for the parents’ night you proposed, but so far we’ve only had three responses.’

  Stevie sighed. What was it with these people? Child molestation directly resulting from Internet contact was rising daily, but it was a problem many parents seemed happy to ignore. Were they just ignorant of the dangers, or too busy with their own lives? It’s never going to happen to any of my children, she’d heard over and over again. No wonder she wrapped her own child in cotton wool.

  In the staffroom Stevie settled into Donna’s cubicle with its window onto the oval. She had twenty minutes to relax before picking up six year-old Izzy from the school car park—luxury. She leant back in the chair and brushed her fingers across the bandaid on her cheek, teasing the minor wound underneath. The itch was a satisfying reminder of Monday’s successful apprehension of Robert Mason.

  Donna came in with two mugs of coffee. ‘The kids loved your story about catching that guy in the park,’ she said. ‘One more chalked up to the good guys. I hope they lock him up and throw away the key.’

  Stevie pulled a face and dived into her bag. ‘Probably not. From what we can tell so far, the attempted abduction of Angel12 was a first offence—he has no prior convictions of interfering with children. We found kiddie porn on his hard drive and that’s about it. We’ll be lucky if he does two years.’ She pulled out a packet of cigarettes. ‘This is between us, all right? I shouldn’t be telling you this sort of thing, but hey, there’s no names ... Can I smoke in here?’

  ‘No, but I won’t tell if you don’t.’ Donna slid the window open and the sweet fragrance of the newly mown oval wafted in.

  Stevie blew out an angry jet of smoke.

  ‘It must be frustrating for you,’ Donna sympathised.

  Stevie tried to shrug it off. ‘Most police work is frustrating, one way or another, whether it’s directing traffic or a cold case murder investigation.’

  ‘I imagine dinner conversations at your place must be quite lively at times.’

  ‘They can be,’ she said. ‘But the good thing about not officially living together is that if one of us is in a foul mood or pissed off, we simply stay out of the other’s way. Monty stays in his flat and I wall myself up with Izzy at my place until we feel like talking again.’

  The staffroom door opened. ‘Quick, put it out,’ Donna said like a naughty schoolgirl. The half smoked cigarette plopped with a brief fizz into Stevie’s coffee as Donna went and dealt with the person at the door.

  Stevie twisted the ring on her finger as she waited for Donna to return. Monty was cooking at his place tonight: curry, she suspected. His taste for spicy foods, his rust red hair and skin that turned fire engine red with ten minutes of full sun—everything about Monty McGuire radiated heat. It was no wonder he lived near the sea. With all the stresses of his heavy workload lately, she thought the only thing that saved him from spontaneously combusting was the chance of a quick dip in the Indian Ocean.

  She found herself worrying for Monty. The pressures of the job had been weighing him down more than usual and he’d been having trouble sleeping. He said she wouldn’t be who she was if she wasn’t worrying about something or other. If it wasn’t Monty it was Izzy, and if she wasn’t worrying about their daughter, it was someone else’s child. Her mother always claimed that worry and guilt were a woman’s lot. Reluctant as she was to pay much heed to her mother’s pearls of wisdom, she had to concede that on this occasion, Dot was probably right.

  Donna’s voice brought her back. ‘Sorry, that’s the problem with being new to the job—so many files to catch up on, and my predecessor was hardly an organised type.’ Donna paused. ‘I suppose you’ll have to leave to pick up Izzy. You’re lucky your hours are flexible enough to accommodate school pick-ups.’

  ‘Not always, sometimes Monty picks her up, often my mother—’ This train of thought lead to another. Now she remembered where she’d seen the girl with the messy dark hair.

  ‘What was the name of the girl sitting in the front row, the one asking the sensible questions?’

  ‘Emma Breightling, why?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen her bef
ore; I think she baby-sits for one of my neighbours. My mother’s away on holiday, Monty’s stretched thin and I’m desperate for someone as back up for after-school care. What’s she like, is she old enough do you think?’

  ‘Some thirteen year olds wouldn’t be, but I don’t think Emma would give you cause to worry. As you’ve seen for yourself she’s very mature for her age, comes from a good home, her father’s a doctor, her mother’s some kind of professional. Other than that I don’t know much about her, which is good, really.’ Donna patted the pile of files on her desk, ‘I only get to know the problem kids.’

  4

  EXCERPT FROM CHAT TRANSCRIPT 150107

  DANTHEMAN: tell me what u look like

  BETTYBO: nooooooooo!

  DANTHEMAN: go on

  BETTYBO: ule think Im ugle

  DANTHEMAN: no I won’t. u sound sooooo cute!

  BETTYBO: I hav shot hair and im fat

  DANTHEMAN: still sound cute to me!

  Stevie carefully prised the fat from the chunk of curried meat and pushed it to the side of her plate. Her father used to say she had the metabolism of a greyhound, that the calories were burned up by nervous energy alone despite the arduous outdoor activities of her youth. But time had proved him wrong. The bull riding, rock climbing and orienteering had long given way to a demanding career and motherhood. The nervous energy was still there, but no longer seemed to have the same effect upon her body. If her metabolism continued to slow at this rate she thought, remembering the struggle to do up the button of her jeans that morning, the greyhound might soon be turning into a golden lab.

  She finished a second glass of wine.

  Then ate the scraps of fat from her plate.

  She thought about telling Monty about Tash’s behaviour in the park, that she was worried her friend might be cracking up, but changed her mind. He was too high-ranking—his code of ethics wouldn’t let the matter slide. Life would be a lot easier if one of them worked as a pen pusher for the local council, she thought with a sigh, leaning back in her chair to look at him.