Felicity Young - Harum Scarum

They’d decided earlier that Stevie would do the talking. ‘Mrs Webster? I’m DS Stephanie Hooper and this is Inspector Monty McGuire. May we come in?’

Stella Webster barely glanced at the ID Monty pressed against the screen door. Her nose was red and inflamed and her watery eyes fixed on Stevie, searching her face for assurances she could not give.

They were led into a small, airless lounge room. The furniture was dated and minimal, the place clean except for an overflowing ashtray on the coffee table, an empty beer can on its side next to it. A few knick-knacks on the shelf above the gas fireplace saved the place from total sterility and dreariness.

The woman wrapped her free arm around her injured one. She turned her back to them and spoke to a movie poster of The Titanic tacked to the wall. Stevie stared at it too, thinking how appropriate it was.

‘I hope you weren’t trying to reach me earlier. I had to get out for a bit. I shouldn’t have gone, the cops said I had to wait near the phone, but I had my mobile with me, so I thought what difference does it make? I went into Subiaco, couldn’t bear waiting around at home for news on my own. If she’d been kidnapped and they’d wanted a ransom, they’d have rung me on that wouldn’t they, I mean—’

The woman dropped her head and her thin shoulders began to shake. Stevie noticed a red area on her neck where the knot of the sling had rubbed. She crooked her head at Monty, indicating the kitchen, which was separated from the lounge by a breakfast bar. He nodded, a look of relief on his face. Taking off his suit jacket he began to bustle about.

Stevie guided Stella Webster to a cracked vinyl couch and sank down beside her. She could tell by the woman’s stiff posture she knew the news was not good, but she still had to spell it out. ‘Stella, I’m afraid a dead body matching Bianca’s description has been found.’

Stevie tensed and waited for the barrage of anguished questions: where, when, how, by whom? And, most critical, did she suffer?

Monty was filling the kettle at the kitchen sink. He turned the tap off and stood as if holding his breath. Like her he was thinking of Izzy, thinking how it would be for them if the tables had been turned.

‘I shouldn’t have gone out,’ Stella managed before the tears began to fall.

Stevie resisted the temptation to put her arm around the woman. In her experience, overt gestures of sympathy often did more harm than good. ‘It doesn’t matter, Stella, it wouldn’t have made any difference,’ she said, gently.

‘Not today maybe, but all the other times, the double shifts, the overtime, I left her alone too much.’ The woman patted the pocket of her shapeless pinafore dress and frantically looked around the room. Stevie offered her a cigarette and lit it for her, her own hands shaking so much it was hard to catch the tip with the flame. She could imagine herself reacting in the same way if something happened to Izzy—the guilt first, always the guilt.

She said, ‘We’re going to need to ask you some questions, Stella. We can come back in the morning if you like...’

‘But now would be better,’ Stella finished for her. ‘I know all about this, seen it on TV often enough. You have to act fast; every hour that passes lessens the chances.’ She choked on a sob. ‘But time has run out for Bianca, hasn’t it?’

‘Time is still imperative. We need to catch this man before he does it again.’ And when we do catch him, I might consider leaving him alone with Tash, Stevie thought. Or I might even give Tash a hand.

The phone in Stella’s kitchen rang. Monty pointed to it and Stella indicated for him to answer it.

‘Stella’s phone,’ he said and listened. ‘Just a minute.’ He covered up the mouthpiece and called out to Stella, ‘A bloke here wants to speak to you. Won’t give his name.’

Stella shrank towards the back of the couch as if she’d just glimpsed a poisonous snake and shook her head.

‘It’s all right, Stella, you don’t have to speak to anyone. A lot of people take their phones off the hook at a time like this.’ Stevie put her hand over Stella’s, which trembled like a wild mouse under her touch. ‘Who do you think it was?’ she gently enquired.

Stella took a breath and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Probably Bob, some guy who’s been asking me out, that’s all. He often rings at this time.’

It wasn’t what she said so much as how she said it. Stevie paused as she puzzled over the reason for Bob’s brush off. ‘You don’t seem to like him much.’

‘Hey, got that right in one.’

Monty unplugged the phone from the wall, then he put a tray on the coffee table before them. ‘Did you have a visitor before we came around? We passed a man on the stairs, he seemed angry,’ he said.

‘No, I’ve been here on my own. He was probably from upstairs.’ She pointed to the floor above with her good hand. ‘The woman up there has a different fella every night.’

‘How did you break your arm, Stella?’ Stevie asked, still thinking about Bob.

‘I was carrying a basket of laundry downstairs and missed my footing. It’s getting better, plaster’s coming off soon.’ She flexed the fingers of her left hand, moving the arm in the sling to show how much it had improved.

‘Is there anyone we can call to sit with you?’ Monty asked. Stella shook her head.

‘Are you sure? It’s not good for you to be on your own at a time like this.’ He handed them each a chipped blue mug, ladling a generous amount of sugar into Stella’s without asking if she wanted it. As gently as he could he told her that someone would pick her up in the morning to formally identify the body.

‘Where was she found?’ Stella turned red-rimmed eyes to Stevie.

‘In a half-built shopping centre in Midland.’

‘She’s never been to Midland. I don’t even like the place, never took her there. How was she, was she...?’

‘She died quickly, but I’m afraid there is evidence of sexual assault,’ Stevie said.

Stella covered her ears with her hands. ‘That’s enough, please, I don’t want to hear any more.’

Discarding her earlier caution, Stevie put an arm around the woman. ‘And we won’t tell you any more, not if you don’t want to hear it.’

Stella ignored the gesture of comfort, reached for her tea and took a shaky sip. ‘I’ll tell you anything you want, just as long as you don’t tell me anything more about how she died.’ She put her mug down and buried her face in Stevie’s shoulder.

Stevie remained with Stella long after Monty left to relieve his neighbour of babysitting duties, promising to stay until the distraught woman was asleep. She contacted the medical officer who dropped by with some sedatives, then called Stella’s sister in Esperance who said she’d arrive in Perth about lunchtime the next day. In between talking to Stella and making phone calls, Stevie briefed the team of uniformed officers assigned to question the neighbours.

Stella had taken the sleeping tablets and was now having a shower before going to bed.

Clothes scattered the floor of Bianca’s bedroom and the residual tang of salt and vinegar chips salted the air. The top of the Formica desk was scarred with slash marks and pitted with tiny holes as if from multiple compass stabbings. ‘I ♥ Daniel’— a boyfriend, a rock or movie star?—had been scratched into the surface.

Stevie cleared the desk chair of shoes and sat down to make notes of the key points of her conversation with Stella.

Bianca was the product of a one night stand with a New Zealand backpacker on a Darwin beach. Stella remembered the man’s Christian name, Nicholas, but that was it. After their brief encounter he’d returned to New Zealand none the wiser of Stella’s pregnancy.