Harum Scarum (2 page)

Wrong.

Tash stepped closer to their prisoner, waving the gun in his face. ‘Robert Mason, you have been soliciting children over the Internet, pretending you’re something you’re not in order to have sex and do God knows what else to them.’ She pressed her face within inches of the quaking man’s. ‘That’s true isn’t it?’

Mason shook his head violently, sweat flying from his short spiky hair. Tash took a step back and wiped her face.

Stevie pinched her partner’s elbow and indicated for her to drop the gun. ‘Tash...’ she warned.

‘You can have it when this guy admits what he was doing,’ Tash muttered. She drew the slide and Stevie held her breath.

Mason gasped. ‘Oh fuck, okay, okay. Yes, I thought I was meeting a kid, yes, I was after sex, but it would’ve be consensual...’

‘Angel12 thought she was meeting a boy a similar age to herself. You knew she was a fan of the Stoned Mullets and you conned her, promising to give her posters and CDs if she met up with you,’ Tash said.

‘I didn’t—’

‘And if you hadn’t started talking dirty, you might have got away with it—you just couldn’t help yourself could you?’

‘No!’

Stevie intervened, ‘Robert Mason, I’m arresting you...’

Aghast, Stevie watched as Tash pulled the trigger and Robert Mason staggered back as a stream of water hit him between the eyes. He fell, cracking his head against one of the metal struts of the DNA tower before crumpling in a heap.

‘Tash, get away from him—right now!’ Stevie pushed the words through the side of her mouth, hoping Mason wouldn’t hear.

Tash was laughing so much she seemed incapable of action. Stevie snatched the gun from her and rolled the man over.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he stammered, blinking up at her.

Stevie clenched her jaw and snapped the plastic barrel across her knee before tossing the pieces into a nearby bin. ‘You can call me Angel12 if you like.’

They handed Mason over to the custody sergeant. Tash suggested a cuppa in the canteen but Stevie guided her towards the nearest interview room and kicked the door shut behind them.

Her anger was at last free to boil over. ‘What the hell do you think you were you playing at there in the park—Dirty Harry?’

‘Jesus, you don’t have to blow a gasket. This acting officer in charge crap has really gone to your head, hasn’t it? It’s totally wiped away your sense of humour.’ Tash folded her arms and set her mouth in a tight line.

Stevie pointed to a chair. ‘Sit down.’

Tash remained standing, one leg tucked back against the wall. ‘Welcome to the real world,’ she said coldly.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re new to Sex Crimes, this is how we work.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Yeah, well, just wait—it won’t take long before it starts getting you down too. Day in day out, dealing with the scum of the earth—Mason got off lucky.’

‘Oh c’mon, there’s more to it than that,’ Stevie said. ‘What about the bust we did where that rock-spider dressed himself in drag to try and catch the kid? You didn’t lose it with him. Something’s wrong, I know you, remember? You’re going to have to give me some kind of explanation for all this if you don’t want me taking this further.’

Tash looked away. ‘It’s the job, I told you that; these animals who use and abuse for their own sick pleasure, never caring about the consequences to the kid, the physical trauma, the lifetime of emotional pain—’

‘If it’s getting to you that much, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it any more, maybe you should apply to a different unit.’

Tash screwed her eyes tight for a moment. ‘You going to tell Dolly, have me put in for a transfer?’

‘I won’t if you give can me a more credible explanation for your behaviour. And if you can’t talk to me then I think you need to speak to one of the counsellors about this.’

Tash pushed away from the wall and dragged the chair from the table with a nerve-grating scrape. Taking her change in position as a begrudging sign of truce, Stevie pulled up a chair and sat down too.

Tash inspected her chewed nails. ‘Robert Mason reminded me of someone I used to know, that’s all,’ she mumbled.

‘Who?’ Stevie and Tash had been friends since they were squad mates at the police academy and knew a lot of the same people.

‘No one you know. Someone from a long time ago, one of Terry’s teachers, young, cocky and good looking in a creepy kind of way. I was only a kid, but I remember thinking when I first met him that he had gravy eyes.’ She finally looked up. ‘Robert Mason has gravy eyes.’

Stevie sighed. Terry was Tash’s brother—her disabled brother—who had been in her care since their parents had been killed several years ago in a car accident. Gravy eyes—what the hell was that supposed to mean? Was that really the trigger that had set her off?

‘Can’t say I noticed his eyes,’ she said. ‘And neither had you when you decided to pull that stupid toy gun on him. But go on.’

Tash took a deep breath. ‘Terry had finally been accepted into our local high. It was a huge achievement, he’d spent most of his life at a special school and we were all so excited for him. I was still at primary school, but I remember how proud he was. And he settled in well, most of the kids were really nice to him. Then the maths teacher said he was showing potential, and offered to give Terry tuition without charge, said with some extra coaching, he might even be able to reach TEE standard.’

Stevie knew exactly where this was going.

‘Every week Mum dropped him off for his tutoring and every week his behaviour got worse. He started getting into trouble at school, knocked a kid’s tooth out in the playground, started wetting his bed, having tantrums. In the end we had to send him back to the special school. The sexual abuse from the maths teacher was revealed during a counselling session.’

‘Was he prosecuted?’

‘Oh yeah, he got five years. But Terry still gets violent mood swings, terrible nightmares—Mum blamed herself. He was a gorgeous placid kid.’

‘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.

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.

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 most of the children gazed back at her in rapt attention.