She’s my problem child.
How many times had Freya Cardwell applied that description to her daughter? She had two children: a son, Hamish, who had always been a dream, and his sister, Airlie, who was her problem child.
‘It’s not her fault,’ she’d sigh, because honestly, she didn’t blame Airlie. The divorce had been hard on her. Like Emma, Freya had moved from Orange to the city for career opportunities. Unlike Emma, she hadn’t found many. She’d started out in a bank, and then she’d got married. And then pregnant. Her husband had a good job, down at the docks, but he worked shifts. They’d fallen out of sync, and the marriage had ended. The divorce had come shortly before Airlie turned thirteen, a difficult age for girls, plus her dad had taken off with another woman, leaving Freya to raise the kids alone. Not that they blamed him. Oh no, they idolised him, and why wouldn’t they, after he became Disney Dad?
Then he’d married again, and had a new baby, and the new wife hadn’t been one for having his first set of kids around, especially not after Airlie hit puberty and started dying her hair blue and smoking cigarettes, leaving Freya to take the calls from the school counsellor, asking her to come in.
Freya had gone in. She was that kind of mum. The counsellor was one of those adults who had ‘come through the system’ – meaning foster care – and saw himself as an ally of troubled teens. He wore faded black jeans and smelled of cigarettes, and he informed Freya, at that first meeting, that Airlie’s problems were essentially her fault because she’d been ‘minimising the divorce trauma’.
‘She’s acting up,’ Freya said. ‘All teenagers do it. She needs to buckle down, finish school and get a job.’
The counsellor had been unimpressed with that response. With Airlie slumped in the visitor seat beside him, he’d said, ‘I don’t think you understand the world these girls are growing up in. The lack of privacy. The constant connectivity.’
‘I could take her phone away.’
That hadn’t gone down particularly well either. Next thing the counsellor was asking Freya to do some kind of Parenting Teens class. She’d escaped that fate, but only because Airlie had taken up drugs – marijuana mostly, but also party drugs – and drifted out of school. Freya had played tough cop, sitting her daughter down to say, ‘Don’t think you can lie around the house all day. If you’re not going to go to school, you can get a job.’
‘You think I can’t get a job? I will get a job,’ said Airlie, flouncing from the room.
And, to Freya’s surprise, Airlie did get a job, at Burger Man Buns, and she’d even stuck at it for a while, but then she’d somehow picked up a boyfriend – Denim, that was apparently his name – with hand and neck tattoos, who declared himself of all things, vegan. He’d encouraged Airlie to quit Burger Man Buns, because the patties were gross and meat was industrialised murder. That had prompted a new stage, with Airlie and the boyfriend – Denim, really? – sitting around, getting stoned, plotting changes to the system.
Exasperated, Freya had confided in Emma. ‘He’s a bad influence, but it’s like she’s under his spell.’
To her surprise, Emma had offered a solution. Was Airlie interested in a nannying job? But hadn’t Brandon only just been laid off? Why did Emma need a nanny? Because Brandon didn’t want to do the running around, was basically the answer she got. He wanted to trade stocks and shares on his computer, or something.
Freya had promised to raise it with Airlie, and Airlie had said, ‘No way.’
‘For God’s sake, Airlie,’ Freya said. ‘It’s your auntie Emma. You love those kids. They’re your cousins.’
‘I don’t even know them,’ Airlie said, sulkily. ‘I’ve seen them maybe twice in my life.’
‘Don’t be silly. You saw them two weeks ago at Hudson’s birthday.’
‘I didn’t go to Hudson’s birthday. I don’t even know how old Hudson is.’
‘They’re still your cousins. And Emma’s your auntie. And you get to take care of Fox-Piper! She’s cute! She goes to swimming lessons. She goes to daycare a couple of days a week. Emma’s got that lovely house with a pool. It sounds like the best job in the world.’
Airlie had rolled her eyes. ‘Fox-Piper is the most pretentious bullshit name in the history of the world. And looking after little kids is horrible.’
Freya didn’t disagree. Looking after your own little kids was bad enough. Other people’s kids were worse. But she had pressed on. ‘It’ll be fun! And you’ll get a good reference and in a year or so, who knows? You could find yourself nannying in Britain, or France, or anywhere!’
‘When did I ever say I wanted to be a nanny?’
Freya had sat down on the edge of her daughter’s bed. ‘And that’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t know what you want to do with your life. Here’s an opportunity and it’s something. And at this point, anything is something.’
Airlie had sulked a bit more but she had taken the job, and for a while there, she had even been enthusiastic about it, or so Freya had thought. Airlie would get up in the early hours to help Brandon as he shuffled around in Emma’s sleek kitchen, getting the breakfast out and the lunchboxes ready. Some days, she would stay on through the afternoon to play with Fox or take her to her classes, or else she’d come home, and go back to pick the boys up from school and help them with their homework.
It hadn’t lasted. Airlie had barely been in the job for eight months when the whole thing exploded, and everyone was saying Airlie was to blame.
But hadn’t Brandon played his part?
Of course he had. But how had Emma responded? By firing Airlie. Her own niece.
That was in April, and now it was October and Airlie was back to her old habits. Not working. Smoking dope. Disappearing for days on end. Not returning phone calls when she didn’t hear her phone, because she never had credit, or else she just couldn’t be bothered to pick up, not even when it was her own mother calling.
Freya had tried a few times to reach out to Emma for help, but she was always so difficult to get on the phone. But now, look here, wouldn’t you know it, Emma was suddenly calling her!
Freya had heard her phone ringing in her bag. She pulled the bag up onto her lap, fished around to find her phone, and squinted at the screen.
Yep, it was Emma.
Not just once, either. There were four missed Facebook calls from Emma, and one Facebook message:
Call me. About Fox. Ugent. With the R missing.
Urgent, thought Freya. Yes, of course it’s urgent when it’s to do with you, isn’t it? Well, not this time. This time you can sit in radio silence, see how it feels for a change.
Freya put the phone down, flat on the table, and took another sip of her cocktail.
Franklin looked around Emma’s living space. Eight duty officers, one sergeant and two Police Media officers had been assigned to assist him at Emma’s home, which was more officers on one team than he had seen for some time.
Because this was a likely kidnapping?
Yes.
Because this was also Emma Cardwell?
Probably.
Franklin did not have to remind himself not to let the pressure of a high-profile investigation get to him. He had worked in Sydney’s eastern suburbs a long time and had therefore handcuffed bankers, and the wives of billionaires, and it was all the same to him. Plus, he understood that he would soon lose carriage of the investigation, not because he was no good – he was pretty good – but because the boffins, higher up, would not be able to help themselves.
Nobody, these days, could leave well enough alone.
Why put one detective, or even two, and their team on a high-profile case, when you could divide the responsibilities between a dozen different arms of the force, and have them all running around like chooks, chasing the same leads, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?
That was the modern way. The more inefficient, the better.
He had already taken a call from police headquarters in Surry Hills –
not where he was based, so he didn’t know too many people there – from a detective who had identified herself as Sam Rout, who had informed him that she was waiting for Noelle’s lawyer to arrive, so Noelle could be formally interviewed.
‘I’ll do all the staff interviews if that suits you,’ Sam had said. ‘If you want to concentrate on the family?’
‘No problem.’
It was easier, in a bureaucracy, not to argue, so Franklin hadn’t bothered. Better to focus on what he could control: his own part of the puzzle.
‘We’re going to need a place to set up here,’ he said, to Brandon. ‘Have you got a private space anywhere, somewhere the kids aren’t going to pop out any second?’
‘My office?’ suggested Brandon.
‘Show me.’
Brandon led Franklin to his private domain: a room with navy-painted walls, and a big mounted screen. Franklin had expected something tight and poky but the space was cavernous, and warmly furnished. He took a mental note of the bookshelf, with the American-style football helmet in a glass display case; the pedestal desk, with two computer screens, side by side; the high-back chair.
Franklin turned to Panton. She’d impressed him when they’d first met, back at Crayon and Clay. His best guess was that she was no more than around twenty-three years old – she had an open, heart-shaped face, and shiny brunette hair gathered into a bun at the back of her neck – and probably no more than three years into the job, but she was clearly going to be good at it, having already formed a bond with Emma. On that basis alone, Franklin wanted to continue working closely with her.
‘Could you bring more chairs? I saw some in the dining area. Get someone to help you.’
Panton hurried away. Franklin turned to her partner, Sullivan – a tanned blonde, with ice-blue eyes, hair swept back into the same neat bun – and put her in charge of ordering the equipment he guessed he’d need: a police laptop, or better still, two; a powerboard for computers and phone chargers; recording devices and speakers; a whiteboard and markers; a pinboard, with pins and string for making connections between people.
Emma arrived in the doorway. She looked a desperate figure, with her eye make-up all smudged and her arms wrapped around her body.
‘Sit down,’ Franklin said, gesturing to one of the chairs being carried into the room. ‘Where’s your husband? Come in, Brandon. You sit down too. Okay, we’ve got a team back at headquarters talking to Noelle, tracking down the other staff, figuring out who saw Fox go. But I don’t want to wait much longer. I want to get an Amber Alert out, but before I do it, I want you to understand something.’
Emma sat, as did Brandon. They both looked pale and, Franklin noted, they did not touch each other.
‘Okay.’ Franklin cleared his throat. ‘Child abduction – I’m talking about a situation where somebody takes a child, deliberately, a stranger’s child – hardly ever happens in Australia. When I say hardly ever, it’s so rare I can count on the fingers of one hand, probably, the number of times we’ve seen it. The cases you’re remembering – the high-profile ones – you’re remembering because they are so rare. We don’t do an Amber Alert in child custody cases. We don’t do this when a child doesn’t turn up at school. We don’t do this for teenage runaways. We hardly ever do it, which means that when we do, the media gets excited. And so the second we put this out, they’re going to go berserk because the media understands that when we say Amber Alert, we mean, this is serious.’
Franklin tapped the nib of his pen on his open notepad, leaving a series of blue dots. ‘And this particular alert is going to be crazier – forgive that word, but you know what I’m getting at – because you’re Emma Cardwell.’
She nodded.
‘Now, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be able to handle it. New South Wales police have a call centre in town – Police Link. That’s where the Triple 0 and Crimestoppers people are located. We’ve usually got fifty customer service officers working the phones there. They’ve all got a computer screen in front of them, and they’ve all got a trace button. They’re all highly trained, and they’re supervised by police sergeants. My guess is, people are going to be calling in, tying up the lines with all kinds of stuff that’s not exactly useful, mainly because of who you are, Emma. We will be asking people not to tie up the lines, so hopefully we’ll be able to assess whatever good leads we get straightaway. And by good leads, I mean people who have seen your daughter being carried out of the daycare, out of Gallery Main Street, put in a car, or whatever the case may be.’
‘Okay,’ said Emma, nodding feverishly. ‘Let’s hurry.’
‘Okay,’ said Franklin. ‘We’ve got a photograph of Fox, haven’t we? You’ve given that to Senior Constable Panton, along with a description?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we’re ready to go. But before we go, is there anyone you need to speak to, before it hits the news? Your parents, for example?’
‘I’ve been calling Mum,’ said Emma. ‘She’s one of those people, she has a mobile, but you don’t know why she bothers. I’ll keep trying. And I’ve been trying Freya, obviously.’
‘And we’re trying Airlie,’ said Franklin. ‘Anyone else?’
‘I can call my parents,’ said Brandon. ‘Let me check the time. Christ, they’re going to be off the wall.’
‘Okay. Who else needs to know?’
Emma looked at Brandon. ‘Okay, well, one person I do have to call is Maven,’ she said.
Brandon rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Maven?’ echoed Franklin. ‘Who’s Maven?’
Monday 12 October
10:05 pm
‘One of the benefits of Emma being who she is, working in TV, being a celebrity, is that everyone is going to be focused on this story . . .’
Maven’s name wasn’t really Maven. Some people, including plenty at Stellar, assumed that it must be, since that’s what everyone called her. But Maven’s real name was Sally Hanson, although, as Maven had a habit of saying, ‘Anyone who calls me Sally has no idea who I am.’
She was Jock Nelson’s right-hand woman. The station’s 2IC, or second-in-command. The person in charge of publicity and all crisis management.
The most powerful woman in TV land.
That was how the gossip writers styled her, and Maven would not disagree. She had started her career in the Stellar typing pool alongside a dozen other young women, whose job it was to type up letters and memos and contracts for male bosses. That was about as far as women could get at Stellar in the 1970s, but that was before Maven.
More ambition in her left tit than most people have in their whole bodies.
That was how Jock liked to describe Maven, and again, she wouldn’t disagree. She had grown up dirt poor with an IQ of 150, always a dangerous combination, and she had been ambitious for herself since seeing her smart mother slide into a psychiatric home with a Valium addiction. She had moved as fast as she could from the typing pool to a desk outside a top executive’s office, and when the ‘Personnel Department’ opened in the 1980s, she applied to run it, quickly proving herself capable of handling just about any crisis the stars of Stellar could throw at her.
A dead stripper found floating face down in a pool in a villa in Bali, where a Stellar star had been partying over New Year?
‘We honestly have no idea who this poor woman is, because there was certainly no one in the pool when our team left for the evening . . . what a terrible tragedy for the girl’s family.’
A married game show host photographed by paps working for The Snoop, coming out of a gay club?
‘He has so many gay friends . . . don’t we all? Complete non-story.’
A contestant on a long-dead reality show flashing his penis on air?
‘That is the kind of thing we at Stellar – a family network – will not tolerate.’
Maven handled all of the above, and Jock Nelson had rewarded her with one promotion after another. First she became Head of Communications – t
he ‘PR Maven’, hence the nickname – and from there, she became Vice-President, Corporate and Community Relations, later Corporate, Community and Government Relations, with her own executive assistant and a fleet of tremulous minions to run her errands. With each step up the ladder, Maven had become more imperious, indeed regal in appearance. She had seen minions quaver when she got into the elevator, and why wouldn’t they? Maven was tall and wide-bodied, and she never wore skirts, favouring wide-legged pants in expensive, swaying fabric. She had a mane of silver hair that her personal stylist swept up for her, high and away from her forehead, like a Centaur’s helmet, two or three times a week. She was never without her Hermes handbag, her buckled patent flats or her coloured cigarettes. Her company car was a bulletproof black Humvee.
But while Maven may have moved up from the typing pool to a corner office with a water view and a wardrobe of Gucci loafers, she had never lost her instincts. Her background meant that she understood ordinary viewers in a way other senior executives – private school boys, men who knew each other in some sense even before the world of work – did not. Over time, she had used those skills to extend her influence from crisis management to talent spotting for Stellar, including shows like Cuppa. She was too savvy to publicly take the credit, since Jock’s reputation had him as the programming guru, but it had been Maven, not Jock, who had chosen the foundation hosts for Cuppa, back when it was just an idea that Jock had brought back from a TV convention in London.
‘Put Brian Lehmann on the couch.’
That had been Maven’s idea. Jock had been aghast.
‘You’re kidding, Maven. The man’s got jowls like a bulldog. Who wants to look at that face over their Rice Bubbles? He’s an old hack. I’m putting him out to pasture.’
But Maven’s instincts – Brian is grouchy but lovable; he’s seasoned, with a soft side; he’s got credibility as a journalist, even if people really can’t stand journalists – had proven correct, as had her decision to pair the grumpy Brian with Bunny Tasker.
The Ones You Trust Page 9
