The Ones You Trust

by Caroline Overington

  Emma knew that. And she knew how ruthless Maven could be. How many times had Emma detected Maven’s shadowy hand behind the gossip that occasionally circulated about her?

  Porridge Cardwell.

  That could well have been Maven, because that was Maven’s job, or part of it, anyway: getting attention for Cuppa, and all publicity being good publicity meant shaming the stars occasionally. Emma wasn’t immune. She’d been burned by Maven in her first week on the job. She had been asked to fill out what Maven called a questionnaire. The first few questions had been normal enough:

  Are you married? No.

  Children? No.

  Have you ever had an affair?

  Emma wasn’t even married then, so that question had been easy to answer, but she’d still been amazed to see such a question there, and she’d asked Maven, ‘Really? They need to know that?’

  ‘We need to know everything. What you have to remember, Emma, is that being on the Cuppa couch isn’t like being a reporter on the news. Cuppa makes big dollars for Stellar. Our rivals – now, and in the future – will do whatever they can to destroy you.’

  With an unlit pink cigarette dangling from one corner of her mouth, Maven had said, ‘Looking at you, I’m going to assume you’ve never done topless waitressing. But if you have, those pictures will surface. Our rivals will find them. They will find out if your long-lost brother was a bank robber. So whatever skeletons you’ve got, tell me, because I can handle anything, Emma, except surprises.’

  Emma had said, ‘There isn’t anything,’ but she had flushed, and Maven, being Maven, had detected a secret.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You come and tell me when you’re ready.’

  Twenty-four hours later, a crimson-faced Emma had returned to Maven’s office, saying she had a terrible secret: she’d once had glamour shots taken.

  ‘Glamour shots? What are they?’ Maven asked.

  ‘In a bedroom. With Heath.’

  ‘You better explain.’

  ‘It was a big thing once,’ said Emma, blushing furiously. ‘You go along, they do your hair and make-up and take photos. It’s supposed to be glamorous.’

  ‘And where are the pictures now?’

  ‘You have to buy them,’ said Emma. ‘That’s the catch. The voucher gives you a free photo session, but the pictures were really expensive. And they don’t give you the negatives, and after I moved up here to work for Stellar, I got worried. What if one day I got a job on Investigate and they surfaced? Heath asked the photographer if we could buy all the originals, but he said he has the copyright forever.’

  ‘Of course he did, the snake. He could probably tell you’d be a big deal somebody. So they’re out there somewhere, like a ticking bomb.’

  Emma put her face in her hands. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve blown my chance before I’ve even started.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Maven. ‘There’s a lot that I can do, but I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with. You said you bought a couple of the shots?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emma, sadly. ‘I have a memory box for Heath. They’re in there, with some of his other things.’

  ‘Bring them to me. Bring the whole box.’

  Emma returned to Maven’s office the following day, her face burning as Maven examined the picture. Emma was clad in black lingerie and a leather choker. Heath was bare-chested, wearing spray-on jeans.

  ‘Am I going to lose my job?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Maven said carefully. ‘This is not exactly the girl-next-door look we’re going for on Cuppa. But people would understand – you were in love. The photographer, is he still around?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He probably went broke. Most of them do. Leave it to me. If he is still around, he’ll have a price. Everyone does.’

  Emma could still remember feeling so relieved, and what a joke that had been, because two days later, she’d woken to a hysterical call from her mother. The glamour photo had appeared on the front page of a Sydney tabloid with a headline: What’s your CUP size? New host Emma Cardwell steams it up in NUDE photo shock ahead of Cuppa debut!

  Maven hadn’t even tried to deny that she’d been behind it.

  ‘I solved a problem for you,’ she’d said. ‘That photograph was going to leak sooner or later. You’d have had it in the back of your mind every day of your working life. Trust me on this, Emma, the best way to handle a mistake is to own it.’

  ‘But I hadn’t even told Mum,’ said Emma. ‘She’s beside herself.’

  Maven shoved a box of tissues across the desk. ‘You really are going to need to harden up, Emma. And learn the value of a bit of good publicity.’

  ‘I don’t think Bunny would have anything to do with this, Mum,’ Emma said. ‘That’s a very long time ago. And why would she blame me? I didn’t go after her job.’

  ‘I’m merely trying to help.’

  ‘Do you know what would help?’ said Franklin. ‘If you could scan some of the Gallery Main Street footage? We’re struggling to find anything. You’re going to recognise Fox from a glimpse. The more people we have looking at the tapes, the better.’

  For the first time since she had arrived at the house, Margaret looked pleased. ‘I could do that,’ she said.

  ‘Good. You know what to do, don’t you? Just be on the lookout for Fox, of course, but also anyone else you recognise.’

  ‘Anyone like who?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Oh, I know who they’re looking for,’ said Margaret, nodding sagely. ‘You want to know where Fox went, but you also want me to look out for Brandon, don’t you? I’ve got that right, haven’t I, Detective Franklin? You’re looking for Brandon.’

  Tuesday 13 October

  10 am

  ‘Thank you for staying with us as we continue our around-the-clock coverage of this terrible story . . . Little Fox-Piper – Emma Cardwell’s daughter – has now been missing twenty-one hours . . .’

  Maven jerked awake. She had fallen asleep, sitting upright, on Emma’s lounge. She’d dribbled onto her silk blouse. Had she been snoring? She pulled herself together. She hunted around the sofa for her phone and checked her messages. More than two hundred calls had come in from the media, sponsors, colleagues, old colleagues, rivals and busy-bodies in the hour since she’d nodded off. She swiped through most of them, flagging only a couple for return calls, then headed into the kitchen. There were a few duty officers there, checking their own phones. Edie was looking in the fridge, and Emma was slumped at the breakfast island, her head in her hands.

  ‘Any developments?’ asked Maven.

  A minion shook her head.

  ‘Still no ransom demand?’

  ‘No. Brew got a bit of a break.’

  ‘What do you mean, a bit of a break?’

  The minion looked nervous.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Okay, so they had a guest come in, a mum whose kid used to be at Crayon and Clay. A kid called Oliver. She was going on about how she sent the kid’s grandad to pick Oliver up one day. And the grandad said, “I’m here for Oliver” and the staff called out for Oliver, and Oliver came running and when the grandad got him home, the grandma said, who’s this? He’d taken the wrong Oliver.’

  ‘The wrong Oliver?’

  ‘Right. Because lots of kids are called Oliver . . .’

  ‘My fucking God, that cannot be true. He didn’t know his own grandson?’

  ‘The lady said he can get a bit confused. She was pretty upset.’

  ‘I bet. What kind of place are they running?’ asked Maven. She paused. ‘Although, you’ve got to admit, that’s hilarious. The wrong Oliver. And they had the mum on Brew?’

  ‘With Cassie.’

  ‘But of course,’ said Maven. ‘Isn’t everyone on with Cassie?’

  Edie closed the fridge door.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Maven. Edie was holding two slices of cold cucumber.

  ‘I made these for Emma,’ she said. ‘I can make so
me for you, too, Maven. You’re going to feel much better if your eyes are rested.’

  Emma, looking up, shook her head. ‘God, please, I just want my little girl back,’ she said.

  Edie made a sympathetic face. ‘I know, but let me help you, Emma,’ she said, leading her away from the kitchen and onto the L-shaped sofa, where she encouraged her to put her head back and close her eyes. ‘This will help, I promise.’

  Maven raised her eyebrows, like she could not believe such things were happening. She looked around for the remote, flicking the channel from PJ on special edition Cuppa to Cassie Clay on Brew.

  ‘Christ, they’re still on air! How many hours have they been going? Has anyone located Airlie?’

  ‘No,’ said Emma. ‘And I don’t care what Detective Franklin says, I don’t believe this has got anything to do with Airlie.’

  ‘Whether it has or not, can we start showing pictures of her?’ asked Maven. ‘People are going to get bored if we don’t have a suspect.’

  Brandon, from the armchair near the gas fire, didn’t even bother to raise his head.

  ‘I do wish you’d fuck off Maven,’ he said. ‘I’m honestly telling you I’m at the end with you. I’m going to have you thrown out of here. This is my fucking daughter we’re talking about.’

  Maven expressed no remorse. ‘All I mean,’ she said, still flicking between channels, ‘is we don’t want people to turn off. We need them to keep looking. You’d surely agree with that? And if we’ve got a wanted person, we’ve got a way to keep them engaged.’

  ‘My granddaughter is not a wanted person,’ said Margaret, coming in from the kitchen with a mug of tea in her hands.

  ‘No? Well, it’s curious to me that she has not answered her phone,’ said Maven, without breaking her gaze.

  ‘All right, but Brandon’s right – this is actually none of your business. You shouldn’t even be here,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Please, don’t anyone fight, Mum,’ said Emma. Her tone was desperate, weary. ‘Please, let’s not fight among ourselves.’

  ‘Can I please just lay these cucumbers on your eyes?’ said Edie, holding them higher. ‘I promise they will make you feel so much better.’

  ‘Edie, I’m sorry, I just can’t.’

  Emma was now glued to Brew’s live coverage with the adorable Cassie Clay, who was wearing the classic crisis-coverage expression: sympathetic, serious, calm.

  ‘Now, we have a special guest coming up who might just provide the breakthrough this case needs,’ Cassie was saying.

  ‘What could that be?’ said Emma.

  She watched, brow furrowed, as Brew crossed to a live shot of a man who was sitting in an elaborate armchair, presumably in his own home somewhere. He was wearing a shiny suit, and his hands, heavy with rings, were resting on carved armrests.

  ‘Oh Christ, this is all we need,’ Maven said.

  ‘Who is that person?’ said Emma, bewildered.

  ‘That is Roaring Leo,’ said Maven, rolling her eyes. ‘He’s the heir to somebody’s nickel fortune. He lives on the Gold Coast. He’s appalling.’

  ‘What does he have to do with anything?’ said Emma.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Maven. Turning up the volume, she added, ‘Please don’t tell me he’s offering to conduct a search. Oh my God, no. He’s offering to pay the ransom.’

  ‘But we haven’t even been asked for a ransom,’ said Emma.

  ‘But he can’t know that. And he wouldn’t care. He’s a vulture.’ Maven turned the sound up a little more. Roaring Leo was having a bit of trouble with his earpiece. His wife, in a dress split to the hip, put down her Pomeranian, to assist him.

  ‘Now I can hear you,’ he said. ‘I was just saying, what is the one thing kidnappers want? Money. And what’s the one thing I’ve got? Money.’

  He dropped a hand down from the carved armrest, and lifted the lid on a briefcase at his feet, to reveal a cartoonish stack of cash bricks.

  ‘Have you’ve seen that little girl’s face?’ he said. ‘She’s the most beautiful little girl. I feel rage! Whatever the ransom is, I’m prepared to pay it. I have the cash right here. So I’m saying to Emma Cardwell – I don’t watch that Cuppa show but I know who she is – I’m saying: if you are listening, just say the word and I will deliver this to you.’

  ‘That is gross,’ said Maven. ‘Are they trying to suggest that we don’t want to pay?’

  ‘Oh my God, will somebody please turn it off.’

  Maven turned in time to see Emma rising, distraught, from the sofa.

  ‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ she cried. ‘What are people doing? My daughter is missing. Do they think this is a game? I just want this over. I just want her home.’

  Tuesday 13 October

  11:30 am

  Franklin had been standing in the doorway, watching the lunatics on TV. This jackass wanted to pay a ransom? As if he could just come waltzing in with his cash bricks and everything would be solved?

  That wasn’t how things worked.

  The fact there had been no ransom demand had troubled Franklin since Fox had been noticed missing, and it troubled him more now that the clock was ticking towards lunchtime. It had been said before, and now he was saying it to himself again: the first twenty-four hours in any investigation were critical.

  At the same time, no amount of time meant anything if Fox wasn’t coming home.

  Franklin had started out prepared to accept what Brandon and Emma had told him at face value: a stranger had taken Fox from daycare. They didn’t know who, and they didn’t know why. The revelation about Brandon being blackmailed had ignited Airlie as a suspect, but it obviously wasn’t Airlie that took Fox from daycare and it obviously wasn’t Airlie in the CCTV. Was Airlie working with somebody else?

  Or was it all a ruse? To Franklin’s mind, it was still possible that the parents knew more than they were saying.

  He worked it over in his mind. Let’s say they knew exactly who collected Fox from daycare.

  If so, why were they hiding that woman’s identity?

  Maybe she’d delivered Fox home, and something had happened to the little girl in this very house?

  It was possible. At this point, anything was possible, but if that was right, where was Fox?

  Had she been disposed of somehow?

  What, if anything, did the boys know?

  Franklin had quietly instructed his officers to search Emma’s house as well as they could without a warrant. To look here, and look there. No one had found anything. They would need an actual warrant to go into the roof, under the floor, under the pool covering. Franklin wasn’t yet prepared to do that, because as soon as he did, the media would get wind of it, and people would stop looking for Fox.

  It’s obviously the parents. The cops got a warrant.

  He didn’t want that to happen, not before he had a chance to talk to the boys, and that was something he couldn’t do on his own. Franklin was old enough to remember how things used to be: you could sit a primary school kid down on a padded office chair at the local cop shop and ask him your own questions.

  That wouldn’t get you far, these days. Experts were all over everything.

  Were they better at it than Franklin himself would have been?

  He didn’t think so, but he also knew as well as anyone what protocol demanded, which was that he bring in the child psychologists, and preferably not a twenty-something year old, fresh out of university.

  He wanted somebody with forensic experience. A person who had maybe seen a few things.

  He turned to Panton. ‘There’s a bloke I want you to track down,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Do you have a name?’

  ‘It’s Jack Pan. He’s a child psychologist. He’s got rooms on the North Shore. He teaches at Sydney uni, too. Associate professor.’

  Panton blinked. She knew where this was going. ‘I’ll get on it,’ she said.

  Emma looked alarmed, and Brandon enraged.

  ‘Why do y
ou need a child psychologist? This has got nothing to do with the boys,’ he said, fists clenched.

  Franklin scratched his moustache. ‘The man I’ve asked for, he’s the best there is.’

  ‘And why do I give a fuck about that? Why do you need him?’ Brandon shot back angrily.

  ‘I don’t get it either,’ said Emma. ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to cover every base,’ said Franklin.

  ‘You think Seal has something to do with this? He’s five years old,’ said Brandon. He moved closer to the pedestal desk and put his hands on the leather top, in front of Franklin. ‘Hudson? He’s seven. This is ridiculous. You think they organised for somebody to take their sister from the daycare centre?’

  ‘We don’t know what happened,’ said Franklin. ‘I’d like your permission to speak to them.’

  ‘No,’ Brandon said firmly. ‘They’re seven and five years old. This is traumatic enough. I already don’t know what to tell them. Their sister is missing. We’re telling them it was a mix-up. They think she’s coming home.’

  Franklin turned and looked directly at him.

  ‘You think she’s not?’ he asked.

  Jack Pan was a thin man of Chinese background. He sat blinking in the front seat of the patrol car as it pulled up outside Emma’s house, and his face remained impassive as cameras clicked against the glass.

  He entered the house, dressed in skinny suit pants and long tie. He shook hands with Franklin, and with the child psychologist from NSW Police who had arrived just ahead of him: a frizzy-headed woman in a mid-length linen smock, and a chunky necklace made of oversized, wooden blocks, who introduced herself as Vee Ratcliffe.

  They agreed between themselves – or rather, Vee suggested, and Jack Pan did not demur – that the interviews should take place separately. Hudson first, then Seal. The children should be in their bedrooms. Vee would ask the questions and Jack Pan would observe. They agreed, too, on the process they would follow: the first questions would be simple ones, designed to build trust.

  What’s your name? I’m Vee. Like your knee. Can you think of a word that starts with V?