The Tattooed Man

by Alex Palmer

  Freeman: What do you hide in a place like that?

  Beck: There’s a civil war on, mate. Dead people. What else?

  Cassatt: Keep your voice down. Do you want to tell the whole fucking room?

  Beck: Who’s here? Some bitch at the bar doing her business. We went there for Jean, God the father, for his daughter. She didn’t know, she said. No? She must be stupid. Their names aren’t on the papers but they knew what we were doing there. Jean told me to my face, you go there and you do this. You come back and you tell me what happens. And they think they’re better than me.’

  Cassatt: What are you talking about, mate?

  Beck: This place is shit. Why do you want to drink in this pig sty? Because it suits you?

  Freeman: If that’s how you feel, I might fuck off, mate. I don’t know about you but I’ve got better things to do.

  A second conversation followed almost immediately afterwards, again beginning with Freeman’s voice giving the date and time. It was just a few days after the previous meeting. They were at someone else’s house this time, neutral ground. Beck wasn’t there. Baby Tooth was. Arrogantly alive, he gave Harrigan his catch-all almost straight off. There were sounds of him arriving, the offer of a drink, and then the Ice Cream Man talking.

  Cassatt: I found her, mate. I found where Paulie’s stashed Ambro. It’s so fucking obvious, I should have thought of it myself. I’m on my way out there as soon as I can get away.

  Baby Tooth: I’m glad to hear it. I was pushing my luck getting that address out of my old man. I didn’t want to do it for nothing.

  Freeman: Didn’t he ask you why you wanted to know, mate?

  Baby Tooth: (laughter) You’re joking, aren’t you? What you don’t know can’t hurt you. He just called in a favour from his mate, old Roger, and gave me the address on a piece of paper. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look me in the eye. Far as he’s concerned it never happened.

  Freeman: What are you going to do about Ambro’s kids, mate?

  Cassatt: I’ll work that out when I get there. Why?

  Freeman: Because if she ends up dead, and maybe her kids too, is Sean’s dad going to start asking questions?

  Baby Tooth: You’re not going to shoot the kids, are you?

  Cassatt: I’m not planning on it, but I don’t know what’ll happen.

  Baby Tooth: It’d be one way of making sure Dad never asks any questions.

  Cassatt: Whatever. She’s going to be fucking sorry, that’s for sure.

  The tape finished. Harrigan hit the Stop button with relief. He debated whether to copy the tape then decided against it. Somewhere out there an unknown person had Cassatt’s original tape of Eddie Lee’s murder in their possession. Harrigan didn’t want to create a second one that corroborated the first. He had already downloaded the CD onto his computer. That would be enough for the moment.

  Freeman had been surprisingly methodical, labelling the tape with a series of numbers. When Harrigan loaded the CD onto his computer, he saw that the numbers matched the photographs of the meetings. Freeman had put together his own sound and light show. The pictures were as sordid as the tape had been. No one could have described the Ice Cream Man and his friends as eye candy. At least they showed why Beck hadn’t turned up on Harrigan’s radar despite several months of association with the Ice Cream Man and Freeman. They had been very careful about where they met in public, usually in out-of-the-way hotels or multistorey car parks. Interspersed with these pictures were encounters between various sex workers and members of the syndicate, including Baby Tooth. Curiously Beck didn’t feature in any of these photographs. Maybe he had no taste for that kind of group activity.

  Harrigan slowed when he reached the sequences attached to the single tape he had. The Ice Cream Man and Beck sat at the table together with half-empty glasses in front of them. The camera had taken in the rest of the room behind them, which held only a few scattered drinkers. A woman sat at the bar, supposedly having a drink and reading a newspaper but in fact looking towards the men at the table. The bitch at the bar doing her business. Harrigan recognised Sam Jonas. She couldn’t have known she was on camera. A very professional, skilled agent. Professional enough to get on to Beck’s connection to Freeman and Cassatt when none of his people had managed to. It wasn’t an observation that made him happy.

  Harrigan reached over and picked up the LPS brochure, reading Elena Calvo’s biography once again. Daughter of renowned industrialist Jean Calvo. Elena was God’s daughter; Calvo was God, or at least according to Beck’s estimation of how he saw himself. Jonas was tracking Beck, presumably keeping an eye on him for Elena Calvo and her father. Given what had happened with the Ice Cream Man, it had been a shrewd move.

  Harrigan googled the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The information confirmed much of what he already knew. It was a country riven by years of civil war and invasions, with UN reports of war crimes in the east of the country, specifically in Kisangani, which was also a well-known illegal diamond market. The capital was Kinshasa, which could also be a centre of conflict. A place where someone could hide any illegal activity, including murder.

  Harrigan went back to Freeman’s photographs and looked again at the picture of Beck sitting at the table with Sam watching him. Had he made things too dangerous for Sam’s boss? Proved to be too much of a wild card? What could be more provocative than taking the Ice Cream Man on a tour of her premises? Did Sam kill him and the others? Harrigan decided no. If Elena Calvo was behind the Pittwater murders, she wouldn’t have used as her killer someone who then introduced herself as her employee to the police officer in charge of the investigation. But it would explain why Sam had offered him a bribe. If she was behind these killings, Elena Calvo had a lot to conceal. Apart from any other consideration, such as gaol, if the minister made a connection between her and his son’s death, her company would be finished here.

  Harrigan was deep in these thoughts when his landline phone rang. He glanced at the number on the display but didn’t recognise it.

  ‘Paul,’ a familiar voice said. ‘It’s Marvin here. How are you tonight?’

  Of course Marvin could get his home telephone number. He had access to everyone’s personnel records, paper or automated.

  ‘I’m fine, Marvin. To what do I owe the pleasure?’

  ‘It’s business. You were at Jerry Freeman’s house today. You and your companion, as I believe she’s called. Freeman’s murder will affect the entire Pittwater investigation. I’ll have to give the commissioner an updated budgetary figure as soon as possible. I need an estimate from you of the operational impact of today’s events.’

  ‘I don’t think I can give you one just like that,’ Harrigan said. ‘I’ll have to work it out with Trevor. There’s no point me giving you a figure that’s inaccurate.’

  ‘Surely you can give me a ballpark.’ Marvin spoke sharply. ‘For example, did you find any evidence in Freeman’s house that could affect the progress of this investigation? Something Freeman may possibly have given your companion. Just knowing that would be enough for me to make an estimate.’

  ‘Any new evidence,’ Harrigan repeated. ‘What sort of evidence would that be, mate?’

  ‘Anything relating to Freeman’s murder, obviously. The kind of information a man like him would collect. Tapes, photographs.’

  ‘All that will be logged.’

  ‘There may be something you haven’t recorded yet.’

  Grace’s information was in Harrigan’s mind while Marvin was speaking. Today’s gunman is the person who turned over Freeman’s house and killed the Ice Cream Man. He didn’t find the tape but he did find copies of the photos on the CD. He glanced at the photograph on his desk that Freeman had given Grace on Bondi beach that morning: Baby Tooth at dinner with the Ice Cream Man, pills on the table. He flicked through the images on his computer screen, stopping when he found another picture of Baby Tooth, this time athletically entwined with a willing sex worker.

  ‘Paul, a
re you there?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve ever rung me at home before, Marvin,’ Harrigan said. ‘There’s never been an emergency that’s made you pick up the phone.’

  ‘I’m sorry to intrude but it’s urgent. The commissioner needs to know.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  Again a pause.

  ‘How’s your boy, mate?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your boy. Sean. Didn’t he just go over to Perth with his wife and kids? He upped and left overnight. Surprised everyone.’

  ‘Sean’s doing very well over there, as you’d expect. Marie and the children are happy. Why are you asking?’

  ‘I just wondered why he felt like a change of scene so quickly.’

  Harrigan listened to the silence. Marvin didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  ‘What’s your point?’ he finally asked.

  ‘You spent some time this morning giving my inspector grief. You tried to get the both of us dumped from this investigation. You keep pushing your nose in where no one wants it. I don’t think you should try any of that again if you know what’s good for you and your boy. I think you should take a very hands-off attitude from now on. Because if you don’t,’ Harrigan twisted the knife, ‘maybe you won’t ever get to be commissioner. Because maybe you and your boy will be looking for new jobs together.’

  Again, silence.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Marvin said eventually.

  ‘What fell into my hands today from Freeman. He had it in for you, mate. Even more than he did for me. He wanted to get you and your boy and he thought I might help.’

  ‘Tell me what you’re talking about.’

  ‘A tape and a bunch of photographs. Your boy doing business with some people very well known to Jerry Freeman and having a good time with some very lithe sex workers. You’d better hope his wife doesn’t see those pictures, because if she does she’ll be packing her bags.’

  ‘Does your companion know anything about what’s on the tape or those photographs?’ Marvin asked.

  ‘She knows nothing, mate. Freeman gave them to her to give to me and she knew better than to look at them or ask him any questions. I’ve told her to keep her mouth shut. And before you ask, no, I don’t have them here. I’m not that stupid.’

  ‘Have you listened to the tape?’

  ‘I haven’t had time yet.’

  When Marvin spoke again, there was a new edge to his voice. He sounded like a man who felt in control of events.

  ‘Why haven’t you given these things to your people, Harrigan?’ he said. ‘Surely they’d be relevant in some way. Is there a reason why you can’t? Is there something there that incriminates you. If Freeman was involved, it would be the right people. There’ve been enough rumours.’

  ‘You’re forgetting something, Marvin. I’m not the one in the pictures. From what I’ve seen, they’d make the commissioner’s last few hairs stand on end.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you to leave my people alone. You try anything like you tried this morning and you’re fucking gone, mate. And something else. Maybe one day I do want to climb the ladder to the commissioner’s office. If I do, then you’d better not get in my way. Do we understand each other?’

  ‘We do. Good night, Harrigan. I expect I’ll see you at the next budgetary meeting.’

  I am my own stalking horse, Harrigan thought, replacing the handset in the cradle. Someone was running Marvin. Harrigan was certain of it. Someone had waved the photographs under his nose and said, ‘Do what you’re told.’ Even now Marvin would be on the phone to his handler, telling him exactly what Harrigan had just said. Whoever the gunman was, he wouldn’t go after Grace; he would come after him.

  In the silence the phone rang again. This time Harrigan did recognise the number. Harold.

  ‘Harry. What can I do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe you can help me out, mate,’ Harold said reluctantly. ‘I’ve got a problem.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me what it is?’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘I have to say it, mate. I’m frightened. Frightened what might happen down here. I didn’t think I’d ever say that. I wanted to ask if you could get down here.’

  ‘Probably I can. Can you tell me a bit more first?’

  ‘It’s Stewie. He’s put this construction on the property. I call it the Cage. The people who got shot up at Pittwater—they were out here not much more than a week ago. Sitting with Stewie in my living room. They’re growing something out in that Cage. Not what you’d expect it to be from the looks of it. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous.’

  ‘Is this a personal invitation from you, Harry?’

  ‘If you want to put it that way. Why?’

  ‘Do you need your brother’s permission to have guests on the farm?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. What are you talking about?’

  ‘Because one day you might have to say that in a court of law. I’m making sure old Stewie can’t play any legal tricks if you do. I’ll be there sometime tomorrow. I’ll make the arrangements and I’ll be in touch. You stay by your phone tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I might not be able to do anything else,’ Harold said.

  ‘What do you mean? What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when you get here. It’s nothing special. Thanks, mate. I appreciate this.’

  ‘Before you go, how’s Ambro?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘She’s got something on her mind and she’s not telling me what. You might want to talk to her as well.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll be there tomorrow.’

  Harrigan hung up and sat in the silence of his house. By now it was dark and he realised how tired he was. The weight of the day’s actions, the dangerous place he’d put himself in tonight, made him wonder if he still carried the death wish that had made him go after the Ice Cream Man all those years ago. Was he inviting the gunshot Mike had never fired? Marvin’s runner would have no reason not to pull the trigger.

  Harrigan needed company, but it was getting late and there was still no sign of Grace. Maybe one day she would make up her mind if she was staying or going.

  He went into his bedroom where he made the bed and tidied up a little. There was a hint of her perfume still in the air. Otherwise, it was hot and airless. He opened the doors onto the veranda and stepped forward, almost as if he was stepping into the firing line, daring fate. Outside, it was only peaceful. He looked at the empty street, wondering if her car would appear. Then he remembered that it was in the police garage. How could he forget their public argument? No taxi appeared. Finally he turned back inside. It was a drab room to entertain a woman in, he thought. Tonight, it wouldn’t matter. Grace would not visit him. Tonight he had gambled and lost.

  He went back into his study where he looked at Goya’s prints on his walls. He remembered the first time he’d encountered Goya’s work. It had been a few years after his near murder, while he was on secondment to the Australian Federal Police and stationed in London. Everyone went to Spain for their holidays; he’d tagged along and found himself in the Prado in Madrid for no other reason than that it was in the tourist guide.

  He remembered walking into a room lit with a pale light where Goya’s Black Paintings were on display. It had been like walking into a room full of nightmares. He’d read the story of how these paintings were made, of the aged and sick artist nursed back from death by his doctor. Out of this sickness, Goya had turned his gifts to painting these works directly onto the walls of his own house, Quinta del Sordo, the House of the Deaf Man, then just outside of Madrid. Violent, shadowy mobs following each other in the dark. A dog with just its head visible in the empty landscape, staring in strange appeal at the sky. Two men sunk in mud, flailing at each other uselessly. Most terrible of all, Saturn devouring his own child. When he saw this painting, Harrigan had thought: yes, this is what we do to each other. We are like that, we eat
each other.

  Daily in his work, Harrigan watched the deterioration of people into strange madness, cleaned up after them when they had finished doing what they did to each other. Almost two hundred years after they had been painted, these hallucinatory works spoke to his demons and gave material form to his own nightmares. Nightmare, as he knew from his own experience, was as real in people’s waking lives as in their sleep.

  He took down from the shelf his facsimile edition of Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra and opened it to print number 69, a print Goya had etched out of the futility of war. He studied the image of a corpse that was lying partially out of its grave, its head turned to the side, its mouth open in death. Its bony fingers held a pen. On a sheet of paper it had scrawled a single word: Nada. Other shadowy etched figures, one holding the scales of justice, surrounded the corpse, staring at the message. The caption Goya had originally written was: Nothing. That’s what it says. The publishers of the 1863 edition had changed it to: Nothing. We shall see. The artist’s version had been too bleak for his first publishers.

  More usually, Harrigan had seen himself as the figure holding the scales of justice, as useless as he knew this to be. It was still an ideal he held on to in his mind. Tonight he questioned it. He thought of the young boy, Julian Edwards, dead at the scene in Pittwater with Cassatt’s grinning corpse beside him. What did he, Harrigan, achieve? Exactly what was written on the paper: Nothing. Nada. Tonight he became the corpse in the picture looking back at himself. His heart was dead. Even the emotional pain he felt was curiously dry, as if this too had no life force.

  He was deep in these thoughts when he felt two hands pressing gently on his shoulders. He knew that touch and looked up. Grace was standing behind him. He leaned back against her. Her body was warm through her singlet T-shirt.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me come in? I called out.’

  ‘I was lost in my head. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.’

  She looked down at the image on his desk. ‘So you were sitting here looking at pictures from the end of nowhere instead,’ she said.