The Tattooed Man

by Alex Palmer

  ‘If it was the tobacco that caused those injuries and not a farming accident. What happens next in this scenario of yours?’

  Harrigan almost announced that crop samples did exist, then changed his mind. It was information he would share later with Trevor.

  ‘Whoever shot those people, after they’re dead the shit hits the fan,’ he replied. ‘Calvo goes into survival mode. She wipes the IAR Consortium off the face of the earth. She tries to shut down this investigation and stop anyone from implicating her and her company in whatever Beck was doing. Which means that whatever Beck was up to, it was dynamite.’

  ‘Hold it right there,’ Parkin said. ‘You’re telling us she’s behind this sabotage. She hired the man who blew a government minister, his adviser and a police guard to eternity. We know that Elena Calvo was a good friend of Edwards. She’s also the CEO of a cutting-edge scientific institution he helped bring here. Besides which, the senator doesn’t refer to her in his affidavit. Also, he makes no connection between Beck and LPS. Given who he has accused, surely he would have voiced any suspicions he might have had about her? Especially since he knew from the dossier that she did have this connection with Beck.’

  ‘Given the senator’s friendship with Calvo, he may not have wanted to face up to the possibility that she was implicated in these events,’ Harrigan said. ‘Secondly, he may not have wanted to bring down a company he’d worked so hard to establish here. That affidavit is almost entirely a personal attack on the man he accuses of bribing him, so much so it undermines what he has to say. I’d like to know what his state of mind was when he wrote it. If we’d had the chance to go through it with him, it might have been a different story.’

  ‘That can’t happen now.’

  ‘That’s the point.’

  ‘This is all conjecture. Do you have any real evidence to back this scenario other than these assertions?’ Parkin asked. ‘Because let me tell you, Commander, even if this was true, you’d have the devil’s own job proving it.’

  ‘Proof is what we’re looking for,’ Harrigan said. ‘Trev. I asked you to look into Sam Jonas. What did you find out about her?’

  ‘She’s on the books of the same security firm as du Plessis,’ Trevor said. ‘Griffin Enterprises. She gave their name and number as a reference on her résumé. When we rang, they confirmed that, but as soon as we said who we were they put the phone down and now they won’t take our calls.’

  ‘Who is this person?’ Parkin asked.

  ‘One of Elena Calvo’s security people,’ Harrigan said. ‘She’s a wild card. I think it’s worth finding out who she really is.’

  ‘Do you have any reason to believe she’s involved in any of this?’

  ‘We’ve just heard she shares an agency with du Plessis. My information is, she was tailing Beck for months before his death. Yes, I think she’ll have something to tell us.’

  ‘Then we’ll wait to find out what she has to say. But all these things you’ve put forward need proof,’ Parkin said.

  ‘If we get du Plessis, we have a good chance of getting some of the information we need. This is where your people and mine could cooperate.’

  ‘Commander, we all know that du Plessis supposedly abducted your son. Are you sure you’re not letting any personal feelings get in the way of your judgement?’

  ‘I never do. If you knew anything about the way I work, you’d know that was true.’

  ‘So you say.’ Parkin stood up. ‘In my eyes, we’re already cooperating. Every law enforcement agency in the country is out there searching for this man. But if this scenario is where your antenna is fixed right now, I prefer to follow my own investigation. Is that the full body of information you have for us so far?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Trevor said.

  ‘Then thank you again.’ Parkin’s two colleagues got to their feet as well. ‘We’ll get to work. We’ll certainly be in touch with what we find, and we expect to hear from you too. In the meantime, Commander, if you get any proof of that scenario, you bring it to us. I’m happy to hear facts but I’ve never been interested in fantasies.’

  Harrigan didn’t reply. They walked out.

  ‘Arseholes,’ Frankie muttered.

  There was silence.

  ‘Where do we go from here, boss?’ Trevor asked.

  ‘Where you’re going now,’ Harrigan replied. ‘Keep looking into Calvo’s background. Check out Sam Jonas. Sit down and work through the information again. In my opinion, you’re on the right track. Meantime, I think everyone here needs a break. Get some fresh air. Trev, your office now.’

  At his desk, a change came over Trevor. The public face had gone; he seemed to have trouble looking Harrigan in the eye.

  ‘I got your wire, boss. I’m guessing that’s why you wanted to talk to me.’ He passed the paraphernalia over to Harrigan. ‘Are you sure you just want to record? You don’t want us to listen in?’

  ‘No, what you’ve given me is fine.’

  ‘Boss, your son being snatched like that. What was it really about?’

  ‘What do you think it’s about?’ Harrigan said.

  ‘He wanted something from you, didn’t he?’ Trevor asked quietly.

  Harrigan shook his head.

  ‘Come on, boss. Was it what Freeman gave Gracie, maybe? Did you give it to this du Plessis? He didn’t even tell you where your boy was. Gracie found him, thank Christ.’

  ‘Grace got some information for us,’ Harrigan said, changing the subject. ‘She gave it to me last night. She says there’s a connection between Jonas and Brinsmead.’

  ‘How can she know that?’

  ‘To put it simply, she found it out talking to Brinsmead. He’d met her at the LPS launch. He wanted to tell her how he got his burns. He’s got a connection to the DRC with du Plessis and Beck. According to him, all three of them were there together.’

  ‘Are you telling me Brinsmead is our anonymous operative in the dossier?’ Trevor asked.

  ‘He’d have all the right qualifications,’ Harrigan said.

  ‘You didn’t say that to the boys and girls out there.’

  ‘Grace thinks Brinsmead and Jonas might be legitimate operatives from a secret service agency and their brief is to find out what Beck and LPS are up to. Now that scenario makes sense, but we have to find out whether it’s actually true. If we advertise this information, we could be sabotaging their investigation. But if they’re rogue, then they’re right in the picture for this. They’re an obvious source for the dossier, for example.’ Harrigan spoke more quietly. ‘I’d also be looking at Sam Jonas for Marvin’s shooting.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Gut. And the fact that it couldn’t have been du Plessis.’

  ‘What are you going to do, boss?’

  ‘See the commissioner as soon as I leave this office. Ask him to take the question to ASIO. If Brinsmead and Jonas are legitimate, then they’re the ones who should be able to find that fact out for us. Until we know that, I don’t want this information going anywhere. It’s between you and me. That’s why I’ve waited until now to discuss it with you. I wanted to think it through first.’

  ‘What about getting a statement from Gracie?’

  ‘We do need to do that. I’ll talk to her about it. In the meantime, add Brinsmead to your list of people to check out. There’s something else you need to know. There are crop specimens in existence. Harold Morrissey took some and gave them to me to bring back. They’re at the Millennium lab right now being tested.’

  ‘You didn’t enlighten our federal friends about that.’

  ‘Right now I want this information kept confidential until we know who Jonas and Brinsmead are.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had those specimens before, boss? Was it because of Marvin. You knew he was being run, didn’t you?’ Trevor said.

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘Look, as far as I’m concerned you’re still the boss. I haven’t forgotten what you did for me in the commissio
ner’s office the other day. But Jesus, mate, if you had an idea about Marvin you could have told me. Maybe we could have worked something out. We’ve lost enough evidence as it is.’

  ‘I warned you, mate, if you remember. I spent a lot of time and effort keeping him at bay. It’s why I’m going after Calvo now. I want her to incriminate herself.’

  ‘Isn’t she too smart for that?’

  ‘It depends on how desperate she is.’

  ‘All right, we’ll go with it.’

  ‘There are no secrets from now on, mate,’ Harrigan said.

  ‘You’ve got nothing left to hide, boss. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘I mean you can trust me.’

  ‘I always have, mate. Believe it or not, I still do.’

  The commissioner made time for Harrigan as soon as he heard his request and then listened to what he had to say intently. Once Harrigan had finished, it took him some minutes to reply

  ‘That’s one way of getting information,’ he said. ‘But I know Ms Riordan was a police officer and my understanding is she still works in the field in some way. Her reputation says her word is reliable. She was also able to find Toby.’

  ‘Our investigation can’t move forward until we get the status of these two individuals cleared up.’

  ‘I’ve found your judgement dependable, Paul. Leave it with me. I’ll ask ASIO the question. We can’t be assured of an immediate response but we’ll see what they have to say. If they tell us hands off, we’ll know where we stand.’

  When Harrigan finally left the building, he was wired for sound. He had Elena Calvo to see; it wasn’t a prospect that made him happy. Later this evening he wanted to see Grace if he could, badly. Someone to make him feel human, to get him out of his head. At the moment, the idea had the appeal of a very welcome change.

  26

  The city offices of Life Patent Strategies were on the thirty-third floor of Australia Square. As promised, a man was waiting to meet Harrigan at the entrance to the underground car park. He didn’t introduce himself, but politely showed Harrigan where to park and then led him into the elevator. It deposited them near a glass door decorated with the LPS insignia. Elena’s bodyguard Damien was waiting to let them into a reception area furnished with soft chairs. A padded silence absorbed sound. The first bodyguard stationed himself by the door while Damien showed Harrigan to Elena’s office.

  It was a large and uncluttered room with a minimal amount of furniture. Clearly, she liked space around her. It stretched from the door to her desk and on either side of her. She had been waiting for him in silence; a visitor’s chair was already in place. Briefly, he looked past her at the view. Against a perfect sky, the glass towers at North Sydney showed a strangely insubstantial outline. She turned to look as well.

  ‘It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’m never tired of that view, it makes me feel free. I’ve very rarely felt that in my life. Please sit down, Commander. I’m going to trust you once again. That’s all, Damien. I’ll call you.’

  Both waited until the door had closed behind the bodyguard. Harrigan watched her take in the sight of his damaged face.

  ‘You can trust me, Dr Calvo,’ he said. ‘In fact, you can rely on me.’

  ‘Why do I need to rely on you? My understanding of this meeting is that we’re here to discuss your son. Does this mean you’ve changed your mind since the last time I saw you? If I recall, at that time I offered you a number of things and you refused them all. Are you now prepared to accept them?’

  ‘Like you said that first time we met, Dr Calvo, assuming we go ahead with those arrangements, you’d have expectations of me. There are a few matters in relation to those expectations I’d like to discuss. If you really do want my services, that is.’

  He stopped. She gestured for him to go on.

  ‘My guess is, you know more about what’s going on right now than just about anybody else. I think you have a very good idea of why those people were shot up at Pittwater even if you don’t necessarily know who did it.’

  ‘We’re not here to talk about me, Commander.’ She shut him down with one of the iciest stares he had seen. ‘You’ve changed the subject. We’re here to talk about your son. Are you prepared to enter into an agreement with me concerning his future wellbeing?’

  ‘That depends. Andreas du Plessis kidnapped my son and put me through hell. Worse, he left my son to die of thirst in a long-stay car park. The deal was that my son came home alive. I want an answer from you. Whose idea was it to renege on the deal?’

  ‘I know nothing about those events and I don’t see what this has to do with me,’ she said. ‘But I will say that in business, you will almost certainly fail, and fail very badly, if you don’t keep your word once you’ve given it. If I give an undertaking, I always stand by it without exception.’

  ‘In other words, you’re washing your hands of your dirty tricks man.’

  ‘Why are you saying that to me? Are you recording this? This smells of entrapment, Commander. I have two bodyguards waiting outside. Should I call them in here? I know a great deal about you. It’s unwise for you to put me offside.’

  ‘I know quite a lot about you too, Dr Calvo. Have a look at this.’

  From his wallet, he took a copy of the photograph of the couple and their child in a ruined city in 1946. She glanced down at it on the desk and then back at him. She said nothing and didn’t touch it.

  ‘My squad found this picture in Jerome Beck’s wallet when we found his body. You said that at the end of World War Two, your father was a displaced person. Was he ever in Dresden? It’s a long way from your childhood, isn’t it? Something for Beck to resent mightily. Is that what you were arguing about in the car park that night in June four-and-a-half years ago? You deal in DNA, Dr Calvo. We have Beck’s DNA. Would you like to do a match?’

  Elena rested her elbows on her desk, her chin on her hands, looking at him. She was very still. Harrigan put the photograph back in his wallet.

  ‘My guess is, when Beck found out from his mother who his father really was, he went looking for him. Your father gave him a job. Everything I’ve heard about your father tells me he’s not the sentimental type. He must have found something for his long lost son to do. Something useful to the family firm. Whatever it was, it paid very well. That probably means it was something no one else was prepared to do. I think he went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo with du Plessis. They were working for your father. Whatever Beck was doing here, he was doing it for your father as well. That’s the key, isn’t it? Whatever program Beck was running at that research facility in north London, it was for your father. In this country, it was genetically modified crops that harm people in some way and the research was being done out at Campbelltown. Now, that’s not good publicity.’

  She leant forward to speak.

  ‘In business, it’s never a good idea to use guesswork as a basis for a decision. It’s much better to work from factual information. I don’t think you have any means of backing up these bizarre theories.’

  ‘The contract would have given us that information if we still had it. What did Daniel tell me the morning I visited you? Every contract Abaris draws up records in detail who owns the patent rights and the intellectual property. That’s one of the reasons you wanted to get hold of it so badly, isn’t it? Except someone was thinking ahead of you. There’s still another copy out there somewhere. The killers have got it. You’ve got no leverage where they’re concerned.’

  ‘Are you telling me you do?’ she asked. ‘You don’t know who they are. I don’t think you have any way of finding out.’

  ‘Do you have a way of finding out? Do you have something to guide you that we don’t? A suspicion that you can’t quite shake off as impossible? Do you think they’re going to come after you? Is that why you have two bodyguards in a building as secure as the facility at Campbelltown? You do need me.’

  ‘If you don’t know who these killers are, what can you do for me?
A bodyguard is more useful.’

  ‘In business,’ Harrigan said, ‘it’s a good idea to trust people who can offer you something no one else can. You just accused me of entrapment. There are two things you can do. You can trust me and give me what I want. Or I can walk out of here and run this investigation the way it should be run, the way I would usually run it. I can do that now Marvin Tooth is a dead man. Then one day, sooner rather than later, we’ll find your dirty tricks man and come knocking on your door. Then everything you’ve worked for will be on the line. You know that. You’ve moved heaven and earth to protect yourself already.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want du Plessis. No one does that to my son and gets away with it. I want him to pay personally for what he did to Toby. Organise that for me, Dr Calvo, and we both get what we want. Wouldn’t you call that a win-win situation?’

  ‘And after that?’ she said.

  ‘One step at a time,’ Harrigan replied.

  ‘How can I arrange to give you something I don’t have?’

  ‘I said I wanted you to trust me. You set it up, Dr Calvo. You set up a meeting and you give me the details.’

  ‘For any deal, there’s always a cooling-off period. I need twenty-four hours.’

  ‘The last time I spoke to you, you told me there was no time.’

  ‘I gave you time anyway, if you recall. You can do the same for me,’ she replied. She glanced at her watch and then at him. The intensity of her stare made him want to look away. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow morning first thing. Can we say this meeting is finished?’

  ‘If you call me tomorrow morning, what do we do? Do we meet here?’

  ‘Most probably, yes. I’m usually here on a Saturday.’ She pressed a button on her intercom. ‘Damien, would you come in, please?’

  Almost immediately, Damien appeared.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Elena said to Harrigan with a polite smile. ‘Damien, see the commander gets to his car. Make sure he gets there safely.’