The Labyrinth of Drowning

by Alex Palmer

  ‘Eddie set me up,’ Harrigan said.

  ‘If they were coming after you, why shoot him?’

  ‘I guess he’d proved he was unreliable. Probably it was two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Why were you meeting Eddie Grippo in the first place?’ Clive asked.

  ‘He’s an informant. I’d asked him to keep his ear to the ground for me. I wanted to know if any of the Ponticellis were coming after me or my family. He rang to say he had some information and we set up a meet.’

  ‘Did they really want to kill you?’ one of the police officers asked. ‘Why not shoot straightaway, the way they did Eddie?’

  ‘It happened pretty quickly,’ Harrigan said. ‘It’s true they didn’t fire at me immediately. But I wasn’t where they were expecting me to be and I had my gun out. Maybe this was a snatch, I don’t know. I certainly think they’d planned on killing me in the long run.’

  ‘Why did you have your gun out?’

  ‘Eddie lost his nerve. I knew something was going down. I’d only just taken it out.’

  The two police officers glanced at each other, then Clive, and kept on. Harrigan knew that they needed to act on this intelligence as soon as possible. The gunman who’d got away would already have told the Ponticellis that the hit had failed. Eddie had been sent to keep him talking until the boys turned up. They already knew Eddie was unreliable and good at playing both sides against each other. If there was any chance he’d spilled his guts to Harrigan, they wouldn’t wait around. They’d go undercover as soon as possible. Yet there was nothing in this police interview that suggested any kind of urgency. The opposite: there was frustration in the officers’ expressions; suppressed anger and tension between them and Orion. Harrigan decided it was time to talk about Griffin some more.

  ‘He’s a player, an important one. You need to investigate him at depth.’

  There was no response, just a nod, a quick glance between the interviewing officers, then onto another subject.

  ‘I think we should talk about him some more,’ Harrigan persisted.

  ‘Later,’ Clive said from the sidelines.

  ‘No, he’s important.’

  ‘No one will say another word about Joel Griffin as of now,’ Clive ordered.

  Stymied, all three of them. The hands-off order Clive had slapped on him was in play for the police as well. In the past, Harrigan had encountered these directives himself. There was nothing you could do but wait until they were lifted.

  At least the police thanked him for what he had to tell them. Once they’d finished, Clive cleared the room of everyone except himself and the third man who still hadn’t told Harrigan his name.

  ‘What were you doing here today?’ Clive asked.

  ‘You just heard me tell those two officers. Why were you here?’

  ‘Our operatives were following Mick Brasi. They weren’t expecting to find you here. I’ve already told you, I don’t want a wild card involving himself in a very delicately balanced operation.’

  ‘Why would I have any reason to believe that my meeting with Eddie Grippo could have anything to do with your operation?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘I thought I’d given you the message loud and clear. Whatever private investigations you’re involved in, you are to stop immediately.’

  ‘I asked you before. Where’s my wife?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Working. What has she told you about this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Harrigan said, and, on seeing the unguarded satisfaction on Clive’s face, successfully hid the intense anger he felt. Years of practice came to his aid.

  ‘I’m asking you to go home and wait until she comes home this evening. If you don’t do that, I’ll arrest you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Obstructing an Orion operation. If pursued, it carries a maximum sentence of seven years.’

  ‘You could tell me what’s going on so I know Grace is safe,’ Harrigan said. ‘What about doing that? Wouldn’t that solve a lot of problems? It would take a lot of pressure off her.’

  ‘You’re not in a position to be told classified information.’

  ‘I’ve got a top-secret security clearance. You gave it to me. If I, my wife or my daughter or my son are in any danger, then don’t we have a right to information that could assist us in protecting ourselves?’

  ‘We’re protecting you. You don’t need to do anything.’

  ‘You’ve just told the police the same thing, haven’t you? You’ve told them not to act on the information I’ve given them until you give the all clear. Why? What are you waiting for? That directive could seriously undermine their operation.’

  ‘If you say another word, I’ll arrest you. This interview is over.’

  Harrigan looked him in the eyes. You cheap little tyrant. Hopefully the message got across unspoken.

  ‘See you, mate,’ he said, and walked out without looking back.

  Outside in his car, he asked himself what he was doing. Would it make things worse or better if he went ahead with his check of Amelie Santos’s surgery? He didn’t trust Clive. It was too powerful a feeling to be ignored. He didn’t trust Clive and he didn’t trust him with Grace’s safety. His instinct told him to rely on himself. He couldn’t sit home and wait, wondering what might be happening to her; if he did, he would go mad. He’d always had to know the worst of what was on offer. Find it out, look it in the face. It was the only way to deal with it.

  He drove away, too deep in his thoughts to do more than pay just enough attention to the traffic, making the long trip to northern Sydney.

  20

  Narelle had a better gift for subterfuge than Grace had expected. Perhaps it excited her. Dressed in a dark blue, mass market tracksuit with the hood up, she appeared anonymously from the entrance to the mall and slipped into the passenger seat beside Grace.

  ‘Leave your hood up,’ Grace said, and pulled away quickly.

  Narelle fastened her seatbelt. She was carrying a small leather bag. She took a packet of cigarettes out of it and lit one.

  ‘Put that out!’

  Narelle ignored her, an expression of untroubled bliss on her face as she stared straight ahead. Grace brought the car to a halt, reached over, snatched the cigarette out of her mouth and threw it away.

  ‘Keep smoking and you can get out and walk! Do you understand that?’

  With a sudden violence, Narelle opened the door and threw her cigarettes out, then slammed the door shut again, hard and angrily. Grace restarted the car and drove on.

  ‘What did you tell your parents about what you were doing?’ she asked.

  Narelle didn’t reply. She was sulking.

  ‘You have to answer my question, Narelle. I need to know what you’ve told your parents.’

  Narelle shrugged and curled up in her seat, staring out of the window.

  ‘A question you really have to answer. Did you bring your ID with you?’

  ‘It’s in the bag.’

  ‘What about your phone?’

  ‘I left it behind! Like you wanted. I brought my iPod.’

  ‘Fine.’ At least they wouldn’t have to talk to each other.

  They drove in silence. Grace took them out onto the feeder roads heading north across the western part of Sydney. She was under a communications blackout but every word spoken in the car was being listened to. The phone was for emergency use only. After a while, Narelle pushed her hood back and shook out her glossy black hair. She had made up her face, again replicating the look of Gong Li. Grace wondered if she’d put on special underwear before she’d dressed herself in her tracksuit. She thought about asking her to put her hood back up and decided not to bother.

  ‘When are we going to get there?’ Narelle asked.

  ‘I’m aiming for six. That’s when they’re expecting us.’

  ‘Can’t you go faster than that?’

  ‘Not if we don’t want to attract attention,’ Grace said. ‘Now tell me. What did you tell your parents?’

&
nbsp; ‘I just told Dad I was going shopping.’

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘I didn’t talk to her. She’s been horrible to me lately.’

  Goodbye, Mum and Dad. Lucky what’s supposed to happen to you isn’t going to. She glanced quickly at Narelle who was staring ahead with a dreamy look in her eyes. Are you really that naïve? Or am I the one who’s been blinded?

  ‘Did it bother you, what you were doing to Jirawan?’ she asked. ‘Sending her down to get raped every day. Or did you get a kick out of it?’

  ‘What are you talking about? It was just something she had to do. I didn’t know that was her name. What are you talking about her for? She’s dead. I can’t do anything.’

  Grace said nothing.

  ‘If she’d just done what she was told, she’d have been all right,’ Narelle said angrily after a short silence. ‘Elliot said she owed him money. It was her own fault she was there.’

  ‘You think it’s as straightforward as that, do you?’ Grace asked.

  ‘She had to pay her debt. It was his money. He was really upset about it. She owed him.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘He looked after her husband’s business for them and they wouldn’t pay him for it. It was a lot of money.’

  Protection money. Give and you just keep giving. Like Kidd.

  ‘Who do you think killed her?’

  ‘I don’t know! Why should I?’

  ‘What about Lynette?’

  ‘None of that’s got anything to do with me. They did the wrong thing by Elliot. I never have and I never will. He knows that.’

  ‘Every time you look into those amazing blue eyes, you melt, do you, Narelle?’ Grace said. She remembered Griffin staring at her yesterday in Lane Cove National Park. Blue eyes whose only effect on her had been to chill her through and through. Narelle looked at her sideways with a smile.

  ‘You don’t know what’s between us, what we feel for each other. It’s so real. What do you know about that?’

  ‘What about the guy who helped you guard Jirawan? Did you like having him around?’

  ‘He stank! I don’t think he ever washed. I said I could take care of her, she was only little. But Elliot said I needed him.’

  ‘Including the night you took her down to Jon Kidd’s car and put her in the boot.’

  ‘That nasty little man? Elliot said he was weak.’

  ‘Did you know where Jirawan was going?’ Grace asked.

  ‘No. I don’t know if he did. He was weird. He said all these weird things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Nasty things, like he was probably taking her to hell. Why say something stupid like that? And if that’s what he thought, why did he do it? It’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

  She took her iPod out of her bag and put on her earphones. Soon she was in her own world, bopping away to her chosen music.

  I let Jirawan go with her train fare. Given what Kidd had known about the people he was dealing with, he’d been brave at least once in his life. Twice when you counted Parramatta Park. Narelle was the last of the witnesses. Griffin had no ties; he could, with the right passport, leave any time he wanted. There were any number of ways to leave the country without going near an airport. He wasn’t taking Narelle with him. Presumably he was taking Sara, if only because she’d always been there.

  They drove on in silence until Grace reached the Sydney–Newcastle freeway, heading north to the Hawkesbury River. She was ahead of the worst of the traffic. Her phone rang. It was Griffin, speaking to her through her earpiece.

  ‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said. ‘Drive to Brooklyn and go to the public jetty.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Should you care? It’s a shorter drive for you. Sara will be there.’

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Somewhere,’ he said. ‘You want to get paid. Do what I ask.’

  Narelle had unplugged herself.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Elliot,’ Grace said.

  ‘You’re stupid! Let me talk to him!’

  She reached to grab Grace’s earpiece; Grace batted her down.

  ‘Too late, he’s gone. Change of plan,’ Grace said. ‘We’re going to Brooklyn. You know Brooklyn, don’t you?’

  ‘What’s there?’

  ‘A public jetty.’

  ‘Oh, his yacht! He said one day we’d sail away.’

  Are you listening, Clive? Get your people down there. Get someone on the river. Do it now.

  She was close to Berowra, where she would have to turn off the freeway onto the old Pacific Highway for the run to Brooklyn, a small fishing village on the Hawkesbury River some fifty kilometres north of Sydney, best known for its marinas and oyster farms. Griffin had rung at too opportune a time for her liking. Someone was telling him where she was.

  She had reached the turn-off. The old road was a single-lane highway left to deteriorate, its surface cracked and cheaply repaired. It twisted over the hilly, tree-covered ground leading up to the high ridge overlooking the river, much of which was national park or nature reserve.

  ‘He knows where we are. We’re being followed,’ she said, speaking not to Narelle but to the listeners on the end of her wire.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Narelle asked. ‘You’re weird.’

  Grace’s phone rang again. This time it was her backup.

  ‘There’s a motorcycle with a pillion passenger behind you. They’ve been with you for a while. They’re moving faster and getting closer. You’re going to need to take evasive action.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In range. Moving up behind them. Keep the line open.’

  ‘What was that about?’ Narelle asked.

  ‘Put your hood up and get down in your seat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it!’

  Grace put her foot down, speeding up a winding hill towards a communications tower on the summit. She looked in the rear-view mirror. A motorcyclist with a pillion was speeding up to come alongside her on her right. Narelle hadn’t moved. She sat there looking sullen.

  ‘Get down now!’ Grace shouted at her.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Down!’

  Grace swung out onto the wrong side of the road as the motorbike drew level with her, almost knocking the bike over. The rider swerved to avoid a collision, almost went off the road, drew back, and then followed her back to the left lane and was again trying to draw level. Grace saw her backup behind them.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Narelle’s voice was almost a shriek.

  ‘Keep quiet and don’t panic!’

  The rider was accelerating to come alongside, only to find the backup car on his tail trying to nudge his back wheel. Then Grace’s back window and windscreen shattered almost instantaneously. The pillion on the bike behind her had fired. Narelle began to scream, curling into a ball in her seat. The on-coming air hit Grace like a wall. She hung on to the car, fighting to keep it under control and on the road.

  On a tight bend, she came close to swerving onto the wrong side of the twisting road, almost colliding head on with an approaching vehicle, but managed to drag the car back. The car’s horn blared as she sped past it. Then there was a crash.

  The bike had still been there, swinging away from her backup to come alongside on the left, beside Narelle. Pushed by the backup car behind, it had collided with Grace side on as she swerved back to her side of the road. She had hit it at full speed. Gripping the wheel, she dragged the car away from the bike up onto the shoulder, where she brought it to a stop. Then she radioed in.

  ‘We’ve had an incident. The pick-up is aborted. We may have two deaths as well.’

  Clive was on the end of the line. ‘I’ll have an ambulance and police on the way ASAP. Expect me also.’

  Narelle had got out of the car and was running along the road. Grace ran her down and drag
ged her back.

  ‘Let go of me,’ Narelle shouted, struggling.

  Grace pushed her hard against the car. ‘Keep quiet. You will sit in this car and you won’t move.’

  Narelle was quiet for a few moments, then made to run again. Grace was holding the girl’s wrists in a tight grip when a member of her backup arrived, carrying a pair of handcuffs.

  ‘Just sit still,’ he said, and cuffed Narelle to the steering wheel. Grace took the car keys.

  ‘Don’t do this to me,’ Narelle shouted. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Sit in the car and be quiet,’ Grace snapped. ‘If it wasn’t for us, you’d be ending up dead. So count your lucky stars.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Elliot wouldn’t hurt me!’

  Grace didn’t bother to answer. The car she had almost collided with head on had come back and pulled to a stop on the shoulder just near the bike. Its driver, a man, was hurrying towards the rider and the pillion passenger where they lay sprawled on the road. Behind them, another car had come to a halt and a small line was beginning to form. One car started pulling out to drive around the smashed bike; a concerned driver got out of another.

  ‘I’ll deal with the traffic,’ one of the backup team said, and went to move the cars on. The other backup was standing over the rider and pillion, pointing a gun at them. The pillion rider’s gun lay where it had finished up on the dirt. Grace reached the injured men at the same time as the driver from the first car.

  ‘Stop there,’ the Orion operative ordered him.

  The driver stopped, white-faced, staring at the operative’s gun. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re with the police. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a nurse,’ the man said.

  ‘Let him look at them,’ Grace said.

  The operative stepped back, gun still at the ready. The nurse was calm, if pale.

  ‘I think your pillion rider’s probably dead,’ he said.

  ‘Can you help the other one?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Can I take his helmet off?’

  ‘Do it.’