The Labyrinth of Drowning

by Alex Palmer

  In the kitchen, Griffin looked her over. He was still holding her gun.

  ‘Take your shoes off,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t need shoes for this.’

  She kicked them off.

  ‘Hands,’ he said, and the ape tied her arms behind her with plastic rope.

  ‘Good,’ Griffin said. ‘You look much better.’ He stared at her. ‘You’re very cool. All the other women I’ve had were sobbing by now. They all beg. I couldn’t do it because of my family, you must understand that. I couldn’t do that kind of work, or No, I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me. The men are no different. They cry too. You’re trained, but you’re human. Why aren’t you crying?’

  My backup are coming for me. They must be.

  ‘Maybe I don’t believe this is real,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, it’s real,’ Griffin said. ‘What have you got for me?’

  The ape handed Griffin two items, one after the other. He held them up for her.

  ‘Watch. I have a Rolex. I don’t need this.’ He tossed it on the floor. ‘Photograph. This is different. It’s unique.’

  The photo showed Grace with Ellie in her arms, immediately after she was born. Her exhausted face. Everything that followed. All that love. Grace looked it at, her mouth closed against the uprush of emotion. Tears were in her eyes. I can still feel myself holding you. If only I was with you. Who will look after you if I’m not there?

  ‘You can cry,’ Griffin said. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘Where’s Paul?’

  ‘Waiting for you,’ the ape said with a cackle.

  Griffin put the photograph in his trouser pocket. ‘I’ll keep this. I’ll take your hair too, before I finish. They’ll be my keepsakes. Whenever I think of you, I’ll go and look at your hair.’

  I’ve dealt with people like you before. In the end you’re all the same. I’m not crying for you. You are not touching what matters most to me.

  ‘Where’s Paul?’

  ‘You know what people are going to think?’ Griffin said. ‘He murdered you and committed suicide.’

  ‘No one’s going to believe that. Not our families, not the police, no one.’

  ‘Your partner wrote a letter and signed it. It’ll be posted on his website tonight. I’ll show you. I spent most of last night matching his signature. I think I’ve done it pretty well.’

  He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out an envelope. It was addressed to Toby care of the University of New South Wales. The information that Toby was a student there was on Paul’s website. Griffin held up the letter for her to read. The words jumbled in her mind. Know she’s been cheating just not sure who. Never been sure. Made me leave my job.

  ‘No one will believe that rubbish.’

  ‘People believe what they want to believe. There are enough rumours out there for people to wonder if maybe it is true. And it’s his signature. Who can argue with that? People will say, who knows what he was thinking? He was always a private man. It’ll muddy the waters enough for people never to be sure.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  The anger came out of her, a frustrated force. He stepped back a little, then laughed.

  ‘You won’t be like that soon. You’ll get down on your knees and you’ll beg and crawl like all the others. Enough talk. Everyone outside.’

  ‘In that little white Camry? The police have its registration. Did you know that? Anyway, where are we going?’

  He stepped forward, looking her over.

  ‘The police aren’t here. There’s no one out there. You need to understand the situation. Everybody begs. I told you you’d kiss me. You will. You’ll do more than that, much more. You wait.’ He searched her face, looking for a fault line. She saw him look at her scar. ‘I know how to do it.’

  Nothing will make me do anything for you.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Wait till we get there. Remember, I’ll kill you if you do anything stupid,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll get going,’ the ape said.

  ‘Where’s his car?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Where you wouldn’t see it. I told you, I always take precautions.’ He turned to the ape. ‘Give me her shoes. I want to take them with me.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Before you go, I’ve got a message for Tony senior. I’ve kept my side of the bargain throughout.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘No, you won’t. Because he’s double-crossed me.’

  Grace’s shoes in his spare hand, Griffin shot the man dead. His body lay on the kitchen floor.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she said.

  ‘The only people who know about my houses are the Ponticellis. They must have stolen my records and my money. If the old man sent Joe after you today when we had an agreement that I’d kill you myself, then he’s broken our bargain. If he thinks he can get me to pay him for those records, this is a message for him. He’ll be dead first.’

  He pushed her out in front of him. There was no way to run. At the garage, he motioned her to sit in the Camry’s front seat. He tossed her shoes in the back, then fastened her seatbelt. She was pressed back uncomfortably in the seat, her hands losing circulation. He drove up the driveway and out onto the street. Sara had left the gate open.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Back the way you came.’

  ‘Who’s Coopes?’

  ‘Coopes is a thing, not a person.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  He took one hand off the wheel, took out his wallet and placed it on his lap. He flicked it open and eased out a photograph, which he then held up to her.

  ‘That’s Coopes,’ he said.

  She recognised it immediately. A stone axe from New Guinea. Her father had one not unlike it.

  ‘Why do you call it Coopes?’

  ‘Mr Coopes,’ Griffin said. ‘The headmaster at the last school I went to. He said I could achieve anything I wanted to if I just tried. Every time I use Coopes, I think, yes, this is something I’ve wanted and I’ve achieved it. He wanted to be nice to me. It was insulting. I didn’t need his pity.’

  The resentment in his voice was genuine. More than twenty-five years ago and he still thought about it.

  ‘Did you use it on him?’

  ‘No, I don’t know where he went. He was due to retire. He’s probably dead by now.’

  Silence.

  ‘I kept my bargain,’ Grace said. ‘You didn’t keep yours.’

  ‘That’s not true. As far as I was concerned, we had no deal. I made my deal with Tony senior. And he broke it,’ Griffin said.

  ‘What was the deal?’

  ‘A personal contract for the old man. We’ve worked together on and off for years now. He wanted to get back at your partner before he died and he asked me to do something special. I was pleased when he named you. Chris had already told me all about you and I liked the look of you. Chris may not have been able to have you, but I can. Then Kidd told me you were with Orion. And then Marie said you had something to sell. I didn’t have to chase you any more. You walked into my hands.’

  ‘Why choose me?’

  ‘Tony wanted your partner to suffer the way he did when his daughter was killed. He wanted you and your daughter. But we couldn’t get to her so I decided to get you and your partner together instead. Tony would have liked it. We’re giving him a bit extra. Now I’m doing it for me. And Sara. It’ll be a buzz.’

  Grace felt relief so powerful it made every bone in her body ache. You’re safe, she said to Ellie. But was she really going to die? Was she really never going to see her daughter again? She had to protect her. Somehow she had to see Ellie and Paul—

  Griffin had said they’d die together. That meant Paul was alive now.

  ‘Sara likes these occasions, does she?’ she said. ‘Gets a kick out of them?’

  That same look of distaste appeared on his face.

  ‘Say anything else ab
out Sara and I’ll break your jaw. What she does is up to her. At times like this, she can do anything she wants. It’s almost the one time she can. I let her go and then I take over. And then everything’s sweet.’

  After this, they drove in silence. He was so matter-of-fact. Could this be real? They were out of Duffys Forest and back to Mona Vale Road by now, turning north again and then into the park. They passed the park’s gatehouse, closed and dark. Not far in he turned off the road onto a fire trail usually closed to public access by a low boom gate. The gate was open. He drove downhill. Occasional kangaroos leaped along the side of the trail, none into their path. She wished one of them would; it would stop the car.

  He drove down the narrow track, then turned off his car lights and made a sharp turn onto another trail. They drove along it for some time, going deeper into the forest. He turned off the engine and coasted the car downhill. No one could know whose death they were driving to.

  23

  Harrigan came back to consciousness, unable to see. The noisy, then fading sound of a vehicle driving away had woken him. He didn’t move immediately but instead tried to work out whether he could think, what he could hear, if he felt any pain. Whether anyone was here with him, watching.

  At first there was only silence, and then, distantly, the harsh bark of a wattlebird calling. He was trussed up and blindfolded, the elastic of the blindfold pulled tight about the back of his head. His hands were behind his back, numbed and at the same time made painful by the bite of whatever they had used to tie them. Don’t straighten your legs, his mind told him, but there was no rope around his neck. Very slowly and carefully he stretched out and found he was able to move his feet a short distance away from each other. It felt like he’d been hobbled. He realised he was barefoot.

  He was lying on his side on what seemed to be a thin and rank mattress. He swung his legs to the ground and managed to lever himself to his feet. In the blackness, he got his balance and took a few deep breaths. He swayed with nausea from whatever drug they had administered, taking some minutes to let his head clear. Wherever he was, it wasn’t in a house. The floor beneath his feet was packed dirt and the place had the feel of some kind of shed. The air smelled of piss and rubbish, like a place where derelicts might sleep. It was too quiet to be in the city; the sound of the bird calls was too close. There was no sound of there being anyone else here with him.

  Harrigan took a small step forward. He had been hobbled, but he was able to move with very short and awkward steps. Probably he was supposed to be able to walk, barefoot and blinded, into whatever had been lined up for him. His bonds made him lean forward, as if he was being forced to bow his head to his captors. Carefully he moved, one step at a time, occasionally finding sharp rocks on the floor. Then his foot hit a wall. He turned side on, leaned on it, and followed it around. Soon enough he came to a door. He pushed at it with his foot. It was metal, rattled on its hinges, and sounded like it was secured from the outside by a chain.

  As best he could, he tried to trace out its width. It seemed to have a metal strut across the middle and a lip where it met the door frame. He encountered the hinges on the inside, standing out from the metal frame like dog’s balls. He leaned his cheek against the set closest to him. They were large and felt rough-edged around the pin. Old, bulky, possibly steel hinges, probably poor craftsmanship. He touched the door’s lip. It hard a thick, hard edge, rough enough probably to have torn the skin on his cheek.

  His legs had been tied at the knee as well as the ankle. He sat down on the dirt and drew his knees up as close as he could to his chin. He leaned his head forward to find out by feel what kind of rope they had used to tie him up with, brushing his cheeks against it. It felt like plastic and had been tied to allow the circulation to flow in his legs. He was definitely meant to be able to walk. It was too uncomfortable to stay in that position any longer than was necessary and he leaned back. He tried to feel what was tying his hands. Not plastic rope, more like electrical wire. Malleable plastic coating, soft copper wire inside, pulled tight enough to bite into his wrists and break into the flesh. Fuck you, he thought.

  He stood up and manoeuvred himself into an awkward position that allowed him to press the bonds tying his hands together against the door’s lip. Then he began to saw, pressing hard. You rub something softer against something harder and rougher for long enough and attrition will work; it has to, even on a bluntish edge. The question was whether or not he had enough time. Stamina wasn’t an issue. The certainty that he would die if he didn’t free himself was all the motivation he’d ever need.

  His hands were both numb and aching blocks of ice hanging uselessly at the ends of his arms. They hadn’t stinted in the amount of wire they’d wound around his wrists. He stopped thinking about what he was doing and concentrated on something more pleasant: Grace; how they made love. Then he realised he was afraid for her and changed his thoughts. Where was Ellie right now? With his oldest sister, who was first on the list of emergency contacts? Kidz Corner would raise the alarm if neither he nor Grace turned up to collect her; they would ring the contact number at police headquarters he’d given them. But no one would ever find him here. He put that thought to the side and remembered days fishing at Green Cape. Watching the whales swim past in the distance. Stay there. It’ll keep you going.

  Once he slipped sideways and grazed his arm badly against the hinges. Later, he slid down to a crouch, to give relief to his back. His legs began to ache instead. As he stood up, he felt the wires around his right wrist begin to loosen. He pulled the bonds apart but the wire hadn’t quite given way. He went back to it and kept going, losing track of time. Then, at last, the wire slipped away from his right hand altogether.

  Blood flowed painfully back into his hand and he had to wait until he could use it. Then he slid to the dirt floor and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. It was a black mask. Being able to see felt like liberation in itself, even if he was still in a dark place. Turning his head to the side, he saw thin cracks of daylight marking the outline of the closed door, the thickest band of light being at the foot. Otherwise there was no source of light in this place at all.

  The door was old and battered and, while there was a lock, there was no handle on the inside. As he’d thought, it had been chained on the outside; there was no way he could open it. He peered out through a crack at the fading daylight. They had picked him up mid-afternoon and he’d heard them driving away. He had spent a lot of time freeing his hand. They couldn’t have taken him far. Judging by what he could see, he was in some kind of hut in the national park, with a bare space between the door and the surrounding trees.

  He looked at his left hand, bringing it close to his face. The wire was knotted too tightly for him to unpick it with his right hand. He went back to rubbing the wire against the door lip, this time facing the door. I look like I’m jerking myself off, he thought. Strangely, freeing this hand seemed just as uncomfortable, almost harder than when both hands had been behind his back. Between rubbing it and pulling at it, the wire finally gave way and he pulled the last of it off. It had cut deeply into both his wrists, bruising them and making him bleed. He had cut himself further while sawing through the wire, and his arm was raw where he’d torn his skin away against the hinges earlier. But his hands were free and he could use them. Again he waited while his left hand stung itself back into life.

  He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the shadows. The light from the doorway was too weak to give him anything other than an indistinct view of the hut he was locked in. It was circular and seemed to have been built on the slope of a hill. A few feet away he saw a lumpy mattress, stinking of rot. He checked himself. His belt was gone as well as his shoes. His watch and wallet too. He had been left with nothing except the clothes he stood up in.

  He checked the rope that hobbled him. It had been threaded through a loop around his knees and then tied at his feet. With his back against the wall and his knees pulled up as close to his chest as possib
le, he could still barely reach the knot. He sat on his side, with his feet side on against the door, and reached for it that way. It was probably the best stretching exercise he’d had all year. He worked at it, took breaks, and finally pulled the rope away. By the time he had got himself free, it was so dark he was working by feel.

  Despite the blackness, he began to explore by touch the small cell he was locked in. The roof was low, barely more than a few inches above his head. Lifting up his hands, he could reach it easily. It seemed to be made of cement. He followed the wall around; like the roof, it was made of cement. Then his foot knocked against something lying on the floor near the mattress, in line with where his head had been. It skidded against the wall. He searched and picked it up. It was a book, a hardback. He moved closer to the door where there was a little more light. Even here, it was too dark to see what it was but he was fairly certain it was a copy of his own book, Justice Under the Law. What would be the point of leaving any other book here? He tried to see if the title page had been signed but it was too dark. He put the book back on the floor, there being nowhere else for it.

  He had left the rope near the door and went back to it. Could he use it for anything? Fix it so that whoever was coming to get him could be tripped when they opened the door? As far as he could tell in the dark, there was nothing to which he could tie the rope to make it work as a tripwire. He did have one advantage. They would be expecting him to be lying on the mattress like a chicken waiting to be slaughtered. He would be waiting for them instead. As best he could in the dark, he moved the cut wires and the rope to where they couldn’t be seen if the door was opened in any kind of a light. Make it appear there was no one in here just to throw them as much as possible. Then he sat down on the mattress to think.

  Time lost definition when you waited in the dark. He was hungry and thirsty but put those things to the side. Feeling he had arrived at nowhere, he leaned against the wall and worked through the possibilities. Killing him could not have been part of his captors’ brief or he would already be in the afterlife, assuming it existed. Someone else must be on their way here to do that. Someone had left a copy of his book here to be part of the action. It was a logic all their own.