by Alex Palmer
Clive ignored this. ‘You’d be very well advised not to discuss this meeting with your partner. If you do, she’ll only worry. I’ve already told you. Don’t put any more pressure on her.’
Harrigan’s eyes said that if he could, he would have punched Clive out twice, for the two times he’d said this. The door opened and Grace walked in. Harrigan was already on his feet.
‘I thought I was involved in this,’ she said.
‘We’ve already discussed everything I need to know,’ Harrigan said.
‘Where do I fit in?’
‘We’ve gone over everything,’ Clive said.
‘See me out, babe. I’ll say goodbye to you in the car park.’ Harrigan turned to Clive. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘We don’t have much time.’
Harrigan didn’t trust himself to reply. With Grace still puzzled, and glancing behind her at Clive, they left the room together.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
‘Can we go to your office?’
‘Not if you haven’t been given clearance to that part of the building. Why?’
‘Then just listen while we walk.’ He spoke softly. ‘Babe, your boss told me your operation is secret and I have to accept that. It’s already weighing on your mind, right? There’s just one thing you have to know. You can rely on me. I’m not going to ask you any questions and we’ll take it day by day. Okay?’
‘Okay. But what did Clive say?’
‘Nothing you probably haven’t heard already.’
‘I wanted to bring you into it a lot more than this.’
‘He knew that,’ Harrigan said ‘That’s why he organised the meeting the way he did. You’ve got to work today, right? And you want this operation to be a success.’
‘Yes.’
They had reached the security perimeter. Now that they had stepped outside the building to the car park, he couldn’t go back.
‘Then you go and do it,’ he said. ‘You’ll do it well, the way you always do. Don’t take your boss on over this. Just concentrate on your work and come home safe and sound every day. There’s only one important thing here. Nothing comes between us.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing. We’ve both dealt with a lot tougher things than this.’
‘Yeah, we have. I’ll see you tonight.’
They kissed each other and then she was gone, stopping at the door to wave to him. He watched her slender figure slip out of sight to do whatever she had to do. It would take more than a jealous puppet master to drive a wedge into their relationship.
Harrigan drove away to his first appointment for the day, guessing that it had probably never occurred to Clive that anyone would simply ignore him. However defiant Harrigan might have appeared in the meeting, in the end Clive would still be expecting him to click his heels and salute. But he had no intention of stopping his inquiries. It just meant that, farcically, he and Grace were in the same boat: she couldn’t tell him and he couldn’t tell her what each of them was doing every day and what they might have found out.
In his judgement it was no way to manage someone under the kind of pressure Grace was about to feel. Whatever she was doing for Orion, he should know about it. Clive knew how much their lives were connected; yet right now he was cutting out both Harrigan and Ellie as if neither mattered to Grace. He wanted full ownership of his operatives. No divided loyalties; there could be nothing more important than the work Clive had decided they should do. No control other than his. Nothing at the centre of Grace’s life other than her work and her boss.
You wait, Harrigan thought. I can play your game better than you can. You’ll find that out. Meanwhile, he had things to do.
9
Frank Wells lived in a small, semi-detached brick house on Bay Street in Brighton-le-Sands. The bricks had a blue tinge to them; the atmosphere in the street, stretching from Rockdale station to the beach, was muggy in the hazy sea air. Sand from the soil had turned the footpaths gritty. The warm morning sun baked the footpath and its background of home units, parched gardens and occasional shopfronts.
The man who opened the door to Harrigan was tall, stoop-shouldered, with a heavy, fleshy face. His hair was white. He ushered Harrigan into a living room bereft of decoration; a small, dark space dominated by a flat-screen television. Beneath it was a shelf of unlabelled videos and DVDs. There were no other signs of entertainment in the room. The house had a stale odour, of old age and a place not often cleaned. Frank Wells motioned to Harrigan to sit down. He himself sat on a tiny two-seater lounge and put his hands on his knees.
‘Did you bring the money?’ he asked in his old man’s voice, low and abrasive.
Harrigan had an account for incidentals like these. Usually his clients paid the costs but today he was working for himself. Frank Wells counted the notes slowly, then tucked them away in his wallet. It was too thick to fit back into his pocket and he put it within reach on the arm of the lounge.
‘What did you want to know?’ he asked.
‘Anything you can tell me about your son and your wife.’
‘They’re both dead now, aren’t they? I got this out for you.’
It came out of a cardboard box, an album housing a small, messy collection of photographs. Baby pictures of Craig were accompanied by a christening certificate with a lock of his dark hair sticky-taped next to it. There was one of him in his school uniform with a pencilled note saying it was his first day at school. He was an unsmiling, tense-looking child. There was a shot of a threesome-Janice, Frank and their son at a barbecue-and after this, occasional ones of Frank and Janice together. No one smiled much in any of these fuzzy pictures. They petered out when Craig would have been no more than seven. The last three-quarters of the album was empty.
Harrigan closed it with a slight thump. It left him with a sense of drabness, almost uselessness. The atmosphere in this room had the same negativity. In this place, you could wake up every day and wonder why you were bothering with life at all.
‘How old was Craig when your wife left?’ he asked.
Frank shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I remember. He’d been at school for a while. Eight?’
‘Your wife left this album behind.’
‘She didn’t want it. No one wants it. You can have it if you want to pay for it.’
Harrigan had come prepared. Frank Wells forced the extra notes into his already bulging wallet like a man who is pleased to get his hands on every dollar that he can. Harrigan’s gaze came back to the high-definition plasma television dominating the room. Everything else spoke of someone who probably scraped by on the old-age pension.
‘Can I ask you something about yourself, Frank?’
‘If you want.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Seventy-four.’
‘You’re in good shape for your age.’ The old man smiled. ‘When did you meet your wife?’
‘It was when I came back from New Guinea. I went up there when I was younger. I was working with the police. It was good money and something different to do. I was there for ten years, I suppose. I met my wife when I came back. She left her first husband for me. Then she left me and took up with someone else, then he left her. I think I was just the next one in line.’
Harrigan had the voice now. It wasn’t only harshness and aggression, it was disappointment. Frank Wells was someone who had not taken much from life. There was no sign in this room that he’d spent ten years in another place so very different from this one. Harrigan thought of Grace’s father, Kep Riordan. His house on the Central Coast was filled with artefacts, books and photographs from the time he and his family had spent in New Guinea. Grace herself had photographs, wall hangings and pieces of art which were now in the Birchgrove house. In this claustrophobic room, there was nothing.
‘And before you went to New Guinea?’ Harrigan asked.
‘I worked at Gowings. Started there when I was fourteen. That’s what I did when I came back too. I stayed there
till I retired.’ ‘Did you and your ex-wife live here?’
‘She kept nagging me about that. She wanted a larger house. It wasn’t practical. I wasn’t going to take out a mortgage.’
Whatever Janice Wells had been as a person, no one could blame her for leaving this place. Living here would have been like living in a coffin. Harrigan glanced again at the plasma television. Before he could ask another question, Frank interrupted him.
‘Look, you’re not from the solicitors, are you? Anything like that?’
‘What solicitors?’
‘My mother’s maybe.’
‘No, my interest in this is exactly what I’ve told you. Why did you think otherwise?’
‘I thought when you said you were interested in my wife and Craig, it might be something else to do with my mother’s will. Maybe there was some more money. You haven’t really told me that much. Why are you asking about them?’
‘I’m investigating the possibility that Craig may still be alive.’
At this, Frank’s head drooped down. He seemed to be frowning. Then he looked up, his eyes hard and bright.
‘None of this makes any sense to me,’ he said, like someone feeling they’re being pushed too far. ‘Let me show you this.’
It came out of the same cardboard box that had held the photograph album: a letter. Dated four years back, it was written on what appeared to be a law firm’s letterhead. Frank Wells was advised that according to her dying wishes, his birth mother, Dr Amelie Santos, wished to inform him of his parentage, proof of which was attached. She had died only recently and solicitors from the above-named firm were acting as executors to her will. She had left an estate valued in the millions and if he rang the above number, he would learn the exact amount of his inheritance. It was signed Ian Blackmore.
Attached to this correspondence was a photocopy of a letter from the Salvation Army to a sanatorium in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, relating to the adoption of baby X, son of Amelie and Rafael, by a family with the surname of Wells. The letter was dated in the first half of the 1930s and gave the baby’s age as two months old. The full names and addresses of the adoptive parents, in Annandale, were also recorded. It was noted that the family was now ready to receive the baby and also that he was being adopted out because the father had deserted his mother two months prior to the birth. It concluded by saying that the adoptive parents would arrange for his christening and had chosen the name Francis Martin. Also attached was an extract from a register of marriages recording the marriage of Amelie Warwick, eighteen, and Rafael Santos, thirty-five. There were eight months between the date of the wedding and the adoption of the child.
Harrigan made quick notes of these details in his notebook, including the address of the law firm. They were based in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. He looked up. Frank was leaning forward, his eyes still sharp and bright. He was shaking, involuntarily Harrigan guessed.
‘Were these your adoptive parents, Frank?’ he asked. ‘Is this their name and address?’
‘That’s them. That’s where I grew up. I’d never heard of this Amelie Santos before. I rang that legal firm just like the letter said I should.’ The bitterness in Frank’s voice was almost too profound. ‘They said they were the executors of my mother’s will all right, but they’d never sent that letter and they’d never heard of the man who signed it. And they’d never heard of me. She hadn’t left me a penny! When I heard that, it was a kick in the guts. That’s when I went and got my own solicitor. I couldn’t afford to but I was angry. I had to get something out of that woman. She wasn’t going to do that to me. What she’d done already was bad enough.’
‘Your adoption?’
‘Throwing me away.’ He sat like a rock, every bit of him radiating fury and hurt. ‘I didn’t care about any of this until I got that letter. But when I read that and I knew, I thought, you fucking bitch! She had fucking millions! She didn’t leave me a cent.’
‘Did she know who you were?’
‘She could have found me. Someone did. Why not her?’
Again silence while Harrigan waited for Frank to grow calm.
‘Who did she leave her estate to?’ he asked.
‘Some charity called Medicine International. My solicitor wrote to them and said I had a moral right to something. It took a while but she got it out of them. I’ve still got some money left.’
Out of an estate worth millions, perhaps not much.
‘Did you know you were adopted?’
‘Oh yeah, we knew. No one wanted us. That’s what she used to tell us all the time.’
‘Who’s she?’
‘My adoptive mother. When he was around she wasn’t so bad, but when he was gone, she was nasty.’
‘Your adoptive father?’ Harrigan asked, avoiding an inquiry as to what the word nasty might cover. ‘Is that who you mean by he?’
‘Yeah. They were Salvos. He used to go away to meetings and things.’
‘How many of you were there?’
‘Five. There was even an Abo. We had to sleep with him. She had her own two kids as well. Not that it made any difference. She was just as bad to them as she was to us.’
‘Do you ever see any of your adoptive family these days?’
‘They’re mostly dead now,’ Frank said. ‘Last time I saw most of them was when she died. That was 1970, I think. I wasn’t going to go to the funeral but my wife said we should. I should have pissed on her grave. I think I just wanted to make sure she was put inside it.’
‘Why have so many of you if she treated you so badly?’
‘Because it was her Christian duty.’ Frank mimicked what might have been the long-ago tones of his adoptive mother. ‘That’s what she used to tell us every bloody day anyway. There was one I got on with-Stan. He was my younger brother. Only friend I ever had.’ He sounded almost wistful. He looked into the distance, shaking his head. ‘She fucking broke his arm when he was twelve. Wouldn’t take him to the doctor. Tried to fix it herself, bodged it up. She lied about it too. He came home and she said, Stan slipped and fell, he’s such a clumsy boy. Fucking liar. His arm was never right after that. It fucking hurt him too.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He used to be in the nursing home just down the road here. They said he had early onset dementia. I’d go and see him. Then one day he wandered off. They never found him. That was years ago, I guess he’s dead by now.’
‘Did your wife know you were adopted?’ Harrigan asked.
‘Oh yeah. She knew. And that’s the thing about that fucking letter I showed you. Where this Blackmore got that information. You see, my wife kept on at me. I should find out who my real parents were. I fucking didn’t want to know. I told her that. She didn’t fucking listen. Then one day she says to me, I hear they’re rich. Jennifer told me at the funeral. If you find them, we can get some money out of them. So what if they were rich? They didn’t want me in the first place. Why would they fucking give me money? Couldn’t get it into her head.’
‘Jennifer?’
‘My adoptive mother’s niece. Nasty cow, like her aunt. She liked to big-note herself.’
‘Could she have known who your real parents were?’ Harrigan asked.
‘Yeah. She worked in this place where the Salvos kept all their records. She told my wife. All the adoption records were there with everything else. She got to look at them.’
‘You really didn’t want to know who your parents were?’
Suddenly he looked tired almost to death. ‘No, I didn’t want to know. Why should I? They didn’t want to know me. It just makes you feel bad inside. I couldn’t get my wife to understand that. When I read that letter I showed you, I found out that my mother didn’t even give me a name. I wish I’d never known that. Even with the fucking money I got now. But fucking Jennifer. She told my wife, you know, give me the money and I’ll tell you, I’ll give you the papers.’ Frank leaned towards Harrigan, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Back then,
you couldn’t find out any other way. Fucking told my wife she’d already made the copies. We just had to hand over the money, she’d give them to us. I wasn’t going to pay that fucking bitch for that. See her smile at me when she handed them over. My wife says, if you won’t do it, I will. I’ll pay her.’ Suddenly he was shouting in a raw, violent voice, as if she were in the room. ‘Fuck you, I said, no, you won’t. I said, if you fucking do that, Jesus, there’ll be hell to pay! She left after that. Took Craig with her. I didn’t want him. I remember when we were having that argument, he was sitting there watching my wife shout at me. Gave me the creeps. I just wanted him to get out of there. He was always fucking staring at me.’
‘Did you hit him?’
‘No!’
You did, Harrigan thought. You hit him and you beat her up. Maybe she even thought you were going to kill her. And she left, taking him with her. Left as quickly as she could. Frank was breathing hard. Harrigan gave him time to calm down.
‘What was this Jennifer’s last name?’ he asked.
‘Shillingworth,’ Frank said. ‘Bitch.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘I don’t know too many people with that name.’
‘Do you ever see her these days?’
‘Not since my wife left. Didn’t want to. But that’s what I don’t understand. What I just showed you, that must be what she wanted to sell me all that time ago. Who the fuck is this Ian Blackmore? Why would he have it?’
He was staring at Harrigan, his look almost a plea. All Harrigan could do was shake his head.
‘How did you get along with Craig when he was living here?’
Frank seemed to withdraw; his look was made up of suspicion and fear.
‘Why?’ he asked sharply.
‘Just background information, Frank,’ Harrigan said. ‘I don’t have any other reason for asking that question.’
‘He used to tell lies about me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Just lies. All the fucking time. I tried to frighten him. I hit him. Things like that. Never fucking touched him. Even my wife didn’t believe him.’
