Harrigan and Grace - 01 - Blood Redemption (25 page)

She overtook the slower cars on the expressway, approaching the river, speeding down the descent towards Brooklyn and the Hawkesbury River Bridge. Almost fourteen years ago she had travelled this same distance in the reverse direction, at that time by train, leaving home to work in the city, with a sense of freedom she had never again felt with such intensity. The railway line had twisted (still did) along the backwaters of the Hawkesbury River, past disused oyster beds and decaying blue and green fibro houses isolated in the midst of the eucalyptus forest on the water’s edge. The train had picked up speed as it climbed through the tunnels approaching the river crossing and had then come roaring out of the dark onto the bridge. She had felt that the sky had opened out around her, that she was flying. To the east of the railway she had seen the grey pylons of the old bridge, the green river between the tree-covered hills as it flowed to the sea, and the town on the south bank beneath her, a pastiche of white buildings and red roofs, with cars glinting in the sunlight. In the mid afternoon on a working day, as she crossed by the road bridge, racing a commuter train in the distance and beginning her ascent towards the Central Coast, the river was still a boundary line.

Travelling across it had always had a peculiar bitter-sweetness for her.

Today, she felt a shiver of anticipation, of energy, down her spine.

This energy lasted as long as it took her to reach Kariong, to be shown into the office and meet a man who wanted to spend as little time as possible speaking to her. Sooner than expected, she was back out in the car park ringing the boss.

‘Harrigan.’

‘It’s Grace here.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve got some not very good information. I’m at Kariong but Greg Smith isn’t. He’s been bailed.’

‘You’re joking. Who bailed him? When?’

‘Preacher Graeme Fredericksen. He bailed Greg from the Children’s Court at Parramatta early this afternoon while I was still on my way up here.’

‘He’s finally surfaced, has he? So why didn’t anyone tell us? Why weren’t we involved in this?’

‘They don’t seem to want to include us in this at all. They didn’t get any warning themselves, or so they’re telling me. Two departmental officers arrived in a government car at lunch time and picked him up.

The paperwork came down from the department with some very senior signatures on it.’

‘Is he with the preacher now? Have they gone back to his refuge or whatever it is?’

‘That’s who Greg left the court with. But I can’t reach anyone at the refuge and I can’t raise the preacher. No matter what number you ring, you only get through to the voice mail. They’re shut down to the world. I can tell you they left the court in the refuge van at about 2:45, but that’s all the information I’ve got.’

‘Get back in here as soon as you can. I’ll take it from here.’

It had been a pointless journey. Driving back out onto the expressway Grace looked down the Gosford road, thinking of home, knowing it was just a short drive to her father’s house at Point Frederick on the Broadwater and wondering what he was doing now. He could be in his study, caught up in his work, writing research papers and speeches, or standing in his back garden on the edge of the water, wondering why things had worked out the way they had. She hadn’t the time to go and see him now, however much she might want to. She had work to do.

Grace sped up over Mooney-Mooney Bridge, heading back to the city. From about fourteen onwards, she could have found herself in a stolen car being driven too fast along this same freeway; the pleasure she had taken in the speed was with her as she drove now. Back then, the acceleration had been in her own head, she had wanted to get inside the sense of the speed itself, to let go completely, shouting at the driver (some other kid, completely spooked by her) go faster, let’s smash through something. They never had smashed anything — their car or another or the sandstone embankment — all they had done was to come very close. She had to admit it, she had wanted to save that lost boy’s life. Now all she could do was draw the line Harrigan had talked about.

When she reached the office, neither the preacher nor the boy had been found and every available person was out searching for them. She stopped in the doorway to Harrigan’s office, hesitating. He was on the phone and gestured to her to wait. As he hung up, he looked at her expectantly.

‘I’ve got the paperwork from Kariong for you if you want to see it,’

she said, feeling cold as she spoke. ‘It looks like they used the psychiatric assessment as a lever to get him out.’

‘Yeah.’ He was distant, unreadable. ‘Leave it with me, would you, Grace? I don’t have time to talk now. Okay?’

‘Sure,’ she said.

She went back to her desk, hiding behind her make-up and scrubbing out a sharply felt disappointment.

Not long after, Louise knocked discreetly on Harrigan’s door and put a message on his desk. It was the transcript of an email they had retrieved from the trash file on Toby’s computer.

Firewall, u have 2 be so careful now, the police know about your
web site and they are watching everything u say and do. U remember
I love u, Firewall, love u always.

Harrigan nodded as he read it.

‘Keep me posted,’ he said, and buried his head in his paperwork, working at a murderous pace, driving all other thoughts out of his head.

17

In the afternoon, Lucy woke from her electronic dreams to a curious sense of lassitude. It was the sixth day since the shooting. The thought ‘I am here’ was voiced in her mind as an acknowledgement that she was as good as imprisoned there. Events had slipped into suspension. Elsewhere in the house, her father slept his narcotic sleep.

After they had spoken to each other, he had withdrawn into his bedroom, shutting the door against her, holding her at bay. Out in the rest of the world, everything existed in an uneasy stability. She had the sense that neither she nor the preacher could move without initiating violence. She felt the threat of it in the same way that she might have listened to the sound of someone she feared approaching her from a distance.

She left her room to go and wash. At her door, she stopped and looked down the corridor at the closed door to her father’s bedroom.

She only had to walk in there and say, ‘I’m here, Dad. I just told you, you owe me. Can’t you give a bit, the smallest bit?’ Words that became a craving as she thought them. He had nothing to give her, that door was closed against her, she could not expect to find any mercy in there.

If she walked into his room with those words, he would turn his back to her and wrap himself in impenetrable silence and deafness. He sent whispered messages through Melanie, asking her not to leave, saying he still wanted to see her but only if she was kind to him, because he was a dying man. Come and be my friend before I die, he whispered to her through her sister, there’s no point in accusations. She could not use her gun against that whispered voice.

In the bathroom, she washed herself carefully. Her bleeding had stopped by now but she still washed herself several times a day, polishing her unfamiliar skin and body as a child might. She sat on the edge of the bathtub, carefully drying the soft skin of her vagina, then dressed herself, thinking that no one could touch her now. She traced the edge of her face as she looked at herself in the mirror, unnerved by the awareness that this mask and no other was her face. She felt she was inhabiting herself the way a ghost might take possession of someone else’s body.

As she came downstairs into the hallway, she heard the television in the lounge room. From the kitchen she heard softer voices, Melanie and Stephen speaking to each other, words that were partly indistinct but which seemed to be about everyday things. She stopped at the open door, to see Stephen smoking as he sat at the table reading the day’s paper, while Melanie stood at the bench slicing potatoes. He looked up and smiled at her.

‘Hi, Luce,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

This single syllable filled the air like a breath finally expelled and the past overlaid the present, going back years. It was late at night. She had left her room immediately after her father had and was going to the bathroom to wash herself. When she came out, she saw her father walking downstairs and then Stephen standing in the hallway watching them both. He was staring at her with his mouth open and his face white. He did not speak to her, he turned and went downstairs to the kitchen after their father. She stood at the top of the stairs, too frightened to move, listening. She heard the sound of Stephen’s quieter voice but she could not make out the words. In the cold and silent house, she heard her father shouting with that sudden anger he had, and then the sound of someone at first being hit and then crashing to the floor. She ran downstairs to find Stephen with his knee cracked on the laundry floor, rolling about in pain. She could say nothing; he gripped on to her while he refused to make a sound. Her father was eating a slice of bread, something. He finished, brushed himself down and then called an ambulance. As the ambulance arrived in the driveway, her mother came down to the kitchen for the first time.

‘You okay, Luce?’

Stevie was talking to her. Both he and Mel were staring at her. She shook her head to bring herself back to the present.

‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ she said.

‘You want something to eat?’ Mel asked.

‘No, I’ll just have some coffee.’

‘Whatever you like.’

Lucy looked up from making instant coffee to find Stephen watching her, the expression on his face a mixture of concern and fear.

‘Where’s Dad?’ she asked.

‘He’s still in his room. I don’t think he’s coming out again.’ Melanie answered the question for her brother, tossing her knife down and turning and standing with her arms folded. She spoke without energy.

‘Do you know, he spent the whole time I was in there this morning whispering in my ear about how much he loves you. I can’t deal with that, Luce. I can hardly even deal with the sound of his voice.’

Melanie waited for her to reply but Lucy said nothing. Her sister shook her head.

‘You two are just so alike,’ she said, ‘you won’t let go of anything.

He’s never going to say what you want him to say, Luce, never. He’s just going to keep getting at me and at Stevie until you say to him that it doesn’t matter what he did to you. If you’re going to stay around, just give him what he wants. It doesn’t matter now anyway, it’s too fucking late.’

Again Lucy did not answer. She had no voice; everything she had to say was stuck in her throat.

‘Mum’s in the lounge, is she?’ was all she managed in the end.

‘What do you think?’ Melanie said, turning away again.

Stephen said nothing, only lit another cigarette from the end of the one he was already smoking.

Lucy took her mug of coffee and went outside to sit next to Dora and scratch the old dog’s head. As the dog nuzzled closer to her, she thought she would let her off the chain, and then go and tell her father how evil she thought he was. She did not move: thoughts of her father had caused her to become paralysed. She did not know what she wanted, whether she should stay or go. What was the point of staying here other than that it was somewhere to hide. She shook her head against the confusion. The sound of her phone, stashed in the pocket of her jacket, interrupted her thoughts.

‘Yeah?’ she said, knowing who it would be.

‘Lucy,’ the preacher replied. ‘How are you today?’

‘I’m good, Graeme. I’ve never felt better in my life. What do you want?’

‘I’ve got someone here I want you to talk to.’

Lucy felt cold as she listened to him pass the phone to someone.

‘Luce?’

‘Hi, Greg. He got you out, did he? He said he would.’

‘Yeah, he did. Those fucking pigs put me straight in the van. Look, I … What are you going to do?’

Lucy put her hand on her waistband and felt her firearm, hidden under her baggy clothes. She did not leave her room without carrying her gun.

‘Whatever he wants, Greg. Did you get my message? The one I asked Ria to give you?’

‘Yeah, I did. I can’t talk, you know, I — ’

‘Then you know you have to be as careful as you can. You watch everything he does. I’m going to do what he wants. Everything I have to. You remember that. I’m still out here. I haven’t forgotten you.’

‘Yeah, I will. You okay, Luce?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay. What about you? Did they shave your hair off, take away your beanie like they always do?’

‘Yeah, I got no hair any more but I hung onto my beanie this time.

It’s all I got left, everything else has been ripped off me. Look, I got to go, he wants the phone.’

‘I’m here. You remember that.’

Lucy listened to the sound of traffic down the line as she waited for Graeme. She glanced across the national park towards the vicinity of the northbound expressway, wondering where they could be. All she saw was the curve of the sky and the clouds massed on the horizon.

‘You see, it’s just the way I told you, Lucy,’ the preacher said. ‘I have my contacts too. You should remember that.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten. But I don’t mind coming to see you, Graeme.

Because I’ve got my insurance.’

‘Do you think you’ll use it?’

‘Why wouldn’t I? If you’ve used one of these things once, you can always do it again. Because you really know how to then. It’s not like shooting at a tree any more.’

There was silence.

‘Graeme?’

‘I was just thinking that’s not quite how you talked about it the last time we spoke. Are you changing your mind? Do you feel a little easier with it all now?’

Lucy felt frightened down into the pit of her stomach.

‘I just do what I have to, Graeme.’

‘I see. Well, why don’t we all get together this evening? I thought we could meet at the garage.’

‘Not this evening,’ Lucy snapped back. ‘I haven’t got any way to get there. And anyway, I don’t want to go there. I don’t like it there. Last time I was there I … there are ghosts in there, Graeme, I heard those kids’ voices last time. I’m never going back there again. No, I want to say where and when we meet. Okay? Me. I say.’