Harrigan and Grace - 01 - Blood Redemption (35 page)

He pinned up onto the corkboard a photograph of a group of ordinary-looking people with humourless faces and dressed in shabby clothes.

‘Oh, God, look at them. Meet the Addams Family,’ Grace said.

There was some laughter at this, including from Harrigan.

‘No, Gracie, this is the Life Support Group.’ Trevor was grinning.

‘These are the people who stalked Agnes Liu when she was in California. They are way out on the far side of the pro-life movement.

Ask them about abortion and they will tell you it’s Satanic sacrifice.

Women get pregnant so they can go and have abortions and then become witches and work for Satan. That’s where these people connect to the world.’

‘Nothing like being in touch with reality,’ Louise muttered.

‘You said it, Lou. These people are classic urban terrorists. Clinic bombings, threats, harassment, it’s all in a day’s work for them. One of them is in gaol for arson as we speak. You can look her up on the Net. She’s got her own website, she’s a prisoner of God. Is there a connection between these people and the preacher? We could not get one scrap of information out of our American cousins on this bunch, they wouldn’t talk to us. So we did what everybody does when they’re stuck — we went and found our very own Deep Throat. And that’s the journalist who wrote that story.’

There were howls of derision as Trevor pointed to the print-out from the Internet news service that carried the headline: AVENGING

ANGELS’ DEADLY STRIKE. POLICE FAIL TO MAKE ARREST AFTER DOCTOR

SHOT BY EXTREME ANTI-ABORTION GROUP.

Trevor brushed the commotion away with an airy wave of his hand.

‘Laugh as much as you want. But when we got in contact with her, she gave us information. Pages of it. This for starters.’

He pinned up the photocopy of an article from a Californian weekend magazine which had the lead line: IN THE DARK MIND OF

EXTREMITY: THE BLOODY CONSEQUENCES OF MILLENARIAN BELIEF IN THE

ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT. STORY BY JANE MONAHAN.

‘What’s all that crap about?’ Jeffo asked.

‘All you need to know, mate, is that you’re looking at this woman, Jane Monahan’s, life. Writing exposés like this one. That’s all she does.

It seems she was a good friend of Laura Di-Cuollo. When that investigation went nowhere, she picked it up in the press. When we got in touch with her, she didn’t want to stop talking. She knows a lot about the Angels: according to her they’ve got more than one shooting behind them. Trouble for us is, how much of her info can we use?

Most of it would get thrown out by any half-decent lawyer. But it fits.

She knows Fredericksen, he’s mentioned in her latest article but just in passing. He was living in the vicinity of Berkeley at the same time the doc was there and had a set-up very similar to the one he’s got here now: rich benefactor, political connections, a private church. Except he wasn’t the main man, he was more of a sidekick. People active within the Life Support Group were connected to his church. This woman’s talked to people who’ve moved away from that group and some of them knew our man. The “nice talker” one of them called him, the man who sets things up. And she knows about the gun that shot her friend. She says she got the ballistics information out of the police forensic lab by paying for it — would you believe, she actually told me that — and if it’s true, I can tell you that the same type of gun

— not the
same
gun, but the same type — that shot Di-Cuollo also shot our doc. It’s a modified pistol and Monahan tells me it’s a calling card for the Angels. The preacher left the States not long after that shooting. Everything was a bit too warm for him. He’s connected, but we’ve got nothing except our journalist friend to help us prove it.’

‘But is the Firewall one of them?’ Grace asked.

‘That doesn’t matter just at the moment,’ Harrigan said, speaking to her again for the first time since that morning. ‘We know he’s connected. What she is is something we ask her when we find her.’

A short silence followed.

‘It’s a game then,’ Grace said eventually. ‘He likes playing with other people’s lives. It’s a blood sport for him, it gives him a high. It’s not money. It’s the rush.’

‘Yeah, whatever, Gracie,’ Trevor said.

Harrigan found himself looking at her again.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘that’s good, that’s all good. That’s taken us a lot further along the road. Keep digging. And while we do that, we watch the preacher’s every move and we see what happens. We’ve got to turn up something soon.’

‘Like a body maybe?’ Trevor asked him as they all left the room.

‘Say, like poor old Greggie’s?’

‘If I’m going to be honest about it, Trev, I think hell will freeze over before we find that kid,’ Harrigan said.

Grace, moving past him, glanced at him as he said this. Before he could speak to her she was gone into the crowd.

Cafeteria coffee was not Harrigan’s favourite beverage but as he needed both caffeine and a break from the team it was his best choice.

He had sat down to drink it when he saw Grace out on the terrace, leaning against the railing and looking out at the cityscape as she smoked a cigarette. After some moments’ thought, he went out to join her. She looked up in surprise as he appeared. She greeted him and then again looked out at the jumble of roofs and high-rise.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

Yes, he could see that.

‘I’m sorry I ripped into you this morning,’ he said. ‘It was out of order for me to say that to you in front of everyone. You’re doing a good job, Grace. I’m not trying to make your life more difficult.’

She stood upright and shrugged, ever so slightly.

‘Thanks. But I wish I had left my phone on. I wish I had taken that call,’ she said.

‘What could you have done? We would have known a bit sooner and that’s about all. Don’t take it on.’

‘It’s more that it’s all of a piece. That kid sends his last message out to the world and I wasn’t even there to hear it.’

‘Where were you?’ he asked, a question he knew he had no business asking.

‘Sleeping on an old friend’s couch,’ she answered lightly, with a slight touch of steel and a sharp glance at him. ‘Somewhere I go when I’m feeling stretched.’

They stood in awkward silence while Harrigan tried to think of something intelligent to say in reply.

‘I wasn’t trying to be
abrupt
when I left last night,’ she said before he had the chance. ‘I’m sorry if it came over like that. I think I was feeling a bit worn.’

You take so much on, Grace. Why do you think any of these people are worth it from you?

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter. We all get worn.

We’ve all got too much work to do.’

‘Yeah. I’ll just finish my cigarette.’

‘No, it’s okay, Grace. I’m not rushing you. Take your time. I’ll see you later.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said, embarrassed by her hypersensitivity.

He walked back to his office, a little lighter in spirit than he had felt all day. The watchers inside the cafeteria had no idea that they had just witnessed the unprecedented event of Harrigan apologising to a member of his team.

24

Less than an hour after he had spoken to her in the cafeteria, Harrigan startled Grace by appearing without warning at her desk, with his tie loose and his sleeves rolled up. He handed her a file and leaned on the desk with both hands.

‘She’s just a little prostitute,’ he said. ‘I’ve told her I’m offering her immunity if her story checks out, but so far she’s being very cagey with the details and I don’t know why. I want you to talk to her on your own. You have to put her at her ease. You can do that, I’ve seen you do it before. Read that file and think about it. Bring your cigarettes with you when you’re ready. She’s asked if she can smoke and I’ve told her she can. She’s smoking like the proverbial at the moment.’

He disappeared in the direction of the interview room. Grace drew breath and opened the file, and thought, you’re on, girl, better tune up the vocal chords. The head shot showed an olive-skinned girl, her shoulder-length dark hair dyed with blonde streaks. Gina Farrugia, aged twenty-two, resident of Potts Point. One conviction for possessing a trafficable amount of heroin. Released into the detox program seven months ago. Known associates: one lover, Mike Sullivan, ex-boxer, sometime bouncer, small-time dealer, occasional police informer, addict. That was all. A thin file. When she reached the interview room, Trevor was waiting with Harrigan.

‘You ready, Gracie?’ he asked her.

‘Sure.’

‘Keep it gentle and take your time. I’ve told her who you are. You remember — I want this information,’ Harrigan said.

How could she forget?

Grace opened the door expecting to feel ordinary tensions filling the air, zigzags of apprehension and defensiveness. The atmosphere in the grey box this afternoon had another quality to it. The young woman looking up at her exuded an animal smell, fear, something as palpable as a small rustling creature curled up tightly into a corner of the room, head pressed to the wall. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke, the ashtray filled with ash and stubs. An empty cigarette packet lay beside it.

‘Hi, Gina,’ Grace said to a barely perceptible nod. ‘How are you?’

There was no direct reply. As she sat down, she saw Gina’s gaze shift past her to the blank eye in the wall.

‘Who’s watching us?’ the girl asked.

‘You don’t have to worry about that. You’re just talking to me. Do you want my card?’

The girl glanced at the card and pocketed it.

‘Don’t I have to worry about that?’ she said to Grace. ‘You know something I don’t, do you?’

‘No. There’s just nothing for you to worry about. No one here’s going to do anything to you. Do you want a cigarette?’

‘Yeah.’

Grace lit both their cigarettes and put the packet and her lighter in the middle of the table.

‘Help yourself,’ she said.

The girl nodded. She sat there, smoking quickly, and then spoke too quickly.

‘If you want to know why I didn’t come in before — I couldn’t get here. That’s the truth. I just couldn’t get here. I would have come in sooner if I could have.’

‘That’s not an issue for me, Gina. As far as I’m concerned, you’re here now and that’s all that matters. The only question for me is what you’ve got to tell me.’

‘That’s something else, isn’t it? There’s a reward, isn’t there?

$25,000? I need to know. Would I get that?’

‘You certainly could. If you’ve got information, then you should get at least a part of it. Maybe all of it. It would depend on what you’ve got to tell us. Is that very important to you?’

‘I just need to know, that’s all. When would I get it?’

‘You need it soon, do you?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘Probably as soon as you want it, in that case. But it all does depend on what you’ve got to say. Why don’t you just relax for a bit and think about what you’ve got to tell me? We’ve got plenty of time if you need it.’

There was a brief pause. Gina was tapping ash into the ashtray, frowning. She glanced up at Grace and then at the blank window again. Grace saw panic in the girl’s face, a split in the fabric, control briefly lost and then regained. She ashed her cigarette and picked up the packet, turning it over and over in her hands before taking out another cigarette and lighting it.

‘What if I want something else? I mean, what if I want something besides the money?’

‘What else do you want?’

‘Couple of hours? Of your time. Would you do that for me? Just a couple of hours.’ Her hands were shaking as she looked at Grace.

‘That’s all I want. And the money. When I get it.’

‘Why do you want my time?’ Grace asked.

‘I just do. You don’t have to worry, nothing’s going to happen. I promise. And I do promise.’

‘You want two hours of my time? What do you want to do?’

‘What do I want to do?’ The girl bit her lip. ‘Nothing really. I just want the company. You know all that junk food, chips and that? It’s my favourite food, I love it. Do you want to have a hamburger with me? One with everything? We could do that.’

‘I don’t mind,’ Grace replied equably. ‘I like junk food when I’m in the mood. You want me to go and have a hamburger with you? We can do that. What else do you want to do?’

‘Just sit somewhere and talk. That’s all. That really is all I want.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Yeah.’

Grace was silent for a moment. The girl crushed out her half-smoked cigarette and waited.

‘Why do you want that, Gina?’ Grace asked.

‘I just want the company, that’s all.’

‘Have another cigarette,’ she said and waited while the girl lit it up.

‘There isn’t anyone else you want to be with for two hours?’ she asked.

The girl shook her head without speaking.

‘Gina,’ Grace said, ‘what happens after two hours?’

‘You just go home.’

‘But what do you do?’

‘I go to work.’

‘You’re still working?’

‘Yeah. It keeps the money coming in. I just don’t want to be alone this evening.’

‘You could stay here.’

‘No,’ she looked around at the ugly room, ‘I don’t want to stay here. I want to be out there. It’s just that my boyfriend’s not around and I don’t know where he is right now. I get worried about him. I didn’t want to be alone out there just thinking about him.’

‘Okay,’ Grace said after a pause, ‘I think I can do that. That shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Have you got some coffee? Some really strong coffee. I really would like a coffee,’ the girl said, almost desperately.

‘Yeah, I’ll get you some coffee.’

At that moment, Harrigan knocked on the door and asked Grace to step outside.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ He sounded outraged. ‘You don’t know what she’s planning. You could be walking into anything.’

‘I don’t think she’s planning anything. She’s genuine.’

‘Genuine is not the point.’ Harrigan could have been talking to a slow child. ‘It’s what’s waiting for you when you get out there with her.’

‘She’s just a girl. I can deal with it,’ Grace said, keeping her reciprocal outrage under wraps as best she could.