The Labyrinth of Drowning (30 page)

‘Mine are in his car,’ Grace said. ‘In the back.’

She was still staring down at Sara McLeod. The bullets had hit her body. Her face was intact but there was no peace in it, even in death. Had she killed her? She did have a problem with it.

Harrigan was with her. ‘She was running at you. She wanted you to kill her,’ he said.

‘But I didn’t want to do it. They got me to do what they wanted. They brought me down.’

‘No, they didn’t.’

‘You were very brave. Congratulations.’

They both turned to see Clive standing close by. They hadn’t noticed him approaching.

‘Where were you?’ Grace said. ‘I called you three times to get me out.’

‘We’re here now. You should have trusted us. We’ve got our fish and he’s still alive. We can interrogate him. It’s been a very successful operation.’

He was looking over to where Griffin was still kneeling on the ground, the police around him. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he stood up. As he was led away, he didn’t once glance towards Sara on the ground.

‘What we have to do now,’ Clive said, ‘is find his records and his money.’

‘Check in the roof cavity at Duffys Forest. There’s a manhole in the linen cupboard,’ Harrigan said, watching Clive with barely controlled anger.

‘How do you know that?’

‘I put them there.’

‘That building’s due to go up in smoke. It could be burning by now,’ Grace said.

‘We moved in and secured it as soon as you left.’

‘You were there,’ she said. ‘You let Griffin drive away with me. Why didn’t you intervene at the house? I gave the call.’

‘The job wasn’t finished. He might have led us to those records, which we’re now told are still in the house.’

‘I gave the call for you to get me out. When we left, I had no wire. You couldn’t hear me, you couldn’t know what was going on. We were flying blind.’

‘We knew he was going to take you somewhere else. We needed to know where. I told you, you should have trusted us. We were there, we’re here now, and we’ve got you out. We weren’t going to let you die. I’ll be in touch about a debrief.’

As he turned away, he stopped to look at Harrigan. ‘Your partner’s a very brave woman.’

‘I could have told you that years ago.’

‘Take my gun,’ Grace said. ‘I don’t want it. It’s needed for ballistics anyway.’

Clive took the firearm and walked away.

‘He didn’t keep his side of the bargain,’ Grace said. ‘He left me there just in case I gave him something more. I’ll never trust him again.’

A uniformed officer walked up to them carrying two pairs of shoes.

‘The DS sent these over. These are yours, miss. And for you, boss—a pair of thongs. Sorry. That’s all we’ve got.’

‘They’ll be fine. Thanks.’

With some relief, they put the shoes on.

‘Do we have to stay?’ Grace said. ‘Can we go? We shouldn’t be needed tonight. I want to see Ellie.’

‘They might need to photograph your neck,’ Harrigan replied. ‘I’ll ask. We won’t be able to take our car, but there may be someone here who can give us a lift.’

They turned to each other. She gave an exhausted half-smile and he put his arms around her. They hugged, hard and long. Harrigan looked over her shoulder and saw Clive watching them. Then the spymaster turned away into the night.

‘Come on,’ he said, and they walked away. They walked past the car where Griffin sat, but he was staring ahead. If he saw them, their existence didn’t seem to register. His face was completely empty, as if there was nothing in him, no thought, no emotion.

‘He’s got your picture,’ Grace said. ‘The one you took of me when Ellie was born. It’s in his pocket.’

‘Does he now?’

Harrigan walked away and found Borghini. A little later, Borghini and two uniformed officers went over to the car.

‘Could you just step out, Mr Griffin? Just for a moment, thanks. We need to check your pockets.’

Griffin did. After a short search, one of the uniformed officers handed Borghini a photograph. He nodded, walked back to Harrigan, who had returned to Grace, and handed it to him.

‘There you go,’ he said, and walked away.

Much later, a police car took them to Harrigan’s older sister’s house where Ellie was sleeping. They had called Ronnie earlier and she was waiting for them.

‘She took some settling down but she’s asleep now. I told her Mummy and Daddy would be here soon. She seemed okay with that. So, big little brother,’ the diminutive woman said, giving
Harrigan a sharp-eyed glance, ‘what have you been up to?’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘We just want to go home.’

Grace picked Ellie up from the bed. The little girl rubbed her sleepy eyes and put her arms around her mother’s neck.

‘Hello, chicken. Mummy and Daddy are here. We’re going home. How’s that?’

I have you back, Harrigan thought. Safe at last.

B
orghini asked Grace and Harrigan if they wanted to watch when his people interviewed Griffin. The interview they attended was one of a series. Grace went as a private individual, not as an official representative; Orion’s protocols excluded her from any questioning they would do. She went not out of curiosity but to try to diminish his ghost in her own mind, to convince herself that he was where he could do them no harm.

In all, a small group of about five people, including an official observer from Orion, were watching when Griffin was brought into the interview room with its one-way glass wall. Borghini was also there, as an observer. He had passed this interview over to a trained interviewer from headquarters and a profiler. Griffin was accompanied by his lawyer, a well-known, highly skilled and expensive practitioner. Harrigan, remembering Griffin’s skill as a barrister, wondered what directions he had given his counsel. He was dressed in prison overalls and sat with his arms folded, seemingly detached from the situation. His business as a criminal banker was still under investigation by Orion and there was only limited information available on that side of his activities. Six bodies had been found at the Turramurra house. Two were at least ten years old. Some were men, some women.

‘My client wishes to advise you that he will be conducting this interview and his defence under the name of Joel Griffin,’ Griffin’s lawyer said.

The statement was made at the start of every interview.

The police interviewer began the process. ‘We do have irrefutable DNA evidence that your client was born Craig Wells, son of Frank and Janice Wells.’

‘Be that as it may, it’s been many years since he adopted the name Joel Griffin. That’s what he calls himself now.’

‘All right, Joel. Just for context, let’s go over the chronology of your life after your mother was killed. You left the country as Joel Griffin almost immediately and went to Asia with Sara McLeod and her parents. During your time in Asia you worked in the McLeods’ import–export business. After several years, you went with Sara McLeod to Britain. You didn’t return to Australia until the mid-1990s. Is that correct?’

‘Joel has already acknowledged he spent that time out of the country,’ the lawyer said.

‘During that time in Britain you attended the University of London where you completed a law degree. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, my client admits to that.’

‘The murders we’re investigating began to occur once you returned to Australia.’

‘My client denies any knowledge of those murders.’

‘Our investigations have found six bodies in the surgery at Turramurra previously owned by a Dr Amelie Santos. We believe her to be your natural grandmother. Is that correct?’

The lawyer glanced at his client.

‘The evidence has established that so I think we can move on,’ he said when there was no acknowledgement from Griffin.

‘With Sara McLeod, you owned that building as trustees of the Shillingworth Trust, under the names of Nadine Patterson and David Tate.’

‘Joel has made no admission on that.’

‘We have a positive identification of Sara McLeod as Nadine Patterson, and we have in our possession passports in those names showing photographs of Sara McLeod and your client.’

‘Joel still wishes to make no admissions on that subject.’

‘We’ve established the identities of the victims. Placing them in order of their deaths so far as we can tell, they are: Jennifer Shillingworth, Stan Wells, Ian Blackmore, Elliot Griffin, father of the actual Joel Griffin, Kylie Sutcliffe and Nadifa Hasan Ibrahim. Can your client confirm that for us?’

‘My client has no information to give on that subject. He’s made that very clear. He denies any part in their murders.’

‘Joel, you’re aware that we’ve searched all properties associated with the Shillingworth Trust and also the McLeods’ residences at Palm Beach and Cottage Point. We’ve located numbers of items belonging to the victims and also photographs and videos of you and Sara that were taken at the time of the murders.’ The police interviewer’s voice was calm. ‘The photographs place you both as present and active in all these murders. There’s also sufficient evidence to identify you and Sara McLeod as the murderers of Jirawan Sanders.’

‘My client still denies all knowledge.’

‘Does Joel want to speak for himself?’

Griffin shook his head. The profiler spoke next.

‘Joel, let’s talk about your grandmother, Dr Amelie Santos. When did you first find out about her?’

Griffin looked at her and spoke for the first time. ‘Amelie Santos was a woman who owed me money.’

‘Why did she owe you money?’

‘The point is, if you owe someone money, you should pay them. If you don’t, then you’re at fault.’

‘She was at fault,’ the profiler repeated. ‘Did you tell her that? Did you go and see her at her house in Blackheath?’

‘She knew she owed me money,’ Griffin said.

‘How did she know she owed you money?’

Griffin looked at his lawyer.

‘I’m doing this under instruction from my client,’ the lawyer said and took an envelope out of his briefcase. It was old and yellowing. From it the lawyer took and placed on the table a copy of the letter from the Salvation Army identifying Frank Martin Wells as the son of Amelie and Rafael Santos.

‘She already had that,’ Griffin said. ‘She’d had it for years. I had to pay for it.’

‘Presumably Amelie Santos had to pay for it as well,’ the police interviewer said. ‘This is the information you bought from Jennifer Shillingworth. Am I correct?’

‘If you check the envelope, you’ll see the stamps are from the late 1960s, early ’70s,’ Griffin’s lawyer said. ‘Dr Santos must have obtained that information illegally and then declined to act on it.’

Watching, Harrigan thought that of all the people involved in this, the one with the most clear-sighted understanding of Dr Amelie Santos had been her son, Frank.
She didn’t want me. She didn’t even give me a name.
Just this once, all those years ago, she seemed to have made a tentative step towards finding him, but had then, for whatever reason, drawn back.

‘Joel, are you saying that your grandmother knew all along who her son was?’ the profiler asked.

‘She had that letter. She must have done.’

‘But how could she know who you were? You were Joel Griffin by then, not Craig Wells.’

‘She knew she owed me money as soon as she opened the door.’

‘You went and saw her in the house at Blackheath. She recognised you. Did she let you in?’

‘She came outside. She said,
I don’t want to see you
. She wouldn’t even talk to me.’

‘Did you ever go into the house?’

‘When they took her away.’

‘She later gave it to you,’ the profiler said.

‘She knew she owed it to me.’

This seemed to be as close as Griffin could get to admitting he was her grandson. The depth of resentment in his voice reminded Harrigan of Frank Wells.
The bitch! She left me nothing!
Resentment decades old. The one point on which father and son were in agreement.

‘Joel,’ the police interviewer said, ‘you started burying people at Dr Santos’s surgery in Turramurra years before you first visited her. That was before she told you she didn’t want to know you. You were using her surgery while she was still alive, still its owner. Why?’

Silence. Griffin looked down at the table. He was almost smiling.

‘There’s no point in that question,’ his lawyer said. ‘Joel has no admissions to make.’

‘As soon as you got back to this country, Joel, your grandmother was already in your mind,’ the profiler said. ‘You started to do things that were associated with her in a very negative way.’

‘As I’ve said, there’s no point in those questions. Joel has nothing to say.’

‘Why did you wait four years before you went and saw her? Why not see her as soon as you came back to Australia? That’s when you found out who she was.’

‘I wanted to see her before she died. She was getting old.’

‘You wanted to make sure she put you in her will before she died. Were you watching her?’ the profiler asked.

‘No. I do things in my own time,’ he replied.

‘After your mother, Janice Wells, Jennifer Shillingworth was your second victim. Whose decision was it to kill her? Yours or Sara’s?’

‘There’s no proof that Joel killed his mother,’ the lawyer said.

‘Jennifer Shillingworth was your first victim when you came back. Why did you kill her?’

‘When I do business with someone,’ Griffin said after a few moments, ‘I always stick to the deal I’ve made. Once I’ve settled on a price, I never ask for more money.’

‘Jennifer Shillingworth wanted more money. Is that what you’re saying?’

Silence.

‘Why did you use her name for the property trust you set up? Because she led you to your grandmother? Or because she tried to get money out of you? Was this your way of putting her in her place?’

Silence.

‘Your next victim after you came back to Australia was Stan Wells. He was your father’s brother. Why did you kill him?’

Silence.

‘The first thing you do when you come back to Australia after years away is find out who your grandmother is, and then carry out
a killing that will cause your real father genuine grief,’ the profiler said. ‘Those are things Craig Wells would do, aren’t they? Not Joel Griffin.’

‘I’m not Craig Wells.’

‘For all your killings you used an axe you stole from your father. Everything you do seems to lead back to your real family. Have you ever really left home, Joel? You’ve travelled the world, but aren’t you still back in that little house on Bay Street?’

‘You don’t know the places I’ve been,’ he replied.

‘You never killed your father.’

Griffin looked down at the table and this time he did smile. ‘Isn’t he already dead?’

‘You made your grandmother the centre of this,’ the profiler said. ‘You buried your victims in her surgery. The young women who worked for you at Life’s Pleasures said they were there to work for Amelie. You used her home as a base for your murders. You called your property trust after the woman who found her for you and whom you then killed. Why?’

Silence.

‘You and Sara met at Camp Sunshine,’ the profiler said. ‘You were both fifteen.’

‘Joel has already agreed with that statement,’ the lawyer said.

‘You planned the real Joel Griffin’s death from that time, didn’t you? Sara started seeing him. She paid for him to get his teeth fixed but he didn’t know it was under your name.’

‘That allegation is pure speculation,’ the lawyer said.

‘No, there’s sufficient evidence to support it,’ the police interviewer replied. ‘We also have Joel’s own dental records. They date back to when he was fifteen. Given that DNA testing has established his identity as Craig Wells, we can state that he was using Joel Griffin’s identity while the real Joel was still alive.’

‘Sara knew from the start what you were planning,’ the profiler said. ‘You planned it together.’

‘She liked being with me. She said it was exciting. She said there was only us in the world.’

‘She was in love with you.’

‘I guess so.’

‘You’re fascinated by identity, aren’t you?’ the profiler said. ‘You used the medical records you found in Amelie Santos’s garage to sell new identities to other people. You used them for yourselves. You even used them when you were extorting Amelie Santos’s Blackheath house from her. It was like having a second self you could draw on whenever you needed to do something. Like being invisible. And you sold several of those IDs to women who then worked
gratis
at Life’s Pleasures in payment. You even murdered one of them who refused to keep her side of the bargain. You used the names of your victims. It seemed to be almost a way of keeping them alive. You even brought Craig back to life. Or is that your way of keeping your victims prisoner? A way of going back to what you did to them? You bring them back to life. You murder them again.’

Silence.

‘Why did you kill Elliot Griffin, Joel?’ the police interviewer asked. ‘Did he believe you were his son and try to seek you out? Did he want money? Why not just tell him he’d made a mistake? How could he connect you to his son?’

Silence.

‘Or did he remind you that you weren’t who you said you were?’ the profiler asked. ‘You were killing your old self all over again when you killed him. Because you really aren’t Joel Griffin. You’re Craig Wells.’

Griffin looked her directly in the eyes. Watching, Harrigan thought he saw her flinch.

‘This is who I am,’ he said. ‘If someone comes to you and says, you’re not who you say you are, then, whether they want money from you or not, they’re drinking your blood. I don’t put up with that from anyone no matter who they are.’

‘Are you making a threat, Joel?’ the police interviewer asked quietly.

‘No.’

‘Elliot Griffin found you and wanted money,’ the interviewer continued after a pause. ‘That’s what you’re saying. And because of that you killed him.’

Silence.

‘Are you obsessed with the past, Joel?’ the profiler said. ‘You seem to have to keep worrying at it. Punishing it. You keep trying to obliterate it and then you keep bringing it back to life. Isn’t that like being on a treadmill?’

‘I was finished here,’ Griffin said. ‘I was leaving. I wasn’t coming back.’

‘Don’t you like Sydney? This is where you were born. Why come back after all those years if it hooked you back into the past?’

‘I never wanted to come back here. That was Sara’s idea.’

‘Why did she want to come back?’

‘She was homesick. She didn’t like the weather in London. She wanted to go sailing again.’

‘So you came home.’

‘She was going to get on a plane without me. It meant I had to move the whole business here.’

‘Are you the main driver of the business, Joel?’ the police interviewer asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a very skilled financier.’

‘I’m good with money. I know how to make it work.’

‘Money’s important to you.’

‘Money is real. When everything else is finished, there’s always money,’ Griffin said.