The Labyrinth of Drowning (31 page)

‘Financial analysis has identified the companies Santos Associates and Cheshire Nominees as ultimately owned by you and Sara McLeod. Everything you own, you own jointly with her. You both shared your money. That’s a statement of commitment, isn’t it?’ the profiler said. ‘You owned in common. You killed people if they wanted money from you or didn’t pay you. But you and Sara shared every cent you had.’

Silence.

‘So when she wanted to get on a plane home, you couldn’t let her do that. You couldn’t kill her either. You had to go with her.’

Silence.

‘You couldn’t leave her. She knew everything about you.’ The profiler spoke almost gently. ‘Knew you as Craig and Joel. Was your lover as Craig and Joel. Helped you kill your mother and Joel
Griffin. The first police on the scene that night passed a motorbike coming towards them with a rider and a pillion. That was the two of you, wasn’t it? How were you feeling? Exhilarated? You were only eighteen, the both of you.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Griffin replied.

‘It’s almost like you both stayed back there, when you were eighteen. You kept doing it over and over again. But it began to wear out. And you started fighting with each other.’

‘She’s dead,’ Griffin said. ‘If she’s dead, then the past doesn’t matter. It’s finished. It was finished anyway.’

‘Are you grieving for her?’

Harrigan leaned forward. Griffin looked completely detached.

‘Everyone dies,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know that?’

‘You needed her because she was the other half of you as a murderer and you can’t get rid of that self. You like to kill. It eases your mind in some way, doesn’t it? What’s left now she’s gone? The money?’

‘There’s no point in questions like that or these speculations,’ the lawyer said. ‘My client has already said he has no admissions to make on any of these subjects.’

‘There’s always money.’ Griffin spoke simultaneously with his lawyer, then turned his head away from his questioners towards the one-way glass.

He couldn’t know it but he was looking directly at Harrigan and Grace. His eyes seemed empty of expression, his face dead. Grace looked away and stood up.

Harrigan glanced at Borghini and all three of them left the viewing area.

‘Every time we talk to him, it’s like that,’ Borghini said. They’d gone to a nearby shopping centre to have coffee. ‘I’ve sat opposite him, and sometimes before the interview starts he’s normal. He’ll talk to you. As soon as we start, he’s gone. It’s like he’s turned off a switch in his head. After that, nothing reaches him. He hasn’t said a word about Sara McLeod. Unless you ask him directly, he won’t talk about her. They were together for how long? Since she was fifteen. She was forty-three when she died. Nothing. Not even goodbye.’

‘He’s a sick man,’ Grace said. ‘There’s nothing else to say.’

‘How did you know to be at Duffys Forest?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Police work. I tried to tell your boss but he wouldn’t listen,’ Borghini said, looking to Grace. ‘When we found Jirawan Sanders, we checked for any possible related incidents in that locality. A neighbour, Adrian Mellish, had reported hearing a scream from the surgery about a month ago. We checked the ownership of the building. It belonged to Shillingworth. We checked further, found the house at Duffys Forest. If you track where Jirawan Sanders was found, it’s on a path between the two. We were working to get a search warrant for the Turramurra building when I got your call, boss. Except that when I answered it you weren’t there. Then we get another call a couple of minutes later saying a man’s been kidnapped. When we get there, we find your phone and Mellish tells us you were there looking at the house. We go in and find this graveyard. I didn’t know where they’d taken you so I thought, okay, I’ll put a team at Duffys Forest just in case. Lucky I did.’

‘Did you tell Orion any of this?’ Grace asked.

‘Oh yeah. I called them in straightaway.’

‘When did they get to Duffys Forest?’

‘We went there together, which was about half an hour before Griffin arrived. They were calling the shots, saying when we should and shouldn’t move. We moved too late in my opinion. They stayed too far back.’

Grace said nothing.

‘I think that squares things, mate,’ Harrigan said. ‘You don’t owe me any favours.’

‘Not a problem, boss. Just doing my job.’

Grace was silent for some time while they were driving home.

‘What did you mean when you told Mark he didn’t owe you any favours?’ she asked.

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘I guess you’ll tell me.’

‘His birth name’s Vincenzo Ponticelli. He’s Bianca’s brother.’

‘Did she tell you?’

‘Yeah. I don’t think she could have told anybody else because
otherwise he’d probably be dead by now. They see him as a traitor. He’s got no loyalty to any of the family. He saw old man Ponticelli beat up his mother and worse. When she ran, she went to Perth and married again. Mark took his stepfather’s name and grew up there, a long way from any of them. He came back here about five years ago when he married a Sydney girl. I went and saw him, wanted to know if he was straight or bent. But he’s as straight as they come.’

‘No one’s put the faces together? Him and his father?’

‘Apparently, he looks more like his mother. I don’t think they’ll stay here. It’s too close for comfort for him.’

‘Does anyone else know?’

‘Just you. It was the best thing about this operation for me. Knowing he was there for you to rely on.’

‘I almost wish I hadn’t sat in on that interview,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I found out anything. He didn’t answer any questions. It was their words; they did all the talking.’

‘He’ll never tell us anything. He’ll just live in his head till he dies. Lucky him.’

‘Whatever else I do, I’m going to forget about him,’ Grace said. ‘Once this is all over, it’s going to be like he never existed. I’m promising myself that.’

Proving she was nothing if not thorough and reliable, Harrigan’s retainer sent him one last piece of information by email. She had found a picture of Rafael Santos in a newspaper from the early 1930s. He had made it to the society pages, attending a debutante ball somewhere in the eastern suburbs.

Mr Rafael Santos is visiting our shores from far-away Argentina where he is in the cattle business. ‘I am hoping we can establish commercial ties between our two great nations,’ he told our journalist. ‘In the meantime, I am enjoying your wonderful hospitality and your beautiful harbour. And the ball, of course.’

Harrigan studied the photograph. A handsome man who looked more like his grandson than his son. He looked at the date. A little
less than ten months before Frank Wells had been born. Did Rafael Santos meet Amelie Warwick at the debutante ball, ask her to dance? Did she think she was in love? Did he care for her? Or was he just someone with an eye for the main chance? Did he panic when he realised what he’d got himself into? Or did he meet with such hostility from her parents that he ran anyway, rather than live like that? Or was he just a conman, someone who’d never been anywhere near Argentina, a chancer living on his wits who did what he had to do before making a run for it?

Nothing in this photograph could answer any of Harrigan’s questions. He didn’t even save it. He deleted it and sent his retainer a request for her invoice. Time to let the past go. It had done enough damage.

Meanwhile, it was time to collect Ellie from Kidz Corner. He left the house, pleased to be doing something ordinary.

The quiet room hadn’t changed since the last time Grace had sat in there. The debriefs were finished, the reports had been made, the evidence collated. Clive had asked her to see him today. This suited her; she was ready to talk to him now. He smiled at her when she sat down, his papers in front of him. She was also carrying a folder.

‘I want to congratulate you again,’ he said. ‘Griffin’s arrest is a very important development. We now have a map of most of his network. He was very skilled with finance. He ran a slick and effective operation.’

‘He has a good mind,’ Grace said. ‘Pity he used it the way he did.’

‘I’m authorising you to be paid a bonus and I’m also giving you a pay rise. You’ve earned it.’

He smiled. She didn’t smile back.

‘Thank you.’

‘I have another offer as well.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking to recruit a number of people to be my 2ICs. I’d like you to consider taking up one of those positions. I can’t do this job forever and someone has to take over when I go. This is your chance to put your hat in the ring.’

‘What would that involve?’ she asked. ‘Me working closely with you on a regular basis? Long hours?’

‘The hours would be more demanding, but you’ve got your partner to look after your daughter for you. Yes, you would be working closely with me. That’s the point. But it is a step forward in your career.’

‘I shot a woman that night.’

‘The autopsy showed that it was the police marksman’s bullet that killed Sara McLeod, not yours.’

‘I still shot her. I’m not sure I ever want to do that again.’

‘In this position, you won’t have to,’ Clive said.

‘Someone else does the dirty work.’

‘You handled that situation very well. Whatever you think, you have a great deal of potential. Maybe you’d like time to think this over.’

‘No, I’ve already done my thinking,’ she said, and, opening the folder she’d brought with her, took out an envelope. ‘This is my resignation. I’ll complete any outstanding tasks, I’ll be available for debriefings and court appearances as required, but I want to leave by the end of the month.’

‘Why?’ Clive asked, suddenly angry, suppressing it quickly.

‘It’s all in there.’

‘I don’t think the real reason will be there. People don’t put those things on paper.’

‘That night there were two things you didn’t do. I asked you to ring Harrigan. You didn’t.’

‘I didn’t have the time. To point out the obvious, he wasn’t able to answer his phone.’

‘You should have tried to call him. I was going into a situation where my life was in danger. He had a right to know. You also told me you would pull me out as soon as I asked you to. You didn’t.’

‘If your partner hadn’t gone in there and interfered with Griffin’s information in the first place, we would have come in.’

‘I gave you the pull-out signal before we knew those records were missing. Then I called you twice more when I was in great danger. You said you would come in and you didn’t.’

‘I’ve handled this whole affair with great discretion. Your partner’s investigations could have derailed this operation. I could have charged him if I wanted to, but I haven’t. I think you should consider that.’

‘His being there probably saved my life. Why didn’t you come in?’

Grace’s question was greeted with silence.

‘Why leave me there?’ she asked again. ‘They took my wire. You couldn’t even hear what was happening.’

‘I told you that Griffin’s business records were our main prize. I needed to find out whether he would go and get them when he left Duffys Forest. I’ve been through your notes in detail. They’re as good as listening in. We know who our man is and we have him. He’ll never see the outside of a prison wall again.’

‘He didn’t go and get those records. And you were almost too late to stop him killing the both of us.’

There was silence. Clive closed his folder and sat there staring at her.

‘All right. Consider your resignation accepted. You can leave as soon as you’ve finished anything that’s outstanding. Today, if possible. Don’t worry, you’ll still get your bonus.’

‘Then I’ll say goodbye.’

He didn’t speak.

She got to her feet and walked to the door. She glanced back to say goodbye one more time but he was staring down at the table. She walked out, closing the door behind her silently. Later, she’d think that he hadn’t been able to break her to fit the mould he’d wanted and she would always be one of his failures. At the time, she only wanted to clear her desk and go.

‘What will you do?’ Harrigan asked.

They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Ellie was alternately playing and demanding their attention.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, taking Ellie up onto her lap.

‘Go back to the police?’

‘No. It was too much like a snake pit the last time I was there.’

‘Work with me.’

She smiled, shaking her head. ‘Too close.’

‘Then let’s have a party,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘To celebrate our non-marriage.’

She laughed. ‘Why do we need to do that?’

‘Because it must be safe to do it. No one can touch us now, babe. We’ve been through it all. Call it a break with the old world. A chance to get rid of the past. We can be normal.’

‘We could have a party,’ she said. ‘Invite everybody. Play lots of music. Dance all night. Ellie, here’s your chance to be at your parents’ non-wedding. You can embarrass your first boyfriend’s family by telling them all about it.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Yes. But I still have to work out what to do for a living.’

‘Think of the world as your oyster,’ he said.

‘Maybe I will.’

HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in Australia in 2009

This edition published in 2010

by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
www.harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Alex Palmer 2009

The right of Alex Palmer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Palmer, Alex, 1952–.

Labyrinth of drowning / Alex Palmer.

ISBN: 978 0 7322 8574 6 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978 0 7304 0023 3 (ePub)

Murder–Investigation–Fiction.

Sydney (N.S.W.)–Fiction

A823.4