The Labyrinth of Drowning

by Alex Palmer

  The nurse removed the helmet and used his own coat as a cushion for the rider’s head. He was moving in and out of consciousness. Grace recognised Joe Ponticelli from Harrigan’s launch.

  ‘Probably internal bleeding,’ the nurse said. ‘Probably quite severe. We need an ambulance.’

  ‘It’s on its way.’

  The nurse checked the other man, also taking off his helmet. This man was unknown to her.

  ‘Very dead. Probably almost instantly. His neck’s broken.’

  Despite her years of training and experience, Grace swayed on her feet, feeling cold and sick. Briefly she closed her eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the nurse asked.

  She nodded. Glancing sideways, she saw the other operative looking at her speculatively.

  ‘I saw it happening when you almost ran into me,’ the nurse said. ‘I don’t think it was your fault. They ran into you.’

  You can expect it in a business like this where the people who make the rules are murderers. She had heard this from a speaker during her induction course all those years ago. It had never been more real. She nodded her thanks to the nurse but couldn’t speak.

  First on the scene was Clive, with the police and ambulance following. The injured man was taken away first; the dead man waited his turn under a cover on the road.

  ‘Where’s Narelle Wong?’ Clive asked.

  ‘We had to handcuff her to the car. She kept trying to make a run for it.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at her.’

  They walked over to where Narelle was sitting in the passenger seat.

  ‘This hurts!’ she said. ‘It’s cutting off my circulation!’

  ‘You were on your way to meet someone,’ Clive said. ‘Do you want to tell me who that person is?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it is. Is it this man?’ Clive showed her a surveillance photograph of Joel Griffin.

  ‘I don’t know. Take this thing off me!’

  ‘You are aware you’re implicated in Jirawan Sanders’s murder? Certainly as an accessory before the fact.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about that. I still don’t.’

  ‘We have testimony that she worked under duress at Life’s Pleasures and was under your control. That’s deprivation of liberty. Did you know that? You were also involved in the intended sale of her passport. These are serious offences.’

  Narelle was dissolving into tears. ‘What would I know about any of that? My arm hurts!’

  ‘Get it unlocked,’ Grace said to the operative with the key, who was standing beside her.

  ‘Would you come with us, Miss Wong?’ Clive said. ‘This gentleman here will show you to a car. We’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘You haven’t told me who you are. Are you the police?’

  Clive reached for a small wallet, which he flicked open for her. She stared at it uncomprehendingly.

  ‘This is my identification. I’m advising you that under our legislation we can hold you incommunicado without charge for fourteen days and I intend to do so. This man will look after you. Go with him, please.’

  ‘This is her ID,’ Grace said, handing the operative Narelle’s leather bag.

  ‘No, I’ll take that,’ Clive said.

  Narelle turned to Grace. ‘You lied to me.’

  ‘Just this way, Miss Wong, with this gentleman here,’ Clive said. ‘We’ll get you in the car.’

  ‘I hope he kills you for it,’ Narelle lashed back at Grace one last time.

  A tow truck arrived and removed Grace’s car. The smashed bike was also being readied to be removed. The traffic on the highway was crawling just enough. Someone handed her a cup of coffee. Clive, who had been overseeing the cleanup, came over.

  ‘You kept the media away,’ Grace said.

  ‘I want this under wraps. You handled it well. You kept your head under very difficult circumstances.’

  One person dead, one person critical. Murderers both. Whatever they were, she wasn’t a killer. She hadn’t wanted to be responsible for anyone’s death.

  ‘I’ve missed my rendezvous,’ she said. ‘Do we know what’s happening down at Brooklyn?’

  ‘Sara McLeod is still down there. She’s moored a small yacht at the public jetty. I want you to stay in role. I have a surveillance team down there now and I’m organising a boat as well. They’ll be there as soon as they can. I’ve got you another car. I want you to go down there and tell her Narelle is dead.’

  ‘Then how come I’m alive?’

  ‘They were aiming for you and got her. You ran them off the road, killed one of them and left the other there. Then you took a side road into the bush and dumped Narelle’s body. As well as Jirawan Sanders’s passport, you have Narelle’s ID and you want to be paid for it the same as if you had delivered her in person.’

  ‘For them to believe that, the car has to be shot up in some way.’

  ‘No, you abandoned it. The one you’re driving is stolen.’

  ‘What am I trying to achieve?’ she asked.

  Clive didn’t blink. ‘Griffin has given us the slip. We don’t know where he is. He’s definitely not down at the marina. I want to see if Sara McLeod will take you to him.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘He went back to his apartment building at Bondi Junction last night after he left your partner’s book launch. He never arrived at his unit in that building. Sometime since then he left without us seeing him. We think he must have a second unit in the building under another name and also had another car ready to go. He was probably driven out by someone else.’

  ‘Well, he’s made fools of us, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Give me your opinion. Does he know this is a sting?’

  ‘Whatever he thinks, he’s playing his own game,’ she replied. ‘And whatever we’re doing, it’s not relevant to him. We’re just something he has to deal with. Probably keeping his activities very secret is something he does regardless of whether he thinks he’s being watched or not.’

  ‘We have to take the initiative. Take the car, keep the rendezvous. You’re wearing your wire. It has a GPS in it. Whatever happens, we can track you. Don’t let him take your firearm.’

  ‘You want me to go now?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll be listening to everything you say but I want you to maintain the blackout. But if at any time you want to pull out, say “Time to go” and we’ll be there.’

  Grace finished her coffee. ‘I’d better go then. But there’s one thing I want you to do for me. Ring Harrigan and tell him I’m okay, and ask him to tell Ellie I’ll be home soon.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he replied. ‘Here’s Narelle’s ID. Don’t worry. We’re with you every step of the way.’

  She prepared by scrubbing off her make-up and slicking back her hair as if she’d washed her face recently. Then she drove away along the Pacific Highway in the growing dusk, making the descent to the river. She had thought the operation would be over by now but it felt like it was just starting. She wanted to ring Harrigan herself and talk to him, wanted to hear his voice, wanted to know how Ellie was. At least they were home, safe.

  21

  The route to Turramurra on Sydney’s upper north shore took Harrigan to another boundary of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, to the west of Duffys Forest. He drove north along Bobbin Head Road into the suburb, a landscape of private hospitals and private schools. The streets were lined with well-grown trees giving shelter to expensive houses on large blocks. There was very little traffic; no one was behind him. The dwelling he was looking for was on the eastern side of Bobbin Head Road, in a cul-de-sac on the edge of the national park with a view over an expanse of bushland. There was no For Sale sign out the front. Maybe they hadn’t got here yet.

  Harrigan reached for his backpack with its selection of tools and got out of his car. There was a high cyclone-wire fence identical to the one surrounding the Duffys Forest house. Again, trees and shrubs crowded
against the fence and there was a Colorbond gate across the driveway, also locked. Harrigan looked through a gap between the fence and the gate, down the driveway to a house in the style of a suburban Spanish hacienda. The garden appeared overgrown and the property was enclosed by both the street trees and those growing on the block. Nearby was a mailbox combined with a doctor’s lantern, the red glass now largely broken. Despite this being a suburban street, there was a sense of isolation about the place. There was silence except for the sound of bird calls and the quiet hum of the day’s heat.

  As far as he could tell, the fence surrounded the whole block. He was wondering where to start when a man in his sixties appeared in the opposite driveway and walked quickly across the road towards him.

  ‘Are you a real estate agent?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m not. Can you tell me who you are?’

  ‘My card. I came to ask you what you were doing here.’

  He was a short man, a little overweight, bright-eyed and balding, casually dressed in expensive clothes.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Adrian,’ Harrigan said, reading from the card that announced the bearer, an Adrian Mellish, to be a financial consultant. He offered his own card. ‘Paul Harrigan. Can I ask you why you have an interest in this place?’

  ‘Your name’s familiar,’ Mellish replied. ‘Weren’t you once a policeman? I seem to remember reading in the newspapers…Aren’t you a private investigator now?’

  ‘Not exactly. I’m a security consultant. If you want to know more about me, you can check my website. You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘Our interest is that we live across the road,’ Mellish said. ‘We’ve been wishing ever since Amelie retired that this property would be sold and someone would do something with it. It’s been empty for at least fifteen years. One or two people have been looking at it lately. We were hoping that something might actually be happening.’

  ‘Do you know who these people were?’

  ‘No, not at all. You’re the first one I’ve spoken to.’

  ‘This was Dr Amelie Santos’s surgery, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Did you know her?’

  ‘Only by reputation,’ Harrigan said. ‘It seems an out of the way place for a doctor’s surgery. Can you tell me anything about her?’

  ‘Actually Amelie was very successful. People trusted her and they came to her. We used to go to her and take our children. She was quite wonderful with children. But she was a very private woman. We always invited her over for Christmas drinks but she didn’t always come. I know she died about four years ago. There was an obituary in the paper. But still nothing’s happened.’

  ‘You’ve been here for a while,’ Harrigan said.

  ‘Helen and I moved into this street when we were first married. Best thing we ever did.’

  ‘How long has the fence been here?’

  ‘A long time. It went up when Amelie retired.’

  ‘She put the fence up?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She came and saw us. Apologised for the inconvenience, that sort of thing. At the time, she said it was just temporary. She didn’t want the place vandalised while it was empty. But once she retired, she never came back here. I don’t think she could bear to sell it. She’d spent so much of her life here. She left it in limbo and it’s been that way ever since.’

  ‘Addie.’

  Across the road, Harrigan saw a thin middle-aged woman dressed in white. She was waving to her husband.

  ‘Have to go,’ he said. ‘A grandchild’s birthday party.’

  ‘Have a nice time,’ Harrigan said.

  Mellish hesitated. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Just looking the place over.’

  He glanced at the backpack Harrigan had over his shoulder. ‘You know, Helen and I…we’ve lived here for a long time. It’s a lovely suburb, really.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But once or twice we’ve wondered if there’ve been people over here. At night.’

  ‘Did you ever report anything?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘I did once. Just a month ago. We heard a scream, or we thought we did. I suppose it could have been in the park. I rang the police the next day but they just sent their community liaison officer around to patronise us.’ He looked at Harrigan, an odd expression on his face. ‘We’ve both really grown to wish this building wasn’t here. Most of the time, we ignore it. I don’t think anything would make me go inside. But if I were to, I’d look along the back boundary. There’s a gate. I’ve certainly never seen anyone go in through the front. Bye, now.’

  Harrigan watched them back out of the driveway in a Volvo. Mellish leaned out of the window to call to him. ‘We’ll be gone for a while. You can park your car in our driveway if you like. Get you off the street.’ They both gave him a wave and drove away.

  Harrigan decided he would move his car, and parked it in the Mellishes’ lengthy driveway, which was overhung with exotic trees, their leaves turning gold in the autumn. A pervasive sense of solitude settled on the street. He walked down to the furthest end of the cyclone fence and saw a track leading into the national park. He followed it down to the park boundary and looked along the line of the fence. Judging by the state of the vegetation, few people walked along here. About halfway along, he found what Mellish had sent him to find: a makeshift if secure gate cut into the fence. He took bolt cutters out of his backpack and went to work.

  Eventually, he had the gate open. When he left he could put it back in place without it appearing to have been damaged. Before he went inside, he turned to look at what was behind him. There was no path as such down into the national park, just a curtain of trees. Looking in the direction of the road, the house stood as a barrier. No one would see what was going on down here from up there.

  He climbed through the gateway and walked around to the front of the house, startling two white-cheeked eastern rosellas that flew up out of the long grass. The exterior was a dirty white stucco with columns on either side of the front door. The windows were dirty and cracked, the window frames rotten. The paint on the front door was peeling. Although the lock was broken, the door itself seemed secure. He shook it; most likely it had been nailed shut on the inside.

  There was a separate garage facing a concreted parking area where the grass had grown up through the cracks. The roller door opened for him but there was nothing inside other than the usual rubbish found in most abandoned garages. He looked up at the road. The trees surrounding the property provided a screen from the other houses in the street. This and the fall of the land deepened his sense of isolation.

  He walked around to the back of the house again. The building was more compact than it had first appeared. Two rusted metal rubbish bins stood by the back door. He checked them and found they were empty. He was still armed; he took his gun out of its holster and looked behind him. No one was there. He tried the back door. It was locked. He looked around in the intense quiet and then shot out the lock. The cracks brought a deeper silence, a cessation of bird calls. They would echo across the suburb and those who heard them would wonder where they had come from. Let’s see if they bring anyone here.

  He pushed the door open. It wedged at an angle against the floor. He stood on the threshold, looking both forward and back. Outside, there was no one but him; looking inside, the room was dark. He took his torch out of his backpack, illuminating what had once been a simple kitchen. The floor and all the surfaces were thickly covered with dirt, the ceiling corners heavy with cobwebs. There was no sign that anyone was there. He stepped inside. It was warm and the air smelled strongly of mould and decay. Following the powerful beam of his torch, he walked past rooms that opened on either side of the hallway. One had been a bathroom, another possibly a dispensary. The floorboards were shaky under his feet and there were signs of water damage where the rain had got in. In any number of places, the plaster had fallen from the ceiling to the floor to lie in heaps on rotting carpet. The whole house was derelict.

  He
reached what had been the waiting room, revealed under his torch beam. Chairs sat in a line in front of a window covered by net curtains so thick with dirt they were black. Insect nests appeared as dark clumps in the rotting fabric. In the bright afternoon sun, the room was in darkness. His eyes were growing used to his surroundings but in the mass of shadows, he still needed the torch to see the detail of what was around him. The sound of something scrabbling startled him. He looked around quickly but the torchlight revealed only a possum. In what was otherwise silence, he felt certain there was no other living person here besides himself.

  On the opposite wall the torch beam showed a long, narrow, aged photographic print that might have come from Amelie Santos’s long-ago university days: Spinal Medulla or Cord. Like a top-heavy jellyfish, the dual hemispheres of the human brain were shown suspended above its long, trailing propellants. Harrigan read the labels attached to these floating threads, some of which were thicker than others: spinal nerve roots and dorsal root ganglia.

  Familiar descriptions. When Toby was born, Harrigan had studied the brain and spinal cord seeking to understand his son’s disabilities, forcing himself to accept there was no cure. Since then Toby had lived with permanent damage to the very same spine and nervous system that hung on the wall. This is all we are; these filaments, those hemispheres, the two reflecting mirrors in the brain. Instruments of delusion and cruelty as much as anything else. Glitch them and the person was deformed or dead.

  Harrigan turned and his torch raked across the dark to the reception desk. Then he saw it, sitting in the centre of the desk, quietly waiting. An axe with a black stone head protruding from its handle at an oblique angle. The thick, club-like handle was almost a metre long. It had been set down on a carpet square, presumably to protect it.

  Harrigan moved forward to scrutinise it. The head was clean and polished. With both hands on the handle, it would be a powerful weapon. He recognised it for what it was: a stone axe from somewhere in the highlands of New Guinea. Grace’s father had several in his keeping, including one not unlike this from West Papua, all stored under lock and key at his home in Point Frederick. As an artefact, it was valuable and it looked old. Old enough to have been brought back in the 1960s by Frank Wells. Why choose this weapon? Unless it had meaning for you. Perhaps it was a weapon once brandished threateningly against you, now turned against others. Frank Wells would know the answer, if he was prepared to admit it.