The Labyrinth of Drowning hag-3

by Alex Palmer

  ‘Yes, after I get back.’

  ‘Has anyone else rung in?’ Kidd asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then how do you know this information is accurate?’

  ‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ Borghini said. ‘We’re raiding the brothel tonight.’

  ‘You should have cleared it with the department before you made those plans. We need to be involved.’

  Grace hadn’t taken her eyes off Kidd throughout the exchange. Why be so obstructionist, she wondered. Why try to take possession of the ring? Surely Immigration wouldn’t be bothered with finding its so-called owners, whoever they may be.

  ‘No, we don’t have to clear it with you,’ Borghini said. ‘This is a murder inquiry and we’re going in. Grace will be there. You’re welcome to come along as well. Now, I want some information. Coco, so-called, how did she get out of Villawood?’

  Borghini was looking at Kidd with barely concealed contempt. In reply, Kidd opened his briefcase, an expensive leather item with combination locks. He took out two thick wads of paper, each secured with a bulldog clip. Grace accepted hers and began to flick through it.

  ‘You can thank my regional head for those-Coco’s file. That will tell you everything you need to know.’ He was staring at Grace, his expression accusing. ‘Orion rang the department and insisted I bring them. Presumably you don’t realise we have other things to do besides your photocopying.’

  ‘We’ve only got one interest in this,’ Grace replied, glancing up from the mass of paper. ‘Finding out who killed her. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t have the same aim.’

  She watched the sudden jerk of fear in his face and again wondered whose side he was on.

  ‘Mate,’ Borghini pushed his wad of paper to the side, ‘I don’t have time for this bumf right now. Tell me the story.’

  Kidd was staring at the table. He was white and shaking.

  ‘Coco, so-called,’ he said. ‘She refused to give us a name, she had a file number. All she wanted was to go home as soon as possible. She-’

  He stopped, dropped his head into his hands.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Grace asked.

  He looked up, sweat edging his hair. Without warning, he shot fury at her. ‘But then Orion turned up and made it very clear that wasn’t going to happen. Now she’s dead. In my opinion, you as good as killed her!’

  ‘Hey, hey. Watch it!’ Borghini said.

  ‘What did you say?’ The anger in Grace’s voice was like a whiplash.

  ‘If you’d just let her go home…’ He stopped.

  ‘Are you telling us she wouldn’t have been murdered if we had done that?’ Grace said. ‘Why? What do you know that we don’t?’

  ‘I’m just saying what the outcome is. I don’t see why I have to put up with-’

  Like a man not in control of himself, he jerked to his feet and reached towards his briefcase as if to walk out of the room. He looked at each of them in turn with something close to panic on his face.

  ‘Sit down,’ Grace said, by now calmer. He stared at her. ‘I don’t want to call your department head and tell her you’ve just accused me of being responsible for Coco’s death. Or that you walked out on this meeting. Sit down.’

  He sat.

  ‘You owe Grace an apology, mate,’ Borghini said.

  ‘I haven’t dealt with a situation like this before. I’m sorry. Believe me, I realise it’s not true.’

  Oddly, he sounded as if he meant it, if only for those moments. Panic had given way to exhaustion.

  ‘Your apology’s accepted. We’ll say that’s finished with,’ Grace replied, her voice distant, under control.

  ‘All right, Jon. You chill out, we’ll move on,’ Borghini said, glancing from Grace to Kidd. ‘How did she get out?’

  ‘All detainees have to have extensive medical checks. That procedure’s been outsourced-government policy. The medical practice we use is at Parramatta. She and her guard were getting out of the car at the clinic when she made a run for it. There was a white Holden waiting nearby that picked her up. She’d been given a phone card at Villawood, which she’d used. Obviously she’d arranged this escape beforehand.’

  Borghini’s offsider was a senior detective constable called Joe McBride, an older man with a lined face and a sprinkle of dandruff on his shoulders. He snorted sarcastically. Kidd gave him an angry glance.

  ‘We’ll trace those calls,’ Borghini said. ‘But that’s pretty sloppy work by whoever was guarding her.’

  ‘A guard and a driver were involved. Both women. Their details are on file. They were deemed negligent in their duty and stood down immediately. Their contracts have since been terminated.’

  Grace found this document, close to the top of the mass of paper. An Arleen McKenzie, the driver, and a Sophie Jovanov, the guard. They lived locally to Villawood: Arleen in Fairfield and Sophie in Canley Heights. Both were in their thirties. Sophie was married with children; Arleen single.

  ‘What are you doing to protect these women from the media?’ she asked. ‘This is a hot news item. It was all over the airways when Coco’s body was found.’

  ‘On termination of their contracts they were required to sign a confidentiality agreement,’ Kidd said. ‘If they speak to the media, with or without a financial inducement, they will be sued and forfeit any money they may have been paid.’

  ‘You blokes mean business,’ McBride muttered.

  ‘We’ll need to speak to these women ourselves,’ Grace replied. ‘I’m not expecting anything to get in the way of that.’

  ‘You can talk to them as much as you like. I’ll doubt they’ll say anything that’s not already in the statement on file.’

  Why? Did you write it for them? Perhaps her eyes said this. Kidd looked away and this time did stand and move away from the table.

  ‘Parramatta Police Station at six tonight,’ Borghini said. ‘See you then.’

  Kidd nodded and walked out without speaking.

  ‘Ran from the guard and was picked up by a white Holden. What fucking bullshit!’ McBride said.

  ‘When we talk to those women, we can ask them what really happened,’ Grace said, gathering her things together, also readying to leave.

  ‘Yeah. Like who paid them and how much.’

  ‘Put it on the list of things to do. This is getting murkier by the minute,’ Borghini said. Then to Grace: ‘We’ll see you at six tonight. How’s the boss?’

  Always, she was asked this question. Two years after he had left the police service, ex-Commander Paul Harrigan was still ‘the boss’ to almost all the police officers she met in her work. After eighteen years in the service, his name carried weight. More than one hopeful had taken her aside to ask if there was any chance Harrigan could give them the reference that would guarantee their next promotion.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘Very busy. He has a lot of work.’

  ‘Does he like being a consultant? If he’d stayed on, he’d probably be Commissioner Harrigan by now. That’s what everybody was expecting.’

  Borghini was watching her with a calculating look, but not one that seemed to want anything so self-serving as a reference. It was more like he was trying to find something out. Grace could have told him that Harrigan made far more money as a consultant than he ever had as a policeman, but it wasn’t Borghini’s business.

  ‘I don’t think he regrets it,’ she said neutrally.

  ‘You’d hope not. Why did he walk away? He never really told anyone.’

  This was the other question people always asked her. Why had Harrigan gone when the top job was in his grasp? Fantastic rumours and conspiracy theories abounded, including the widely circulated gossip that Grace herself had forced him to quit as a condition of their relationship. The fact as he had told her was simple: it’s my life and I’ve had enough. But no one, not the police nor the media, wanted to believe anything so straightforward.

  ‘He’s said why,’ Grace replied. ‘I don’
t have anything to add.’ She was about to stand up when McBride spoke.

  ‘What’s he been doing at Darlo Court House all week watching Chris Newell go down for murder?’

  At the sound of this name, fear went through Grace to the pit of her stomach. Then she got to her feet.

  ‘That’s his work and it’s confidential. See you this evening.’

  ‘I hear he’s publishing a book. Justice Under the Law.’ Borghini’s statement stopped her at the door.

  ‘He is. It’s due out soon. You can buy it and read it if you want. See you later.’

  ‘Yeah. See you.’

  She made a grateful exit from the building and began the drive to the nondescript building in Mascot that housed Orion’s offices. In the flow of traffic, her mind returned to the dissection room, to the marks on Jirawan’s body that had reminded her of the marks that had once covered hers. Chris Newell, now in the dock at Darlinghurst Court House, had been the one who had put them there, and then raped her, fifteen years ago when she was just nineteen.

  When she’d heard that Newell, already in gaol for armed robbery, had been charged with the murder of a fellow prisoner, her first thought had been that this time he’d managed to kill someone. McBride had been spot-on: Harrigan was at Darlo Court House to see Newell go down for murder. After that first nightmarish attack, Newell had stalked and threatened her on and off through the years since. The worst incident had been not long before she met Harrigan. She’d come home late from a party to find him waiting for her in the car park of her apartment block. He had thrown petrol over her and tried to light it. The lighter failed, she ran for her life. The next day, she got hold of a gun to protect herself. Swore that if she saw him again, she wouldn’t hesitate. Not long afterwards, he’d gone down for armed robbery. He’d almost served that sentence and had been due for release within a few months. If he was convicted for murder, he would be out of her life for another twenty years, perhaps forever.

  People assumed Grace did the work she did because of her father’s influence. Discipline, upholding the law. A duty to serve and protect. Her father was an army officer who had fought in the Vietnam War and been awarded the Military Cross, later retiring as a brigadier. These days, he worked as hard for peace as he had ever done for war. There was some truth in the theory-she had lived with her father’s ideals throughout her life-but when she looked in the mirror and saw her scar, she knew it was this thin thread that drove her. She felt it as a mental thing, a mark in her consciousness as well as on her body. No one should go through what I went through. A simple sentence that carried too much weight.

  2

  Courtrooms always reminded Paul Harrigan of those miniature mazes into which scientific researchers drove rats against their will. The squared layout with the judge staring directly at the dock and the accused. The witness stand located beside the judge’s high seat, trapping the witness in a vice between the judge and both sets of lawyers. And then the jury side-on in their box, supposedly disinterested assessors instead of disparate individuals who might be confused, bored, or ruled by prejudice. Whatever a courtroom’s vintage, it gave him a sense of claustrophobia to be inside one. Today he was seated in the public gallery at Darlinghurst Court House, where the age of the courtroom gave it a sense of harsh ritual that some modern ones didn’t immediately have. At least, not until the verdict was read out and the sentence handed down, with the usual outcome of leaving everyone involved feeling cheated.

  There were too few people in the public gallery for Harrigan to go unnoticed. His tall figure with its dark-fair hair was too easy to spot. Already a journalist had waylaid him to ask what he was doing there, then dropped the snippet into the gossip column on the back page of the Sydney Morning Herald. As sharp-minded as she was, the journalist hadn’t guessed that Harrigan was there for Grace.

  Grace had never told him the full story of how she’d got her scar, but she’d said enough for him to put the facts together. Ever since she’d told him about Newell stalking her and throwing petrol over her, he’d made sure he always knew exactly where the man was and what he was doing. Called in favours so that Newell’s request for parole was kept at the back of the queue. Grace would have said she could protect herself. True or not, there was no way he could have sat back and left her to worry about it alone. He had lost too much in his past life to let anything like this remain out of his control, not for someone he cared for as much as he did her. His life had become a gift, made up of a happiness he had never expected to achieve. No one was going to wreck it. What he wanted was for Newell to get the maximum, preferably to spend the rest of his life in gaol. But that was up to the lawyers and the judge and finally the jury, not him.

  The prosecution had noticed him in the public gallery as well; he had seen them comment to each other. Whether the defence lawyer, Joel Griffin, knew he was watching, Harrigan couldn’t tell. He hoped not. Chris Newell’s barrister was the last person he wanted to talk to. As to whether Newell knew who he was, he didn’t care about that either. All Harrigan wanted was for him to go down, but the way his barrister was defending him, maybe he wouldn’t.

  Once a factotum for organised crime boss Sam Nguyen, Newell had been a useful if minor player in the drug distribution business, until he’d been gaoled for armed robbery five years ago. When he was charged with murder, it had been implied in the tabloids that he’d beaten his cell mate to death on the orders of his former boss, innuendo Nguyen had stridently rejected, going so far as to threaten to sue, and earning himself a few more headlines into the bargain. Harrigan had dismissed the story from the start. According to his intelligence, Nguyen had cut his ties with Newell way back when he was gaoled for robbery.

  Harrigan had heard of Joel Griffin before this trial but didn’t know much about him. He seemed to be a middling Sydney criminal lawyer with no flamboyant habits and who did nothing to attract attention to himself. His practice was irregular at best. There were years when he hadn’t worked at all. When his name did appear in the court records, it was on low-key cases where he represented the foot soldiers or lower-level lieutenants of various criminal organisations. Most of the time, he won these cases. When he’d taken on Newell’s defence, people had said he had no chance; the prosecution’s case was unassailable; he and his client would get eaten alive.

  Harrigan had soon decided the opposite. Griffin was giving a performance many other more highly paid and better-known barristers would have envied. He dealt with the prosecution witnesses clinically, pitilessly destroying their credibility and chipping away at the crown’s supposedly rock-solid case. He represented the victim for what he was: a man with a history as violent as Newell’s. More than once, he had outmanoeuvred the prosecution on points of law. Griffin was well on his way to constructing a convincing argument that Newell had acted in self-defence, that the victim’s death had been the consequence of a series of wild punches thrown in desperation instead of a sustained and brutal beating. Best of all, he had the right judge. Justice Marian O’Connor was scrupulously fair, concerned with the niceties of the law and always leaned towards the benefit of the doubt.

  Harrigan would have been worried if there hadn’t been one other person in the courtroom determined to convict the accused-Newell himself. His fair curled hair and good-looking face made him appear less dangerous and damaged than he was, but Harrigan had dealt with men like Newell throughout his years on the job. Their violence was always waiting on a hair trigger. Violence like the kind that was erupting now, with Newell beginning to shout at the prosecution witness, another prisoner who looked like he wanted to be almost anywhere else.

  ‘You fucking liar. Who paid you to get up there and talk that fucking shit? I’ll get you, you cunt!’

  He exploded in the dock, fists flying, wrestling with the guards who pounced on him.

  ‘Take him down,’ the judge ordered. ‘Mr Griffin, you can tell your client he is looking at charges of contempt of court at the least. I have to say, his behaviour tod
ay is of a piece with his behaviour throughout. As his counsel, you should advise him that treating these proceedings with this degree of contempt does his case no good at all. Court is adjourned until tomorrow.’

  The judge’s advice said it all. Griffin might not win the case, but he was skilled enough to get his client a reduced sentence for manslaughter. Newell, on the other hand, was inviting the jury to convict him for cold-blooded murder.

  Griffin took the lecture in his stride. He got to his feet with a slight bow. ‘I thank Your Honour for her advice and I will convey it to my client at the first opportunity,’ he said coolly before gathering up his papers.

  Harrigan was on his way out of the building when an attendant stopped him and handed him Griffin’s card. Please wait for me at the main entrance, Griffin had written on the back. I want to talk to you.

  He’d been noticed after all. Harrigan felt an unpleasant spark of dread. Newell was connected to matters too private and sensitive for him to meet his defence counsel without wondering what might be in the man’s mind. Who knew what had passed between them as client and barrister? If any of Grace’s past history with Newell was ever made public, she would find it devastating. Supposedly Griffin would be bound by client confidentiality, but if so, why ask to see him?

  Shortly afterwards, Griffin appeared in the foyer.

  ‘Joel Griffin,’ he said. ‘We haven’t met before but I’ve heard about you. Hi.’

  ‘Paul Harrigan. What can I do for you?’

  They shook hands as they introduced themselves. Griffin had a disconcertingly weak grip; as if the touch of someone else’s hand was distasteful to him. His clothes were of good quality and had a tailored look, appearing more pricey than a part-time, cut-rate barrister should have been able to afford. A small badge was pinned to his lapel: Gromit, the dog from the Aardman Wallace and Gromit animations, who reads Engineering for Dogs while saving his accident-prone owner from disaster. Griffin saw Harrigan looking at it.