The Labyrinth of Drowning hag-3

by Alex Palmer

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘The day they left. I gave him my hand to shake. He twisted my finger as hard as he could.’

  ‘And you never saw either of them again?’

  ‘No.’

  Silence.

  ‘You said he might still be alive?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I don’t know that,’ Harrigan replied. ‘I’m just investigating the possibility.’

  Frank stared at him with an expression that spoke of strange knowledge.

  ‘Is there something else you want to tell me?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘No. You can go now. I thought you were going to help me more than you did. I haven’t got anything else I want to tell you.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks for your time, Frank. Are you prepared to see me if I need to talk to you again?’

  ‘If you bring your wallet. You can see yourself out.’

  Harrigan walked out of the silent, stale house and closed the door behind him.

  He drove down to the beachfront and bought lunch in the local mall, then sat in the beachside park to eat it. The water was calm across Botany Bay. Planes taxied along the airport runway jutting out into the bay before powerfully skimming their massive weight upwards through the hazy air. Harrigan let the sun clear the shadows of Frank Wells’s house out of his head, then checked his watch. It was early afternoon. He would give Ellie an early mark from Kidz Corner and they would both go and see Toby. His son was confined to a wheelchair but Frank Wells was locked inside his own head more inescapably than Toby’s disabilities could ever have imprisoned him. Toby’s mind was free; given the confines of his body, it was the best gift he could have, the one Harrigan hoped he’d given him. He tossed the remains of his lunch to the waiting seagulls and went to his car.

  10

  The Wongs’ home at Chipping Norton was a large double-storeyed yellow-brick house in a row of similar dwellings. Camellia bushes grew in a tidy pattern in the small front garden. There were entrances for a three-car garage while a flight of steps led up to the residential storey of the house. Grace parked on the street. Several cars were parked nearby, including a van with tinted windows. Somewhere within range was a vehicle where every word spoken within her vicinity this morning would be recorded by Clive’s technicians. He and Borghini were listening to it elsewhere. She got out of the car; she was in role.

  The doorbell was answered by a slender man of about thirty who wasn’t much taller than Grace.

  ‘Duncan Wong? I’m Grace Riordan. I called you earlier.’

  He wasn’t happy to see her. He nodded without speaking and gestured for her to come inside. The house had a feel of comfort; the contoured carpets were soft underfoot, the hallway walls decorated with wallpaper showing a softly glittering pattern of graceful cranes and flowers against a silver background, probably a Florence Broadhurst print. Grace saw a god in an alcove together with a vase of gladioli and incense sticks. The living areas were spacious. In one room, two women, one middle-aged, the other elderly, sat together on the lounge watching television.

  ‘Mum,’ Duncan said from the doorway, ‘the woman from the police task force is here. Do you want to talk to her?’

  The middle-aged woman replied in Chinese without looking around and with a backward wave of her hand.

  ‘Do you want to come into the kitchen?’ Duncan said to Grace. ‘Mum’s really upset about this. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Dad’s not here, he’s in Hong Kong, so she’s got to deal with it by herself.’

  ‘What do you do, Duncan?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m an optometrist. I’ve got a business in Liverpool.’

  ‘Are you closed for the day?’

  ‘No, my wife’s there. She’s an optometrist as well.’

  The kitchen was large with a view out to the back garden where there was a swimming pool. Above the garden fence, Grace saw a range of red-tiled suburban roofs against a cloudless sky.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. How’s Narelle?’

  ‘She’s okay, I guess. She wasn’t working in that place, was she? I mean, she wasn’t one of the girls?’

  ‘No, she was the manager. She didn’t take clients. That wasn’t her role.’

  He was too relieved to hide his feelings.

  ‘I’ve got to tell Mum that. She’s been too freaked to think about it.’

  ‘Hasn’t Narelle talked to you?’

  ‘She won’t. She’s locked herself in her room and won’t talk to anyone. She’s been in there ever since she came home. All she does is come out for food. I hear her crying sometimes. I don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘What do your parents do, Duncan?’

  ‘They own the Four Seas Restaurant in Liverpool. It’s not just some takeaway. It’s got a hat, and we got seventeen out of twenty in the SMH Good Food Guide.’

  ‘What did Narelle do before she worked at Life’s Pleasures?’

  ‘She’s been trying to be an actress ever since she was about fifteen. People told her that with her face, it should be a snack for her. She wanted to go to NIDA but she didn’t get in. She’s had bit parts now and then and she’s been in commercials. Dad’s spent a fortune on her. He’s paid for all these lessons she said she had to have, for publicity photographs, everything. It still hasn’t made anything happen. Why do you want to know?’

  Maybe this was the attraction for whoever her lover was-Narelle’s capacity to play a fantasy love goddess role and enjoy it. She would only have an audience of one. It might as well be virtual reality.

  ‘I’m just trying to find out a little about her before I talk to her,’ Grace replied. ‘Has she had an actual job?’

  Duncan smiled, bitterly. ‘Not really. Nothing that’s lasted. She’s always been more interested in partying than anything else.’

  ‘Where does she party?’

  ‘She used to go to this place up at Palm Beach a lot. Sometimes she wouldn’t come home for days. When she did, she was usually drunk or high on something.’

  ‘Do you have an address for this place? Do you know who owned it?’

  ‘No. She wouldn’t tell us.’

  ‘Did you ever visit her at Parramatta or meet anyone she worked with?’

  ‘She didn’t want us to. Mum would ring to say she was going to come over and Narelle would say that if she did, she wouldn’t let her in.’

  ‘What did you think she was doing?’ Grace asked.

  ‘She said she had a job managing a hospitality business.’ He laughed enough to show how much this all hurt. ‘I feel like an idiot. We never thought she’d be doing anything like this. We thought she was organising functions or something.’

  ‘How long had she been doing this work?’

  ‘Since February. She told us about it at Dad’s birthday party. We were so relieved because she hadn’t had any kind of job for almost a year. We believed everything she told us. But it was all lies. Everything she told us was a lie. And that’s the point.’ His face contorted with grief. ‘There’s nothing more important than family. Mum and Dad built everything we have up from nothing. They’ve worked really hard. She’s treating it as if it doesn’t mean a thing. It means everything.’

  Grace waited a few moments.

  ‘I need to talk to her. Can you show me her room?’

  ‘She won’t let you in,’ Duncan said.

  ‘Just let me talk to her through the door.’

  As Duncan had predicted, Narelle’s first response through the door was to say no.

  ‘Go away,’ came the muffled reply. ‘I’m not talking to anyone. I don’t care who you are.’

  ‘Narelle,’ Grace said, ‘you need to talk to me. If you care about your family, that is.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You should know why. Why don’t you think about it for a few moments? You should be able to put it together.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Okay. A question fo
r you in that case. Has he called you? Because if he hasn’t, maybe I can help you get in touch with him.’

  There was silence. Narelle’s mother had appeared in the hallway and had heard what was being said. She held a handkerchief crushed in her hand and her face was covered with tears. She spoke softly to her son in Chinese. He replied to her, shaking his head.

  ‘What did you mean by that?’ he asked Grace. ‘Why would we be threatened?’

  ‘If I can talk to you after I’ve spoken to Narelle, I’ll be able to explain.’

  The door was opened. Narelle stood there, her face stripped bare of make-up, her hair pulled back off her face. The exotic clothes from the brothel had been replaced by jeans and a T-shirt.

  ‘Let’s talk privately,’ Grace said, and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

  Narelle sat down on the bed and lay back on the pillows. She gestured for Grace to sit wherever she wanted to. It was a large room with an en suite, a computer, and its own flat-screen TV and sound system. A walk-in wardrobe was stuffed with clothes. The decor was fussy and girlish. Pink and blue soft toys were piled on any surface, along with Barbie dolls. One wall was covered with studio and publicity shots of Narelle in various poses. Some thousands of dollars worth, paid for by her father. Cosmetics, also expensive, littered the dressing table. There was a powerful smell of cigarette smoke in the air. Grace looked at a full ashtray and an empty packet on the bedside table. There were no books but DVDs abounded. Sentimental romances, teen flicks, and a set of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. No sophisticated Art Deco fantasies here.

  ‘Don’t you have some ID?’ Narelle asked, an angry, suspicious look on her face.

  ‘I don’t think you need to be interested in seeing my ID, Narelle. Not if you want me to help you.’

  ‘Why do I need your help?’

  ‘Don’t you want to see your boyfriend again? He won’t just have forgotten about you, will he?’

  This hurt. Narelle’s mouth opened a little. She looked like a child, angry and spoilt; wanting to answer back but unable to.

  ‘Have you got any cigarettes? I wanted Duncan to get me some but he won’t do it. Why don’t you get some? Then maybe we can talk.’

  She was no longer forcing her voice into its late-night up-market gloss; it had become ordinary, almost squeaky. Maybe this was why she’d never made it as an actor; she had the face but not the voice or the presence.

  ‘He doesn’t like you to smoke,’ Grace said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your boyfriend. He didn’t let you smoke in your own flat.’

  ‘I don’t need to when he’s around. Are you going to get me some?’

  ‘No, Narelle, you can wait for your cigarettes. Let’s talk about Coco.’

  ‘She never worked there. I don’t know who she was!’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish. Look at this. I bet you’ve seen this before.’

  Grace handed over a photocopy of the photograph page of Jirawan’s passport. Narelle looked at it once, then screwed it up and threw it on the floor.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that!’

  For an answer, Grace took a miniature recording device out of her bag and pressed the start button.

  ‘Marie would leave the clients there, and often enough they’d come back to me and say they didn’t want that. It wasn’t what they’d paid for. Then Marie started getting angry with Coco because she wouldn’t cooperate. One day, madam dragged me down there and told me to sort her out. What was I supposed to do? Coco was wrapped up like this tight little ball. You could see her shaking. I lost it. I shouted at that little bitch for once. I said, you can’t fucking do this! It’s creating too many bad vibes. That shut her up. Anyway, after that Coco disappeared.’

  ‘Lynette didn’t like you, Narelle. She called you a nasty little cow.’

  ‘She was just a fat, ugly, old woman. I don’t know why they didn’t get someone better than that.’

  ‘She’s dead now. Does that worry you?’

  ‘Why should it?’

  ‘Want me to play you some more of that tape? There’s enough on it for me to put you in gaol. If I do, do you think your boyfriend’s going to come and visit you? He wasn’t there the other night. He left you to deal with the police all on your own. Sink or swim. Your problem.’

  Instantly there were tears in Narelle’s eyes. She bit her lip and stared at Grace with a strange, bunched expression on her face.

  ‘Why would you want to put me in gaol?’

  ‘You locked Coco away without thinking about it. Why shouldn’t I lock you away?’

  Narelle’s eyes were still filled with tears. ‘She didn’t care. I don’t think she felt it. I don’t even know why the men paid. She was just this plain little thing.’

  For a second, Grace wanted to take Jirawan’s photograph, the one taken in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, out of her bag and slide it under Narelle’s nose. But they had agreed she wouldn’t do this. It was easy now to speak sharply.

  ‘Narelle, there are things you don’t understand. You’re the fall guy in all this. That’s what you were doing there, being set up to fall. Everyone else can run for cover but you can’t. I can get an arrest warrant for you like that.’ Grace snapped her fingers. ‘Do you want me to do that? Or do you want to talk business?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How much is that passport worth to you? Because I’ve got it in a very safe place. And if you want it back, it’s going to cost you. That passport and this tape together. Just exactly how much are they worth to you?’

  Narelle made a face of exaggerated rejection and shrugged her shoulders. The tears were flowing down her cheeks.

  ‘You want to go to gaol,’ Grace said in the silence, ‘fine by me.’

  There was a knock on the door. Narelle hadn’t locked it after she had let Grace inside. It was opened and Duncan stood there. He was about to speak when Narelle sat upright and shouted at him in Chinese. He looked away but not before Grace had seen a look of deep humiliation on his face. The door was shut abruptly. Narelle nodded her head in satisfaction. She turned back to Grace.

  ‘Where’d you get that passport?’

  ‘Where do you think? Lynette gave it to me.’

  ‘Aren’t you with the police? What are you doing this for? It’s some kind of trick, isn’t it?’

  ‘You can think what you want. You’ll have plenty of time in gaol. Let’s just say I’d like a bit of extra money. It would give me some excitement in my life. It gets a bit dull sometimes. Do we have a deal? That’s what I want to know.’

  There were more tears. Grace watched her without a shred of sympathy.

  ‘I’d have to ask my boyfriend what he wants to do,’ Narelle managed at last.

  ‘What’s he got to do with this?’

  Narelle gave her a single dark look of pure suspicion. ‘Why do you want to know? Don’t you want to get paid?’

  ‘Be careful, Narelle. If you want me to be nice to you, then you’d better behave yourself. You go ahead and talk to whoever you want to, but you’ve only got forty-eight hours to do it. Take this.’ Grace handed her a card.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My private number. You can call me whenever you want. But if you don’t-too bad.’

  ‘What if I tell people you came here and said all these things?’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ Grace replied. ‘Do you think anyone’s going to believe you? You’re still going to gaol.’

  She got up to go. Narelle sat up again.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get me some cigarettes? You said you would.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask your brother again the next time he comes to see you?’ Grace said with a sweet smile and let herself out.

  Duncan was in the kitchen with his mother. When Grace appeared, he gestured for her to sit down. He seemed unable to speak.

  ‘Why did you say we could be in danger?’ Mrs Wong asked.

  ‘You may not be aware of this b
ut the young woman who was found murdered in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park some days ago worked at the parlour where Narelle was the manager.’

  ‘Did Narelle know that?’ Duncan asked. Almost he got to his feet, his face gripped with anger. Quickly, his mother put out a hand to stop him.

  ‘She was told the night Life’s Pleasures was raided,’ Grace said. ‘We have reason to believe that this young woman, who went by the name of Coco, was trafficked here. Given her fate, it’s very advisable for anyone who knew her to cooperate with the authorities.’

  ‘Is my daughter in danger?’

  ‘Not if she cooperates with the police. If you do feel worried in any way, this is a number you can ring. They will know Narelle’s name and they will be able to help you.’

  Mrs Wong looked at the card and began to cry.

  ‘Was she involved in this trafficking?’ she asked.

  ‘No, we have no evidence of that. But her parlour was the last place where this young woman worked.’

  ‘She didn’t tell us any of this. I can’t talk about it.’

  Mrs Wong got up and walked out of the room, tears running down her face.

  ‘Did Narelle know?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘She says she didn’t.’

  ‘Is there anything else she hasn’t told us?’

  ‘At this stage, I don’t know,’ Grace said. ‘I do have some questions for you if you can answer them. You went and picked her up at Parramatta Police Station. Didn’t she want to go back to her flat?’

  ‘She said she wasn’t working at that place any more and she wanted to come home. That was it. I could mind my own business after that. You should have seen her at the police station. She was standing there in these clothes. She looked like a-It’s a part to her, you know? Nothing else.’

  ‘Do you and your wife live here, Duncan?’

  ‘No, we’ve got a house at Campbelltown.’

  ‘One last question. Are any members of your family dual citizens?’

  ‘All of us, my wife included and she’s Australian. Mum and Dad are from Hong Kong. He goes back there on business a couple of times a year.’

  ‘When’s he coming back?’