The Labyrinth of Drowning hag-3

by Alex Palmer

  ‘You’re a brave lady,’ he said.

  Clive sat in the chair beside her, putting himself between them.

  ‘You did that very well. You held your nerve.’

  ‘Christ,’ Borghini said, taking his seat. ‘That guy’s a fucking murderer!’

  ‘He can lead us to our target,’ Clive said.

  ‘And what the fuck is that? What result do you really want?’

  ‘I’ve brought you into this much more than I would bring most people in. You can repay me by not asking questions like that. I’ll tell you what you need to know.’

  Grace’s hair slipped out of its knot and fell onto her shoulders again. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said.

  ‘You can leave it out,’ Clive said.

  She didn’t answer or even look at him. She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Standing in front of the mirror, she needed to make sure she was really there. She took out her mobile. She wanted to ring Paul. She wanted to say, ‘It’s me. I’m here.’ Instead she put her phone away and redid her hair, then made sure her make-up was in place. The role-playing wasn’t over yet. There were hours to go before she went home, when her hair could come down the way she liked it to. No one touches me or my hair but you and Ellie, she said to Paul wherever he was. Then she went outside to get on with her work.

  ‘We have a deal with our targets,’ she said, sitting back at the table. ‘The question is, do I deliver Narelle Wong?’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Clive said.

  ‘How do we stop her ending up dead?’

  ‘We’ll be following you every step of the way.’

  ‘After today, I’m very sure my anonymous caller the other night was Sara McLeod,’ Grace said. ‘That’s a dual connection between this operation and whoever was stalking us. Her and the Ponticellis.’

  Borghini was sitting with his arms folded, watching. He leaned forward.

  ‘I know the boss has enemies. I know that includes the Ponticellis. With them, you’re dealing with people who don’t forget. I was trying to talk to you about this earlier. Is Griffin connected to them? What are his contacts? How did he know Chris Newell was dead? This whole thing smells. We’re not playing them. They’re playing us. They’re drawing you in to delivering this woman but is that going to get us any closer to what we’re trying to achieve?’ He turned just to Grace. ‘They trusted you, the two of them, just like that. Why? Everything Griffin says to you, it’s so fucking personal. You’re not stalking him. You just told us. They’re stalking you.’

  ‘Life’s Pleasures,’ Grace asked Clive. ‘Santos Associates owns it. Have we found out anything else about that company yet?’

  ‘We haven’t been able to locate any of its office holders,’ he said, ‘but given that its main business is money laundering, we’re very certain it’s part of the Ghost network. Life’s Pleasures is still operating but the building went on the market yesterday. As we know, all the income had already been moved offshore.’

  ‘Are they selling up the farm? Leaving the country?’ Borghini asked.

  ‘That’s a very likely scenario. They’re removing all witnesses, liquidating assets. They may well consider Grace to be their puppet, the way Kidd said. But it’s still a dangerous situation to have an organisation like Orion investigating them. Their safest course of action is to disappear overseas under assumed identities.’

  ‘Then Mark’s right.’ Grace was sitting with her arms folded, looking Clive in the eye. ‘They have another agenda. We’re playing their game.’

  ‘No, they’re playing ours.’

  ‘No one’s told them that,’ Borghini said.

  ‘We’re walking into something they’ve set up,’ Grace said. ‘We have to ask ourselves what it is. It’s my safety on the line.’

  ‘You have every resource I can put out there to rely on,’ Clive said. ‘The only way we can find out what they’re really up to is for you to go in deeper. We will not close down this network until we know its full extent. We don’t have anything like that information yet. If Griffin has a fix on you, then maybe he’ll reveal his connections. You have to keep getting closer to him. You can’t do anything that will make him back off.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Borghini said.

  ‘I can do it,’ Grace replied.

  ‘I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’m sure you can. That’s not the point.’

  ‘What we do is keep to our plan,’ Clive interrupted. ‘We plan Grace’s next meeting with Griffin.’

  ‘I’ve got some info first,’ Borghini said. ‘We’ve been checking out where Jirawan Sanders was found in Ku-ring-gai Chase. Standard police work but the results are interesting enough.’

  ‘Send me a written report,’ Clive said. ‘We don’t have time for that now.’

  Borghini was silenced. Throughout the rest of the meeting he said almost nothing, but Grace saw him watching both her and Clive intently. She wondered if his role as the liaison officer was likely to be terminated soon. She would have kept him on but she had no authority. She reminded herself that she was here because she had made her own decisions and had her own aims in mind. But she would be sorry if Borghini was no longer there. No one else stood up to Clive the way he did. It was a pleasure to watch.

  16

  Harrigan sat at his desk with his computer on, his window to the net, to the world, open. Spam piled into his in-box: dross, get-rich-quick promises, miracle enhancements and pornography-all of which he erased. Nothing from his mind stalkers, either by email or by phone, which was a relief. Among the rubbish, he saw an email from his retainer with the subject line Jennifer Shillingworth.

  Her information was that Jennifer Shillingworth was listed as a missing person. She had disappeared early in 1996 when she was seventy-one. She had been booked in for surgery at the Sydney Adventist Hospital in Wahroonga but had never arrived. Her family didn’t understand this; she’d been on a waiting list for elective surgery for some time and then suddenly, from somewhere, the money she needed for private surgery had arrived. Jennifer had refused to tell them who her benefactor was and had made her own arrangements to get to the hospital. The morning she left home was the last time anyone had seen her.

  Reading this, Harrigan thought how all that had been waiting for Jennifer Shillingworth had been her own death. Someone had bought her information and then removed her in case she made the connections public. Naming the property trust they’d created after her must have been their idea of a joke. The whole story read that way, as the nastiest joke in the world. The timing was interesting: a number of years before anyone had approached Amelie Santos. Probably they had been waiting until the doctor was at her most vulnerable before they acted. All of it spoke of careful, long-term planning.

  His retainer had also tracked down the Camp Sunshine charity and Ian Blackmore. He had been a youth worker with the charity until it wound up in 1984. After its demise, Blackmore had worked both here and overseas before reportedly committing suicide eight years ago. His sister, one Liz Brewer, would be happy to talk to Harrigan any time he liked if he wanted to go and see her. She lived in Marsfield.

  Mid-morning on a weekday, the drive up to northwest Sydney, past Macquarie University, was fairly plain sailing. The house he was seeking was on a large block where the garden was filled with native trees and shrubs. The woman who let him in was in her mid-fifties, shortish, with highlighted hair and the figure some women acquire after menopause, thickening around the middle. They sat down in a large and comfortable if untidy living room. Around him were the trappings of baby-boomer wealth and the accretions of family history. Photographs of parents, children and grandchildren covered sideboards and shelves.

  ‘I’m very happy to talk to anyone who wants to know about Ian,’ she said. ‘The police were convinced he committed suicide but I didn’t believe that for one moment.’

  ‘I’m assuming there was no body,’ he said.

  ‘He walked out of his little rented flat in Cammeray one da
y and was never seen again.’

  There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Did he have any kind of partner?’

  ‘No, he’d had girlfriends but he’d never settled down. Ian was always restless. You know he was a youth worker at Camp Sunshine. The police received an anonymous complaint that he’d molested some of the boys while he’d been there. It was just rubbish! But there was a lot of detail in the complaint, a lot of names. Whoever was behind it must have been there at some stage. Ian reacted badly, got very upset. Camp Sunshine had meant a great deal to him. There was a note in his flat that said he couldn’t deal with the accusations. I told the police that suicide was against everything he’d ever believed in. Apart from that, the complaint had only just been made. You wouldn’t commit suicide straight off. You’d fight it. They wouldn’t listen to me. They’d finished their investigation and that was that. That’s us over there.’

  She nodded to a photograph on the wall. An enlarged black and white picture of two broadly smiling teenagers holding a banner, Stop killing children, against the backdrop of a milling crowd, many carrying placards: Stop the War.

  ‘The May moratorium. You know, in 1970, the protest against the Vietnam War,’ she said. ‘I was nineteen and Ian was seventeen. That was the most amazing day. He was so idealistic. I just can’t see him killing himself.’

  ‘Can you tell me much about Camp Sunshine?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘I actually know quite a lot about it. I used to work there with Ian in the early years. I thought you might want to look at these. Ian kept a lot of his own records, photograph albums, that kind of thing. I got them out for you.’

  She had laid out a large number of albums, boxes of documents and folders on the table for him to see; presented them to him almost eagerly.

  ‘That’s a lot of information,’ Harrigan said. ‘What did the camp do?’

  ‘Offered activities to underprivileged children, boys and girls, over the summer break. They ran from 1974 to 1983 when the charity closed. Ian was very upset when it happened. One day it was business as normal, and the next day they were shutting the doors.’

  ‘I’m really interested in just one resident. A boy called Craig Wells. He would have been there probably 1980 or ’81.’

  ‘I don’t know the name. That was after I stopped going. I had my family by then, I didn’t have the time any more. But the photographs are basically in chronological order. There might be a picture of him.’

  Harrigan flicked through yellowing pictures of people otherwise unknown, of interest only to those who had been there with them. All were captioned in amateurish typescript with names and dates. No sign of Craig Wells. Then he came across a picture of a boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, sitting by himself and smiling uncertainly at the camera. The caption read: Joel, 1980.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘Joel,’ she said, adjusting her glasses. ‘Yes, I think there’s a note from him to Ian. Just a moment. Here it is.’

  She handed Harrigan a letter from a Joel Griffin, a single page written in almost childish handwriting. The date was December 1981, the address a unit in the inner city. A small collection of facts. He was enjoying his job working for a wholesale stationers. His mother was at a new nursing home, Avondale in Burwood, and showing signs of improvement. He was still seeing Sara. She was helping him out with getting his teeth fixed, which was making a big difference to him.

  Harrigan looked back at the photograph. Under the yellowing tinge, he saw a small, slight, hunched teenager with dark eyes and light-coloured hair. His chest was thin under his T-shirt, his expression inward-looking, deeply sad. It was difficult to see him growing into the Joel Griffin he’d met.

  ‘Is there a list of who else would have been with him at the camp?’ Harrigan asked.

  She was pleased to help. ‘Definitely. Ian kept that sort of thing. They’re in this box.’

  He scanned a handwritten list of names, addresses and ages. Craig Wells was there, the Concord address beside his name. Written in red in the margin next to this were the words Sent home. Harrigan found Joel Griffin’s name. Next to it was a pencilled note and a date from eight years back: Parramatta Court House. Midday. Harrigan looked up and down the list. Several of the names had similar notes beside them: a date with a time and place.

  ‘What do these mean?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s Ian,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘He kept up with the kids after they left the camps. A lot of them did quite well and he always felt it was the camps that had given them the edge, particularly the ones who came back each year. He always wanted to know what they were doing with themselves.’

  ‘From this it looks like he made appointments to see them.’

  ‘He did. He’d ring or write to ask if they wanted to go to lunch or have a drink sometime. You know, he got letters from people years after the camps finished.’

  ‘It looks like he met Joel Griffin at Parramatta Court House. Did he talk to you about that?’ Harrigan asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he could have kept that appointment. That’s when he disappeared. So I guess he never turned up.’

  ‘Did you show these records to the police?’

  She looked at him angrily, with tears in her eyes. ‘They weren’t interested. How could any of this Camp Sunshine stuff be relevant? Never mind about that complaint!’

  ‘Do you know this Sara that Griffin talks about? The letter seems to indicate your brother knew her.’

  ‘The only Sara I knew was Sara McLeod,’ she replied, raising her eyebrows. ‘Her parents were the main donors to the charity. They were absolutely filthy rich, they had this huge house at Palm Beach. They’re the ones who pulled the plug. She used to come to the camps.’ ‘Why? She can’t have been underprivileged.’

  She shrugged, a sarcastic expression on her face. ‘No, she wasn’t. But when your main donor rings up and says he wants his daughter to go to the camp he’s financing, you don’t say no. I think her parents sent her there to get her out of their hair. They didn’t seem to care what happened to her. One year when I was there, everyone else had left but her. All these underprivileged children had either been picked up or taken to the railway station. Not her. Her mother was supposed to come and get her and she’d forgotten all about it. I can still see her just sitting there, this gangly twelve-year-old looking so alone and unhappy. In the end, we drove her. I remember when we dropped her off, Ian asked her if her parents were home and she said probably not, they often went away for days. I think they just left her.’

  ‘What kind of a girl was she?’

  ‘A deliberate troublemaker. She’d go out of her way to spoil things for everybody else. Some of the things she did were really cruel. She told one boy once she’d heard his grandmother was dead. His grandmother was the only relative this boy had in the world. He was crying his eyes out and she was just laughing at him. Ian used to spend a lot of his time neutralising her effect. The problem was, he couldn’t send her home. Her parents sent her to Camp Sunshine every year and they made it clear they didn’t want her coming back until the camp was finished. I think it was because they didn’t have to pay for anything. Camp Sunshine was only ever a tax deduction for them. The way I see it, she took everything out on everyone around her. She wanted everyone to be as unhappy as she was.’

  ‘But she took up with this boy Joel, whoever he was.’

  ‘It does seem that way. That’s a bit odd, knowing the sort of girl she was.’

  ‘Are there any pictures of her?’

  ‘No. Ian deliberately didn’t take any.’

  ‘Do you know what colour hair she had?’

  ‘It was red, quite striking. She was an attractive girl. It was a pity she was the way she was,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just a question. Do you have any idea why the McLeods pulled the plug on Camp Sunshine?’

  ‘We were told they were going overseas, all of them, including Sara, and they just wouldn’t be c
ontinuing.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess that’s what they did.’

  ‘I know you say your brother would never have committed suicide,’ Harrigan said, ‘but how do you explain the note he left?’

  ‘I don’t think he wrote it.’

  As a police officer, Harrigan had heard this kind of denial from any number of grieving relatives or partners.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It wasn’t handwritten. It came off his computer, or a computer. That’s another detail no one bothered to check. All he did was sign it.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t write it.’

  ‘If he’d handwritten it, maybe I’d believe it. I just don’t believe Ian would turn on his computer to write a note like that. He would have picked up the nearest sheet of paper. Can I show you something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She took him outside, to a silky oak that was growing in the back garden. Attached to the trunk was a plaque with a picture of a smiling, forty-something Ian Blackmore set in it. The inscription read: Ian. Always in our hearts, now and forever.

  ‘I planted this for him when the police closed the case,’ Liz Brewer said. ‘I’m sure he’s dead, I’ve accepted that. I know if he was alive he would have contacted me. But I just want to know what happened to him and where he is now. I’d give him a proper burial if only I knew where he was.’

  She leaned against the tree and wept. Harrigan briefly wondered if he should put his hand on her shoulder, and decided not to. Don’t intrude, it’s her grief. He was back to being the policeman again, watching from a distance because it was the only way to function.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s go inside.’

  Inside, she washed her face and then offered him coffee.

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Would you let me take this photograph of Joel and his letter away? I promise you, you’ll get them back safe and sound.’

  ‘Do you think you can find Ian?’