The Tattooed Man hag-2

by Alex Palmer

  ‘This is Matilda,’ Edwards said. ‘She was Julian’s dog. She was locked in his room. You’re going to solve this, are you? Are you going to bring my son back to life as well?’

  If only we could, Harrigan thought.

  ‘Did you come here to see him, Minister?’

  ‘No, I came to see Nattie. Julian wasn’t supposed to be back until tonight. She was expecting me, we’d organised this appointment a week ago. Check her diary, it’ll be there. Someone else must have checked it because they knew I was going to be here today. You can keep this. It’s not an official phone, it’s my personal one.’

  Edwards gave Harrigan his mobile phone. An SMS message was on display, a string of numbers and letters with the words: This will get you in the gate.

  ‘I received that message while I was on my way here,’ Edwards said. ‘When we arrived, no one answered the intercom. I told my driver to try the numbers like the message said. They opened the gate so we drove in. I could hear Matilda barking from somewhere inside. I didn’t know why she’d be here. I heard flies. I went through to the patio-’ He stopped. ‘I’ll never forget that sight. Not until the day I die.’

  After this, he couldn’t speak. Harrigan gave the phone to Trevor and waited for the senator to become calm.

  ‘We’ll trace that call, Minister, wherever it might have come from,’ he said. ‘Who would have the number for that phone?’

  ‘A dozen people at the most. Julian was one. There are things I need to tell you about this. They’re important but I can’t get a grip on the facts-’

  Again, he was about to break down. Harrigan signalled to a uniformed police officer.

  ‘I think you should go home now, Minister. My people will be in touch and arrange to see you at another time. This is my card. You can call me on any of those numbers any time you need to. This officer will help you to your car.’

  Edwards dumbly pushed the card into his pocket and stood up. The dog got to her feet as well.

  ‘I’m taking Matilda with me. She needs a home now. I’m not usually like this, I can assure you.’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Harrigan replied. ‘I have a son myself.’

  ‘Is he your only child?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘He turned eighteen today,’ Harrigan said, restraining his usual reluctance at voicing anything personal.

  ‘Maybe you do know. I’ll never understand how anyone could do this.’

  After seventeen years on the job, Harrigan was forced to admit, if only to himself, that he didn’t always understand either. Even after he’d joined the dots of how and why, some fundamental motivation continued to escape him. They watched the senator being driven away, caught a glimpse of the waiting media on the other side of the high metal gates, the cameras flashing and the TV crews running in pursuit of the white car after it had turned into the street.

  ‘Our killers wanted him to see that,’ Trevor said. ‘Why would you do that? It’s fucking cruel.’

  ‘Our killers believe in shock value,’ Harrigan replied, dispassionate as always. ‘All right, I’ll leave you to it. You’ve got it under control. But from now on, you forget I’m on leave. If the Ice Cream Man’s involved in this, I need to know where it’s going. At all times, I want you to keep me briefed.’

  ‘I can do that, boss, but there’s one other thing before you disappear. Ambrosine. Is she alive? And where is she? If the Ice Cream Man’s dead in there, we should be talking to her.’

  ‘You want to know where Ambro is?’ Harrigan said. ‘Walls have ears, mate. Is that information going to travel?’

  ‘I would have thought you’d know you could trust me by now,’ Trevor replied, with a quiet touch of anger.

  ‘I told you she was alive. I must trust you.’ Harrigan gathered his thoughts. ‘Yes, I know where she is. I spoke to her when we upgraded Cassatt’s disappearance to murder but she was freaked over something. She wouldn’t talk to me. She said she hadn’t seen him for months.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘No, but she wasn’t going to tell me any different.’

  ‘Can’t she come out of hiding now?’ Trevor asked. ‘Tell me where she is and I’ll send a team to talk to her.’

  ‘No. There’s still one very angry bikie out there waiting to blow her away. I’ll have to talk to her myself. I need time for that to happen. As soon as I get anything out of her, I’ll talk to you. Right now, I’ve got places I should be.’

  ‘Okay, boss. Thanks for coming all the way up here. Say hello to Gracie for me when you see her. I haven’t caught up with her much since she started working for that joint agencies task force, whatever it is.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on,’ he said. If she’s still talking to me.

  Harrigan had given his spiel to the media scrum on the front street not long after he’d first arrived, as usual stonewalling them before he’d gone to take in the murder scene in more detail. Tonight his image would be broadcast on the evening news bulletins whether he liked it or not. Avoiding a second encounter, he made his escape through a rear gate out to the laneway where he’d parked his car. He stopped to look back at the house, a flamboyant architectural vision of curved sandstone walls and wide windows offering panoramic views. As a mausoleum, it was more ornate than most he visited in his line of work. Harrigan let himself out, hoping he would never have to come back here.

  2

  Outside on the street, under the hard blue sky, the trees shivered in the extreme heat. A hot wind gusted around Harrigan with a low roar. It carried the promise of bushfire, a warning to watch for thick plumes of smoke above the expensive houses built onto these steep, forested hillsides. He had left his car deeply shaded by the laneway’s trees. When he walked towards it, he saw a Harley-Davidson parked in front, blocking his exit. A woman dressed in a white T-shirt and motorbike leathers was sitting on the hog side on, seemingly waiting for him.

  ‘Paul Harrigan? Commander Harrigan?’ she called out. ‘Do you have a moment? I do have a reason for being here.’

  The voice was clear and caught his attention. Harrigan hesitated. The woman stepped lightly to the ground and moved towards him.

  ‘Why don’t you take this?’ she said with a smile, offering her card. ‘Then you won’t have to wonder who I am.’

  Sam Jonas. Personal Security Manager. Life Patent Strategies Inc.

  Harrigan studied the card and its owner. She was tall, close to six feet. The set of her shoulders under her T-shirt and her tight, muscular body said she worked out regularly. She was in her mid, possibly late thirties. Her hair was black, braided at the back of her head with a thick fringe over the forehead. A longish face, smoothly and finely carved. Her tanned skin was flawless, her eyes almost green, her mouth dark red without lipstick. In this catalogue of perfection, there was no semblance-at least to him-of sensuality. His immediate instinct towards her was distrust.

  ‘Sam Jonas. Is that your real name?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘It’s just a question. I ask them in my business. What are you doing here? How come you know who I am?’

  ‘Isn’t Paul Harrigan well known? You often get your picture in the paper. Aren’t you touted as commissioner material? That means something in this town.’

  ‘But you knew this was my car.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. They wouldn’t help me at the front gate so I came back here. When I saw the car, I thought it might belong to someone who’s involved in whatever’s going on in there.’

  This explanation, faintly plausible, left Harrigan wondering why any knowledge about him should be of interest to someone who, so far as he knew, had no connection to him. He noted her accent: Australian overlaid with an English intonation. Someone who had spent a lot of time in Britain.

  ‘Why are you so interested?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m here for my employer. Do you know the name Dr Elena Calvo? She’s the CEO for Life Patent Strategies. S
enator Edwards is Elena’s connection to the Australian government. He was supposed to be at a meeting with her today, but he didn’t turn up and he’s not answering his phone.’ Sam glanced at the house with a turn of her strong and graceful neck. ‘His PA said he was up here. Then we heard there’d been a multiple shooting. We only want to know if the senator is okay.’

  Sam’s words brought back the blackness of the scene inside the house. The faces of the dead became masks mirrored in Harrigan’s mind, looking out through his own eyes. For a moment, the outside world disappeared.

  ‘So is he?’ Sam’s voice, harder this time, interrupted his thoughts. ‘Is the senator still on his feet? Did you talk to him?’

  ‘I’ve talked to him. If your concern is for his welfare, you’re better off leaving him alone.’

  ‘Is there something on your mind, Commander? Did you see something in there you didn’t like? I’d have thought someone with your background would be used to dealing with the dead. Isn’t it all straightforward enough once you face up to what it means? You must have done that by now.’

  Throughout, there had been a hard edge to her voice. She stood with her arms folded, watching him with her sharp green eyes.

  ‘How would you know? Dr Calvo knows the senator, does she? Why send you up here? Why not come herself if she’s so concerned?’

  ‘Because that’s my job. That’s what I do for Elena. I check things out.’

  ‘Do you? Why are you introducing yourself to me like this?’

  ‘I told you. I’m trying to find out if a good friend of ours is in one piece. You’ve just told me he is. Now I can go back and tell Elena the same thing. She worries. There are people she cares about.’

  ‘Tell her to wait for the senator to contact her next time. Can you move your bike? I’ve got to get going.’

  ‘You’re running this investigation, aren’t you? You’ll be the one who decides what does and doesn’t happen,’ she said without shifting.

  ‘Why do you want to know that?’

  ‘I want to tell Elena that everything’s under control.’

  ‘Yes, I’m the one who makes the decisions. You can tell her that if you want to. I’m the only one who makes the decisions. You can tell her that too.’

  She stepped closer, looking him directly in the eyes.

  ‘Everything I read about you, Commander, tells me you’re on the way up,’ she said softly. ‘I can make you an offer worth your while. If you like the good things in life, this is the way to get them. If you want influence where it counts, a positive answer now will get it for you. All you have to do is tell me you’re interested. After that, it’ll be very straightforward.’

  ‘You can go back to your boss and tell her I don’t do business with anyone.’ He spoke sharply enough for there to be a deeper silence in the air. ‘Say something like that to me again and I’ll charge you. Now leave.’

  ‘It’s your word against mine, Commander. You’d have to prove I said it first,’ she replied, unfazed. ‘That might be embarrassing to you. But at least I know which way you’d jump.’

  She walked away. He looked at her strong, muscular shoulders and arms, the tautness of her body from her waist to her ankles. Her movements were quick and assured.

  ‘Wait,’ he called.

  ‘What?’ She turned back sharply.

  ‘You look strong to me. Are you? You work out, don’t you?’

  ‘I can look after myself if that’s what you mean. Do you approve or disapprove?’

  ‘It’s just a question.’

  ‘I know. You ask them in your business.’ She smiled mockingly. ‘See you.’

  Speedily she was helmeted up. She disappeared out of the lane, the sound of the Harley’s engine reverberating over the distance. Harrigan got into his car and sat tapping the steering wheel for a few seconds. Then he reached over and picked up his diary, his book of life, from the seat beside him. This A4-sized book came with him wherever he went, plotting out the details of his allotted time. He took out a glossy brochure he’d placed inside its back cover. It announced that the corporation Life Patent Strategies would be floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in the near future. Selected investors were invited to the black-tie occasion in the function rooms of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. A champagne buffet would be served. It was an opportunity to be a part of the latest developments in biotechnological research, a venture with the full backing of the Australian government.

  Harrigan’s invitation had come by means of an old school friend who was now a stockbroker. His eighteen-year-old son was the reason for his interest. Born crippled with cerebral palsy, Toby had a clear mind that was locked in a twisted body. Barely able to speak, he had lived his life in a wheelchair and needed twenty-four-hour care. The biotechnology corporation, its scientific program focusing on the regeneration of the human body, had offered the possibility there might one day be a cure for him. Harrigan had accepted his invitation to the launch even though he knew that any help for his son was most likely decades away.

  He studied the brochure for several moments. The photographs of two individuals smiled out at him: the minister he had just met, and Dr Elena Calvo, an attractive, fair-haired woman in her mid-thirties. Her biography gave an impressive list of achievements. It identified her as born in Switzerland and having lived in various countries in Europe and the United States before making London her home. Now she intended to establish her business in Australia. A habitual questioner, Harrigan’s first thought was, why come here, all the way to the other side of the world? Aren’t we out of the way? What do we have that you want?

  He read further. The brochure highlighted LPS’s signature project: wide-ranging research into the regeneration of the human body following major burns, carried out under the direction of an English-born scientist, Dr Daniel Brinsmead. Harrigan glanced over Brinsmead’s resume, an imposing list of academic qualifications including a stint at the British army officer-training academy at Sandhurst. There was no picture of Brinsmead but judging from the dates attached to his qualifications he must have been in his early forties. Harrigan closed the brochure, returned it to his diary and put both back on the passenger seat.

  Knowing that she was genuine didn’t dispel the sense of unease Sam Jonas had left him with. Unwillingly, he found himself comparing her to Grace. Grace Riordan was ten years younger than he was and, to Harrigan’s mind, an unlikely woman to find in his profession. A trained police officer, she had walked into his life eighteen months ago when she had briefly worked for him on his homicide squad. Usually he was too ruthless to become involved with someone in these circumstances; it could have meant death for his ambitions. But fate was kind to him, giving him an out, removing them both from each other’s workplaces. At almost the same time, he had been elevated into his current position and she had got a job working in a joint state-federal task force called Orion, supposedly dealing with intelligence coordination. In reality, Harrigan was fairly certain it was an anti-terrorism unit although he had never asked Grace if this was so. Their occupations built walls of secrecy into their relationship whether they liked it or not.

  With no disrespect to Grace’s talents, which he admired, he had wondered if it had been her father’s name that had swung that job in her favour. She was the daughter of a retired brigadier, a man who had fought in the Vietnam war and been awarded the Military Cross. In the present, Kep Riordan was best known for writing sharply perceptive columns on defence matters for various newspapers and magazines. He was more a dove than a hawk these days but it was still the type of pedigree people in the intelligence business valued.

  It had taken Harrigan some time to get past Grace’s particular armours-the face paint, the dull suits she wore to work-to find the other woman, the one who liked to dress up in party frocks and go out and enjoy herself. The one he had just left standing once again to come up here. This time, even he knew he was pushing it.

  With her guard on, Grace was calm. Without t
he guard, her emotions were powerful. In contrast, Sam Jonas seemed cold; she had brushed off his questions, and him, as if both were small, blind flies. ‘I’ll check you out,’ he said to her absent presence. ‘I’ll find out who you really are and what you really want.’

  He drove away, noticing from the gauge on the car’s dashboard that the temperature outside was 37 °C. It needn’t concern him; secure in his air-conditioned car, he could discount the weather as an irrelevancy. He reached the main road south quickly, merging into the stream of traffic. The grey bitumen had become silver, the colour of solidified water. Around him, burnished car bodies glinted in the sunlight.

  Sam Jonas couldn’t stay in his head; neither could Grace. The Ice Cream Man erased them both. Rumour had it that when Cassatt had joined the force back in the early seventies, his first commanding officer had ridiculed both his background (said to be French, from New Caledonia, a generation or two back) and his wog name, and had introduced the new boy to everyone as the Cassata. Over time, the Cassata became the Ice Cream Man, the man who gave out the sweets. By then, people had stopped laughing at him for any reason.

  Harrigan turned off his mobile phone. White external light burned the road ahead. The scene in his mind was night-time in a back alleyway in Marrickville those ten days after his father’s funeral, where he had gone supposedly to meet an informant. The arrangement had been a trap. Around him, out of the dark, three other policemen had appeared: Jerry Freeman, Joe Saba (dead years ago, found shot, slumped over his steering wheel one Sunday morning early) and Mike Cassatt.

  Their punches hit home into his ribcage, knocking the air out of his lungs. With a crack to his head with a nightstick, Saba sent him to the roadway barely conscious. His attackers pitched into him with ferocious, incessant kicks, all three laughing, high as kites. Cassatt was almost choking with glee. He spoke: ‘Get him up.’ Saba and Freeman dragged Harrigan onto his knees, standing either side to hold him upright. He swayed in their grip, wondering why he kept blinking, only later understanding that his blood had been pouring down his face. Cassatt pulled his head up by the hair.