Blood Redemption hag-1

by Alex Palmer

  ‘Nobody wants this boy,’ he said. ‘Check up on that preacher or whatever he is, would you? He should be there if no one else is. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  He began to drive with purpose, making a detour through the city’s arterial roads to the other side of Newtown. At the scene, a small group of bystanders had gathered to watch on a nearby street corner. They looked at him curiously as he let himself in under the blue ribbons. The houses roundabout were the same as the one he’d grown up in near White Bay: narrow single-storey cottages with a lone front window opening onto a tiny porch. These ones had been painted in bright colours and had second storeys extended into the roof line, with bars placed over the windows for security. Trees had been planted along the street to shade them, bottle brush and jasmine lined the laneways close by. In summer, these plants would provide the illusion of coolness.

  The car, a late model white Mazda sedan, had been parked in a narrow lane between the back fences of the houses and the retaining wall bordering the railway line. At first sight, it appeared largely undamaged. There was a fire engine standing close by at the end of the lane. He saw Ian at a short distance from the car, watching the forensic team at work.

  ‘Hi, Boss,’ he said as Harrigan walked up.

  ‘Morning, mate. What’s happened here?’

  ‘The kid we’ve got in custody was splashing petrol around in the boot when he got jumped on by a couple of the locals. Apparently a car got torched down here a while ago and half their garages and the fences along here almost went up in smoke. So the neighbours got together and put in a silent alarm. Lucky they did, that car is fucking drenched. I think it would’ve exploded if anyone had lit it up.’

  ‘And the one we didn’t get went up that wall?’

  Harrigan looked up at the dark-stained and uneven stone wall rising above their heads. A suburban train rattled past at speed on one of the further tracks.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been told. Up, up and away. He must have done because no one’s found him yet. You might want to take a look in the boot while you’re here, there’s some interesting things in there.’

  Harrigan walked over to the car with Ian and greeted the head of the forensic team. They stopped work and stood aside for him. Tossed inside the boot was a small collection of blood-stained clothes: jeans, jacket, gloves and a scarf.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Harrigan said, wrinkling his nose, ‘the sweet odour of petrol.’

  ‘Can you tell us anything about this?’ he asked the forensic team leader, a middle-aged woman with purple hair.

  ‘So far?’ the woman replied. ‘Whoever she is, if she got into these clothes, she’s very small. She took a tumble, a bad one. It must have hurt. She landed on her hands and knees and she tore her gloves. I’m fairly certain we should get some skin fragments for you. If we do, we can tie the gun to the glove to the hand without too much argument.

  There’s a lot of blood on these clothes as well.’ She smiled at him. ‘An embarrassment of riches.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Harrigan replied a little dryly. ‘Thank you.’

  They moved back, out of the way.

  ‘That’s how she dropped her gun,’ Ian said, ‘tripped coming out of the shop. Our girl can’t know what she’s doing. I don’t think she could have made any more mistakes if she’d tried.’

  ‘We know everything we need to know about her except who she is. And she’s still out there,’ Harrigan replied. ‘You’re staying on to see this through?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be here.’

  Before leaving the scene, Harrigan stopped once again to look up at the high retaining wall with its sparse toeholds of tenacious vegetation.

  The other boy must have been pissing himself to get up there, but fear has a leverage all its own. He knew this from his own experience of sheer terror: the moment in a back alley in Marrickville one night ten years ago, when Michael Casatt had pushed Harrigan’s own gun into his mouth and forced his hand onto it with the succinct words, ‘You’re dead, mate.’ That microsecond of time was set to be his permanent hiatus when it was broken by some brave, brave soul that he had never met and thanked, who had shone their car lights onto them at high beam. The moment had had a depth of emotion Harrigan would not have thought possible if he had not experienced it. His body might have vaporised, he might have already been dead. Then the gun butt hit his jaw and his jaw hit the ground, almost in the same instant. After that, he had felt nothing except atrocious pain, which, for a short space of time, was the most welcome feeling he’d ever had. At least he was still alive.

  Maybe this was the reason he had never taken any pleasure from seeing fear work on the people he interviewed in his job, the way some of his colleagues did. He watched his subjects twisting in its grip and felt nothing other than repugnance for the humiliation. He dealt with it by telling himself that fear was like anything that was human. What mattered was how you used it.

  He took out his phone and rang Trevor. ‘What have you got Grace doing this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s doing what you wanted her to do. She’s over at the hospital checking up on Matthew and the doc. Why?’

  ‘She was good with that boy yesterday. I’d like to see how she might go with this one today. Get her back in for me, would you?’

  ‘You want Grace? Sure you don’t want Louise? After all, she’s already here. Look, Boss, you don’t want to be sexist about this — you could always get one of the guys.’

  ‘Louise will breathe stale booze all over him and she’ll scare him.

  So will all of the rest of your ugly mugs. Get Grace. Get her to meet me outside the interview room. Tell her I’ll brief her myself and I’m going to sit in on it.’

  ‘Lucky Grace. I’ll get her right away.’

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Harrigan hung up. Yes, get Grace. She can chat to this boy in that nice voice of hers and smile at him with that smile. Sweet-talk him, soothe him down. Maybe even put him off his guard long enough to make him open up.

  The forensic team began to remove the clothes from the boot just as he walked away to his car. He always thought that blood, whether it was dried on clothes or walls, had an inconsequential look to it, something that could be brushed off and the slightly more stubborn stains washed away. The boy they had in custody had wanted to burn these rags into non-existence, even at the risk of obliterating himself.

  Grace could use this fact to squeeze him in a gentle enough way if she tried. He was curious to see if she would do it, whether she had the backbone. It was a pleasant thought, the idea of spending some time with her to find this out. It was already brightening up his day.

  11

  Grace stood beside him outside the interview room, her long hair in a single plait over one shoulder, waiting while he checked his watch once more. Harrigan had not expected to waste quite this much time hanging around.

  ‘I just love cooling my heels like this,’ he said to her with a grin.

  ‘Nice to know I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. What is this woman doing? Writing the boy’s obituary?’

  She smiled ironically in reply. ‘Here we go. At last,’ she said.

  The case worker finally appeared in the corridor, a big woman in a shapeless black dress wearing round glasses and with bright earrings in the shape of parrots. Harrigan turned to greet her with a smile and an outstretched hand.

  ‘Ria Allard? I’m pleased to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’m Paul Harrigan and this is my colleague, Grace Riordan. How are you?’

  The sociability was wasted. She brushed past him, ignoring his offered hand, and returned his introduction by looking them both up and down as though they had dropped in for the day from outer space.

  ‘Do you mind if we don’t bother with all the crap,’ she said. ‘I need to talk to Greg for a few moments alone first but I’d like to get this over and done with as soon as we can if you don’t mind. I have got other things to do today.’

  ‘Be my guest, Ria. I’l
l even open the door for you,’ Harrigan replied affably.

  ‘How would you like to be locked in a small room with her?’ Grace commented, after the interview room door closed on the case worker’s back.

  Harrigan grinned. ‘Yeah, she’s a real charmer. Don’t let her throw you, Grace — I’m assuming that’s what she’s up to. Whatever she does, you take your time and you take it gently. Just keep coaxing him.

  I’ll keep her in line.’

  ‘Okay,’ she replied.

  They waited around a little longer until the door was finally opened to them.

  ‘I’ve already told him who you are,’ Ria Allard said, as they came inside. ‘You don’t have to bother with that. He knows your names and why you’re here.’

  ‘We have to tell him anyway, Ria. I’m sure you know that,’

  Harrigan replied, smiling in a businesslike way.

  Harrigan went through the ritual, giving Grace the opportunity to look the case worker over. Her hair was dyed too black for her ageing face and she had reduced her eyebrows to a thin painted line. Anger was her most obvious quality; she sat beside Greg Smith seething with unspoken rage. The introductions finished, Harrigan sat back a little from the table, leaving it to Grace.

  ‘Hi, Greg,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘How do you think he is?’ the case worker answered for him.

  ‘You’ve hauled him in here on some wild pretext, he’s hardly had any breakfast. What do you think he’s feeling like?’

  ‘Maybe he’d like to tell me that for himself,’ Grace replied with her tough, sweet smile, and then repeated for him, ‘How are you?’

  The boy shrugged. He had a long, thin face that was hollowed out from the nose across to the cheekbones and his hair straggled onto his shoulders. He twisted his red beanie in his hands and glanced quickly from one person to the next. The room was lit with bright lights which left no shadows in the corners. Everything in his edgy movements told Grace that the walls were closing in on him.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said eventually.

  ‘I’ll start by asking you about the car, Greg. Okay?’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ he replied quickly.

  In the background, the case worker snorted in contempt.

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘It was just on the road. Nowhere.’

  ‘Nowhere? You can’t remember where it was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the other boy? What can you tell us about him?’

  ‘He was just there. I don’t know anything about him. I never saw him before.’

  The boy gave a loose smile, quick and unconvincing. Grace waited for a moment.

  ‘Why did you take it down to Macdonaldtown Station to torch it?

  Is it because you live near there?’

  ‘Good place for it,’ he replied, shrugging and trying to grin. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘In the New Life Ministries refuge,’ Grace continued, ‘just up and over the hill. That’s where your guardian, Preacher Graeme Fredericksen, lives as well. He’s not here today, he’s not answering his phone. Do you know why that is?’

  ‘Why are you asking him that?’ the case worker asked.

  ‘Just let him answer, Ria,’ Harrigan said quietly.

  ‘I don’t know. He’s busy, I guess. I don’t care, I don’t want to fucking see him.’

  The boy’s hands were twisting at his beanie and he was shaking.

  ‘Why not? We’d like to see him if we could find him.’

  At this, there was a change in the boy. He became still, glancing from Grace to Harrigan, an indefinable expression on his face.

  ‘Are you afraid of him, Greg?’ Grace asked.

  ‘No.’

  The word had an echo in the small room. The boy seemed almost to smile as he said it.

  ‘Did you like living in the refuge?’ Grace asked in the silence.

  The case worker stirred a little in her seat but did not intervene. The boy glanced at her sideways.

  ‘It’s just a place,’ he said, speaking in a flat voice. ‘I’m not going back there again, so what does it fucking matter?’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Grace replied, watching his face and trying to pin down whatever he was feeling. ‘Why did you want to torch the car?’

  ‘I wanted to see it burn.’

  ‘You like that?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, throwing it back at her, ‘I do. I like seeing that. It makes me feel good.’

  ‘You like it,’ she said very gently. ‘Do you like being in rooms like this too? Being questioned like this. You like being in Kariong? Does that make you feel good?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, picking at his fingernails, ‘I fucking love it.’

  He looked up at her, smiling. She was silent at the sight of the desolation in his face.

  ‘You don’t have to live like this, Greg,’ she said, leaning towards him.

  ‘You really don’t.’

  ‘You say that. And that’s all you fucking know. What’s going to fucking change in my life? Nothing. There’s nowhere I can go where anyone wants me. Except here.’

  His body language said that he was worn out. Grace felt a nudge in her feelings, a sudden realisation as she looked at him.

  ‘Where anyone wants you,’ she said. ‘Does no one want you?’

  ‘No, they fucking don’t,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Don’t bully him.’

  The case worker interrupted, sounding as if she had just remembered that she should put in her two cents worth. Harrigan almost smiled but did not speak.

  ‘You would have seen the car burn, Greg,’ Grace continued. ‘There was enough petrol on it. It would have gone up like a Christmas tree.

  There would have been nothing left. And maybe nothing left of you, if you’d been standing close enough. You did that because someone does want you.’

  The boy looked at her but did not answer.

  ‘Those clothes in the boot,’ she continued, ‘put them together and you know what you have? A young girl. That’s what those pieces add up to. She wants you. That’s why you wanted those clothes to disappear off the planet. So you could protect her. Where did you find them? Were they already in the car? Or did you put them in the boot so you could burn everything in one go?’

  ‘They were just there. I never touched them.’

  ‘So when we check them or the boot or anything about them, will we find your fingerprints? Anything that ties them to you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you do,’ he replied, quite calm.

  ‘Why not?’

  He shrugged, ever so slightly, looking to the side.

  ‘Because. It just doesn’t matter. Whatever you say. Nothing matters.’

  ‘Yes, it does. You matter. And she does. She matters. She matters to you, you matter to her,’ Grace said. ‘She’s smaller than you. Small and thin. Just a little girl. When did you see her last? After yesterday morning?’

  He became absolutely still, there was just the soft sound of his breath.

  ‘She fell. When she was running away. Did you know that? Did she tell you? She landed quite hard,’ Grace said. ‘She landed on her hands and knees. She tore her gloves and she scraped her hands. It must have hurt.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said very quietly.

  ‘She didn’t tell you.’

  ‘That’s entrapment,’ Ria said, quickly. ‘Don’t you say anything, Greg.’

  The boy did not reply to either of them.

  ‘There’s a lot of blood on those clothes, Greg. I saw the shooting later and that was the first thing I thought. How much blood there was.’

  ‘So fucking what if there was blood?’

  Grace leaned closer to him. She spoke to him directly, cutting everyone else out.

  ‘This is not something she can walk away from, Greg. This is something that means people come after her until they find her, no matter what. You must know that. Maybe you even told her that -

&n
bsp; you can’t walk away from this because it’s going to find you wherever you go. What matters is how you deal with it.’

  Again there was silence.

  ‘Do you want to leave her out there? What do you think might happen to her if you do? Is she going to end up dead?’

  The boy leaned forward, pressing his elbows on the table and bracing his fists against his forehead. He looked up at Grace once, his mouth a thin pressed line, and then looked down again. He shook his head from side to side.

  ‘Just tell me,’ Grace said. ‘Tell me who she is. Just do that and we can put a line under this. You can and she can. Before something does happen to her.’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, speaking urgently, ‘finish it now. Stop it where it is.

  Just tell me who she is.’

  Again he shook his head slowly. No. No.

  ‘Why not?’ Grace asked. ‘Why not? Who are you going to save?

  You can’t save her from this. It’s too late for that. It was too late as soon as she pulled that trigger. The only thing you can do is salvage what you can for her. That’s the only way you can help her and help yourself. You can do that for yourself. You can salvage something for you.’

  He began to hit the sides of his head with his fists.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said, ‘don’t hurt yourself.’

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice strained with tears, ‘I am not fucking going to do it. No.’

  He repeated no, no, no and then leaning forward, struck his forehead hard on the table several times, quickly. Ria Allard stood up at once and ran back quickly towards the wall while Harrigan hit the emergency button.

  ‘You stop that now!’ Grace was standing up, stretching across the table, shoving him back hard with both hands. He stopped like a bird in mid flight at her touch. He had blood on his forehead where he had split open his skin.

  Harrigan stood back, watching. When the uniformed officers arrived, he waved them to stay back, indicating they should wait.

  ‘That was stupid,’ Grace said to the boy, genuinely angry. ‘Do you see this? Look at that — I don’t want this from you.’ She reached forward and wiped the blood from his forehead with a tissue and showed it to him, throwing it on the table. ‘Do you think anybody really cares if you make yourself bleed? No, they don’t. They love seeing it happen. They stand around and they watch and they cheer.