by Alex Palmer
The dog growled more loudly, more savagely. It moved forward, herding her towards the escarpment.
‘Go away. You don’t frighten me.’
The dog stood its ground, grinning yellow teeth. It moved forward again. Grace stood still where she was and then took a step to the side, towards the path to the house, staring it in the eyes.
‘You stay there, you just stay there.’
It was braced on its claws but as she moved slowly away it stayed still, watching her off. When she gained the pathway, she saw it relax its stance and then disappear back into the sleep-out. Grace walked back up the hill quickly, thinking that this was no place to be, it was dangerous, full of trapdoors and tripwires. No one would want to live here.
She found Harrigan in the hallway near the door to the lounge room, talking to Ian and Trevor. He signalled to her to join them, the others looked at her speculatively. Avoiding their joint gaze, she glanced through to the lounge room where a forensic team was working on the ruined television set.
‘There you are,’ he said, following her line of vision and then looking back at her again. ‘We’ve been tossing a few ideas around.
We’re shadow boxing with her so I’m going to make her dance for us a little. Do you want to talk to her?’
‘Out there in cyberspace, you mean? Is she still out there?’
‘Why don’t we find out? Why don’t you send her an email — give her Greggie’s last message. Quote it word for word. That’s what he wanted you to do.’
‘Who am I talking to? Lucy Hurst or the Firewall?’ she asked.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think I should talk to the girl who’s protecting the world.’
‘Yeah. Go out looking for the Firewall. Okay, I’m staying on here for a little while longer but you can all go now. These two will take you back,’ Harrigan said, glancing at them. ‘I told them not to go without you.’
He walked away. Grace found herself watching him go.
‘Okay, Gracie,’ Ian said with a faint touch of sarcasm, ‘do you want to hop in the back?’
‘Would you mind if I drove?’
‘Careful, mate,’ Trevor said, ‘Gracie’s a speed queen.’
‘No, that’s okay,’ Ian said, handing her the keys and grinning at Trevor. ‘You can ride in the back. No smoking.’
‘Sure,’ she replied.
Driving was a relief. She reached the Pacific Highway quickly and zipped along through the traffic, letting the speed work the tensions out of her head. For a short time, they were silent.
‘That was a horrible place,’ Grace said after a while. ‘Why doesn’t she burn that place down while she’s about it? It needs it.’
Trevor laughed in the back.
‘Don’t give her any ideas, Gracie. You really think you want to talk to her?’
‘Yeah. Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know if that’s the right way to go. I don’t know how dangerous it might be.’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Who’s she going to kill next? You don’t want to be anywhere near the firing line,’ Ian said.
‘We don’t know that yet,’ Grace replied, a little bleakly.
‘She will, Gracie,’ Ian said to her, almost gently. ‘I hate to say it, but she will now she’s got started.’
‘What does Harrigan want you to do?’ she asked them.
‘Go and pick up the preacher. He wants the three of us to talk to him, whatever we’re going to get out of that,’ Trev replied.
They were silent again.
‘Okay, Graciekins,’ Trevor said suddenly, ‘enough of this pissing around. Where did you spend last night? You weren’t at Harrigan’s place, were you?’
‘What kind of a question is that? No, I wasn’t. I was in my flat. In my own bed. By myself. You are such suspicious-minded, nosy people.’
‘It’s what we do for a living,’ Ian said, helpfully. ‘You’re supposed to think that way too.’
‘I am not sleeping with Harrigan!’
‘I’m just saying what everyone else is saying.’ Trevor sounded defensive. ‘If you do want to fuck him, you might as well go ahead and do it now because everyone thinks you are.’
‘Trev, you are so crass!’
‘I’m just telling it like it is,’ he said, taken aback by her degree of anger.
Ian had been laughing but he stopped himself.
‘We believe you, Gracie,’ he said, wiping his eyes, ‘but I don’t know if anybody else will.’
She shook her head but did not reply. She sped up, driving too fast, feeling an unfocused sense of urgency. ‘Take it easy, mate,’ she heard Ian say after a little while and she did slow down, taking it quieter.
Why is life like this? she thought to herself. Outside, the sky held the threat of a deluge not quite delivered.
29
Lucy dumped the Datsun off the road near a station not far from Hornsby and stole another car from a commuter who would not find out until he had disembarked from his evening train. The best she could do for disguise was to pull the hood of her jacket over her head and hope that no one looked at her too closely. Circumstances favoured her: it was early, barely light, and the weather was bad, dark and cold. She drove carefully in a thin stream of traffic towards the towers of the city, on her way to the only place she knew where she could hide both her car and herself. There was no other choice.
The garage at Randwick was as anonymous as the first time she had driven in there after the shooting. There was a new padlock on the door but she cracked this open with a screwdriver she carried for this purpose. She drove inside, into a hermetically sealed sanctuary, an island of concrete within four brick walls hiding her from everyone’s sight.
She parked beside the pit, stood once again in the centre of the deserted building and considered that she was back where she had started. It was as dark in this place as it had been before. She took her pack out of the car and stowed it in the office, moving uneasily in the shadows, wondering if the ghosts she had encountered here earlier were still waiting for her. She walked out into the main part of the garage again.
What do I do now?
She did not have to go to the police to give herself up. She only had to call them and they would come for her. They would fill the street outside and, once they had her in custody, she would never have to decide to do anything again. She would be moved from place to place as the system needed her to be moved, she would only have to make sure that she was ready to go when they wanted her to and that she talked to whoever she was told to talk to. That she did what she was told to do and kept herself clean and fed. If she did not do this, they would force it on her. No, she wasn’t going to call them, not yet.
She had the whole day to fill, the conundrum of how to meet Graeme that evening to solve, the future of her life to decide. At present, her ghosts were quiet and she felt oddly that she had no power of emotion left. The memory of the people she had shot was not troubling her just now, those thoughts had faded since she had shot out her mother’s television set. She smiled as she thought of this.
She began to prowl the perimeter of the garage, kicking at bits of rubbish. Unseen until she stood over it, she came across a worn, dark red beanie tossed to the side out of the way. She picked it up and whirled it around on the end of her hand, staring at it. The almost abstract thought that her father had died that morning came into her head. She felt nothing for him and did not pretend to; it was more that something which had pressed down on a nerve was gone. As she stared at the beanie, another thought joined with this; the meaning of a difference in the look of the garage registered with her for the first time.
For some moments she felt too frightened to move, but told herself she could face anything, she already had. She walked to the pit on the other side of the car. It had been covered over with heavy wooden boards. She looked at the boards and decided she would not move them. She did not want to see someone she loved turned into the same thing that her fa
ther had become.
An interior stillness took hold of her, an emptiness unlike the gossamer lightness she had felt the last time she was here or the quietness which usually preceded the rustling sounds of her children’s voices. She had no blood. She was made of layers of rustling, dry parchment, an accumulated skin only. Her articulated thoughts had a curious density, like sounds not quite heard, muffled by a wall of thick, discoloured glass. With this odd and echoing interior voice she thought, quite calmly, that all that mattered was the next action, the next step. And then, after that, nothing would matter, because it would all be finished.
She walked around to the other side of the car and leaned against it. Unbidden and unwanted, the ghosts in her mind were returning in force, a jangling mess breaking furiously through a curtain of silence.
She screamed at them in her head to stop. They fell silent immediately, they had somehow melted into the air. An intensity of anger took their place. A hushed sound, burning as it made its way through her bloodstream, hummed in her head, obscuring her vision.
‘I don’t have to be frightened of anyone, do I? Not you, Graeme, not anyone. I’ve been there,’ she said aloud.
Anger flipped to coldness, white toxicity became planetary iciness, powerful in its capacity to plan. This detachment was an anaesthetic, it was useful. She could be possessed by grief or rage and still act. She had things to do. Important things to do.
Lucy started her car and moved it so that it straddled the pit. She needed to have a barrier between her and whatever might be in there.
She went into the office and taking her phone out of her pack rang Graeme. The battery would need to be recharged soon but there was nothing she could do about it. He answered at once.
‘New Life Ministries. Preacher Graeme Fredericksen speaking.’
‘It’s only me, Graeme. You don’t have to go on with that sort of shit,’ Lucy said.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand you. I don’t think I know who you are. Is there someone in particular you wanted to talk to?’
‘Someone gave me your name. And your number. I thought you’d know me,’ Lucy said, assuming from this reply that Graeme was expecting someone else to be listening in on their conversation. ‘You see, I’m looking for someone. Someone who matters to me a lot. And they said you might be able to help. So don’t hang up.’
‘Tell me what you want,’ came the reply. ‘I’m always here to help those who need it.’
‘Yes or no is all I want. Will I find who I’m looking for …’ She paused, thinking. ‘You know, there are places where I was afraid to go.
Because I thought if I did I’d meet all my old ghosts back there and I’d be frightened of them. But I had to go back there because I had nowhere else to go, and I can tell you now, I’m not afraid of anything any more. Am I going to find who I’m looking for here? I look around this place and I can see that something’s changed, it’s all boarded up.
You know what’s different, don’t you? Now you had better be honest with me. You really had.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right. You probably need to know that. You probably also need to know that the person you seek is there because they chose to be. They sleep where they sleep now through their own actions. If they sleep in the cradle of death’s river, it’s because they chose to be there.’
‘Do you know the thing that hurts me most, Graeme? It’s when people let me down. I really hope that’s not going to happen any more.
I’ll be waiting to find out. I’ll be where I said I would be and I hope everyone else will be there too.’
‘Though you may have to wait longer than you expect, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.’
Lucy cut the connection. Time was no longer on her hands, she had things to do. Things to work on, things to build.
She cleaned her gun, reloaded it and left it sitting on the table, ready to use. In the cupboard she found switches and devices, explosive materials that Graeme had stored there. He had taught her about these things as well but she had not been quite so interested in them at the time. Now they could be useful. She fossicked around until she found in a drawer a stapled document titled, Ka-boom: Ways to stopabortion that work.
I’m going to give you a memorial, Greggie, the only type that anyone will ever take any fucking notice of where you’re concerned. I’m going to take something out for you in return for what they did to you. You’ll see.
She went to work, believing herself to be simply working and not sitting with every muscle tensed, concentrating ferociously on each connection built, obsessed by what she was doing. When she had finished, she was exhausted and terribly hungry. She tossed her sleeping bag on the pallet and lay down on it, holding her gun, aiming it at the ceiling, making pretend shots at the shadows. You be there tonight, Graeme. Then you can explain to me a few of the things you’ve done lately, can’t you? I’ll be waiting for you. Despite her hunger, after some little time she slept, as deeply as she would have done if she had been drugged.
30
Harrigan wanted to make Lucy Hurst dance for him but the truth was that he could not move. Once the options were laid on the table they came down to a single possibility: watch and wait. Exert pressure, push people a little and see what will break, then pick up the pieces.
He had put in place all the resources he had: surveillance teams, street patrols, saturation coverage in the media, his own people monitoring every scrap of information that was fed to them, waiting for the break. Other than that, he was fixed in the small square of space that made up his office.
Outside his window, the weather seemed to be engaged in the same kind of phoney war. The wind was chasing rubbish through the air, using it as a punching bag for unseen fists. The ground was dry, there was as yet no rain, only an anticipation. He was detached and sealed away in this building, watching for an outcome through his wide glass window, an unwilling spectator at some organised gladiatorial event where the pleasure for most of the other spectators is that the outcomes are real.
His people had brought the preacher in and Harrigan had decided to keep him waiting, although he doubted that this tactic would have much effect on the man. He laid his photographs out on the table one by one and asked himself what he could achieve by placing these images in front of someone he had already decided was unreachable.
The preacher was still human. Most people are accessible through fear and others can’t resist a game. He gathered the photographs into a folder and walked out of his office.
In the interview room, the preacher sat waiting with Trevor and Ian. Harrigan greeted him with his professional smile. Ian moved his chair back to sit against the wall, Trevor to the side out of the way.
Harrigan had asked for space while he talked with the preacher.
‘Thanks for coming in, Graeme. We appreciate it,’ he said, taking his seat.
‘Paul, I am happy to assist you in any way I can. I hope I will have something of value to tell you.’
‘Good.’ Harrigan’s tone was perfunctory. ‘Just a point to get clear to begin with. You know Lucy Hurst?’
‘I do indeed. She is a member of my congregation, a very troubled young woman. She was, or is, in desperate need of help. However,’ the preacher forestalled him, ‘I am afraid I am unable to repeat any of the conversations we may have had together. They are strictly confidential. I’m afraid that confidence is inviolable.’
‘That wasn’t my question, Graeme. Let me tell you what I do want to know. You’re a man of God. That’s what you say you are.’
‘That is what I am.’
‘What makes you that?’
The preacher sat upright, his hands clasped in front of him, resting on the table.
‘You don’t need to ask me that question. You know the answer.
You’ve heard me preach. You know I reach into the heart. It is not my voice that speaks through me but the voice of eternal love, no, of primal love, the first of all loves that speaks through me.
I speak an eternal truth to those who will hear it.’
‘Then why do you need this? Your resume with the Family Services Commission says you have a Master of Theology from Freedom World University. Our information says that’s a postbox in a trailer park in South Chicago. Why bother? If you have all those skills without this piece of paper?’
The preacher glanced at the ornately decorated degree that Harrigan had slid across the table towards him.
‘Ian Enright,’ he said, reading the name of the recipient. He looked at Ian. ‘That’s you. Again you have the answer to your question, Paul.
You have already identified the true worth of these pieces of paper.’
‘My question was, why did you bother?’
‘People need the reassurance these things offer.’
‘Why not get a real one?’
‘I have no need of it.’
‘You don’t need a real degree but you do need a fake one?’
‘It’s a crutch for others, Paul. I don’t have the time to devote myself to that sort of study. I have the world out there to concern myself with.
No one asked Christ if he had a degree.’
‘You don’t have a problem presenting yourself fraudulently to others?’
‘I am not presenting myself fraudulently. I am exactly what I say I am. That piece of paper allows others who may doubt me to cast aside their doubts and see me for what I truly am.’
Harrigan looked at the preacher for a few seconds. Then he gave a short, offensive laugh.
‘I couldn’t agree with you more, mate,’ he said. ‘I think it says exactly what you are.’
The lines of the preacher’s face hardened into expressionless anger.
The atmosphere tightened, the ante was upped slightly. Harrigan retrieved the imitation degree and returned it to his folder.
‘I have a list here I want you to read aloud, please, Graeme.’ His tone was brusque. ‘You were associated with the New Life Ministries in Berkeley, California. These are the members of the Life Support Group who were also associated with that church. Tell me the ones you know.’