‘Maybe you should head back,’ he says.
‘To Port Silver?’
‘Yeah. Look after Liam.’
‘You think?’
‘It’s dangerous here. Max and Elizabeth Torbett murdered, my apartment destroyed. And Morris Montifore says those guys, Livingstone and Spitt, are psychotic.’
‘I know,’ she says, considering her drink. ‘Livingstone warned me. He said it was going to turn ugly.’
‘What was he talking about?’
‘I’m not sure. He didn’t say.’ She shrugs. ‘The murder of Tarquin and discovering his body. The money and Zelda Forshaw.’
They sit in silence, staring into their drinks.
‘Would you come with me?’ she asks. ‘To Port Silver?’
He continues to examine his whisky, talking with his eyes on the drink. ‘I want to find out what happened to Max. What he was working on. I don’t think I can leave.’
She considers her own drink. ‘I went and saw my old boss today.’
‘And?’
‘I think I got Tarquin killed.’
That lifts his eyes. ‘You said that yesterday. I don’t get it; how could you be responsible?’
So she tells him of reporting the passwords, of her reprieve, of how she had thought it inconsequential, even fortunate. Of how she had thought, then and for the next five years, that he had evaded capture, was living abroad with his millions. And how, in retrospect, reporting him had seemed a good thing, allowing her to escape retribution, unlike Zelda Forshaw. She tells him all of that and then, hanging her head, she tells him how Tarquin being a cop changes everything. That reporting his use of her passwords might have eventually cleared her, but it could have condemned him. She looks Martin in the eye, as if addressing a jury. ‘I think I alerted them. I think I got him killed.’
She watches his reaction, the emotional weather moving across his face: sympathy, affection and disquiet, where there could so easily be condemnation, accusation and revulsion. And she sees curiosity and intelligence and eagerness. She sees the man, and she sees the journalist. She sees him framing his words, careful not to upset her but probing all the same.
‘Your old boss—what did he say?’
‘She. Her name is Pam. She’s the one who counselled me about the passwords after I filled in that questionnaire.’
‘What did she say?’
‘The questionnaire was conducted by a woman called Clarity Sparkes, from security. She interviewed me about it at the time and again after Tarquin disappeared. Pam told me Clarity died not long after Tarquin disappeared.’
And now she really can see the interest sparking in his eyes. ‘How?’
She explains Clarity’s lonely death, the overdose apparently out of character. But she doesn’t mention the Turtle. Something prevents her. Shame, perhaps, or fear that her attempts to manipulate him will come to nothing. Or her desire to be like Martin, to pursue her own leads. Instead, she keeps it general, says that Pam thought a man called Harry Sweetwater was ultimately in charge.
Martin shakes his head. ‘I can’t see how you bear responsibility for anything. Molloy was an undercover cop, but he didn’t trust you. He conspired to steal money from Mollisons, but he didn’t tell you. He manipulated you in the worst possible way, did something similar with Zelda Forshaw.’ He picks up his glass. ‘Despite being married the whole time.’ He takes a slug of whisky. ‘You don’t owe anything to anybody. Only to Liam.’
Irritation flickers to life within her. ‘You want me to go back to Port Silver, but you intend to stay here.’
He shrugs, defensive. ‘I owe it to Max to stay.’
‘Well, I owe it to myself.’
The barman approaches to deliver a bowl of snacks. The peanuts have softened from being too long out of the packet, but the salt tastes good on her tongue. Martin orders another round of drinks, and by the time the man has returned to the bar, an equilibrium has been restored, the kind of minor truce that emerges when neither partner considers it worth pushing an issue.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’ she asks.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘But I’m not sure how you can help.’
She takes a breath, a sip of her drink, another breath. This is the first time she’s told anyone, trusted anyone. ‘I knew Tarquin was probing the bank.’
‘What?’ His eyes are wide, lit by intelligence.
‘I knew. And I helped him.’
‘But you denied it.’
‘Of course I denied it. I didn’t want to go to prison.’
‘Shit.’ He looks around, a nervous gesture, as if to make sure no one can hear her. ‘You knew about the money?’
‘No, not that. And I didn’t know he was a cop.’
‘What then?’
She closes her eyes, not wanting to witness Martin’s response. ‘He took me into his confidence. Or so I thought. After we got back together, after the password thing, after we became engaged. He said he had stumbled across some irregularities in the bank, potentially criminal. He told me Harry Sweetwater and the board had authorised him to investigate, as a lawyer. He was lying, of course. I know that now.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Collected data for him.’
‘What sort of data?’
‘The trading records ran on Greenwich Mean Time. Universal time. Don’t ask me why. At around midnight, London time—so ten or eleven in the morning in Sydney, depending on daylight savings—there would be a data dump of that day’s trades. There was
