‘Maybe I won’t look in on her. I might wake her up.’
‘The door’s open. You can look in.’
When she came back downstairs, the transformation was complete. The real woman had appeared. Her long dark hair was out on her shoulders, her make-up was gone. The drab pants suit had been changed for jeans, a yellow T-shirt and socks. She curled up cross-legged on a chair.
‘Put your gun away?’ he asked.
Both he and Grace had an unbreakable rule that they never wore their firearms in their daughter’s presence, even if they were concealed. Harrigan had a licence for a firearm for his personal safety and kept a handgun and ammunition in a safe in his study. Grace, whose work allowed her to keep her gun with her at all times, locked hers in there as well when she was home.
‘It’s where little children’s hands can’t get to it. I did look in on her. She’s fast asleep. She’s got your hair. It’s so beautiful. When we cut it, I’m going to keep some.’
Harrigan put the meal on the table-food Grace had cooked on her days off, his interest in kitchen matters reaching no further than setting the microwave and turning it on.
‘Newell, babe,’ he said. ‘Is he going to turn up here?’
Could Newell really be so mad? The fear was like living in shadows where you couldn’t distinguish real from false. Had it been him on her tail tonight? It depressed her that she couldn’t talk to Harrigan about it.
‘It’d be lunacy,’ she said instead. ‘Every police officer in New South Wales must be out there looking for him. He won’t be able to show his face anywhere. How did it happen?’
‘It was a setup. Someone must have been paid to make sure Chris Newell was there at that time and they could get to him. If that includes either of the drivers, they’re both dead now. They can’t tell anyone anything. I was talking to Joel Griffin when it happened.’
‘Why him?’
‘He wanted to see me. He knows about you and Newell, babe. He knows about your scar and how you got it. He was trying to blackmail me. Kept fishing to see what I was prepared to give him.’
Grace looked as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She put down her fork, covered her face for a few seconds.
‘Oh, God,’ she said.
‘It hasn’t happened yet.’
He reached over and took her hand. She held on to him, squeezing hard, then let go.
‘What did you tell him?’ she asked.
‘That he could go jump. If he tried anything funny, he’d regret it.’
She picked up her fork again. The mood had changed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so angry.
‘He can put it all over the front page of the
‘We’re giving him nothing,’ Harrigan said. ‘What’s he going to do? If he puts it out there, he’s in breach of client confidence. What’s that going to do for his reputation? If he does, I’ll go after him through the Bar Council.’
‘If it does get out, it’ll affect me at work. Clive won’t like it.’
‘Are you going to tell him about it?’
‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘He might take me off what I’m working on and I don’t want that. I don’t have to tell him everything. My life’s my own.’
‘How was it today?’
She shrugged, frowning. Her work was beginning to affect her, he thought. Grace, at ease, put other people at their ease, laughed and made him laugh. The woman who liked to dress up and go out and enjoy herself was another self to the one who dressed so plainly for work. When she was under pressure, she changed; she put on a hard, excluding shell. He knew that Newell was partly to blame for that cold barrier being there, but that didn’t help things. He didn’t want her to become like that again, the way she had been when he’d first met her. He wanted her light-hearted and full of sparkle again, the way she had been these last few years.
‘It was okay,’ she said. ‘I think I achieved something so that was good. Do you know a Mark Borghini? He’s my contact with the police. He asked about you.’
‘Mark? Yeah, I know him. He’s not exactly Mr Tactful but he’s good value. That’s good for you, babe. You can rely on him. What did he want to know?’
‘Just how you were.’
He waited but she seemed to have nothing else to say. He let the subject pass. Knowing Mark Borghini was her contact made him feel better about the work she was doing.
‘This escape-it’s madness,’ she said. ‘The police are going to find whoever’s behind it, sooner rather than later because they’ll put everything they’ve got into it. And when they do, those people will end up dead.’
‘It’s suicide,’ Harrigan agreed. ‘Makes no sense to me at all. Whatever’s going on, we don’t want anything to do with it. Or Griffin. He’s a strange fish. He told me he was representing Newell pro bono.’
‘Why?’
‘As far as I can tell, for the information in Newell’s head. Maybe that’s how Griffin makes his money. Extortion.’
‘It won’t work with us,’ Grace said.
‘No way.’ There was a pause. ‘You’re tired, babe.’
‘Yeah. Let’s go to bed.’
As they were clearing up, their home phone rang: a private unlisted number they gave out only to friends and family. Grace glanced at Harrigan.
‘For you?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know who it could be at this time of night.’
‘Could be Nicky, I suppose. He can call this late.’
Her brother ran a restaurant on the Central Coast and sometimes rang at the end of his working day to chat to her. She picked up the phone, putting it on speakerphone.
‘Hi there,’ she said, cautiously.
A woman began to laugh, softly and maliciously. ‘Grace,’ she said and laughed again.
Grace turned off the speakerphone but left the line open, then picked up her work mobile and called the Orion control centre. ‘I have an anonymous call on my home phone right now. The caller said my first name, then began to laugh.’ She glanced at the phone. ‘They’ve just hung up. Can you trace that call and log the time and date, please? Thank you.’
‘Why do you think that call’s related to your work?’ Harrigan asked when she’d finished.
‘I don’t know for sure. But I was followed home from my op tonight.’ She took a breath, knowing this simple confidence was breaking the rules. ‘All the way to Darling Street by someone who wanted me to know they were there. Whoever they were, they were trying to frighten me.’
‘Are you supposed to tell me that?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Was it Newell?’
‘No, I don’t think so. He couldn’t know I’d be there at that time.’
Harrigan reflected that he often didn’t know where she was or what she was doing either.
‘Is that what this operation is?’ he asked. ‘Dangerous?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You should have told me, babe. I need to know if you’re in danger. It’s not just me. There’s Ellie as well.’
‘I know that. I never stop thinking about it. Since Clive’s been there, it’s been impossible,’ she said. ‘You can’t tell anyone the simplest thing.’
‘He’s a control freak. Forget him. It’s late.’
They went to bed and, in defiance of the phone call, made love. Grace’s thought was that she needed this to feel human, needed the comfort. Just to let the physical pleasure cleanse her of what had happened that day and bring her back to herself. She felt the warmth of his body and was never more at ease with herself.
