country under false IDs. Criminals. People who want to hide. But once people are here, they have to stay hidden. I smooth things over, make sure no questions get asked, that sort of thing. Warn them if I have to.’
‘The way you warned them that Life’s Pleasures was being raided,’ Grace said. ‘And that I was an agent with Orion.’
‘Yes. Both those things. When you’re caught in a vice, you can’t see anything except what’s immediately in front of you. I can’t eat any more. I can’t swallow, or hold any food in my stomach. At the moment, every minute I live is just the next minute I’ve got to get through.’
‘Give me their names.’
‘I don’t need to,’ he replied. ‘The way it’s working out, I think they’ll find you.’
‘What were they doing in Thailand?’
‘Business of some kind. I got the impression they had connections with the expat community in Bangkok. I think they’re probably involved in extortion, money laundering, that sort of thing. I’m certain it isn’t drugs.’
‘Do you know the name Peter Sanders?’ she asked.
‘Who’s that? This Jirawan’s husband? No.’
‘You say you have a conscience,’ Grace said, ‘but you still organised Jirawan’s escape from detention.’
‘Yes, I told them when her medical appointment was. Every day when I wake up, it’s the first thing I think about.’
He was staring into the distance, at the people walking and the slow traffic on the roads in the park. Then he looked at Grace. Oddly, for those few seconds he seemed almost relaxed.
‘Either you’re a cheap blackmailer or this is a sting of some kind,’ he said. ‘It’s a sting, isn’t it? You’re after them.’
‘No, Jon. You’ve got something to give and I want it. Even if it’s only information. I can turn that into money if I have to. You must have a contact. Tell me who you refer these women to.’
‘Sara McLeod,’ he said. ‘She’s one of the “they”. She runs the Portal. Why don’t you go and introduce yourself? She’s just over there, doing her exercises. Now, she’s a strange woman.’
Grace prevented herself from glancing in the woman’s direction. ‘In what way?’
He gave her an angry and provocative stare.
‘You call me a paedophile and you say I’m sick. Well, she’s sick too, they both are. You should see it. She’ll do anything for him, things you wouldn’t believe. Meanwhile, he’s off with any other woman he can get his hands on. But he can’t leave her. They’re always clawing at each other but they can’t separate. I don’t know how long they’ve been together but it must be a long time. I’ve known them for three years now. They do everything together, and I mean everything. When Jirawan was killed, she would have been part of it. That’s just as sick as anything you can lay on me. But you didn’t know who she was. You can’t have got those pictures from them. I think that whatever you say, this is a sting. Do you know what they told me when I said I was meeting you?’
Grace shook her head.
‘They wanted to know all about you. Could you be bought? I told them, yes, you could. You were just a cheap blackmailer. But I don’t think you are. I lied to them. And I’m very sure they believed me.’ He laughed softly. ‘They think you can be their puppet. Just like me.’
He smiled triumphantly, then got to his feet and walked quickly away down the path. She followed him. A motorbike was approaching. He saw it and began to jog towards it.
‘Get away from me,’ he said.
‘We haven’t finished, Jon.’
‘Yes, we have. Get out of here. Go on! Go away! Now!’
He pushed her hard enough to wind her and knock her to the side of the path. She stumbled and almost fell. Righting herself, she saw the motorbike heading towards him. He began to run down the path as if to meet it. The bike swerved just as it reached him. There was a pillion rider on the back. Kidd stopped and flung his arms out wide. There was a popping noise, shots, and Kidd went down. The bike was gone at speed.
There was a suspension in time and then screams began to come from a distance. A man with his children rushed them in the opposite direction. Other people, including a group of middle-aged walkers, stood transfixed, gaping.
‘Kidd is down, shot from a motorbike,’ Grace said to her wire. ‘I have to go. I need someone to think I have to run away from his murder. Tell my backup to follow the woman jogger who was exercising near us.’
She turned and looked back where she and Kidd had been sitting. Sara McLeod was walking quickly towards the gatehouse. Grace’s car was parked in the same direction and she hurried towards it, passing Sara at speed. She didn’t look back. In the car park, she sat in her car for a few moments, long enough to see Sara walk past to a black Porsche. Grace left it to her backup to get the registration number and drove away quickly, just as she heard police sirens in the near distance.
Adrenalin had kept her going till now. It ebbed out and left her shaking and sick. Had that been real? Had it happened or had she imagined it? It had almost been like watching a cartoon, except that someone had died. Her thoughts were caught in this circle when her phone rang. It was Clive.
‘Your backup’s got you in view. You’re being followed by a black Porsche,’ he said.
‘Sara McLeod.’
‘We have the name. I’ve got people on it now. Double back. She’ll try and follow you by the looks of it. Make it look like you’re covering your tracks but don’t lose her. Go to Westfield at Parramatta. Find somewhere to have a cup of coffee. See what happens. She might approach you.’
‘Kidd wasn’t assassinated. He committed suicide,’ she said.
‘It was his choice.’
‘He wanted to talk even before I got there. Listen to what he said. He was ready to confess. We put that final pressure on him. If we’d gone about this another way, offered him protection, he might have cooperated.’
‘We have his information. That’s what matters. Now go.’
As Clive had said, Sara McLeod stayed with her all the way to the Westfield shopping plaza at Parramatta. Grace parked on the second floor of the multi-storeyed centre and looked around. The black Porsche cruised in behind her, apparently looking for a parking spot. Grace left her car and walked slowly out to the concourse to find a cafe. Surrounded by bright lights and hurrying people, the full impact of the morning hit her. She felt giddy on her feet.
She looked around. Sara McLeod had followed her out with no attempt at disguise. As soon as Grace was sure the woman had seen her, she went into the women’s toilets and was sick. They would hear that on the other end of the line. Clive would hear it. Too bad. She washed her face and refreshed her make-up. The pale mask looked back from the mirror.
Straightening her backbone, she walked out to the concourse again and found a coffee shop with tables set outside where she could be seen. This time, she didn’t see Sara. Instead, the full range of Sydney’s population passed by: giggling girls in headscarves; African women in clothes whose radiant colours were even more vibrant against their black skin; men in traditional Muslim dress; Australians generally from any background, immigrant and indigenous, going about their business. She thought that here she could disappear into the crowd and feel anonymous; it would ease her mind.
She sat over her coffee until the last of it was cold in the bottom of her cup. Half an hour had passed. She got to her feet, paid and had just walked into the car park when Joel Griffin stepped out into her path. She stopped.
‘Hello, Grace. You remember me. We met yesterday.’
‘This is your neighbourhood, is it?’ she asked.
‘I have clients out here. Not just the Jovanovs.’ He was a big man, tall. Standing in front of her, his bulk seemed more solid. His sharp blue eyes never seemed to leave her face. ‘Have you got any time?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Come and sit with me in my car for a while. We can talk privately there. I’ll put my keys where you can see them if you don’t trust me.’
‘What have you got to say?’
‘Something to our mutual benefit. Come on. I won’t hurt you.’
