‘We’re okay. He’s gone. That’s all that matters.’
Later, when almost everyone else had gone, Harrigan went up to Toby, who was about to leave as well.
‘Sorry, mate. I didn’t get much time to talk to you.’
‘I don’t think Tony cares for anyone much except himself.’
Harrigan glanced back at Grace who was getting to her feet, still holding a sleeping Ellie in her arms. He saw her look in their direction.
‘I don’t know what’s going on. But I know something is. I can’t say more than that.’
By then, she was with them. ‘What are you two talking about?’ she asked.
‘It’s a pity those two arseholes turned up and had to bother you the way they did.’
‘They’re gone now. Let’s forget about them. That’s all they deserve.’
They saw Toby into the Cotswold House van, waved goodbye to his friends and left. Harrigan had declined the publisher’s offer of dinner, wanting to take his daughter home. It was with some relief that he was finally able to pour himself a whisky and sit down to talk to Grace over something to eat.
‘Griffin knows you,’ he said. ‘Is he your target? He’s a dangerous man. You do know that.’
For once she answered directly. ‘Yes, we know that. I’m not treating him lightly.’
‘Have you got him under surveillance?’
‘What do you think?’
‘What are you doing?’ he asked after a short silence. ‘Stinging him in some way? I hope your backup’s out there.’
‘They are.’
‘You’re not going to tell me what you know about him or who he is.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Babe, does he believe you’re genuine? Can you just tell me that?’
‘Yes, he does. He’s responding to me in that way.’
‘I don’t like the way he looked at you. Have any of your inquiries turned over the Ponticellis?’ Harrigan asked. ‘Are they involved?’
‘I can’t answer that question. I can only say everything’s under control.’
‘When’s this going to be over?’
‘This time tomorrow night, I hope. I’m going to be late but I will be here.’
‘Jesus, I hope so,’ Harrigan said.
There was silence.
‘Clive fired Borghini today,’ she said.
‘What did he do? Stand up to him?’
‘All the time. There was no need for it. You don’t chase people like Borghini away. You work out how to handle them.’
‘It was a stupid thing to do,’ Harrigan said. ‘Mark’s very smart. Who’s going to take his place?’
‘Knowing Clive, a lapdog.’
‘And you’re telling me everything’s under control?’
‘Twenty-four hours and it’ll be over. I promise. After that I’m bailing out. I’ve made up my mind on that.’
‘I’ll be glad, babe. It’ll almost be back to normal.’ As much as Grace’s life could be described as normal, given the nature of her work. ‘But I wish Mark was still there.’
That night when Harrigan lay in bed staring at the ceiling, he tossed around the question of Griffin being under Orion’s surveillance. So far in his work he had turned over a trail of shadows, ghosts and missing people, something he’d made sense of only through constant speculation. Plenty of personal tragedy, any number of possible scenarios, but few facts. Joel Griffin was connected to his investigation through the Shillingworth Trust, if only because he was acting for the trust in the sale of two of their properties. But what if Orion had found other connections, ones Harrigan knew nothing about or had only guessed at? They had means of surveillance and investigation far beyond his capacities. Had he managed to walk into their surveillance? If he had, what would they do? Gaol him? No one had stopped him yet. He would keep going. The end was almost in sight.
He turned over to go to sleep, thinking that at least no one seemed to be stalking them any more. The last he’d heard from his tormentors was the SMS they’d sent. The thought stopped him there. People stop doing things when they’ve got what they want. Harrigan didn’t believe their stalkers had just gone away. Had they got what they wanted? Which was what?
He suddenly felt they were closer than they should be, that somehow they’d found a way into his house. It was a jolt of paranoia unlike any he’d felt. He pulled himself together but his thoughts returned to Griffin, how he’d acted tonight. As if he were the organiser, the one with a mission.
If you let them panic you, then they’ve won. Don’t lose your nerve. Take the next step. See what it tells you.
He willed himself to sleep. Tomorrow he would need all the strength he had.
19
Harrigan just had time to check his email before he left the house the next morning. His retainer had found Loretta Griffin’s husband, one Elliot Griffin. Both had been English migrants who had arrived here in the late 1960s and seemed to have failed to make a go of it. A drunk Elliot Griffin, just fired from his job, had attacked his wife with an iron bar in 1977 and been charged with attempted murder. In the end, he had served nine years for what the judge had described as a brutal crime. If alive today, he would be close to seventy. They’d had one child, Joel, as Harrigan had expected. Did Harrigan want her to keep searching for father and son? He sent her a message to start with missing persons.
He still arrived early at the Royal Exchange in Tempe. Eddie was already in the back room, nervously working his way through a beer. The room was near the entrance to both the beer garden and the toilets and on a quiet day it was possible to get in and out without being seen. Harrigan, who came in through the beer garden via an alleyway, found it as empty as he’d hoped it would be. He wondered why anyone would want to sit out there in the first place. It smelled of the toilets, which were old and hardly ever cleaned, and the ashtrays on the tables were always full.
The hotel opened early and the regular drinkers would be in the bar, in all likelihood smoking in there even if it was illegal. This was a pub where people came to drink seriously all day and no one was much interested in government regulations. The Royal Exchange dated back to the nineteenth century. The back room was a small closed-in space with stale carpet on the floor and a fireplace. Probably it had once been the ladies’ lounge or, as people had used to call it, the sows’ parlour. Harrigan had an arrangement with the licensee, also the barman, who would set it aside for him for meetings like this.
When Harrigan walked in, Eddie almost jumped out of his skin.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You got here fucking soon enough. Don’t do that to me. Does that barman out there know how to keep his mouth shut?’
‘Just stay calm. With him, it’s see nothing, hear nothing. Now, Joel Griffin. What work does he do for the family?’
Eddie looked around, as if expecting someone to be standing behind him.
‘I think he shifts money,’ he said very quietly. ‘Been doing it for years. For both Tonys.’
‘What do they give him?’
‘Well, he gets his cut. Other than that, muscle. If he wants something done, Mick’ll front up. Apparently there’s a couple of things that went down not too long ago.’
‘Does Griffin often need things done?’
