The Labyrinth of Drowning

‘You’ve just told the police the same thing, haven’t you? You’ve told them not to act on the information I’ve given them until you give the all clear. Why? What are you waiting for? That directive could seriously undermine their operation.’

‘If you say another word, I’ll arrest you. This interview is over.’

Harrigan looked him in the eyes. You cheap little tyrant. Hopefully the message got across unspoken.

‘See you, mate,’ he said, and walked out without looking back.

Outside in his car, he asked himself what he was doing. Would it make things worse or better if he went ahead with his check of Amelie Santos’s surgery? He didn’t trust Clive. It was too powerful a feeling to be ignored. He didn’t trust Clive and he didn’t trust him with Grace’s safety. His instinct told him to rely on himself. He couldn’t sit home and wait, wondering what might be happening to her; if he did, he would go mad. He’d always had to know the worst of what was on offer. Find it out, look it in the face. It was the only way to deal with it.

He drove away, too deep in his thoughts to do more than pay just enough attention to the traffic, making the long trip to northern Sydney.

20

Narelle had a better gift for subterfuge than Grace had expected. Perhaps it excited her. Dressed in a dark blue, mass market tracksuit with the hood up, she appeared anonymously from the entrance to the mall and slipped into the passenger seat beside Grace.

‘Leave your hood up,’ Grace said, and pulled away quickly.

Narelle fastened her seatbelt. She was carrying a small leather bag. She took a packet of cigarettes out of it and lit one.

‘Put that out!’

Narelle ignored her, an expression of untroubled bliss on her face as she stared straight ahead. Grace brought the car to a halt, reached over, snatched the cigarette out of her mouth and threw it away.

‘Keep smoking and you can get out and walk! Do you understand that?’

With a sudden violence, Narelle opened the door and threw her cigarettes out, then slammed the door shut again, hard and angrily. Grace restarted the car and drove on.

‘What did you tell your parents about what you were doing?’ she asked.

Narelle didn’t reply. She was sulking.

‘You have to answer my question, Narelle. I need to know what you’ve told your parents.’

Narelle shrugged and curled up in her seat, staring out of the window.

‘A question you really have to answer. Did you bring your ID with you?’

‘It’s in the bag.’

‘What about your phone?’

‘I left it behind! Like you wanted. I brought my iPod.’

‘Fine.’ At least they wouldn’t have to talk to each other.

They drove in silence. Grace took them out onto the feeder roads heading north across the western part of Sydney. She was under a communications blackout but every word spoken in the car was being listened to. The phone was for emergency use only. After a while, Narelle pushed her hood back and shook out her glossy black hair. She had made up her face, again replicating the look of Gong Li. Grace wondered if she’d put on special underwear before she’d dressed herself in her tracksuit. She thought about asking her to put her hood back up and decided not to bother.

‘When are we going to get there?’ Narelle asked.

‘I’m aiming for six. That’s when they’re expecting us.’

‘Can’t you go faster than that?’

‘Not if we don’t want to attract attention,’ Grace said. ‘Now tell me. What did you tell your parents?’

‘I just told Dad I was going shopping.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘I didn’t talk to her. She’s been horrible to me lately.’

Goodbye, Mum and Dad. Lucky what’s supposed to happen to you isn’t going to. She glanced quickly at Narelle who was staring ahead with a dreamy look in her eyes. Are you really that naive? Or am I the one who’s been blinded?

‘Did it bother you, what you were doing to Jirawan?’ she asked. ‘Sending her down to get raped every day. Or did you get a kick out of it?’

‘What are you talking about? It was just something she had to do. I didn’t know that was her name. What are you talking about her for? She’s dead. I can’t do anything.’

Grace said nothing.

‘If she’d just done what she was told, she’d have been all right,’ Narelle said angrily after a short silence. ‘Elliot said she owed him money. It was her own fault she was there.’

‘You think it’s as straightforward as that, do you?’ Grace asked.

‘She had to pay her debt. It was his money. He was really upset about it. She owed him.’

‘For what?’

‘He looked after her husband’s business for them and they wouldn’t pay him for it. It was a lot of money.’

Protection money. Give and you just keep giving. Like Kidd.

‘Who do you think killed her?’

‘I don’t know! Why should I?’

‘What about Lynette?’

‘None of that’s got anything to do with me. They did the wrong thing by Elliot. I never have and I never will. He knows that.’

‘Every time you look into those amazing blue eyes, you melt, do you, Narelle?’ Grace said. She remembered Griffin staring at her yesterday in Lane Cove National Park. Blue eyes whose only effect on her had been to chill her through and through. Narelle looked at her sideways with a smile.

‘You don’t know what’s between us, what we feel for each other. It’s so real. What do you know about that?’

‘What about the guy who helped you guard Jirawan? Did you like having him around?’

‘He stank! I don’t think he ever washed. I said I could take care of her, she was only little. But Elliot said I needed him.’

‘Including the night you took her down to Jon Kidd’s car and put her in the boot.’

‘That nasty little man? Elliot said he was weak.’

‘Did you know where Jirawan was going?’ Grace asked.

‘No. I don’t know if he did. He was weird. He said all these weird things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Nasty things, like he was probably taking her to hell. Why say something stupid like that? And if that’s what he thought, why did he do it? It’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

She took her iPod out of her bag and put on her earphones. Soon she was in her own world, bopping away to her chosen music.

I let Jirawan go with her train fare. Given what Kidd had known about the people he was dealing with, he’d been brave at least once in his life. Twice when you counted Parramatta Park. Narelle was the last of the witnesses. Griffin had no ties; he could, with the right passport, leave any time he wanted. There were any number of ways to leave the country without going near an airport. He wasn’t taking Narelle with him. Presumably he was taking Sara, if only because she’d always been there.

They drove on in silence until Grace reached the Sydney-Newcastle freeway, heading north to the Hawkesbury River. She was ahead of the worst of the traffic. Her phone rang. It was Griffin, speaking to her through her earpiece.