that night passed a motorbike coming towards them with a rider and a pillion. That was the two of you, wasn’t it? How were you feeling? Exhilarated? You were only eighteen, the both of you.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ Griffin replied.
‘It’s almost like you both stayed back there, when you were eighteen. You kept doing it over and over again. But it began to wear out. And you started fighting with each other.’
‘She’s dead,’ Griffin said. ‘If she’s dead, then the past doesn’t matter. It’s finished. It was finished anyway.’
‘Are you grieving for her?’
Harrigan leaned forward. Griffin looked completely detached.
‘Everyone dies,’ he said. ‘Don’t you know that?’
‘You needed her because she was the other half of you as a murderer and you can’t get rid of that self. You like to kill. It eases your mind in some way, doesn’t it? What’s left now she’s gone? The money?’
‘There’s no point in questions like that or these speculations,’ the lawyer said. ‘My client has already said he has no admissions to make on any of these subjects.’
‘There’s always money.’ Griffin spoke simultaneously with his lawyer, then turned his head away from his questioners towards the one-way glass.
He couldn’t know it but he was looking directly at Harrigan and Grace. His eyes seemed empty of expression, his face dead. Grace looked away and stood up.
Harrigan glanced at Borghini and all three of them left the viewing area.
‘Every time we talk to him, it’s like that,’ Borghini said. They’d gone to a nearby shopping centre to have coffee. ‘I’ve sat opposite him, and sometimes before the interview starts he’s normal. He’ll talk to you. As soon as we start, he’s gone. It’s like he’s turned off a switch in his head. After that, nothing reaches him. He hasn’t said a word about Sara McLeod. Unless you ask him directly, he won’t talk about her. They were together for how long? Since she was fifteen. She was forty-three when she died. Nothing. Not even goodbye.’
‘He’s a sick man,’ Grace said. ‘There’s nothing else to say.’
‘How did you know to be at Duffys Forest?’ Harrigan asked.
‘Police work. I tried to tell your boss but he wouldn’t listen,’ Borghini said, looking to Grace. ‘When we found Jirawan Sanders, we checked for any possible related incidents in that locality. A neighbour, Adrian Mellish, had reported hearing a scream from the surgery about a month ago. We checked the ownership of the building. It belonged to Shillingworth. We checked further, found the house at Duffys Forest. If you track where Jirawan Sanders was found, it’s on a path between the two. We were working to get a search warrant for the Turramurra building when I got your call, boss. Except that when I answered it you weren’t there. Then we get another call a couple of minutes later saying a man’s been kidnapped. When we get there, we find your phone and Mellish tells us you were there looking at the house. We go in and find this graveyard. I didn’t know where they’d taken you so I thought, okay, I’ll put a team at Duffys Forest just in case. Lucky I did.’
‘Did you tell Orion any of this?’ Grace asked.
‘Oh yeah. I called them in straightaway.’
‘When did they get to Duffys Forest?’
‘We went there together, which was about half an hour before Griffin arrived. They were calling the shots, saying when we should and shouldn’t move. We moved too late in my opinion. They stayed too far back.’
Grace said nothing.
‘I think that squares things, mate,’ Harrigan said. ‘You don’t owe me any favours.’
‘Not a problem, boss. Just doing my job.’
Grace was silent for some time while they were driving home.
‘What did you mean when you told Mark he didn’t owe you any favours?’ she asked.
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘I guess you’ll tell me.’
‘His birth name’s Vincenzo Ponticelli. He’s Bianca’s brother.’
‘Did she tell you?’
‘Yeah. I don’t think she could have told anybody else because otherwise he’d probably be dead by now. They see him as a traitor. He’s got no loyalty to any of the family. He saw old man Ponticelli beat up his mother and worse. When she ran, she went to Perth and married again. Mark took his stepfather’s name and grew up there, a long way from any of them. He came back here about five years ago when he married a Sydney girl. I went and saw him, wanted to know if he was straight or bent. But he’s as straight as they come.’
‘No one’s put the faces together? Him and his father?’
‘Apparently, he looks more like his mother. I don’t think they’ll stay here. It’s too close for comfort for him.’
‘Does anyone else know?’
‘Just you. It was the best thing about this operation for me. Knowing he was there for you to rely on.’
‘I almost wish I hadn’t sat in on that interview,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I found out anything. He didn’t answer any questions. It was their words; they did all the talking.’
‘He’ll never tell us anything. He’ll just live in his head till he dies. Lucky him.’
‘Whatever else I do, I’m going to forget about him,’ Grace said. ‘Once this is all over, it’s going to be like he never existed. I’m promising myself that.’
Proving she was nothing if not thorough and reliable, Harrigan’s retainer sent him one last piece of information by email. She had found a picture of Rafael Santos in a newspaper from the early 1930s. He had made it to the society pages, attending a debutante ball somewhere in the eastern suburbs.
Harrigan studied the photograph. A handsome man who looked more like his grandson than his son. He looked at the date. A little less than ten months before Frank Wells had been born. Did Rafael Santos meet Amelie Warwick at the debutante ball, ask her to dance? Did she think she was in love? Did he care for her? Or was he just someone with an eye for the main chance? Did he panic when he realised what he’d got himself into? Or did he meet with such hostility from her parents that he ran anyway, rather than live like that? Or was he just a conman, someone who’d never been anywhere near Argentina, a chancer living on his wits who did what he had to do before making a run for it?
Nothing in this photograph could answer any of Harrigan’s questions. He didn’t even save it. He deleted it and sent his retainer a request for her invoice. Time to let the past go. It had done enough damage.
Meanwhile, it was time to collect Ellie from Kidz Corner. He left the house, pleased to be doing something ordinary.
The quiet room hadn’t changed since the last time Grace had sat in there. The debriefs were finished, the reports had been made, the evidence collated. Clive had asked her to see him today. This suited her; she was ready to talk to him now. He smiled at her when she sat down, his papers in front of him. She was also carrying a folder.
‘I want to congratulate you again,’ he said. ‘Griffin’s arrest is a very important development. We now have a map of most of his network. He was very skilled with finance. He ran a slick and effective operation.’
‘He has a good mind,’ Grace said. ‘Pity he used it the way he did.’
‘I’m authorising you to be paid a bonus and I’m also giving you a pay rise. You’ve earned it.’
He smiled. She didn’t smile back.
‘Thank you.’
‘I have another offer as well.’
