Jenny raises her head from the computer and removes her headphones, listening. Felecia has risen from her side and padded out to the hallway, and Jenny can hear the thump of her tail against the wall as the front door creaks open. As Harry makes a fuss of the dog she smells takeaway Chinese from Sammy Lee’s. It’s a relief that he’s home and she can put aside the thing she’s been working on.
She gets to her feet and hugs him and they go together into the kitchen, each trying to sense the other’s mood—what kind of day has it been? As she hears him open the wine and set out two glasses she senses his has been as unsatisfactory as her own.
‘Not for me, thanks.’ She’d love a glass of wine, but hasn’t touched it since she learned she was pregnant.
‘Sorry. Not thinking. Do you mind if I…?’
‘Course not. How was your day?’ she asks.
‘Oh, fine. Nothing much. You?’
She tells him about her computer searches for the Nordlund family.
‘You don’t look happy. Not much to go on?’
‘The opposite—too much. The various Nordlunds have been involved in so many businesses, charities and family complications you could write a book. In fact I wonder why nobody has. But nothing seems to relate to us. Their companies have been involved in litigation from time to time, in the Land and Environment Court, for instance, but nothing that I could find relating to your dad’s cases. Did you ever hear your parents mention their name?’
‘No, never.’
‘But there was that one reference to NRL that we found on Kristich’s hard drive, remember? We thought it must be code for some rugby league player. I looked it up again, an email from Kristich to Nathaniel Horn. Just four words, Chocky will invoice NRL.’
Harry says, ‘Chocky. That was their name for the property developer, wasn’t it? Maram Mansur. So maybe he got some kind of service from NRL. A loan, perhaps.’
‘The Nordlunds have many companies, Nordlund Pastoral, Nordlund Investments and so on. But NRL is mining. What would they have to do with Mansur?’
Those names again, Jenny thinks, coming back to haunt them.
She listens to the clink of plates and cutlery as Harry sets the table for their meal. Then he says, ‘Could you hack into the calls record if I gave you a landline phone number?’
‘Probably. But surely you can get that from work?’
‘This bloke’s made a complaint against me. I’ve been warned off.’
Jenny feels a flutter of anxiety. ‘A complaint?’
‘It’s nothing. Ross and I arrested him after he beat up his wife. It seems he has some bad friends, and I’d like to know who they are.’
‘But won’t the other police do that?’
‘Maybe. But he seems to have something personal against me, and I just want to cover all the bases.’
‘Okay. You don’t think you’re being, well…’
‘Paranoid? Yes, probably. Come on, let’s eat this before it gets cold.’
After a while she says, ‘Have they checked his social media sites?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘What can you tell me about him?’
He gives her the name, address, phone number. ‘He’s a storeman in one of the mines and is heavily into tattooing, cross-dressing and bashing his wife.’
‘Interesting combination. All right, I’ll see what I can do.’