Grace drove through the quiet streets of Brooklyn feeling the eeriness of knowing that somewhere Clive’s surveillance teams were watching like patrons at a theatre where the action was real. The town was laid out in a long, narrow line along an inlet. It wasn’t much more than houses clustered along a single dog’s-leg road that eventually reached its dead end at a public jetty looking out at the main channel of the Hawkesbury River. By the time Grace reached the parking area close to the bay, it was getting dark and the place was almost deserted.
Sara was waiting, solitary in the dusk. She was dressed in jeans and a jacket and had her hands in her pockets. The bush-covered hills behind her tall figure were a hard, massive shape against the softening sky. On the water, the last of the light had taken on an iridescent, diamond-shaped patterning, rocking with the movement of the waves. Boats, small and large, were moored some distance out. Was Clive’s boat out there? He had said that it would be.
Grace walked up to Sara. She was pacing restlessly up and down.
‘You’re hours late. Where’s Narelle?’ she asked.
‘Did you set that up?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Joe Ponticelli. Did you set him on me?’
‘I said I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘First you change things. I’m told to come here to Brooklyn. And when I do, a motorbike with a pillion comes up behind me. In fact, it looks just like how Kidd got shot. They shoot through the passenger window. But they don’t get me, they get Narelle. I ran them off the road. I had a look. Joe Ponticelli’s dead. I wasn’t sure about the other one. If he wasn’t then, he probably is now.’
‘Where’s Narelle?’
‘Sleeping in the bush. She’s not going to wake up again. I had to go and wash as well.’
‘What about your car?’
‘I had to get rid of it. The one I’m driving now belongs to someone else.’
‘Then why bring it here? It’ll be traced. Did anyone see you?’
‘No! I’m more careful than that. Let’s get down to business. I’ve got the passport, the tape and I’ve got Narelle’s ID. I want to be paid.’
Sara looked at her and then around her into the dark, but there was no obvious sign of movement.
‘Is that her ID you’re carrying in that bag?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s see it.’
‘No. Later. I’m owed a lot for this.’
Sara smiled arrogantly at her. ‘You’ll be paid in full, don’t worry about that. But that wasn’t supposed to happen. You never know who’s going to turn out to be unreliable, do you?’ She laughed softly.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘They were watching you all the way from Liverpool. Joel might have trusted you. I wasn’t sure I did.’
It was only when Grace had to deal with them that her backup had told her they were there. Clive’s directions.
‘Why did they go after me? I was delivering Narelle. What’s the point of sabotaging that?’
Sara didn’t reply. She stared at Grace with an almost frightened expression on her face. Then she shrugged.
‘I don’t know. I just told them to watch you. And you killed him! God.’
‘It was a stupid thing to do,’ Grace said contemptuously. ‘Next time you want backup, pick someone who’s not a lunatic.’
Sara looked away. ‘We don’t have time to talk about this. Let’s go.’
‘Wait a moment. Where’s Joel?’
‘Out there somewhere.’
‘That’s not good enough.’
‘It will just have to be,’ Sara snapped.
‘No, it won’t. Where’s Joel and where are we going?’
‘For a boat ride. What else?’
‘I’m not getting on any boat until I know where I’m going.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
There was silence as Sara looked around. Her face was barely visible in the dark, her expression unseen. She stepped forward.
‘I’ll tell you where we’re going,’ she said in a whispered voice. ‘But no way am I telling you where Joel is right now. Do we trust each other or don’t we?’
‘Where are we going?’ Grace asked.
‘Cottage Point. It’s not far. Now let’s get a move on. We’ve wasted too much time.’
What if she took out her gun and arrested Sara now? But she still didn’t know where Griffin was. The surveillance teams would have heard everything that had been said. They could get to Cottage Point if they had to. Are you going to follow me up the river, Clive? Fish me out?
‘How do I get back from wherever we’re going?’
‘Joel will drive you. It’s all organised.’
‘All right,’ Grace said. ‘Let’s go.’
The sailing boat, named Cottage Days, was waiting at the pontoon. It was smaller and neater than Grace had expected.
‘Is it only you?’ she asked.
‘I know what I’m doing. This is what I do to relax. I sail. I know this boat, I’ve had it for years. I know the river. I love it here.’ Sara’s sense of relief was obvious in her voice. ‘You can just be yourself here. Get in, and do me a favour: don’t talk.’
Grace sat in silence while Sara cast off and, using the motor, guided the boat past the other vessels and out into the channel. Stars covered the sky. This far from the city, it was possible to see out to other worlds. Sara turned off the motor and began to pilot the boat under sail. Then she started to laugh.
‘You killed Joe Ponticelli. Life has its twists and turns. Oh, what a joke that is.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll find out.’
There was malice in her voice, almost childishly so.
‘Why didn’t you want me to talk?’ Grace asked.
‘Because I may not get to sail down this river again for a while after tonight and I want to enjoy it.’
‘Why? Are you leaving? Where are you going? I thought we were setting up a deal.’
‘Maybe you’ll be our Australian connection,’ she said mockingly.
They sailed on in silence for a short while. There was only the sound of the river, the presence of the forested hillsides and the soft, starlit sky. Sara had withdrawn, she was silent.
‘How long have you been sailing?’ Grace asked.
‘Since I was a kid. Don’t talk to me. I want to enjoy this.’
‘Why shouldn’t I talk to you?’
‘Because most people are fucking idiots and I’m not sure you’re not one of them!’
Grace waited. Sara was where no one could touch her, lost in the simple self-directed pleasure of what she was doing. Grace spoke, deliberately puncturing the emotion.
‘If you’re leaving, you’ll miss all this when you go, won’t you? There can’t be anywhere else in the world like this for you. Why do you have to go? Why can’t you stay here?’
Sara looked back at Grace, her expression shadowed.
‘It’s just the way things have to be,’ she said.
‘Is Cottage Point where you were going to bring Narelle?’
‘Do you think that would have been difficult? Elliot’s waiting for you at Cottage Point, Marie. Oh boy, let’s go. I want to see him as soon as I can.’
Sara imitated Narelle with too much savagery for Grace to laugh.
‘You just called her Marie.’
‘That’s her name when she’s with Joel.’
There was silence. Sara was staring out at the water.
‘You and Joel are an item,’ Grace said after a while. ‘Did it bother you when he spent time with Narelle?’
‘No,’ Sara replied. ‘Any more than it would bother me if he spent time with you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? It’s not just the money. You want him.’
Grace wondered why she found this so offensive when it had been part of Clive’s strategy from the beginning. She had met it before; situations where other women assumed you were chasing after their partners when you had no interest in them at all. It had worked for her; it had helped persuade Sara she was genuine.
Sara laughed. ‘I knew it. He thought you were too standoffish. I told him you were just playing hard to get. You thought you were better than he was. I told him, just wait. She’ll be there for you. Like all the others.’
She. I’m sitting here in person. Why should you think I find him as compelling as you do? But if she said she found him repellent her cover was gone. All the others. How many of them had there been? She kept silent. Sara smiled at her, scornfully.
‘Where did he meet Narelle?’ Grace asked.
‘At my parents’ place. Her and all the other wannabe actresses seeing who they can have sex with to get a part. Didn’t have a hope.’
And you just watched while he chatted up this little self-serving user, Grace thought, seduced her in your own parents’ house, and set her up as a gaoler and a fantasy pastime in a brothel you probably both owned. And you didn’t care. Not much.
‘Joel told me he’d known you since you were fifteen,’ Grace said.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘He was your first boyfriend. That’s all.’
Your first boyfriend and you never shook him off. Some women don’t. Sara was staring at her with hard-eyed condescension.
‘We understand each other. Something you can only see from the outside. You’ll never get anywhere near it.’
Grace thought how at that moment Sara sounded strangely like Narelle.
‘At a camp I used to have to go to when I was a teenager. He was different. He saw things from the outside, the way I did. He was smarter than anyone else. We got talking and we knew we understood things other people didn’t.’
‘You still think that.’
‘I know it,’ Sara said.
‘Why’d you have to go to camp?’
‘Because my parents didn’t give a shit if I was alive or dead!’
Grace waited till the air cleared.
‘Do you get on better with them now?’ she asked bravely.
‘They’re useful.’ Sara spoke with a sense of superiority. ‘Joel taught me that. Use them. He told me, if they don’t care about you, just use them. From everything they’ve got, take what you want. Drain everything you want out of them. We did just that.’
Again, Grace waited.
‘You’ve never had sex with anyone else,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘What if you did?’
‘No! Why would that happen? You really don’t know Joel. You don’t know what he is.’
Why would I want to know what you know?
‘Do you take him sailing?’
‘He doesn’t like the water.’
‘Does he mind if you go sailing? Or does he think you shouldn’t do things he doesn’t like you doing?’
‘Sailing is just something I do,’ Sara said, angrily.
‘You’re rich.’
‘Isn’t that what you want?’
‘You had money, but Joel taught you other ways to make more money. So you went and did it. Whatever he wants you to do, you go and do it. Except this. Sailing. But now you have to leave that behind as well.’
Sara’s head jerked back in a dangerous way. ‘You don’t know anything about us. I’ve learned from him all my life. The first years we were together, they were amazing. He taught me what you can do if you want to.’ She smiled in the strangest way, barely visible in the light. ‘I’d never had a high like that before. No one else would have shown me those things. You just don’t know. Compared to him, you’re just like Narelle. A nothing. Now you can just shut up.’
Grace felt her gun against her ribcage, glad it was there. Did you hear that, Clive? I’m walking into a meeting with two very dangerous people. You’d better be there.
They turned into Cowan Water. The steep waterside hills of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park closed in on them. Then the lights of the tiny suburb were in view. Situated on the banks of Cowan Creek and surrounded by bush in the heart of the national park, it was an isolated, if beautiful, place. From here, the lights of Sydney were a pale glow in the night sky. Soon the boat slid quietly up to a mooring place. There was a dinghy moored nearby. They got into it and Sara rowed them to the private jetty of a three-storeyed house, the last in the short line of buildings on the water’s edge.
There was a light shining dully over a door not far from the jetty; otherwise the house was in darkness. Before they went inside, Sara turned and looked around at the water, the hills surrounding them, and the sky.
‘What are you doing?’ Grace said. ‘Saying goodbye to Cottage Days? We’re not coming back here then.’
‘Just keep quiet,’ Sara hissed, an edge of tears in her voice. ‘Sound carries.’
She let them both in, switching on the lights to a spacious rumpus room. The décor, from the ’70s, looked old and kitsch. Under other circumstances, the house would have had a comfortable, holiday feel, the kind of place where you could kick your shoes off. There was no sign of Griffin.
‘Is this where you were bringing Narelle?’
‘Check that room over there.’
Grace walked up to a door with a lock on the outside. She looked back over her shoulder but Sara hadn’t moved.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m not coming after you.’
It was a small room with one window, too small to get out of and too high to reach. The walls were brick, the door solid wood. Once you were locked in here, there would be no way out until someone opened the door.
‘What was going to happen to her in there?’
‘You were going to shoot her.’
‘I was?’ Grace said.
‘I was going to strip her and then I was going to watch. She was going to cry and beg for mercy and I’d say, too bad, Elliot doesn’t love you any more. But she’s already dead. We don’t have to do that.’
‘Where’s the gun?’
‘It’s the one you’re carrying. You are carrying one, aren’t you?’
‘Why me?’
‘Proving yourself to Joel. Oh, he thinks you’re genuine and I’m beginning to think you are too. But that’s what you were going to do to prove it.’
No, I would have had to arrest you and take you in. The operation would have been aborted. Grace shut the door and once again felt the security of her gun against her ribs.
‘There’s no Narelle. What are we doing here now?’ she asked.
‘Just wait.’
Sara took a mobile out of a drawer, turned it on, sent a quick message, then turned the phone off again and put it in her pocket.
‘All right. We’re moving on. You’re finally going to get what you came for.’ She held up a set of car keys. ‘The garage is two levels up. Let’s go.’
‘This is your parents’ house, isn’t it?’
‘It’s basically mine,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘We’ve had it for years but they never come here. I’m the only one who’s ever used it.’
‘You came here to go sailing. When you were a kid. This is where you learned to sail.’
‘So what?’ Sara replied, a little puzzled. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘It was before you met Joel. Before you found out about all those things he taught you. You came here and you were happy.’
Before you let him turn you into a murderer.
‘What are you talking about? What are you getting at?’
Sara’s tall and slender figure was shaking. She stared at Grace, almost crying.
‘Nothing.’
‘Then stop talking rubbish and let’s go.’
‘Where to?’
‘Mona Vale Road. We have to hurry. We’re late.’
The car was a Mazda Grace hadn’t seen before. ‘Where’s your black Porsche?’ she asked.
‘Do you want to ride? Or do you want to walk?’
‘Why drive some cheap little blue Mazda when you can drive a Porsche?’
To her surprise, this comment, which was only intended to tell her listeners which car to look out for, had clearly hurt Sara’s feelings.
‘It’ll be good enough to get you where you’re going,’ she said, a crack in her voice. ‘That’s all that matters.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve had to say goodbye to your car as well as everything else?’ Grace said as mockingly and mercilessly as Sara could have done.
‘Get in! We have to go!’
Sara drove in silence, staring at the road ahead, pushing the car. Her face was set; had she been walking, she would have had her head down and been powering through anything that got in her way. They climbed the steep slope up from Cowan Creek, through the national park, then too fast along the ridge out of the park to the main road. It was getting late. Grace allowed herself to think about Ellie and Harrigan. You’ll see me, she told them. Then Sara turned off Mona Vale Road into Terrey Hills.
‘What are we doing here?’ Grace asked.
‘Going where you want to go.’
‘Terrey Hills? Duffys Forest? What’s here?’
‘Wait.’
She drove deep into the heart of the rural suburb of Duffys Forest. The roads were dark and Grace couldn’t see any street signs. Finally she caught sight of one illuminated in the car lights.
‘We’re out in the sticks,’ she said. ‘The Bush Fire Brigade is just down there.’
‘But we’re not going there, are we?’ Sara replied with a razoredged smile.
There was a car a short distance in front of them along the road. Its lights were turned off. It drove for a little longer, then turned into a driveway. Grace watched a man get out and open the gate. Griffin. He cut his engine and coasted down the driveway. Sara had already turned off her car lights and followed him. When they turned into the driveway, Grace could just make out a For Sale sign out the front of the house.
‘Is this your house?’ she asked. ‘Or is it empty because it’s for sale and you’re just using it?’
‘Quiet!’
They coasted down the driveway into a garage with a light on overhead. Griffin had already pulled up in a white Toyota Camry. Sara stopped behind him. Grace recognised the numberplate: the car that had stalked Harrigan and Ellie to Kidz Corner.
‘Get out,’ Sara said.
Grace did so. She had her gun, they knew she did. Would it be enough to protect her from the two of them? This was enough. Time to bail out.
‘Why are we here?’ she asked Sara, who was standing by the open door of her car. ‘Why come here? It’s time to go.’
‘Not yet,’ Sara said.
Griffin came over. Grace stood where she could see both of them. Griffin didn’t even look at her.
‘Why are you so late?’ he asked Sara. ‘I’ve been waiting for your SMS for hours.’
‘She killed Joe Ponticelli.’
‘What?’ He turned to Grace, seeming to see her for the first time. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because he tried to kill me. The same way Kidd got gunned down. I ran them off the road. They got Narelle. She’s in the bush.’
‘He wasn’t after you, he couldn’t have been. Unless—’ He stopped. ‘It doesn’t matter one way or the other now. Did you get Marie’s ID?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. We’ve no time now. Coopes won’t be with us tonight.’
‘Oh, why not?’ Sara asked, not hiding her disappointment.
‘Who’s Coopes?’ Grace asked.
‘An old friend,’ Griffin replied dismissively. ‘He can’t be involved. There’s no time.’
‘I wanted to see him. It’s the last time,’ Sara said.
‘Who is Coopes?’ Grace repeated.
Griffin looked at her in the weak light, a friendly, apparently candid expression on his face. ‘Coopes was going to help me pay you, but we don’t have time to take you to him now. It doesn’t matter. I have money inside the house.’
‘Are we still meeting at Halfway Hut?’ Sara asked.
He stepped forward, a finger in the air, shaking it at her as if it might transform itself into a blow. ‘Don’t. You should know—no—’ He left whatever he was going to say unfinished. ‘You should leave now. Make sure the gates stay open. And whatever you do, no games till I get there. Okay? Don’t underestimate anything. It’s too dangerous.’ He spoke harshly, angrily.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you there.’
‘Wait!’ He stopped her as she turned away. ‘Give me your mobile.’
‘What if I need it?’
‘You won’t. Give it to me.’
She handed it over, smiled angrily at Grace, then got into her car and drove up the driveway out of sight. Grace felt the chill of the smile. Then she asked herself: they’re an item, lovers supposedly. Why didn’t they kiss? Do they touch? Does he always talk to her like that?
‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘How do I get out of here?’
‘I drive you. Don’t worry.’ He stopped, listening. ‘Did you hear a car?’
‘Sara?’
‘No. After her.’
Grace listened but heard nothing.
‘There’s no one there,’ she said, with a touch of despair.
Where are you, Clive? You must have heard the pull-out signal. Are you here at all? You can find me. I’m wearing my wire.
‘Is that Marie’s ID?’ Griffin was asking.
‘Yes.’
‘Give it to me.’
She did, having no choice.
‘What about the passport and the tape?’
She handed them over. She watched him open the Camry’s door and put all these things in the glovebox, along with Sara’s mobile.
‘We’re taking all that with us, are we?’ she asked.
‘Come inside,’ he replied, ignoring what she’d said. ‘I have some things I have to get before we leave.’
She followed him but stayed back. If she took out her gun, she’d have to use it; probably to kill. Kill or wound. Wounds that incapacitated often did so permanently and sometimes killed. If she only had herself to rely on, she would have no choice. They reached the back door where he turned on an outside light.
‘Is this your house?’ she asked.
‘I should have inherited it,’ he replied. ‘But in the end I had to buy it.’
‘Why did you want this particular house?’
‘Not your business,’ he said.
He unlocked the door, switched on the inside light, and they walked into an old-fashioned kitchen. There were jerry cans of petrol on the table.
‘What are they doing here?’ she asked.
‘I’m cleaning this house away. But first I have some things to get.’
‘You’re going to burn this place down?’
‘Not me. Some people will do it for me later on tonight. By then we’ll all be long gone.’
‘The house is for sale.’
‘It’s already been sold by private treaty. I have the money. I have another house for sale. As soon as I sell that, it’ll go up as well.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what I’ve done all my life. Clean away shit. Turn it into something useful instead. When this goes up in flames, that’ll be the last of it wiped out. I’ll have got what I wanted from it. It’ll be money in the bank instead.’
Still keeping a distance behind him, she followed him while he switched on the lights first in a dining room and then the hallway. They passed a bedroom. Grace looked at the disordered sheets. She had a perception of bodies wrestling with brutal movements. You couldn’t tell whether it was love or a beating. A small pile of women’s clothes, including underwear, had been placed on the end of the unmade bed. She glanced at them, then jerked her head back. Who were they waiting for? Not Sara.
‘Why didn’t you wait for us inside the house?’ she asked. ‘Then you could have got what you wanted and we could just have got in the car and gone.’
‘People might have seen the lights and realised someone was here. Only do what you have to do when you have to do it. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here.’
He walked past a bathroom to a door at the end of the hallway. He pushed it open onto a small white-tiled room. This one smelled of bleach and the wooden floor was stained.
‘Let’s not waste any time,’ Grace said. ‘It’s time to go.’
‘I won’t be long,’ Griffin replied.
He knelt, levered up a floorboard and reached down into the cavity below. Grace stepped back and took out her gun.
‘They’re gone.’ He sat up straight on his knees. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘What’s missing?’ she asked.
‘Everything. I put them there just two days ago.’
‘Put what there?’
‘My business records. Money. I have to have those records. I can’t leave without them.’
He stood up and turned around on this last question, saw her gun and stared.
‘Lie down on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you try to do anything else, I’ll kill you.’
He shook his head. His friendly expression was back. ‘You’re not the type to kill. I can tell.’
‘I’m counting to three. One, two—’
She would have fired at him if someone hadn’t taken hold of her from behind. She fired anyway but the bullet went wild, burying itself in the door frame. The man who was pushing her to the floor was too strong for her. He twisted her gun out of her hand, almost breaking her wrist. Then he ripped her phone out of the pocket of her jacket. All she could see were Griffin’s feet, the open cavity and the stained wooden floor.
‘You wouldn’t have killed me,’ Griffin said.
Yes, I would have.
‘Give me that,’ he said to whoever was holding her. ‘It’s a powerful gun. Standard Orion issue, I suppose. Better than mine. Yes, I’ll use this. You can stand up.’
She did, and looked at who was behind her. A man she didn’t know, probably a Ponticelli goon. Griffin was holding her gun. The man who’d tackled her had his own.
‘Where was he?’ Grace asked.
‘He’s been waiting here for hours. In the dark. I always take precautions.’
‘What do you want to do?’ the muscle man asked Griffin.
‘Someone came here and took some things I own,’ Griffin said to Grace. ‘Computers. Portable hard drives. Do you know where they are?’
‘I’ve never heard about any of those things before. Don’t you have backup records somewhere else?’
‘I’d have to go and get them, which complicates things. You and I have somewhere else to be and we’re already late.’ He looked past her to the man holding her. ‘Who’s been here? Do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t get here till late this arvo. I just dumped the petrol on the table and waited.’
Griffin looked around the white-tiled room, searching for something invisible.
‘Would Sara do this? She can be so bitchy when she’s angry with me—’ He stopped. ‘Something like this happened at my other house in Blackheath. Is someone stalking me or is—’ Again he stopped.
‘Doesn’t Sara want to leave with you?’ Grace asked.
‘We both want the same things. We always have,’ he said with the strange and apparently candid look.
He stood there silent in the hallway, thinking.
‘Mate,’ the muscle man said, ‘she drew a gun on you. I reckon she’d have used it. You say she’s from Orion. She’s got to be wired.’ ‘Are you?’ Griffin asked.
Grace’s wire, a sophisticated piece of miniature wireless technology, was neatly twisted in the underwiring of her bra and finished in the decoration set in lace between the cups.
‘I came here to get paid,’ she said. ‘That’s all. Then you double-crossed me. That’s why I drew my gun. Your money’s gone. Maybe it was never there in the first place. It’s time to go. Let’s just do that. Forget all this.’
‘It’ll be in her clothes.’ The muscle man giggled. ‘We can get her to take them off.’
To Grace’s surprise, a look of powerful distaste crossed Griffin’s face.
‘I’ve already got some clothes I want her to wear,’ he said. ‘Sara bought them the other day. They’re in the bedroom.’
Soon he was back, offering her the compact bundle. ‘Put these on. You can dress the way I want now. With your hair out.’
‘What for?’
‘It’s the way I want to remember you. I told you, you have beautiful hair.’
You’re sick. Don’t say it. Don’t make him lash out.
‘I’m not changing in front of this ape.’
‘You can change in there.’ Griffin nodded to the white-tiled room. Then he was staring at her with a total lack of expression. ‘If you won’t change, I’ll kill you now. Your brains will be all over those tiles. I don’t want to have to do that but I will. It’s up to you. I’ll be waiting in the kitchen.’
‘Get going,’ the ape said, pushing her inside. ‘Take everything off and give it to me.’
‘Get out,’ she said.
He grinned and pulled the door not quite closed. She felt his eye on the crack. There was nothing she could do. Shaking, she changed, keeping her back to the door. The dress was blue, waisted, coming to the knee, a glittering little-girl thing. Nothing like her taste. At least the clothes were new and clean. He had chosen her size well; he’d looked her over carefully every time they’d met, the way lovers do, not murderers. It was an odd look, as if he’d tried to make her a child.
She’d just finished when the door opened and the ape was there. He motioned to her to come out. When she did, he tossed her own clothes back inside the room and shut the door. Her wire was sensitive, but left in that room it wasn’t going to pick up anything.
In the kitchen, Griffin looked her over. He was still holding her gun.
‘Take your shoes off,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘You don’t need shoes for this.’
She kicked them off.
‘Hands,’ he said, and the ape tied her arms behind her with plastic rope.
‘Good,’ Griffin said. ‘You look much better.’ He stared at her. ‘You’re very cool. All the other women I’ve had were sobbing by now. They all beg. I couldn’t do it because of my family, you must understand that. I couldn’t do that kind of work, or No, I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me. The men are no different. They cry too. You’re trained, but you’re human. Why aren’t you crying?’
My backup are coming for me. They must be.
‘Maybe I don’t believe this is real,’ she said.
‘Oh, it’s real,’ Griffin said. ‘What have you got for me?’
The ape handed Griffin two items, one after the other. He held them up for her.
‘Watch. I have a Rolex. I don’t need this.’ He tossed it on the floor. ‘Photograph. This is different. It’s unique.’
The photo showed Grace with Ellie in her arms, immediately after she was born. Her exhausted face. Everything that followed. All that love. Grace looked it at, her mouth closed against the uprush of emotion. Tears were in her eyes. I can still feel myself holding you. If only I was with you. Who will look after you if I’m not there?
‘You can cry,’ Griffin said. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Where’s Paul?’
‘Waiting for you,’ the ape said with a cackle.
Griffin put the photograph in his trouser pocket. ‘I’ll keep this. I’ll take your hair too, before I finish. They’ll be my keepsakes. Whenever I think of you, I’ll go and look at your hair.’
I’ve dealt with people like you before. In the end you’re all the same. I’m not crying for you. You are not touching what matters most to me.
‘Where’s Paul?’
‘You know what people are going to think?’ Griffin said. ‘He murdered you and committed suicide.’
‘No one’s going to believe that. Not our families, not the police, no one.’
‘Your partner wrote a letter and signed it. It’ll be posted on his website tonight. I’ll show you. I spent most of last night matching his signature. I think I’ve done it pretty well.’
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out an envelope. It was addressed to Toby care of the University of New South Wales. The information that Toby was a student there was on Paul’s website. Griffin held up the letter for her to read. The words jumbled in her mind. Know she’s been cheating just not sure who. Never been sure. Made me leave my job.
‘No one will believe that rubbish.’
‘People believe what they want to believe. There are enough rumours out there for people to wonder if maybe it is true. And it’s his signature. Who can argue with that? People will say, who knows what he was thinking? He was always a private man. It’ll muddy the waters enough for people never to be sure.’
‘Where is he?’
The anger came out of her, a frustrated force. He stepped back a little, then laughed.
‘You won’t be like that soon. You’ll get down on your knees and you’ll beg and crawl like all the others. Enough talk. Everyone outside.’
‘In that little white Camry? The police have its registration. Did you know that? Anyway, where are we going?’
He stepped forward, looking her over.
‘The police aren’t here. There’s no one out there. You need to understand the situation. Everybody begs. I told you you’d kiss me. You will. You’ll do more than that, much more. You wait.’ He searched her face, looking for a fault line. She saw him look at her scar. ‘I know how to do it.’
Nothing will make me do anything for you.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Wait till we get there. Remember, I’ll kill you if you do anything stupid,’ he said.
‘I’ll get going,’ the ape said.
‘Where’s his car?’ Grace asked.
‘Where you wouldn’t see it. I told you, I always take precautions.’ He turned to the ape. ‘Give me her shoes. I want to take them with me.’
‘Sure.’
‘Before you go, I’ve got a message for Tony senior. I’ve kept my side of the bargain throughout.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
‘No, you won’t. Because he’s double-crossed me.’
Grace’s shoes in his spare hand, Griffin shot the man dead. His body lay on the kitchen floor.
‘Why did you do that?’ she said.
‘The only people who know about my houses are the Ponticellis. They must have stolen my records and my money. If the old man sent Joe after you today when we had an agreement that I’d kill you myself, then he’s broken our bargain. If he thinks he can get me to pay him for those records, this is a message for him. He’ll be dead first.’
He pushed her out in front of him. There was no way to run. At the garage, he motioned her to sit in the Camry’s front seat. He tossed her shoes in the back, then fastened her seatbelt. She was pressed back uncomfortably in the seat, her hands losing circulation. He drove up the driveway and out onto the street. Sara had left the gate open.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Back the way you came.’
‘Who’s Coopes?’
‘Coopes is a thing, not a person.’
‘What is it then?’
He took one hand off the wheel, took out his wallet and placed it on his lap. He flicked it open and eased out a photograph, which he then held up to her.
‘That’s Coopes,’ he said.
She recognised it immediately. A stone axe from New Guinea. Her father had one not unlike it.
‘Why do you call it Coopes?’
‘Mr Coopes,’ Griffin said. ‘The headmaster at the last school I went to. He said I could achieve anything I wanted to if I just tried. Every time I use Coopes, I think, yes, this is something I’ve wanted and I’ve achieved it. He wanted to be nice to me. It was insulting. I didn’t need his pity.’
The resentment in his voice was genuine. More than twenty-five years ago and he still thought about it.
‘Did you use it on him?’
‘No, I don’t know where he went. He was due to retire. He’s probably dead by now.’
Silence.
‘I kept my bargain,’ Grace said. ‘You didn’t keep yours.’
‘That’s not true. As far as I was concerned, we had no deal. I made my deal with Tony senior. And he broke it,’ Griffin said.
‘What was the deal?’
‘A personal contract for the old man. We’ve worked together on and off for years now. He wanted to get back at your partner before he died and he asked me to do something special. I was pleased when he named you. Chris had already told me all about you and I liked the look of you. Chris may not have been able to have you, but I can. Then Kidd told me you were with Orion. And then Marie said you had something to sell. I didn’t have to chase you any more. You walked into my hands.’
‘Why choose me?’
‘Tony wanted your partner to suffer the way he did when his daughter was killed. He wanted you and your daughter. But we couldn’t get to her so I decided to get you and your partner together instead. Tony would have liked it. We’re giving him a bit extra. Now I’m doing it for me. And Sara. It’ll be a buzz.’
Grace felt relief so powerful it made every bone in her body ache. You’re safe, she said to Ellie. But was she really going to die? Was she really never going to see her daughter again? She had to protect her. Somehow she had to see Ellie and Paul—
Griffin had said they’d die together. That meant Paul was alive now.
‘Sara likes these occasions, does she?’ she said. ‘Gets a kick out of them?’
That same look of distaste appeared on his face.
‘Say anything else about Sara and I’ll break your jaw. What she does is up to her. At times like this, she can do anything she wants. It’s almost the one time she can. I let her go and then I take over. And then everything’s sweet.’
After this, they drove in silence. He was so matter-of-fact. Could this be real? They were out of Duffys Forest and back to Mona Vale Road by now, turning north again and then into the park. They passed the park’s gatehouse, closed and dark. Not far in he turned off the road onto a fire trail usually closed to public access by a low boom gate. The gate was open. He drove downhill. Occasional kangaroos leaped along the side of the trail, none into their path. She wished one of them would; it would stop the car.
He drove down the narrow track, then turned off his car lights and made a sharp turn onto another trail. They drove along it for some time, going deeper into the forest. He turned off the engine and coasted the car downhill. No one could know whose death they were driving to.