Alex Palmer - The Tattooed Man

‘Hi, Gracie, it’s Abbie. We’re all at Claude’s wondering where you are but I guess you’ve found something better to do. Hope so anyway. Maybe we’ll see you at Noah’s. We just hope you’re not with Harrigan. Give us a call tomorrow, will you? See you.’

‘Don’t they approve of me?’ he asked.

‘Of course they don’t. They think you’re a Neanderthal. But then they think the same thing about me for doing what I do. According to Abbie’s latest boyfriend, I’m the original fascist.’

He laughed.

‘You look beautiful. We don’t have to sit here all night. Let’s go out.’

‘Not just like that. What happens tomorrow?’

‘After twenty-four hours, I may have all the time you want me to have with you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m fishing for Elena Calvo. I’ve already seen her to get it started. I’m waiting to see if she’s going to bite and if she’s going to give me du Plessis as well as herself. If she does, that could be the end of my career.’

‘You gave him the tape. She knows that.’

‘It’s not just that. Du Plessis has the contents of Mike’s safety deposit box. If I take Elena Calvo down, I’m sure she’ll take me with her.’

‘This could cost you a lot more than your job,’ she said. ‘What are you setting up?’

‘A sting. There’s no way back from it now. You say I work too much. Let me stop working for now. Let’s go out and enjoy ourselves.’

‘You didn’t answer my question. What happens tomorrow?’

‘Let’s wait for the sun to come up on Sunday morning first. When it does, if it does, I work out what I want. I do want you in my life. If you want to be there.’

‘I’m here now. If that’s how things are, then I think we should go out. Have fun. We may not get another chance. Wait till I put my make-up on again.’

She had other places to go besides Claude’s. A smaller restaurant she’d just discovered; a nightclub where the band was the best she’d heard all year. ‘The singer has a magic voice,’ she told him. He didn’t drink much; tomorrow he needed a clear head.

‘What happens now?’ she asked, much later when they were lying in her bed. ‘How do you know when you’ve caught your fish?’

‘Whatever Calvo’s going to do, she’ll move quickly. Probably she’ll want to see me sometime tomorrow. She’ll have the meeting set up already. When I go to it, du Plessis will either be there waiting for me or he’ll be following me. If Calvo wants him to get rid of me, my bet is that everything Cassatt had on me will be left behind with my body. That’ll take care of my credibility forever. But if Calvo wants me to remove du Plessis for her, then he won’t be expecting me. The difficulty I have is getting her to incriminate herself on tape. She’s very cagey about what she says. But she’s frightened. That’ll work for me.’

‘That strategy is so dangerous.’

‘I’ll get through it. I’ve got Trevor onside and my backup in place. Let’s sleep now. We need to.’

They did sleep. For now, the morning could take care of itself.

When Harrigan’s phone woke him, it was still dark. When he sat up, he felt Grace stir beside him.

‘Harrigan.’

‘Sorry to wake you, boss. It’s Jacquie here. I’m on the night shift. Do you have access to a computer? You should have an email in your inbox now. You need to see it.’

‘Can you tell me what I’ll be looking at?’

‘A video that’s been posted on the Pittwater website. I’d say it was shot clandestinely. It’s got the same file reference number as the dossier. It must have been made as part of that whole operation. Also, the dossier and the senator’s affidavit have been put up on the Pittwater site as well. Whoever’s behind this is making sure everyone can join the dots.’

‘I’ll look at it now.’

Grace came and sat beside him while he turned her computer on. This time, a single email had been posted to his mailbox. The subject line read: This is real. In the body of the email was a URL. Harrigan hit it.

He found himself watching a video. A reference number with a time and date stamp were visible in a header. It was December four years ago. From a camera’s eye view, there appeared on the monitor the sight of raggedly dressed, armed African men climbing onto the back of a truck. The angle looked down at the troops; the photographer must have been standing against the back of the cabin. Another truck was following the first. They drove out of a city affected by war, through local markets, hurrying crowds, buildings marked by decay and painted with slogans. The name Kinshasa appeared in the header. Then the photographer sat down like the others on the floor of the tray.

There was a jump in the sequence. The photographer must have been sitting in the cabin. The truck was driving along a forested road. In front was a group of civilians with their belongings in bundles on their heads and backs, their children hurrying with them. They ran into the forest at the sight of the truck. A skeleton lay in thick vines on the side of the road, still fully dressed, its death’s head looking out at the watcher.

The trucks came to a stop in a deserted village. The photographer got out and went to meet the driver, who was also getting out of the truck. Harrigan recognised Jerome Beck. He grinned and spoke but there was no sound. The other driver appeared from the second truck: du Plessis, also talking and grinning soundlessly.

The next image showed the village turned into an encampment with two tents set up in the centre. Two of the soldiers were dragging a terrified young girl towards one of the tents. Again the video jumped. The eye was now inside one of the tents. It watched one figure hold the young girl in a chair while another injected her with something. Both wore protective clothing. Then the eye followed her running out of the tent and through the encampment, while the soldiers watched her from a distance, laughing. She made her escape along a dirt road through a partially forested landscape. The camera turned back to the entrance to the tent. The people in protective clothing were seen walking outside. They washed their gloved hands in some solution, then poured it over their heads. Then they took off their headgear. Harrigan again found himself looking at Beck and du Plessis.

Next, Beck, without protective clothing, was walking through a village where a number of people lay either dead or dying on the ground outside their houses. He stopped to look down at them, his hands on his hips. Then he went inside a house. The young girl from the earlier video, recognisable by the dress she had been wearing, lay curled up on a mat, her face to the wall. Beck was joined by du Plessis. The angle was from behind them, looking between them. They stood looking at the girl, talking, then walked away.

The watcher and the two men moved from house to house. Other people were shown inside, most of them dead. Some were still alive but sick, lying in their beds, turning their faces away from the intruders.

Then the eye went back outside. It showed the armed men standing on the periphery of the small village, apparently refusing to come any closer. Du Plessis went up to them; some backed away. He talked angrily to them, gesturing to them to come closer. Reluctantly, they began to move forward. Then, with du Plessis, they moved through the village, shooting whoever had been left alive. Meanwhile, Beck was talking to one of the men. The man was gesturing down the road; the inference was that some of the villagers had fled.

The eye swung around quickly. It was heading towards one of the trucks on the edge of the village. The truck door was pulled open, the photographer was climbing inside the cabin. Then his hands were on the wheel and he was driving away at speed. A distance down the road, he stopped to collect a small group of villagers, one of whom was carrying a child. A man climbed in the front and spoke to the driver. He was directing him. Presumably the others had climbed into the back.