Alex Palmer: The Tattooed Man

‘Not as sick as you. I’d be careful, Elena. I don’t care if you get roughed up.’

‘Sam, did you kill Marvin?’ Harrigan asked quickly.

‘You bet I did,’ Sam replied. ‘It was just luck he was there. I took advantage of it.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I knew DP was running him for Elena. I wanted him out of the way in case he made trouble later. You see, Elena, I’ve been following DP ever since he got here. You know how I knew he was here, Harrigan? She told me to go and meet him. I had to give him all the stuff I had on Jerome and your squalid little friends. I used to have a tracking device on his car. Very handy. I was there watching the very first time he ever met Marvin Tooth. Trouble was, DP saw me as well. Not close enough to really see me, but enough to work out he was probably being followed. We lost him after that. He dumped his car and we couldn’t track him any more.’

‘Did you kill those people up at Pittwater?’

‘Yes, they did,’ Elena said, again softly.

‘Did we? Why should anyone believe what you say?’ Sam said. ‘It was DP cleaning up for you. Jerome was getting too unreliable. You had to protect yourself. You didn’t want anyone connecting his dirty little business to your organisation. You took control and did what you’ve always wanted to do. Get that whole side of Abaris out of your life and your business. Then you sent that piccie out just to show other people what would happen to them if they crossed you.’

‘Then why leave the contract behind?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Because DP is careless. He goes at things like a bull at a gate. Elena will tell you that. I bet she’s bitched about him to her father a million times. She probably wanted you to take over from him. Do you know how I found your old friend the Ice Cream Man’s body, Harrigan? Because Elena here asked me to go and pick up DP’s black beast out at Yaralla after he’d killed him. Even DP can’t drive two cars. He had to torch one of them and he didn’t want to do it down there. I had a good look around and I found the grave. But I’d already been out to Yaralla. I used to tail Jerome out there. I got into one of his vans once. I got hold of some seed, I made it look like the sack had burst. We knew what he was growing. Elena wants to hide all that. But we’re going to tell the world.’

‘I had nothing to do with Jerome’s business. I had no reason to kill those people,’ Elena said angrily.

‘She’s baiting you,’ Harrigan said to Elena in his detached voice.

Sam laughed. ‘No, Elena didn’t kill them. Why would she want the publicity? But my take on it was plausible, wasn’t it? It might convince someone who knew some of the facts but not all of them.’

For first time, Harrigan felt real terror.

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Does that worry you, Harrigan?’

‘Who’s this “we”?’ he said. ‘You and Brinsmead.’

‘Daniel?’ Elena said in surprise. ‘What do you have to do with Daniel?’

‘He’s my very old friend, Elena. I’ve known him for twenty years close enough. We’re probably the only true friends each of us has ever really had. I know him better than you ever will. He fucks women like you. Me, he talks to.’

In the rear-vision mirror, Harrigan saw Elena look out of the window. Her expression was a mix of anger and loathing. There were insults which were unforgivable. Sam had just made one.

‘Is he your reason for doing this?’ she asked with contempt.

‘Yes and no. We both used to work for an organisation called Falcon. I persuaded him to offer his services; I thought he’d be good at it. But then he met you, didn’t he? You corrupted his mind.’

‘You’re jealous.’

‘No. We don’t have that kind of relationship; we never have had. I didn’t want anything like that messing us up. He’s my soul mate and I’m his. You betrayed him to your father.’

‘I did not. My father didn’t know anything about him being an agent. He just found his connection to me and Jerome too convenient. He was right. Daniel was a user. But I still rescued him. If I hadn’t taken care of him after he came back, he would have died.’

She had spoken with deep bitterness, saying Jerome’s name with distaste. Sam answered with growing and dangerous anger.

‘Your father told DP and Jerome to kill Daniel and you knew that. You knew and you didn’t warn him.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Do you want to understand grief? I can’t describe to you what I felt when I saw Danny after he got back. If I could have, Elena, I would have got you on your knees and killed you then. Instead, Daddy called in his credit with the government. Falcon shut the whole thing down and hung us out to dry. Well, it’s not over yet. Like I said, it’s payday.’

‘Did you kill that boy?’ Harrigan asked quickly.

‘Do you care?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, don’t. What about the people you saw on the net this morning? What about that girl they injected? Does anyone care about her?’

‘Does killing that boy bother you, Sam?’

‘There are times when you have to do things like that. He shouldn’t have been there. Danny wanted Jerome to see him, but it meant the boy saw us as well. There was nothing we could do about it. I made sure he didn’t realise what was going to happen. He was first. I didn’t give either of us time to think about it.’

‘You did it.’

‘I had to. He didn’t know. We’re not like these people. We don’t go after innocent civilians for the fun of it.’

‘You want this whole dirty story out in the open,’ Harrigan said. ‘But one way or the other, it’ll be swept under the carpet. You must know that. You’ll have done all this for nothing.’

‘No, Harrigan. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re not that naive. Yes, it would be nice if it all got out there on the net. We’re putting out as much information as we can. There’s more to come, that’s why I wanted Elena’s log-on. But it’s not the only thing. It’s not even the main thing. It’s the future we’re thinking about. We’re doing what people like us should do. Protecting innocent people, not the backside of some rich industrialist. We’re the real anti-terrorists, not the idiots who are in control.’

‘What’s going to happen?’

‘I told you. Wait and find out.’

You’re going to kill us, aren’t you, Harrigan thought. Not without a fight. He concentrated on the road ahead.

‘Don’t drive too fast,’ Sam said. ‘Just on the speed limit will be fine. Don’t attract attention.’

Harrigan glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Elena’s face was turned aside, her chin buried in her shoulder. Her shoulders were shaking. Sam had her in a tight grip, the gun jammed painfully in her ribs. She was looking directly at the back of his head. Her expression was as detached as any he’d ever seen. He reminded himself that she was a trained killer. She wasn’t someone to play games with on the off chance. He drove on. There was nothing else he could do.

Past Campbelltown, Daniel Brinsmead directed Grace through the industrial estate. Rising like a monolith out of the ground, the LPS building flashed a hard blue in the early morning sunlight. Grace whistled at the sight of it.

‘It is impressive,’ Brinsmead said. ‘I’ll give Elena that. Don’t stop for the boom gates. Just keep driving.’

The boom lifted for her automatically, the gates swung open. The security guard watched them drive by.

‘You’re privileged.’

‘I told you, my e-tag gives me full access rights.’

They drove into the garage. Even early on a Saturday morning, there were a number of cars in the car park.

‘Scientists,’ Brinsmead said. ‘We all have tunnel vision. You’d think they could stay home in bed on a weekend morning. But here they are, working. Why couldn’t they have taken a day off?’