Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

‘We’ll need to speak to these women ourselves,’ Grace replied. ‘I’m not expecting anything to get in the way of that.’

‘You can talk to them as much as you like. I’ll doubt they’ll say anything that’s not already in the statement on file.’

Why? Did you write it for them ? Perhaps her eyes said this. Kidd looked away and this time did stand and move away from the table.

‘Parramatta Police Station at six tonight,’ Borghini said. ‘See you then.’

Kidd nodded and walked out without speaking.

‘Ran from the guard and was picked up by a white Holden. What fucking bullshit!’ McBride said.

‘When we talk to those women, we can ask them what really happened,’ Grace said, gathering her things together, also readying to leave.

‘Yeah. Like who paid them and how much.’

‘Put it on the list of things to do. This is getting murkier by the minute,’ Borghini said. Then to Grace: ‘We’ll see you at six tonight. How’s the boss?’

Always, she was asked this question. Two years after he had left the police service, ex-Commander Paul Harrigan was still ‘the boss’ to almost all the police officers she met in her work. After eighteen years in the service, his name carried weight. More than one hopeful had taken her aside to ask if there was any chance Harrigan could give them the reference that would guarantee their next promotion.

‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘Very busy. He has a lot of work.’

‘Does he like being a consultant? If he’d stayed on, he’d probably be Commissioner Harrigan by now. That’s what everybody was expecting.’

Borghini was watching her with a calculating look, but not one that seemed to want anything so self-serving as a reference. It was more like he was trying to find something out. Grace could have told him that Harrigan made far more money as a consultant than he ever had as a policeman, but it wasn’t Borghini’s business.

‘I don’t think he regrets it,’ she said neutrally.

‘You’d hope not. Why did he walk away? He never really told anyone.’

This was the other question people always asked her. Why had Harrigan gone when the top job was in his grasp? Fantastic rumours and conspiracy theories abounded, including the widely circulated gossip that Grace herself had forced him to quit as a condition of their relationship. The fact as he had told her was simple: it’s my life and I’ve had enough. But no one, not the police nor the media, wanted to believe anything so straightforward.

‘He’s said why,’ Grace replied. ‘I don’t have anything to add.’ She was about to stand up when McBride spoke.

‘What’s he been doing at Darlo Court House all week watching Chris Newell go down for murder?’

At the sound of this name, fear went through Grace to the pit of her stomach. Then she got to her feet.

‘That’s his work and it’s confidential. See you this evening.’

‘I hear he’s publishing a book. Justice Under the Law. ’ Borghini’s statement stopped her at the door.

‘He is. It’s due out soon. You can buy it and read it if you want. See you later.’

‘Yeah. See you.’

She made a grateful exit from the building and began the drive to the nondescript building in Mascot that housed Orion’s offices. In the flow of traffic, her mind returned to the dissection room, to the marks on Jirawan’s body that had reminded her of the marks that had once covered hers. Chris Newell, now in the dock at Darlinghurst Court House, had been the one who had put them there, and then raped her, fifteen years ago when she was just nineteen.

When she’d heard that Newell, already in gaol for armed robbery, had been charged with the murder of a fellow prisoner, her first thought had been that this time he’d managed to kill someone. McBride had been spot-on: Harrigan was at Darlo Court House to see Newell go down for murder. After that first nightmarish attack, Newell had stalked and threatened her on and off through the years since. The worst incident had been not long before she met Harrigan. She’d come home late from a party to find him waiting for her in the car park of her apartment block. He had thrown petrol over her and tried to light it. The lighter failed, she ran for her life. The next day, she got hold of a gun to protect herself. Swore that if she saw him again, she wouldn’t hesitate. Not long afterwards, he’d gone down for armed robbery. He’d almost served that sentence and had been due for release within a few months. If he was convicted for murder, he would be out of her life for another twenty years, perhaps forever.

People assumed Grace did the work she did because of her father’s influence. Discipline, upholding the law. A duty to serve and protect. Her father was an army officer who had fought in the Vietnam War and been awarded the Military Cross, later retiring as a brigadier. These days, he worked as hard for peace as he had ever done for war. There was some truth in the theory-she had lived with her father’s ideals throughout her life-but when she looked in the mirror and saw her scar, she knew it was this thin thread that drove her. She felt it as a mental thing, a mark in her consciousness as well as on her body. No one should go through what I went through. A simple sentence that carried too much weight.

Courtrooms always reminded Paul Harrigan of those miniature mazes into which scientific researchers drove rats against their will. The squared layout with the judge staring directly at the dock and the accused. The witness stand located beside the judge’s high seat, trapping the witness in a vice between the judge and both sets of lawyers. And then the jury side-on in their box, supposedly disinterested assessors instead of disparate individuals who might be confused, bored, or ruled by prejudice. Whatever a courtroom’s vintage, it gave him a sense of claustrophobia to be inside one. Today he was seated in the public gallery at Darlinghurst Court House, where the age of the courtroom gave it a sense of harsh ritual that some modern ones didn’t immediately have. At least, not until the verdict was read out and the sentence handed down, with the usual outcome of leaving everyone involved feeling cheated.

There were too few people in the public gallery for Harrigan to go unnoticed. His tall figure with its dark-fair hair was too easy to spot. Already a journalist had waylaid him to ask what he was doing there, then dropped the snippet into the gossip column on the back page of the Sydney Morning Herald . As sharp-minded as she was, the journalist hadn’t guessed that Harrigan was there for Grace.

Grace had never told him the full story of how she’d got her scar, but she’d said enough for him to put the facts together. Ever since she’d told him about Newell stalking her and throwing petrol over her, he’d made sure he always knew exactly where the man was and what he was doing. Called in favours so that Newell’s request for parole was kept at the back of the queue. Grace would have said she could protect herself. True or not, there was no way he could have sat back and left her to worry about it alone. He had lost too much in his past life to let anything like this remain out of his control, not for someone he cared for as much as he did her. His life had become a gift, made up of a happiness he had never expected to achieve. No one was going to wreck it. What he wanted was for Newell to get the maximum, preferably to spend the rest of his life in gaol. But that was up to the lawyers and the judge and finally the jury, not him.

The prosecution had noticed him in the public gallery as well; he had seen them comment to each other. Whether the defence lawyer, Joel Griffin, knew he was watching, Harrigan couldn’t tell. He hoped not. Chris Newell’s barrister was the last person he wanted to talk to. As to whether Newell knew who he was, he didn’t care about that either. All Harrigan wanted was for him to go down, but the way his barrister was defending him, maybe he wouldn’t.