Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

They walked away.

‘Can she talk?’ Harrigan asked.

‘A little bit. There was no point in introducing you,’ Hilary said. ‘She won’t know who you are.’

‘My information is she’s been here since 1981. What happened to her?’

‘That’s true. She’s seen out three directors of nursing and one change of ownership. Actually she’s been in homes for longer than that. Her story’s on the public record so it won’t matter if I tell you. Her husband took an iron bar to her one night in 1977. She has irreversible brain damage. She’s been like that since she was thirty-five.’

Harrigan almost said, what kind of a life is that, when he thought about his son. Toby had a mind. A mind can take you anywhere.

‘I have a letter from the son dated 1981 where he says he thinks she’s showing signs of improvement,’ he said.

‘That would have been a very vain hope even then. Do you know what this son looks like?’

‘I’ve got one old photograph.’

She looked at it for some moments. ‘I think this is him,’ she said. ‘We’ll go to Loretta’s room. It’s just down here.’

It was a brightly decorated room, with soft toys on the shelves and a television set facing the bed.

‘Does she watch TV?’

‘She seems to. There are things she gets pleasure out of. This is her Joel.’

It was a picture taken at a Christmas party, a younger version of the same woman with her son next to her. The years had been stripped away from her in this photograph but in actuality she appeared no different from the way she was now, still strapped in her chair. A teenage boy, the same one as in Ian Blackmore’s photograph, was sitting beside her and holding her hand. Seated next to him was an attractive, red-haired girl. Harrigan turned the photograph over. Mum, me and Sara, 1981 , written in the same childish handwriting as the letter.

‘Do you know the last time he visited her?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

‘No one I know has seen him here. Loretta hasn’t had any visitors since I’ve been here and that’s five years now. This was a long time ago. For all I know it was the last Christmas he spent with her.’

‘I think it probably was,’ Harrigan replied. ‘Last question. Do you know her husband’s name?’

‘No. But apparently he was tried and convicted of attempted murder so there must be a record of it somewhere. I guess he’s out of gaol by now. You’d have to say he wasn’t the one who got the life sentence.’

‘Thank you for your information. You’ve been very helpful.’

‘I’m sorry to hear her son is dead. He might have been someone to visit her.’

Harrigan, used to the kinds of assumptions people made about Toby, particularly when he had been growing up, could not bring himself to make a judgement on the nature of Loretta Griffin’s life. Maybe the physical comfort and care were enough for her. Who knew? It wasn’t a question he wanted to answer.

He drove home, caught in his thoughts, and went up to his study. There he opened his wallet, took out Joel Griffin’s card and placed it on his desk. Then he googled Griffin’s name, the date of Blackmore’s meeting with him eight years ago and Parramatta Court House. A courtroom was a public place; a trial was always on the public record. The information came up, not from the legal databases but on the national broadcaster, a late night program canvassing the subject of the Sydney crime world. On that date, a small-time thief associated with a particular criminal organisation was being defended by Joel Griffin on a charge of attempted murder. The trial had been complex and had gone on for a number of weeks. The man had been acquitted but later ended up dead as part of a gang war. The broadcaster had been speculating on the lines of influence operating in that same war.

These details relating to Griffin’s client weren’t relevant to Harrigan’s current investigation. But the item did prove that Joel Griffin had been at Parramatta Court House the day Ian Blackmore had disappeared; the day Blackmore had supposedly been intending to meet him there. What if one day Blackmore had been reading the paper and spotted Griffin’s name? This trial was the kind of item to make it to the newspaper, even if just in brief. According to his sister, Blackmore would have tried to get in touch with Griffin, probably immediately, to see if he was the same Joel Griffin he’d known at Camp Sunshine.

Blackmore had known both Craig Wells and the real Joel Griffin. If you were ruthless enough, it wouldn’t be too hard to force a man into signing his own suicide note. One way to keep a busy police force at bay. Particularly if you had already concocted an accusation of child molestation. There was just enough time here for someone to have done that. Someone moving quickly against an unexpected threat.

Blackmore was dead, he had to be. Probably murdered the very night he’d gone missing. But someone had still put his name to the bottom of a letter to Frank Wells, just as someone had appropriated Jennifer Shillingworth’s name for a property trust. Ghosts, both of them, made use of by someone with a nasty sense of humour. Just as Joel Griffin, on the basis of everything Harrigan had encountered to date, had to be a ghost as well.

Sara McLeod had been an attractive redhead. Was she also Nadine Patterson? Two ruthless people working together. That would be a formidable combination, one any person with a sense of self-preservation would avoid. Harrigan put Griffin’s card away. He wasn’t staying out of their way. He was coming for them. He just had to keep pushing for some more information, something that would bring some provable facts out of the shadows. Something that wasn’t just his own speculation, however compelling that speculation was. So far all he had was guesswork. He locked his gun away and left to collect his daughter.

That night, the three of them had what was almost a normal evening. As always, Grace cooked; she liked to cook, it relaxed her, she said. Ellie was in a happy mood, absorbed in her own play. Harrigan felt it as someone might feel an Indian summer, that interval of warm sunshine before the weather turns bad. It was enough for the moment. In life you should take what’s given to you, because you never know when you might lose it. He had learnt that lesson too often in his own life to let anything of value slip past him. Although neither could tell the other what they’d done with their day, they still seemed to understand each other past the need for words.

Tomorrow night was his book launch. He had dedicated his book to her. Until recently, his life had seemed a gift and this was his small way of acknowledging it to her. He asked if she would be there. She smiled.

‘Of course I will. It’s special.’

‘Just a book. Just my rantings about how the system doesn’t work.’

‘No. It’s special.’

She was asleep before he came to bed. After this quiet evening, her face was still drawn and pale. Again they slept, waiting for the next step in the dance.

At Chipping Norton, Duncan Wong was again the one who opened the door to Grace.

‘We weren’t expecting you to come back,’ he said. ‘Have you got any news? Narelle still won’t talk to us.’

‘No, I don’t, I’m sorry. This is more about seeing how you’ve all been getting on. Has Narelle been out at all?’

‘Once or twice with Dad. Mum doesn’t want to talk to her.’

‘Can I see her?’

‘If she’ll let you in.’

This time when Grace knocked on Narelle’s door, it was opened almost too quickly. Narelle stood there looking pleased with herself. Her brother had already walked away.

‘Yeah, I’ll talk to you,’ she said.