Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

The briefcase was locked and there was no way he could guess the combination. He forced it open, pretty much destroying it in the process, to find it packed with neat bricks of American dollar bills. He took them out one by one and counted them. Used hundreds and fifties. Quite a nest egg. You could live very well anywhere in the world on this, for quite some time.

Harrigan suddenly realised that he was so absorbed in looking at these things, anyone could have walked up to him unnoticed. He looked up quickly but there was no one there. The room was empty. What to do with what he’d found? He put the laptops and portable drives back into the black bag and closed the briefcase again as best he could. He had already disturbed the chain of evidence. Assuming he was prepared to admit that he’d broken in here, it could be argued by a defence counsel that he’d compromised what was there, even planted these things. If he took them with him, it was theft.

He thought for a few moments and got to his feet. Collecting a chair from the dining room, he took it down to the linen cupboard where he stood on it and pushed open the manhole cover. Then, one after the other, he pushed the black bag and the briefcase as far into the roof cavity as possible. Let them wonder where they were.

He had closed the cupboard doors and was standing with the chair in his hand when he realised that he’d left the door to the white-tiled room open. He went to close it, stopping to look at the empty room in front of him. People had almost certainly died in there. Killers kept souvenirs. Who knew what else there was in this house? It was getting to the point where he would have to take his information to the police, regardless of what Orion would do.

He closed and was able to relock the laundry door. Once outside, he wedged the broken window back into place as best he could. Then he returned the chair to its place in the overgrown garden. Judging by the length of the grass, nobody came out here very much. Probably they wouldn’t notice that the chair had been moved. Not until they discovered what was missing and began to look around.

The sun was warm and the overgrown garden, with its sounds of bird calls and a soft wind in the trees, seemed dreamlike in its peaceful, bright greenness. Shillingworth Trust was using this house as a bolt hole. It was a good place to be if you didn’t want anyone looking over your shoulder. Or if there was someone in the white-tiled room you wanted to attend to. Given the amount of money in that briefcase, someone would be back here for it soon enough. The best outcome would be if the police were waiting for them when they got here.

There was one last place for him to go: the surgery at Turramurra. He would do that tomorrow morning. Then he would call the police, regardless of Orion’s protocol. Would twenty-four hours make much difference? He could only hope it wouldn’t.

Now he had to get back home himself. He had his book launch to go to.

He was driving down Mona Vale Road when his mobile rang.

‘Harrigan? It’s Eddie.’

Good, Harrigan thought. Contacting Eddie Grippo had been next on his list of things to do.

‘What’s the word?’

‘That place you were asking about the other day, Fairview Mansions. It’s being sold. Went on the market yesterday.’

‘Who are you dealing with?’

‘Some lawyer called Joel Griffin.’

‘Do you know him?’ Harrigan asked.

‘He’s done work for the family in the past. That’s all I know about him.’

‘Any other news?’

‘No, that’s it.’

‘I want to see you,’ Harrigan said.

‘Shit, mate. If anyone sees me with you, I’m fucking dead.’

‘Tomorrow morning at nine. There’s a hotel in Tempe, the Royal Exchange. I’ll be waiting for you in the back room. Don’t worry, it’s private. No one will see you there.’

‘I’ve got to work.’

‘I’ve got things to do too, mate. Be there. I’ll be waiting.’

By the time he got home, Grace was there with Ellie, changed and ready to go. His daughter ran to him as usual and he swung her up in his arms.

‘She’s had her dinner,’ Grace said, ‘and Kidz Corner made sure she had an extra nap this afternoon. We’ll see how she goes tonight. I’ve got her dressed in her party frock. Doesn’t she look pretty?’

Grace looked tired but the smile was real. She had on a light dusting of make-up and her hair was brushed out. She had dressed herself as she did whenever they went out, with a touch of style, colours that showed the delicacy of her skin.

‘ You look lovely,’ he said.

‘It’s a special night.’

They arrived a little later than he had expected. When they walked into the Police Museum, the room was already crowded. Toby was there with his therapist and two friends from university. Harrigan went to speak to him. Hi Dad. Silent words as usual but words nonetheless. His friends, two young women, smilingly shook Harrigan’s hand.

‘Tobes has told us so much about you,’ one of them said.

Tobes. He hadn’t known his son had this nickname.

‘I didn’t know he talked about me.’

‘Oh, yeah. All the time.’

Grace kissed Toby on the cheek and stayed to talk while Harrigan had to mingle. He looked back at them through the crowd. Ellie was in her mother’s arms while Grace stood chatting with Toby and his friends. There was a burst of laughter over something. Don’t ever let anything happen to any of you.

The crowd grew larger. Drinks and finger food were being handed around. Representatives from the publishers and the media mingled with Harrigan’s friends and former colleagues. Then the speeches got under way. First the Director of Public Prosecutions, who was launching the book, then Harrigan himself.

‘In the years I served in the New South Wales Police Service, I often left the courtroom feeling as disappointed as the victims or their relatives, and sometimes as disappointed as the accused when they were sentenced. The apparently disproportionate nature of sentencing doesn’t only apply to those who have been the victims of the crime. But equally as bad, if not worse, is the bureaucratic maze you have to walk through even to get to that trial and the delay of years that process has built into it. And then there’s the trial itself. I can’t tell you how often a witness or a victim has come up to me afterwards and said: “That trial had nothing to do with what happened to me or what I saw. They left out so many facts that were relevant, seemed to know nothing and to care even less about what really happened. What was going on?” Then you have to tell people that trials aren’t necessarily concerned with truth and justice or even facts; only the law and, often, the prejudice of its practitioners.

‘Why does this seem so unfair? Because the law is a blunt instrument? Or an instrument that, as it is administered today, operates mainly to serve itself, not the people it is supposed to protect or deal with fairly? Why is it that in a courtroom you can so often encounter what seems to be a caricature of the truth, of yourself and your actions? Where the idea of justice seems to be the last consideration in anyone’s mind? These are the questions I address in my book.’

The speeches were well received. Sales were brisk, the queues to the table where Harrigan was signing books were lengthy. The launch went on longer than expected. People stayed on to talk. Ellie was tired and rubbing her eyes. Harrigan saw Grace sit down with her in a chair a short distance from the table. Ellie fell asleep in her arms. In a period of quietness, he found himself in an intense discussion with two friends, an SC and a journalist. The SC, a man, thought he had been too critical of the administration of the law; the journalist, a woman, thought he had been more than fair and could have gone further. Toby wheeled himself over to listen. Both people knew him and greeted him.