Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

‘I wanted to see him. It’s the last time,’ Sara said.

‘Who is Coopes?’ Grace repeated.

Griffin looked at her in the weak light, a friendly, apparently candid expression on his face. ‘Coopes was going to help me pay you, but we don’t have time to take you to him now. It doesn’t matter. I have money inside the house.’

‘Are we still meeting at Halfway Hut?’ Sara asked.

He stepped forward, a finger in the air, shaking it at her as if it might transform itself into a blow. ‘Don’t. You should know-no-’ He left whatever he was going to say unfinished. ‘You should leave now. Make sure the gates stay open. And whatever you do, no games till I get there. Okay? Don’t underestimate anything. It’s too dangerous.’ He spoke harshly, angrily.

‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you there.’

‘Wait!’ He stopped her as she turned away. ‘Give me your mobile.’

‘What if I need it?’

‘You won’t. Give it to me.’

She handed it over, smiled angrily at Grace, then got into her car and drove up the driveway out of sight. Grace felt the chill of the smile. Then she asked herself: they’re an item, lovers supposedly. Why didn’t they kiss? Do they touch? Does he always talk to her like that?

‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘How do I get out of here?’

‘I drive you. Don’t worry.’ He stopped, listening. ‘Did you hear a car?’

‘Sara?’

‘No. After her.’

Grace listened but heard nothing.

‘There’s no one there,’ she said, with a touch of despair.

Where are you, Clive? You must have heard the pull-out signal. Are you here at all? You can find me. I’m wearing my wire .

‘Is that Marie’s ID?’ Griffin was asking.

‘Yes.’

‘Give it to me.’

She did, having no choice.

‘What about the passport and the tape?’

She handed them over. She watched him open the Camry’s door and put all these things in the glovebox, along with Sara’s mobile.

‘We’re taking all that with us, are we?’ she asked.

‘Come inside,’ he replied, ignoring what she’d said. ‘I have some things I have to get before we leave.’

She followed him but stayed back. If she took out her gun, she’d have to use it; probably to kill. Kill or wound. Wounds that incapacitated often did so permanently and sometimes killed. If she only had herself to rely on, she would have no choice. They reached the back door where he turned on an outside light.

‘Is this your house?’ she asked.

‘I should have inherited it,’ he replied. ‘But in the end I had to buy it.’

‘Why did you want this particular house?’

‘Not your business,’ he said.

He unlocked the door, switched on the inside light, and they walked into an old-fashioned kitchen. There were jerry cans of petrol on the table.

‘What are they doing here?’ she asked.

‘I’m cleaning this house away. But first I have some things to get.’

‘You’re going to burn this place down?’

‘Not me. Some people will do it for me later on tonight. By then we’ll all be long gone.’

‘The house is for sale.’

‘It’s already been sold by private treaty. I have the money. I have another house for sale. As soon as I sell that, it’ll go up as well.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s what I’ve done all my life. Clean away shit. Turn it into something useful instead. When this goes up in flames, that’ll be the last of it wiped out. I’ll have got what I wanted from it. It’ll be money in the bank instead.’

Still keeping a distance behind him, she followed him while he switched on the lights first in a dining room and then the hallway. They passed a bedroom. Grace looked at the disordered sheets. She had a perception of bodies wrestling with brutal movements. You couldn’t tell whether it was love or a beating. A small pile of women’s clothes, including underwear, had been placed on the end of the unmade bed. She glanced at them, then jerked her head back. Who were they waiting for? Not Sara.

‘Why didn’t you wait for us inside the house?’ she asked. ‘Then you could have got what you wanted and we could just have got in the car and gone.’

‘People might have seen the lights and realised someone was here. Only do what you have to do when you have to do it. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here.’

He walked past a bathroom to a door at the end of the hallway. He pushed it open onto a small white-tiled room. This one smelled of bleach and the wooden floor was stained.

‘Let’s not waste any time,’ Grace said. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘I won’t be long,’ Griffin replied.

He knelt, levered up a floorboard and reached down into the cavity below. Grace stepped back and took out her gun.

‘They’re gone.’ He sat up straight on his knees. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘What’s missing?’ she asked.

‘Everything. I put them there just two days ago.’

‘Put what there?’

‘My business records. Money. I have to have those records. I can’t leave without them.’

He stood up and turned around on this last question, saw her gun and stared.

‘Lie down on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you try to do anything else, I’ll kill you.’

He shook his head. His friendly expression was back. ‘You’re not the type to kill. I can tell.’

‘I’m counting to three. One, two-’

She would have fired at him if someone hadn’t taken hold of her from behind. She fired anyway but the bullet went wild, burying itself in the door frame. The man who was pushing her to the floor was too strong for her. He twisted her gun out of her hand, almost breaking her wrist. Then he ripped her phone out of the pocket of her jacket. All she could see were Griffin’s feet, the open cavity and the stained wooden floor.

‘You wouldn’t have killed me,’ Griffin said.

Yes, I would have .

‘Give me that,’ he said to whoever was holding her. ‘It’s a powerful gun. Standard Orion issue, I suppose. Better than mine. Yes, I’ll use this. You can stand up.’

She did, and looked at who was behind her. A man she didn’t know, probably a Ponticelli goon. Griffin was holding her gun. The man who’d tackled her had his own.

‘Where was he?’ Grace asked.

‘He’s been waiting here for hours. In the dark. I always take precautions.’

‘What do you want to do?’ the muscle man asked Griffin.

‘Someone came here and took some things I own,’ Griffin said to Grace. ‘Computers. Portable hard drives. Do you know where they are?’

‘I’ve never heard about any of those things before. Don’t you have backup records somewhere else?’

‘I’d have to go and get them, which complicates things. You and I have somewhere else to be and we’re already late.’ He looked past her to the man holding her. ‘Who’s been here? Do you know?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t get here till late this arvo. I just dumped the petrol on the table and waited.’

Griffin looked around the white-tiled room, searching for something invisible.

‘Would Sara do this? She can be so bitchy when she’s angry with me-’ He stopped. ‘Something like this happened at my other house in Blackheath. Is someone stalking me or is-’ Again he stopped.

‘Doesn’t Sara want to leave with you?’ Grace asked.

‘We both want the same things. We always have,’ he said with the strange and apparently candid look.

He stood there silent in the hallway, thinking.

‘Mate,’ the muscle man said, ‘she drew a gun on you. I reckon she’d have used it. You say she’s from Orion. She’s got to be wired.’ ‘Are you?’ Griffin asked.