Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

‘Like you and me? You know what she’s done and you say that.

She’s a murderer, Toby.’

No she’s my friend

‘Someone like this comes to you from out of nowhere on the Net and you trust her with everything about you. She knows how to get under your skin, doesn’t she? How do you know she really did this?’

She told me the morning she did it Before it was on the news oranywhere else

‘She told you. She told you and you didn’t tell me and you didn’t tell anyone else?’

No I couldn’t She hadn’t told me I could yet

‘Does she know who I am?’

No

‘How do you know that? You’ve got my picture all over your website with ‘my dad’ written underneath it. I’ve been on TV tonight, and the night before. I’m just as likely to end up in the newspapers or on the Net tomorrow. She’s going to see me one of these days if she hasn’t already. How’s she going to react to you then?’

She won’t care She’s my friend She understands U have 2 let me talk2 her If I do that I can make her give herself up She will if I talk 2 herI can do that Because I understand her I can fix this

‘No, you won’t, mate. What you’ll do is stay out of this. This is police business, not some game. You can talk to her if you want but we’ll be watching everything you say to her. And why? Because I have to do that. I have to authorise people I’d prefer to know nothing about my private life to come and crawl all over your computer and talk to you. I’ve got to prove that you weren’t an accessory after the fact and that I don’t have a conflict of interest. Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew about this?’

Why are u going 2 watch us What are u going 2 do?

‘What am I going to do? I am going to trace her, Toby. And when I do, I’m going to put her away in gaol for the next thirty years or so for what she’s done.’

U can’t trace her She uses a mobile amp; she’s my friend amp; its not agame dad So why don’t u just go away

Harrigan stood up.

‘She’s not your friend. She’s a murderer. She’s used you, Toby, and you’ve let her.’

Toby turned off his computer; the room became silent as the sound of the machine died. There was a shudder through Toby’s body, he uttered a strange sound. Toby was crying. Harrigan’s son never cried.

‘Don’t do that to yourself, Toby. You don’t need to do that.’

‘My friend.’ Toby spoke the words aloud.

He began to strike his desk with his hand. Harrigan hit the emergency call button and then tried to take Toby’s hand but his son pushed him back. He moved Toby out of his wheelchair and set him on the bed, and then tried to cradle him there. Toby rolled away from him, gasping for breath. His body went into spasm as Tim Masson opened the door and came into the room. The nurse injected Toby with a muscle relaxant and they sat him upright so he could breathe.

Harrigan held his son until his body had stopped shuddering. Masson handed him a towel soaked in warm water and he cleaned Toby’s face.

Toby shook his head to stop him.

‘You need some sleep,’ Harrigan said.

Toby signalled ‘no’. They waited.

‘Didn’t use me. My friend,’ he said at length.

Harrigan could not remember when he had last heard his son speak so many words at once.

‘Yes, she is your friend. Whatever else she is, she is that. And she didn’t use you. I was wrong to say that. I’m sorry. Just take that from me. I am sorry.’

Eventually Toby flickered ‘yes’ with his hand. Harrigan touched his son’s hair, bright dark hair, just like his own, letting his hand stay there for some few short moments.

I always leave you in the end, I walk away and I leave you. Just you and what’s in your head.

‘You sleep now. I’ll come and see you tomorrow. I’m sorry, okay?’

Toby closed his eyes, his nurse adjusted his pillows. He was slipping away into unconsciousness.

‘I’ll sit with him,’ Masson said.

‘Okay,’ Harrigan replied.

‘Okay,’ he said again, as he walked down the corridor outside, wrung out. He stopped to stand on the back deck to the building, looking out over Cockatoo Island. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to the night air, holding every muscle tensed.

Alcohol was not allowed on the premises of Cotswold House. Susie, dressed down at the end of the day, provided Harrigan with strong coffee in her office instead. She listened to him, occasionally blinking with tiredness.

‘He’s got us all on display, Susie, everyone. Me, Ronnie, Carolyn, all their kids, the whole family. He’s my son, he’s the closest thing to me. To me, this is about as private as it gets, but he’s got me up there on the Net with everyone else.’

He was referring to what a former long-term lover had once called the Harrigan tribe: his two sisters with their extended and conjoint families, a gathering of people that could, when collected, fill a hall.

On such occasions, Harrigan spent most of his time avoiding relatives who wanted favours from him. Photographs of them all, Harrigan included, filled Toby’s website. Toby had not told the world that his father was a policeman, it was almost the only detail he had left out.

Harrigan had refused to let him include it, saying that if he did, he could expect to find abuse, pleas for help, or outrageous flattery in every email he opened.

‘He’s not thinking about what it means to you, Paul,’ Susie replied.

‘He’s thinking about what it means to him. His body keeps him constrained every second of his life. He’s an adolescent boy. He needs to tell the world who he is.’

‘Yeah. And you let him talk to a murderer. And you didn’t even know it.’

Susie rocked a little in her seat with the force of the accusation, her cheeks tinged with red.

‘I can’t stop him talking to people on the Net. I don’t think we should even want to try and do that,’ she said. ‘He never talks to girls anywhere else. He’s a boy. What do you think he’s going to do? And how could anyone have known who this girl was?’

Harrigan sat with his head in his hands, staring at Susie’s desk.

‘He trusted her, you know. Why? Why let someone like that hurt him so much? I — ’

Harrigan stopped, obliged in common honesty to admit that he was the person who had most hurt his son that night. There was a hint of toughness in Susie’s voice as she replied.

‘What are you going to do? Are you going to lock him away so he can’t talk to anyone again?’

‘No, of course I’m not. I don’t understand it myself, I like to see who I’m talking to.’

He knew that not everyone out there wanted to look at his son, that sometimes people turned away at the sight, repulsed. There was silence again. A little of the tension faded from the air.

‘Toby is a very strong-willed person, Paul. He’s the strongest person I know. He’ll get through this.’

‘Yeah, he will. I know he will. I have to go, Susie. I’ve got to go back to work. I’ve got to tell them about this. I’ll come by tomorrow but I’m not sure when. Whenever I can get the time.’

‘Don’t worry about Toby tonight. We’ll look after him, he’ll be fine.

Good night. Take care.’

She spoke in her professional voice but still managed to sound as tired as he felt.

‘Thanks, Susie. Good night,’ he said.

Harrigan walked out into the cold night air. His son’s tears and his mucus were streaked down his shirt and jacket. This was love; it was the strangest thing in the world to feel, as fundamental and difficult as it was. He could not imagine existing without his connection to his son.

How he got through the next few hours he did not quite know. In the Gents, he sponged the stains off his jacket and shirt. Out in the office, he watched himself work, thorough, quietly spoken, controlled.