The Tattooed Man (29 page)

‘You write your letter of resignation,’ Harrigan said.

Marvin shook his head ‘No. I’m not going to resign.’

‘Yes, you are, you and your son together, but you’re going first. You’re going to be out of this job in an hour. You’ve been playing with fire, Marvin. You know what I’m advising you to do? Go to the commissioner. Tell him everything you’ve just told me. Get him to put you in a safe house. Because once your cover is blown, or even when he doesn’t need you any more, du Plessis is going to kill you.’

‘What about my reputation? I could be charged. I’m not going to gaol.’

Marvin got to his feet. He picked up his briefcase and walked to the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘You can’t stop me, Harrigan. I’m leaving the building with everyone else. It’s going-home time anyway. Good afternoon.’

He walked quickly past Sharon who was still sitting at her desk. Harrigan went after him. She picked up her bag and followed them both. The corridor was deserted. Marvin was heading for the fire escape.

‘Your reputation is more important than your life?’ Harrigan called after him.

‘You’re talking rubbish. I’m not in any danger.’

He opened the fire door and began to walk down the fire stairs at speed. Harrigan followed.

‘I’ll do it myself,’ he called. ‘I’m not having you on my conscience.’

‘You will not!’

‘Watch me. I’m going to talk to the commissioner as soon as I can. I’ll tell him everything you told me, everything I said to you. And I mean everything.’

Marvin had reached the landing of the next floor down. Harrigan pushed behind him to get past and be in front of him. When he did, Marvin charged him, ramming him into the corner of the stairwell, smacking his shoulder against the concrete wall. They wrestled, almost tumbling down the stairs, forcing each other to a standstill. Harrigan’s feet gripped the floor as he swayed dangerously.

‘For God’s sake, stop it!’ White-faced, Sharon stood a step above them. ‘People will see, people will hear.’

Marvin let Harrigan go and drew back. ‘I am not going to the commissioner. Nothing will make me do that.’

‘Go away,’ Harrigan said to Sharon, who ran past them down the stairs. Then to Marvin: ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Yes, I do. If you tell the commissioner, then it’ll be on your head. I’ll deny everything. I’ll tell them you’re a liar. I’ll say I’ve never seen any of those pictures before, I’ve never spoken to du Plessis, I’ve never heard of him before today. It’s your word against mine. You can’t prove anything.’

‘Sharon was outside the door the whole time.’

‘She won’t support you over me.’

‘Marvin, you’ll be dead. As soon as he thinks you’re a danger to him, you’ll be dead.’

Marvin had turned to go down the stairs. He spun round. Harrigan couldn’t have described the intensity of emotion in his eyes at that moment.

‘I’d rather
be
dead!’

He ran down the stairs. Harrigan went after him.

‘You’re going to have to lie, Marvin,’ he shouted. ‘I’m still going to the commissioner.’

‘You can find me at home. Then you can die in hell!’

They had reached the ground floor. Marvin moved with quick, long strides towards the emergency evacuation point. Fire wardens gestured for them both to hurry. Harrigan followed Marvin outside, through the crowds that were hurrying across the street to get clear of the building. Marvin continued to walk quickly, turning a corner of the building and heading down a side street, towards the nearest railway station. He began to cross the road.

‘Marvin, stop,’ Harrigan shouted, going after him.

Marvin turned, standing halfway across the street. They were at a distance from the crowd. The expression on his face brought Harrigan to a halt. It was the look of a man you’ve hurt so badly he’ll never be able to forgive you.

‘For God’s sake, Harrigan, what do you want from me? You’ve forced me out. What can I do for you now? I can’t tell you anything that will pin du Plessis down. I don’t know where to find him.’

‘You can sting him for us. That could be a way back for you.’

‘He won’t meet with me after today. Not with his name and photo out there everywhere. Now leave me alone! You can wait to get my resignation.’

Suddenly Marvin’s head was punched sideways and he staggered forward. Simultaneously dark, wet red lines poured down his face and neck. ‘Marvin!’ Harrigan shouted. Marvin’s body jerked and he crumpled to the ground, his briefcase still clutched in his hand. Another bullet cracked on the pavement beside Harrigan. Instantaneously, he hit the road behind a parked car. He stayed rigidly still but there was silence. The shooting had stopped.

He found himself staring under the car into Marvin’s vacant eyes. There was no expression, just the terrible emptiness of death. There was silence in his own head, before he was engulfed by the shock, the high whine of sirens at a distance, and then of other people screaming and shouting for help.

G
race’s taxi pulled up outside the parking station, a converted warehouse several streets away from Redfern station.

‘Do you want me to wait?’ the driver asked.

‘No,’ she said.

It was peak hour, the traffic was busy. She was standing on the footpath sizing up the building and the parking station’s operations when her phone rang.

‘Grace,’ Brinsmead said. ‘Can you talk to me?’

‘What is it?’

‘I have some information on the Commander’s son but I can only give it to you if you give me your word that you won’t tell the police where you got it.’

‘I can do my best,’ she replied. ‘But that isn’t going to be easy.’

‘You have to give me your word or I’ll have to hang up. If I do, that’ll be the end of it.’

‘All right. You’ve got my word.’

‘It’s vital you keep it. Check a car park called Prestige Car Parking near Redfern station for a white Toyota HiAce with this registration number.’ Daniel read out a New South Wales plate number. ‘Do you have that?’

‘Yes, I do.’

He cut the call immediately.

Grace had thought through everything she’d overheard that afternoon and had decided that Sam Jonas and Daniel Brinsmead were very possibly deep-cover operatives working for a secret service agency. Sam’s attitude, her professionalism, together with the setup—one career agent and one civilian cover with the advantage of an army background—was a situation Grace had come across in the past. If, as it seemed, Sam was the controlling agent in the duo, then Brinsmead had gone against her direct orders.

The sign on the parking station entrance said
24-hour Parking, Cash Only.
Secure weekly and monthly parking was also available. All payments for long stay in advance, drivers granted individual keycard access. At this time of day, the station was at its busiest with cars queuing to pay for their day’s parking and get out onto Elizabeth Street.

Grace thought about the warrant card she used for her work. It carried the legal power to get her into almost anywhere; a piece of plastic that gave her more powers of entry than the police had. If she used it here for a purpose unrelated to her work, she would be in serious breach of her organisation’s regulations. She went inside the parking station.

‘Where do you keep your long-stay vehicles?’ she asked the attendant.

‘Top floor.’

‘All of them?’

‘Top floor!’

He was busy giving change to a driver. Grace was standing on a dangerously narrow walkway. The driver honked his horn at her when he drove out. She looked around at the inside of the parking
station. It was a wide area, separated into sections by pillars. She would waste time searching for a white van in that broad space.

‘Is it full?’

‘Jesus!’ the attendant said, and tapped into a computer. ‘You shouldn’t be standing there, it’s dangerous. No. There are eleven spaces left. If you want to leave your car in long stay, you’ve got pay cash upfront.’

‘I need to find a white Toyota HiAce with this registration number,’ she said.

‘Why?’

He was a young man, no more than eighteen, nervous and overweight with a pencil-thin beard. Quickly, she flashed her warrant card.

‘Police,’ she said. ‘This may be a lead in a kidnapping. We’re looking for a white van and we have a tipoff that it may be here on a long-stay rental.’

Another vehicle pulled up. The driver handed in his ticket. Confused, the attendant fluffed the change, then after a sharp reprimand from the driver gave the correct money.

‘Yeah, I heard about that on TV. I don’t know if I should. I’ll get Ray. He’s the boss.’

‘Check my warrant card again and give me the information.’

‘It doesn’t say police.’

‘This card comes with powers of entry. If you don’t believe me, ring the number on it.’

He grew more flustered. ‘Okay,’ he said and keyed the number into the computer. ‘Top floor. Bay 25. A white Toyota HiAce. Paid a month’s rental. Mr Robert Woods from Coolangatta. He’s a regular. He can’t be who you’re looking for.’

‘Do you have a key to that van? I need to open it.’

‘No, we don’t do that. You leave it at your own risk. I couldn’t give it to you anyway.’

Grace thought of what she might have in her bag.

‘I’m going to check it out,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, call the police and tell them it’s an emergency.’

‘I thought you said you were the police.’

‘Just do what I say. Call the police now!’

She took the lift to the top floor. Bay 25 was at the back in the corner. The van had been parked with its back doors against the wall, making it impossible to open them without moving the vehicle. There were cars either side of it, hemming it in. There were no side windows on the body of the van and both the windscreen and the windows in the doors were covered with blinds. Grace looked at her watch. It was well after six. If Toby was inside, he would have been there for over twenty-four hours. There was no one around. She took out her illegal gun and used it to smash the windscreen, put it away quickly, and then tore out the blinds, using them to clear away the remains of the smashed safety glass. The smell of human waste hit her powerfully.

‘What the fuck have you done? Shit!’

It wasn’t the attendant but whoever was in charge, a tall, thin and bearded man in his mid-thirties; Ray, she supposed. He had been running towards her but the smell brought him to a stop.

‘There’s someone in there,’ she said. ‘It’s a kidnap victim and he’s been left here to die. I’m going to ring for an ambulance. Can you get this van out of there and get the back doors open? And is there anywhere I can get some water around here?’

‘Hang on. I’ve got to check this out,’ he replied and levered himself into the van through the gap
where the windscreen had been. He called out, ‘There is someone here. Yeah, it’s that crippled kid. But I don’t know if he’s alive.’

Grace was ringing for an ambulance. ‘Can you just get that van out of there so we can open the doors?’ she repeated.

She had barely hung up when the van came to life and moved forward, swinging around into the lane. Then shortly afterwards, the side door was opened and Ray got out.

‘You know how to do that,’ Grace said, with a relieved grin.

‘Years of practice,’ he replied, grinning back. ‘You wanted water, you said.’

‘And a clean cloth if you’ve got one.’

He was gone; she scrambled inside. Toby was dressed and on his side on a blanket. He had been tied with rough ropes and couldn’t move from the centre of the van. It looked as if a rag had been pushed into his mouth but somehow he’d spat it out. His mouth was open, as if he’d tried to speak or even shout before he’d passed out. His body was rigid. The blanket was wet with urine and Toby was dirtied but he was breathing. Grace checked his pulse. It was regular if weak.

Ray had come back. He handed her a bottle of water and a clean handkerchief. She soaked the handkerchief in water and put it into Toby’s mouth. Instinctively, he began to suck it.

‘You need to call the police,’ Grace said to Ray.

‘I already did that.’ He laughed. ‘I was asking them to come and get you. But there’s been some kind of explosion at the police building. There’s three people dead, one of them’s a government minister. Lucky I’ve got a mate over here at Redfern. They’re on their way.’

Was Harrigan one of the dead? She stopped and stared at Ray then shook off the question as quickly as she could. Everything in her rejected the possibility. And there was no point in trying to call him to find out what had happened. All she could usefully do now was focus on Toby and see him to hospital alive.

‘Do you have CCTV?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, we do.’

‘You need to give the police footage of the man who left this van here and anything else you have about him.’

‘I’ll do that.’

The ambulance arrived before the police. The paramedics cut the ropes with a fine disregard for forensic niceties. Grace went with Toby to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he was washed and cleaned, then put on a drip and connected to the various monitors that read his body. The doctor told her he was badly dehydrated and in pain but it was most likely no lasting damage had been done.

By now it was growing dark. She tried to ring Harrigan again and again got his voicemail. It was too late to be messing around. She rang the commissioner’s assistant, a number she had been given in case of dire emergency.

‘I’m trying to get hold of Commander Harrigan,’ she said. ‘It’s very, very urgent and he’s not answering his phone.’

‘The commander can’t be disturbed. There’s been a significant incident here, as you may have heard, and he’s in a meeting with representatives from ASIO and the Australian Federal Police at this moment. I can take a message.’

As usual, Chloe’s voice dripped with frost. Grace took a few moments to draw breath over the fact that at least Harrigan was alive.

‘It’s to do with his son. He’s been found and he’s in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital right now. The commander may want to see him. You can tell him Toby’s going to survive but he’s badly dehydrated.’

She hung up. Harrigan could call her back if he wanted to. Instead, he arrived in person not long afterwards, hurrying down the corridor. She felt that odd, sharp shock of seeing someone you care about too much after they’ve been absent from your life for a while. The sight of the marks on his face made her heart tighten even though Trevor had already told her he’d been in a fight. He walked up to her and touched her face but didn’t speak, just looked at her. Then he went into the glassed-in room where Toby was asleep and touched his son’s hand. After some moments, he walked outside.

‘I didn’t believe it at first,’ he said. ‘I thought it must be a joke.’

‘I’d never joke about something like this.’

‘I didn’t mean you. I meant fate.’

‘He’s your other half,’ she said. ‘His mind reflects yours.’

‘His mind is clear. Mine’s clouded with too much past.’

He hugged her then, unexpectedly and tightly, almost too tightly, and they kissed. They held on to each other in stillness in the centre of the busy corridor. Time stopped and acquired depth in place of movement. Whether people were watching neither of them thought. For that short space of time, everything between them was in balance, all questions were resolved.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll say it again. Thanks. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. Is he unconscious or asleep?’

‘He’s sedated,’ she said. ‘They’re trying to relax him and stabilise his body temperature. He’s very weak at the moment.’

Harrigan glanced around to see who was within hearing distance.

‘I’ve stabbed all my people in the back, Grace, and flushed everything I believe in down the toilet on a false promise. He left him there to die, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bastard,’ Harrigan said softly, shaking his head.

‘Don’t talk about it here. Let’s go into Toby’s room.’

Harrigan sat beside the bed. Toby’s skin was pale against the crisp white sheets, his eyelids dark. It was the same steel cot that had cosseted him all his life.

‘Is it true Edwards is dead?’ she asked.

‘He was blown sky high, him and his adviser. The blast killed one of the officers on duty at the front desk as well. There’s something else. Marvin’s dead. He was shot by a sniper. Assassinated. I’m asking myself when this is going to stop.’

‘Do you have any idea who?’

‘Possibly.’ He looked at Toby again. ‘How did you find out where he was? Someone must have told you.’

‘I gave my word that I wouldn’t say who it was.’

‘You have to tell me more than that,’ Harrigan said. ‘There’s a lot of dead people out there. We’ve got to bring this to an end.’

‘I can tell you how I got this information, but there’s also a question of secrecy and I think that secrecy is important.’

‘Before we go any further, let me ask you this. Did your information come via Sam Jonas in any way?’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because in my judgement, there’s no else in this who’s enough of a wild card and who knows more about what’s going on than she does. I know the name of our gunman now. Du Plessis. My guess is Sam knows him. Maybe she’s been on his tail or they’re mates.’

‘I don’t think they’re mates,’ Grace said.

‘It was her. What do you know?’

‘It’s complicated. There’s a connection between Sam Jonas and Brinsmead.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Just take it from me: they’re a team and they’re targeting Elena Calvo and LPS in some way. They may be operatives from a secret service agency, possibly a British one. She’s the professional, he’s the civilian cover, probably chosen because he has a personal connection to Calvo and he’s in the right profession. He’s also ex-army. That counts.’

‘What are these people doing here in Sydney if that is who they are?’

‘Finding out what LPS is really up to. But if they are operatives, I would have expected someone at senior federal government level to know they’re here and to have given them the go ahead. The problem is whether they really are legitimate. If they are, and this information becomes known, we could jeopardise their operation. If we do that, more people could end up dead. At best, we could abort what they’re doing.’

‘Wouldn’t Edwards have known about them?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Their minders might have thought his connection to Elena Calvo made it too dangerous to tell him.’

‘Grace, at the moment we have representatives from every federal agency connected to intelligence in the police building. ASIO, the AFP, your people as well,’ he said, referring to the Orion task force she worked for. ‘I was in a meeting with them all when I got your message. Wouldn’t Orion know if people like this were here?’

‘I would have expected Orion to know, but there’s no reason why I would have been told. ASIO should have been.’

‘If ASIO or Orion do know about these people,’ Harrigan said, ‘and if what they’re doing is legitimate, then I’d expect to have been told by now given what’s happened.’

‘Sam talked like she was the controlling operative,’ Grace said. ‘If she is, she wouldn’t be briefing anyone in those agencies on what they’re doing day to day. Her minders wouldn’t necessarily give any details on the nature of the operation to other than a very few people. You’ve identified a connection between your murder investigation and LPS but that connection isn’t known outside of your squad. And for all we know, their presence here is clandestine and the government hasn’t been told. If Sam and Brinsmead are working for an anti-terrorist cell that has unorthodox methods, then the rules for those cells have changed in the last few years.’