The information he couldn’t find was also interesting. Griffin was a lone wolf, listed as an individual only, not connected to any particular legal firm. Unlike some other practitioners, there was no photograph attached to his contact details. This wasn’t so very unusual, but it fitted the man’s elusiveness. Harrigan phoned the number given for Griffin’s office and was answered by a recorded message, the kind preinstalled on any readily available answering machine. There was nothing to identify that you were leaving a message for Joel Griffin, barrister. He hung up without leaving his details.
After a moment’s thought, he googled again-not Griffin, but himself and Grace. On a few occasions their photographs had made it to the gossip columns of various media websites. Grace called it her fifteen seconds of virtual fame. Harrigan studied the photographs one after the other. On none was her scar visible.
He heard her car outside and went down to the kitchen, relieved that she was home. Despite the lateness of the hour he had waited for her before eating, caught in his own thoughts and occupied with his daughter’s needs. Then Grace was there in the doorway, smiling. As he always did, he touched her face and then kissed her. He knew the real face under the make-up, the feel of her skin, her mouth. He knew her, the emotions she kept hidden, her body, better than anyone.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m okay. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. We need to talk about it.’
‘I’ll get changed and put my gun away. Is Ellie asleep?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe I won’t look in on her. I might wake her up.’
‘The door’s open. You can look in.’
When she came back downstairs, the transformation was complete. The real woman had appeared. Her long dark hair was out on her shoulders, her make-up was gone. The drab pants suit had been changed for jeans, a yellow T-shirt and socks. She curled up cross-legged on a chair.
‘Put your gun away?’ he asked.
Both he and Grace had an unbreakable rule that they never wore their firearms in their daughter’s presence, even if they were concealed. Harrigan had a licence for a firearm for his personal safety and kept a handgun and ammunition in a safe in his study. Grace, whose work allowed her to keep her gun with her at all times, locked hers in there as well when she was home.
‘It’s where little children’s hands can’t get to it. I did look in on her. She’s fast asleep. She’s got your hair. It’s so beautiful. When we cut it, I’m going to keep some.’
Harrigan put the meal on the table-food Grace had cooked on her days off, his interest in kitchen matters reaching no further than setting the microwave and turning it on.
‘Newell, babe,’ he said. ‘Is he going to turn up here?’
Could Newell really be so mad? The fear was like living in shadows where you couldn’t distinguish real from false. Had it been him on her tail tonight? It depressed her that she couldn’t talk to Harrigan about it.
‘It’d be lunacy,’ she said instead. ‘Every police officer in New South Wales must be out there looking for him. He won’t be able to show his face anywhere. How did it happen?’
‘It was a setup. Someone must have been paid to make sure Chris Newell was there at that time and they could get to him. If that includes either of the drivers, they’re both dead now. They can’t tell anyone anything. I was talking to Joel Griffin when it happened.’
‘Why him?’
‘He wanted to see me. He knows about you and Newell, babe. He knows about your scar and how you got it. He was trying to blackmail me. Kept fishing to see what I was prepared to give him.’
Grace looked as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She put down her fork, covered her face for a few seconds.
‘Oh, God,’ she said.
‘It hasn’t happened yet.’
He reached over and took her hand. She held on to him, squeezing hard, then let go.
‘What did you tell him?’ she asked.
‘That he could go jump. If he tried anything funny, he’d regret it.’
She picked up her fork again. The mood had changed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her so angry.
‘He can put it all over the front page of the Telegraph if he wants to. I wouldn’t give him the time of day.’
‘We’re giving him nothing,’ Harrigan said. ‘What’s he going to do? If he puts it out there, he’s in breach of client confidence. What’s that going to do for his reputation? If he does, I’ll go after him through the Bar Council.’
‘If it does get out, it’ll affect me at work. Clive won’t like it.’
‘Are you going to tell him about it?’
‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘He might take me off what I’m working on and I don’t want that. I don’t have to tell him everything. My life’s my own.’
‘How was it today?’
She shrugged, frowning. Her work was beginning to affect her, he thought. Grace, at ease, put other people at their ease, laughed and made him laugh. The woman who liked to dress up and go out and enjoy herself was another self to the one who dressed so plainly for work. When she was under pressure, she changed; she put on a hard, excluding shell. He knew that Newell was partly to blame for that cold barrier being there, but that didn’t help things. He didn’t want her to become like that again, the way she had been when he’d first met her. He wanted her light-hearted and full of sparkle again, the way she had been these last few years.
‘It was okay,’ she said. ‘I think I achieved something so that was good. Do you know a Mark Borghini? He’s my contact with the police. He asked about you.’
‘Mark? Yeah, I know him. He’s not exactly Mr Tactful but he’s good value. That’s good for you, babe. You can rely on him. What did he want to know?’
‘Just how you were.’
He waited but she seemed to have nothing else to say. He let the subject pass. Knowing Mark Borghini was her contact made him feel better about the work she was doing.
‘This escape-it’s madness,’ she said. ‘The police are going to find whoever’s behind it, sooner rather than later because they’ll put everything they’ve got into it. And when they do, those people will end up dead.’
‘It’s suicide,’ Harrigan agreed. ‘Makes no sense to me at all. Whatever’s going on, we don’t want anything to do with it. Or Griffin. He’s a strange fish. He told me he was representing Newell pro bono.’
‘Why?’
‘As far as I can tell, for the information in Newell’s head. Maybe that’s how Griffin makes his money. Extortion.’
‘It won’t work with us,’ Grace said.
‘No way.’ There was a pause. ‘You’re tired, babe.’
‘Yeah. Let’s go to bed.’
As they were clearing up, their home phone rang: a private unlisted number they gave out only to friends and family. Grace glanced at Harrigan.
‘For you?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know who it could be at this time of night.’
‘Could be Nicky, I suppose. He can call this late.’
Her brother ran a restaurant on the Central Coast and sometimes rang at the end of his working day to chat to her. She picked up the phone, putting it on speakerphone.
‘Hi there,’ she said, cautiously.
A woman began to laugh, softly and maliciously. ‘Grace,’ she said and laughed again.
Grace turned off the speakerphone but left the line open, then picked up her work mobile and called the Orion control centre. ‘I have an anonymous call on my home phone right now. The caller said my first name, then began to laugh.’ She glanced at the phone. ‘They’ve just hung up. Can you trace that call and log the time and date, please? Thank you.’