Perhaps he had been too caught in his night thoughts, looking inwards, something habitual to him. Staring into the dark, he saw the figure in his back garden, a man, solid against the lighter city darkness, moving away from a camphor laurel towards the wall between his garden and Birchgrove Park.
Harrigan was at his safe almost immediately and had his gun out. Moving as silently as possible, he went into the spare bedroom at the front of the house. Snatching the keys out of the drawer there, he unlocked the double doors onto the veranda and stepped outside. He heard a car starting on the street but had no intention of running outside after it, possibly straight into a bullet. He leaned over the balcony and saw it in the streetlight-a white Toyota Camry speeding up the street. It was too far away to get the numberplate. Then it was gone.
When he came out of the room, he saw Grace standing by Ellie’s door, listening. She put a finger to her lips. ‘She’s still asleep,’ she mouthed. He nodded and took his gun back to the safe. Silently they both went back to bed.
‘She didn’t wake up,’ she said softly. ‘What happened? I woke up and you weren’t here. Why did you have your gun out?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I went and sat in my study. Then I saw someone standing in the back garden watching the house. I don’t know how long they’d been there. That car got away too quickly. Someone else must have been driving.’
‘Was it Newell?’ she asked.
‘It was hard to see who it was. I would have said he was too tall for Newell but I can’t be sure. Someone’s telling us they can get to us.’
‘Are you going to tell the police?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because on that amount of information, my old work mates won’t be able to find him any better than I can. I’ll ask around. See if anyone’s been talking about coming after me.’
‘We don’t need this,’ she said.
‘No one can get in here. And if they do, they’ll be sorry they bothered.’
‘At least Ellie didn’t wake up. She doesn’t have to know about this.’
They slept patchily until Ellie woke them in the morning and got them out of bed. While Grace bathed and dressed her, Harrigan checked the back garden. There had been some rain recently and the ground was softish. There were signs where the intruder had climbed over the wall into the garden, and partial footprints pressed into the ground. But the soles of nondescript mass market shoes were leads to nothing. Looking back up at the house, Harrigan saw the intruder had had a clear view of his study. It was possible he could have seen the darker outline of Harrigan’s figure through the tall window when he had sat down at his desk. If so, then he’d been making certain Harrigan knew he was there.
He took photographs of the intruder’s traces and went inside to make the morning coffee. It was just perking when Ellie ran into the kitchen and demanded to be picked up.
‘Hello, princess,’ he said, hoisting her up. ‘How are you? You sleep well? Yeah.’
‘You spoil her,’ Grace said, following after and smiling. ‘Calling her princess all the time.’
‘It won’t do her any harm. She’ll grow out of it.’
‘Breakfast. Come on, chicken. You’re hungry, aren’t you?’
Soon, his daughter was in her highchair with her mouth smeared with mashed banana. Harrigan had to laugh. If only his troops could see him now, not as the boss no one intelligent dared to put offside but as Harrigan the family man. Grace’s work aside, life had never been so sweet. Now he could feel a poison eating away at that sweetness. Outside, it was still dangerous; survival could be balanced on the thinnest edge, the way it always had been. But whatever happened, no one was getting into his house to do any of them any harm. Today, he was going to take his gun out, check it, clean it and make sure it was in good working order. He had too much at stake to stay unarmed.
‘I’ll take Ellie up to Kidz Corner if you like,’ Grace said. ‘I can do it on my way to work. What are you going to do today?’
‘Since I don’t have to be in court, I’ll make a few calls. I’ve got some digging to do. If I have time, I’ll go and see Toby this afternoon. I’ll take Ellie.’
When he had been with the police and saw sights like the one he’d seen yesterday, he had gone to see his son to recover. Being with Toby connected him to what mattered.
‘She’ll like that,’ Grace said, and picked her daughter out of her highchair. ‘Come on, sweetie. We’ll clean you up and then we’ll go, okay?’
Her phone rang. Harrigan picked it up for her. ‘Clive,’ he said.
She set Ellie on the floor and, taking the phone, walked out of the room. Not long afterwards, she was back.
‘Something’s happened,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go now. Can you…?’
‘Yeah, I’ll look after things. When will you be back?’
‘I don’t know. I think I’m in for a long day.’
She was frowning. Probably she didn’t know how disturbed she looked.
‘Take care, babe,’ he said.
‘Always do. You too.’
Harrigan and Ellie waved her goodbye at the door.
‘Gone,’ his little daughter said.
‘Don’t worry, princess. She’ll be back. Let’s get ready. We have to go as well.’
Ellie’s childcare centre was near Birchgrove Primary School, far enough from the house to be a useful walk. Harrigan carried her on his back in her harness. When they were almost there, she started to tug playfully at his hair. ‘Take it easy, princess,’ he said with a grin. ‘That’s me on the other end.’ She giggled and he turned his head to look up at her. Then, with a feeling like a cold tap on the shoulder, he turned completely and saw a white Toyota Camry with tinted windows edging along the street not far past the corner behind them. It was the same car from last night; it hadn’t been there just moments ago.
Harrigan was carrying his daughter but he also wanted the car’s numberplate and began walking back quickly to get it. Immediately the Camry backed out the way it had come and drove at speed up the cross street. By the time he reached the corner, it was out of sight, vanished in the narrow tree-lined streets and laneways.
His next thought was to get Ellie where she would be safe. Kidz Corner was close, too close if they were being stalked. The converted duplex offered its clients security and privacy and had its own discreet security officer. Numbers of the children who went there were the sons and daughters of the very rich or the actors and writers who lived along the deepwater frontage of Louisa Road. Harrigan was none of these things but, like them, he wanted his child protected.
As soon as he’d set Ellie down to play, he went to see the owner, Kate, a big, capable woman, in her office. She knew his history and had still offered Ellie a place. It was another reason he was prepared to pay the hefty fees to make sure his daughter was safe.
‘Have you noticed a white Toyota Camry hanging around here lately?’ he asked. ‘Not the most noticeable of cars, I know.’
‘We always keep an eye out for that sort of thing. Yes, we have, several times now. We thought it might be paparazzi. Why?’
‘I don’t think it’s paparazzi. It may have been stalking me and Ellie here. I scared it off. Can you get me the rego if it comes back?’
She grinned, opened her diary and handed him a piece of paper. ‘We only offer the best service here. Mac got that the last time it turned up. He was watching it on the CCTV. If it turned up again, we were going to call the police. What do you want us to do?’
Harrigan had contacts among his former work colleagues who had offered him protection should he need it. He was careful about calling in the favour, not wanting to wear out his credit. This situation was different.