The voice was educated, the English meticulous. Mohammed Ibrahim’s face was thinned out, the bones accentuated. His hair was whitening. His look was one of deeply felt caution, distrust just held at bay. Someone who had learned the hard way to be wary of whatever life was going to throw at you next because who knew what it would destroy or kill.
The kitchen door opened and the younger woman appeared carrying a tray with two cups of coffee and a plate of dates. She had covered her head. She served them both and then left the room, closing the door behind her.
‘Please,’ Ibrahim said, gesturing to the small plate of dates.
The dates were sweet; the coffee spiced with cinnamon and ginger.
‘Thank you,’ Harrigan said. ‘To answer your question, I’ve had a car stalking me and my daughter. I was able to get the registration number. This was the address.’
‘You didn’t go to the police.’
‘I’m an ex-policeman. I prefer to handle my own affairs.’
Ibrahim had placed Harrigan’s card on the arm of the chair he sat in. He picked it up and looked at it. ‘What kind of consultant are you?’
‘I assist people in assessing their security needs and their legal affairs. I’m a qualified solicitor. I’m a guide, if you like. People who deal with the police and the courts often need one.’
Ibrahim looked at the card again, and this time put it in his pocket.
‘I thought you might have come here to give me some information about my niece,’ he said. ‘She’s been missing for a number of weeks now. I can’t convince the police that we’re very worried for her safety. They seem to think she must have gone off with someone but I’m very sure that’s not the case.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not why I’m here. It was simply to see if this man had lived here.’
‘I don’t like this coincidence,’ Ibrahim said. ‘We are from Somalia. My niece has been trying to get her brother into Australia for several years now. He’s in a refugee camp in Kenya. She contacts him there as often as she can. She is always ringing or writing to the Department of Immigration, trying to get some kind of visa for him. All of this has stopped. She would not have done that of her own free will. Getting him here is the object of her life. Now you’re here asking after an unknown man. I have to ask myself what this means.’
‘This man has never lived here?’
‘Not while we have been here, which is over two years now.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help you,’ Harrigan said. ‘What is your niece’s name?’
‘Nadifa Hasan Ibrahim. You haven’t found this man here. Will you keep looking for him?’
‘Yes,’ Harrigan replied, knowing the request that was to come.
‘If you should find out anything about my niece, I would like to know.’
‘If I do find anything, I’ll be in touch. I give you my word on that. Are you able to tell me something about her?’
Ibrahim got to his feet and went to a cabinet, where he took out a photograph. He passed it to Harrigan almost reluctantly.
‘When I was growing up, women always covered their heads whenever they went out. She’s a young woman, of course, and everything is done differently here. This is a photograph a friend took. She used to work at Westmead Hospital. Then one day we discovered she’d left her job. Her aunt asked her why and she told us that she’d changed her mind. She asked to be reinstated and they agreed. Then she disappeared. She was not at her work, she didn’t come home. We’re very concerned.’
The photograph showed a serious-looking young woman of about twenty-four, tall, slender and very beautiful.
‘If you want me to keep an eye out for your niece, I may need this photograph,’ Harrigan said.
Ibrahim nodded wordlessly.
‘Would you be prepared to give me some information?’ Harrigan asked. ‘If I give you my word that I won’t involve or mention you in any way, would you tell me who the managing agent for this block of units is?’
Ibrahim looked at him for a few moments.
‘If you would wait,’ he said, and went into the kitchen, returning with a fridge magnet in his hand. ‘This is our agent. He leaves these magnets in our mailbox for us. It would be more useful if he fixed the plumbing when we asked him to. Please take it if you want.’
Four Square Real Estate, Haldon Street, Lakemba. A private agency, not a franchise. Harrigan finished his coffee.
‘I can promise you won’t be troubled by anyone, Mr Ibrahim, and if I find anything about your niece, I’ll be in touch,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your time.’
Ibrahim rose to his feet. ‘It was an honour to have you as our guest,’ he said formally, and saw him to the door.
In most meetings like this, Harrigan had rarely been treated with the kind of courtesy he had received today. Despite this, the chances that he would find any information concerning Ibrahim’s niece were slim to say the least. Grimly, the ex-policeman in him said she was probably already dead and most likely Ibrahim thought that too. He drove to Haldon Street to see where the next step might take him.
Four Square Real Estate was a single, narrow shopfront in the main commercial precinct of Lakemba, almost invisible with its dark window. Harrigan cruised past it, then parked off the street on the other side of the road. He was about to cross over when the door to the agency opened and an old foe stepped out: Tony Ponticelli junior, a middle-aged man in a sharp suit, slipping on a pair of sunglasses. Harrigan stopped where he was but Tony junior didn’t seem to have seen him. He walked to a red Ferrari parked just up the street, and drove off.
To put it mildly, Four Square’s presentation to the world was low-key. Property Managers, Rental Properties, said the sign on the brown-painted window. Even so, there was no display of properties for sale or rent. Harrigan went inside. A drab-looking woman sat at the desk. What are you doing in here? her eyes said.
‘Is the manager in?’ he asked.
‘No. Why do you want to see him?’
Harrigan looked around. The reception area was a small space, cheaply furnished. Everything he saw suggested that anyone who walked in here on the off chance would be told to go away. To his right was a door which he guessed led to the manager’s office.
‘What’s his name?’ he asked.
‘What’s yours?’ she replied as the door opened.
‘Gail, get this info written up, would you-fuck!’
‘Eddie Grippo,’ Harrigan said. ‘I heard you were out. This is where you’ve come to rest, is it?’
The short man in the doorway looked sick. The papers he was carrying dangled from his hand.
‘Paul Harrigan. What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘I think we should have a little chat, mate.’
Gail’s hand was hovering over the phone.
‘Leave it,’ Eddie said, and when she hesitated, shouted, ‘Leave it! For fuck’s sake! Don’t!’
‘You want to do your job,’ Harrigan said to her, ‘keep your mouth shut. You didn’t see me.’
Her face went blank and she went back to whatever she’d been doing.
Eddie’s office was as run-down as the rest of the shop, with a dead pot plant in one corner. He had put on weight since Harrigan had last seen him, his girth nudging the desk. In gaol some prisoners made sure they stayed fit, they worked at it like men possessed. Eddie hadn’t. All that muscle had gone to fat. Age was catching up with him the same way it was catching up with everyone, all the way to the hair on his head, which, unlike the rest of him, was thinner.
‘What do you want, Harrigan? Why should I give you the time of day? You’re nobody now.’
‘Look at you,’ Harrigan replied, unmoved. ‘You’re old. You couldn’t take on anyone any more. You want people to forget you, don’t you? So here you are in this shithole, keeping your head down. I can think of a lot of people who’d want to know where you are right now. In gaol you had people watching your arse. Out here you’ve got no one. You might open the door one day and find someone else besides me waiting for you. What was Tony Ponticelli junior doing here? I just saw him leave.’