Straightening her backbone, she walked out to the concourse again and found a coffee shop with tables set outside where she could be seen. This time, she didn’t see Sara. Instead, the full range of Sydney’s population passed by: giggling girls in headscarves; African women in clothes whose radiant colours were even more vibrant against their black skin; men in traditional Muslim dress; Australians generally from any background, immigrant and indigenous, going about their business. She thought that here she could disappear into the crowd and feel anonymous; it would ease her mind.
She sat over her coffee until the last of it was cold in the bottom of her cup. Half an hour had passed. She got to her feet, paid and had just walked into the car park when Joel Griffin stepped out into her path. She stopped.
‘Hello, Grace. You remember me. We met yesterday.’
‘This is your neighbourhood, is it?’ she asked.
‘I have clients out here. Not just the Jovanovs.’ He was a big man, tall. Standing in front of her, his bulk seemed more solid. His sharp blue eyes never seemed to leave her face. ‘Have you got any time?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Come and sit with me in my car for a while. We can talk privately there. I’ll put my keys where you can see them if you don’t trust me.’
‘What have you got to say?’
‘Something to our mutual benefit. Come on. I won’t hurt you.’
‘All right,’ she said.
In the car, the dark blue Audi she’d seen outside the Jovanovs’ house, he put his keys on top of the dashboard.
‘You didn’t have much luck with Sophie the other day,’ he said. ‘Why did you show her that picture?’
‘I wanted to see how she’d react.’
He turned to look at her. ‘You’re an attractive woman. I would have said that a woman with a face like yours doesn’t need to do this kind of work. Why do you do it? Is it because your partner doesn’t keep you? Why don’t you want to marry him? Because he’s not good enough for you? Surely you could find someone with a lot more money than he’s got.’
Grace suppressed profound insult behind her mask. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I hear you’ve got something to sell.’
‘Who told you that?’
He smiled. ‘A client. But you see, I can’t tally the woman I saw yesterday, the one who genuinely cares about people, with the one who wants to make a deal. One of you has to be a fake.’
‘Who’s your client?’
‘We don’t talk about my client. We talk about you. That’s quite a scar Chris gave you. He told me a lot about you. Twice he almost killed you. Twice you walked away. The second time, one flick of his lighter and you wouldn’t have the face you’ve got now. You’d be lucky to be alive.’
No, you’re wrong, Grace thought. That first time, he didn’t want to kill me. He wanted me to remember him and suffer. That’s the only reason I’m still alive. The second time, who knew what he meant to do? Scar beyond repair? Kill? Had he even thought about it past seeing the flames?
An extraordinary fear took hold of her: that Newell was here, in the back seat. Calmly, she got out of the car and stepped away from it. The dark-tinted windows obscured whether anyone was in the back seat or not. Griffin followed, standing on the other side of the car. He leaned over the top and stared at her.
‘There’s no one in the back seat,’ he said. ‘Look.’
He walked around and opened the back door. There was no one there. She looked around. Not far away, a couple were loading groceries into their car. The man turned and wheeled the shopping trolley away. Her backup.
‘He’s not here,’ Griffin said, still watching her.
She got back into the car but didn’t speak.
‘That got to you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been there and you’ve walked away. You know what it means to look someone in the eyes who wants to kill you. That makes you very special.’
‘Do you want to talk business? Or do you just want to talk crap?’
She spoke with such anger that he recoiled slightly. Then he smiled. Even so, she caught a glimpse of something else in his face. The sense that somehow this was an unjustified insult aimed at him. She was glad she had got under his skin.
‘How do I know this is business?’ he said. ‘I can see that maybe you think your life is a failure and this is a path you want to take. But before my client puts himself on the line, I want you to prove yourself.’
‘Tell your client that’s his problem,’ she said.
‘No, it’s yours.’
‘Why is it mine?’ She was angry. It was easy to act this part. ‘If your client wants to deal, let him deal. If he doesn’t, then Narelle goes to gaol. How long do you think she’ll last faced with that prospect. Everything she knows, we’ll know. Tell him that this time he’s not calling the shots.’
Griffin laughed. ‘What’s this worth to you? What do you expect to get out of it?’
‘Maybe what I’m looking for is a long-term source of income. There are deep waters here. I want to find out what’s really going on. I already know enough to close Life’s Pleasures down right now. Maybe there’s a lot more than a passport in this for me, if I work it right. You can tell your client that too.’
He looked at her. ‘Do you think we could hit it off?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe if you stop talking about Newell, I’ll think about it,’ she said.
He was silent for a while. ‘Is it true what they say about you and your partner?’
‘Like what?’
‘You made him leave the police. He hasn’t forgiven you for that. He’s got a lot of enemies and he’s worried they’re going to come after him. Sometimes he loses it and knocks you around.’
Where did his mind live? In the garbage heap where that story belonged? Perhaps he would mistake her expression for humiliation at a truth revealed rather than for the shock and anger it was.
‘Who said that?’ Her tone was more dangerous than she’d intended.
‘In some quarters, it’s what they say,’ Griffin replied.
‘Don’t go there,’ she said. ‘Don’t even think about going there.’
‘Does that mean he does or he doesn’t?’
‘It means, don’t go there.’
Again he was silent.
‘Give me your number,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you in twenty-four hours. That was your deadline, wasn’t it?’
‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘Next time, maybe we can have a little down time together.’
‘Maybe. If you can find something more interesting to talk about,’ she said and got out. She shut the car door behind her and walked away, not looking back.
He didn’t wait; he started his car and was gone before she reached hers. She got into her car and gave him time to get clear. Suddenly aware that her head was throbbing badly, she drove out of the car park. She passed the black Porsche still in its parking bay. There was no sign of Sara.
‘I’m leaving now,’ she said to her wire. ‘Target has already left.’
Out on the road, Clive rang.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Tired,’ she said.
‘Did you know Newell had told Griffin about your connection to him?’
Do I lie? This time, there was no choice. It had to be the truth. ‘Yes.’
‘When did you find out?’
‘Griffin spoke to Harrigan the day Newell escaped and told him. We thought it was an attempt at blackmail.’
‘And you didn’t tell me.’
‘We wanted to handle it ourselves.’
‘Even after yesterday when he turned up as Sophie Jovanov’s lawyer?’
‘It’s a very personal matter,’ Grace said.
‘I had a right to know,’ Clive said. ‘The more personal, the more I need to know. That applies to anything to do with you.’
No, you don’t.
‘Orion does,’ Grace replied. ‘I don’t know about you personally.’
‘Yes, I do, and I think you’ll find that out. We’ll talk about it at the debrief. Once that’s over, you can go home early. You need to recoup.’ Then he was gone.