‘We’re out in the sticks,’ she said. ‘The Bush Fire Brigade is just down there.’
‘But we’re not going there, are we?’ Sara replied with a razoredged smile.
There was a car a short distance in front of them along the road. Its lights were turned off. It drove for a little longer, then turned into a driveway. Grace watched a man get out and open the gate. Griffin. He cut his engine and coasted down the driveway. Sara had already turned off her car lights and followed him. When they turned into the driveway, Grace could just make out a For Sale sign out the front of the house.
‘Is this your house?’ she asked. ‘Or is it empty because it’s for sale and you’re just using it?’
‘Quiet!’
They coasted down the driveway into a garage with a light on overhead. Griffin had already pulled up in a white Toyota Camry. Sara stopped behind him. Grace recognised the numberplate: the car that had stalked Harrigan and Ellie to Kidz Corner.
‘Get out,’ Sara said.
Grace did so. She had her gun, they knew she did. Would it be enough to protect her from the two of them? This was enough. Time to bail out.
‘Why are we here?’ she asked Sara, who was standing by the open door of her car. ‘Why come here? It’s time to go.’
‘Not yet,’ Sara said.
Griffin came over. Grace stood where she could see both of them. Griffin didn’t even look at her.
‘Why are you so late?’ he asked Sara. ‘I’ve been waiting for your SMS for hours.’
‘She killed Joe Ponticelli.’
‘What?’ He turned to Grace, seeming to see her for the first time. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because he tried to kill me. The same way Kidd got gunned down. I ran them off the road. They got Narelle. She’s in the bush.’
‘He wasn’t after you, he couldn’t have been. Unless-’ He stopped. ‘It doesn’t matter one way or the other now. Did you get Marie’s ID?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. We’ve no time now. Coopes won’t be with us tonight.’
‘Oh, why not?’ Sara asked, not hiding her disappointment.
‘Who’s Coopes?’ Grace asked.
‘An old friend,’ Griffin replied dismissively. ‘He can’t be involved. There’s no time.’
‘I wanted to see him. It’s the last time,’ Sara said.
‘Who is Coopes?’ Grace repeated.
Griffin looked at her in the weak light, a friendly, apparently candid expression on his face. ‘Coopes was going to help me pay you, but we don’t have time to take you to him now. It doesn’t matter. I have money inside the house.’
‘Are we still meeting at Halfway Hut?’ Sara asked.
He stepped forward, a finger in the air, shaking it at her as if it might transform itself into a blow. ‘Don’t. You should know-no-’ He left whatever he was going to say unfinished. ‘You should leave now. Make sure the gates stay open. And whatever you do, no games till I get there. Okay? Don’t underestimate anything. It’s too dangerous.’ He spoke harshly, angrily.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you there.’
‘Wait!’ He stopped her as she turned away. ‘Give me your mobile.’
‘What if I need it?’
‘You won’t. Give it to me.’
She handed it over, smiled angrily at Grace, then got into her car and drove up the driveway out of sight. Grace felt the chill of the smile. Then she asked herself: they’re an item, lovers supposedly. Why didn’t they kiss? Do they touch? Does he always talk to her like that?
‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘How do I get out of here?’
‘I drive you. Don’t worry.’ He stopped, listening. ‘Did you hear a car?’
‘Sara?’
‘No. After her.’
Grace listened but heard nothing.
‘There’s no one there,’ she said, with a touch of despair.
Where are you, Clive? You must have heard the pull-out signal. Are you here at all? You can find me. I’m wearing my wire.
‘Is that Marie’s ID?’ Griffin was asking.
‘Yes.’
‘Give it to me.’
She did, having no choice.
‘What about the passport and the tape?’
She handed them over. She watched him open the Camry’s door and put all these things in the glovebox, along with Sara’s mobile.
‘We’re taking all that with us, are we?’ she asked.
‘Come inside,’ he replied, ignoring what she’d said. ‘I have some things I have to get before we leave.’
She followed him but stayed back. If she took out her gun, she’d have to use it; probably to kill. Kill or wound. Wounds that incapacitated often did so permanently and sometimes killed. If she only had herself to rely on, she would have no choice. They reached the back door where he turned on an outside light.
‘Is this your house?’ she asked.
‘I should have inherited it,’ he replied. ‘But in the end I had to buy it.’
‘Why did you want this particular house?’
‘Not your business,’ he said.
He unlocked the door, switched on the inside light, and they walked into an old-fashioned kitchen. There were jerry cans of petrol on the table.
‘What are they doing here?’ she asked.
‘I’m cleaning this house away. But first I have some things to get.’
‘You’re going to burn this place down?’
‘Not me. Some people will do it for me later on tonight. By then we’ll all be long gone.’
‘The house is for sale.’
‘It’s already been sold by private treaty. I have the money. I have another house for sale. As soon as I sell that, it’ll go up as well.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what I’ve done all my life. Clean away shit. Turn it into something useful instead. When this goes up in flames, that’ll be the last of it wiped out. I’ll have got what I wanted from it. It’ll be money in the bank instead.’
Still keeping a distance behind him, she followed him while he switched on the lights first in a dining room and then the hallway. They passed a bedroom. Grace looked at the disordered sheets. She had a perception of bodies wrestling with brutal movements. You couldn’t tell whether it was love or a beating. A small pile of women’s clothes, including underwear, had been placed on the end of the unmade bed. She glanced at them, then jerked her head back. Who were they waiting for? Not Sara.
‘Why didn’t you wait for us inside the house?’ she asked. ‘Then you could have got what you wanted and we could just have got in the car and gone.’
‘People might have seen the lights and realised someone was here. Only do what you have to do when you have to do it. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here.’
He walked past a bathroom to a door at the end of the hallway. He pushed it open onto a small white-tiled room. This one smelled of bleach and the wooden floor was stained.
‘Let’s not waste any time,’ Grace said. ‘It’s time to go.’
‘I won’t be long,’ Griffin replied.
He knelt, levered up a floorboard and reached down into the cavity below. Grace stepped back and took out her gun.
‘They’re gone.’ He sat up straight on his knees. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘What’s missing?’ she asked.
‘Everything. I put them there just two days ago.’
‘Put what there?’
‘My business records. Money. I have to have those records. I can’t leave without them.’
He stood up and turned around on this last question, saw her gun and stared.
‘Lie down on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you try to do anything else, I’ll kill you.’
He shook his head. His friendly expression was back. ‘You’re not the type to kill. I can tell.’
‘I’m counting to three. One, two-’
She would have fired at him if someone hadn’t taken hold of her from behind. She fired anyway but the bullet went wild, burying itself in the door frame. The man who was pushing her to the floor was too strong for her. He twisted her gun out of her hand, almost breaking her wrist. Then he ripped her phone out of the pocket of her jacket. All she could see were Griffin’s feet, the open cavity and the stained wooden floor.